Adam and the others were walking in the tunnel leading towards the dungeon.
Fabian was leading the team, but this time there were not many shadows attacking the team. The miasma is much thinner here, even during midnight.
"Hmm?" Fabian stopped after noticing something.
The other team members stopped and looked in front of them, it was too dark to see.
"What is it, Fabian?" Harris asked.
Before Fabian could answer, the ground in front of the team exploded and shrapnel hit the team.
Most reacted in time, but the shrapnel still caused small injuries and scratches.
"Finally found one!" Fabian shouted and went forward in the darkness.
Seeing this Adam followed along, because of his quick movements some of the team would have left its coverage of the purification dome, if not for the dome's increased size.
Adam was quickly able to see that Fabian was fighting with a corruption shadow that has its head and other parts made out of stone.
Fabian was strong but could not just punch the skilled shadow as he did with the other shadows.
The next moment, the creature raised its hand up.
*bang*
The ceiling started to move towards Fabian but caused a small collapse.
Adam moved back and was able to avoid the collapse.
After the dust settled, both the creature and Fabian were covered by knee-high earth.
The creature was getting out of the rubble, unlike Fabian, who was not injured even after the collapse but was struggling to get out.
Adam, seeing the opportunity, took out his knife and stabbed the creature anywhere it was not protected by its earth-crusted body parts.
Because the creature was in a purification dome and was getting out of the rubble, it allowed Adam to maneuver and quickly stab it all over its body.
The creature tried grabbing Adam, but Adam was able to grab the arm and prevented the creature from stopping himself from stabbing.
It took a moment until the creature stopped struggling and slowly dissipated, leaving several spoils.
Adam quickly noticed that another person started pushing him aside to collect the spoils instead of Adam.
But it was not just one person, the entire team started to scramble and shove each other. Thankfully, there were not any who strengthened completely with mana stones except for Adam and Fabian in the team.
But Fabian was slowed because he was still trying to get out of the rubble and Adam was the closest to the loot.
"GETAWAY, THAT'S MINE!" Fabian yelled but few listened.
"Get off!" Adam said pushing a few people away from him with something in his hand.
"Give me the skill orb!" It was Harris who said it.
"I will turn off my orb and have all of us face the miasma without any purification dome to protect us!" Adam said while lifting his innate orb up.
Adam's words awoke everyone.
Seeing everyone is calming down, Adam looked down at what he was holding and saw an oscillating yellow orb, he has seen a few skill orbs, but he finally has one in his hand.
"Give me that!" It was Fabian who finally got out of the pile of rubble.
"Unless you want to be lost in the dark miasma, then I'm keeping this skill-" Adam said.
Adam's words were cut off by Fabian's lunge towards him, but thankfully there was enough distance between him and Fabian that he was able to dodge in time.
"Do I look like I care?! Give me it!" Fabian demanded.
"Wait, how about I give you 30 mana stones for it?" Adam said while putting the skill orb on his stomach.
Everyone knew that this was how someone can place the skill orbs into their body, it can still be moved in and out of the body freely.
"Even if you have 1000 stones, I don't care about it! If you do not take the skill orb out, I'll carve it out of your body!" Fabian was about to pounce once again.
"Okay! Here you can have it." Adam took out the skill and threw it to Fabian.
Fabian caught it and checked it out, it was really a skill orb as he hoped.
He then looked up at Adam.
Adam saw the dangerous look Fabian was giving him.
"Look, the skill orb is now yours, so let's keep going," Adam said hoping to soothe the situation.
"Who said it was his?"
Everyone turned to where the words came from.
To everyone's surprise, it was Noelani!
Adam never thought that there would be a situation where he would be happy to see Noelani.
"This team is not allowed to enter the dungeon nor get any skill orbs," Noelani said.
"Oh? And how do you think are you going to force me to hand it over?" Fabian said.
But in the next moment, he rushed towards her with all he had.
Noelani took out a knife and used her water skip skill to attack Fabian's face, Fabian was not as surprised this time and kept one hand blocking while the other stretched to catch Noelani.
But, Noelani was faking and actually dodge his grab, next she stabbed him a couple of times and moved behind him.
"Heh! You can't hurt me with that knife of yours- ugh!" Fabian said while turning around but was struck with pain in his stomach.
He looked down to see that Noelani's slashes had torn his shirt and revealed the ooze to the purification dome.
"What in the world is that?!" someone said.
The team was looking at Fabian's wriggling ooze and they felt a sense of disgust.
Fabian stepped out of the purification dome to relieve the pain.
"NOELANI! I will cut you piece by piece!" Fabian exclaimed.
"You have become a monster and no longer human, the camp can no longer have you in it," Noelani said ignoring his shouts.
Fabian was angered, but for some reason, he also felt a sense of disgust when looking at Noelani, unsure why he felt this. It was as though something inside him could not bear the thought of Noelani being alive.
"Attack her! Don't just look at me like that!" Fabian yelled to his team, but none moved, only looking at him with fear and disgust.
"Useless fools!" Fabian shouted.
But unbeknownst to Fabian, when the ooze was exposed to the miasma, it started to suck the surrounding miasma, and growing, the speed of growth kept on increasing until one of the team noticed.
"Look! His chest!" a team member called out.
But Fabian did not even look down, the ooze had spread all the way from his stomach, through his chest and neck, to his left eye, turning it dark black.
The next moment, Fabian pounced into the purification field, his entry to the dome was accompanied by the sounds of sizzling.
But he did not seem to care about the dome and kept going.
However, Noelani picked out the purification dome she was carrying with her from a bag tied to her waist and reached out with it towards Fabian.
The next moment, the light coming from it began to explode in brightness.
*sizzle* *sizzle* *crack*