The smell of rotting flesh was everywhere, something that would attract more of these monsters. Aeryn was already getting tired after all the monsters she had slain. Some of them with Qi and others with just her normal power, as she still could not control her power very well.
Yashito had suggested that she go to this dungeon to finally learn how to control her power by fighting in real time.
Since she did not know what a dungeon was and how the difficulty metre worked, she let Yashito choose the dungeon type and difficulty.
This was a big mistake on her part.
She never thought that Yashito would put her in the hardest A-rank dungeon there was.
So now she had to face hordes of dog-like monsters. They were called hellhounds because of their appearance. They were almost two metres tall, had pointed ears, glowing red eyes and red fur with imprints of lava. They lived up to their name.
Her goal was to kill at least a hundred hellhounds, or she would remain in the dungeon for the rest of her life, if she managed to survive all the hordes.
She had already managed to kill thirty-two of them, but she was far from finished, and she still had two and a half hours left.
Although she was tired, she did not have much time to fool around. Therefore, she decided to spread the smell of the corpses next to her in the forest to attract more of these monsters.
She hid behind the trees or in the bushes to attack stealthily, since she could not rely on her power to clear the dungeon.
Her plan somehow worked, because she managed to kill five more hellhounds without being detected. But she had wasted a lot of time with this plan, and now she had only an hour and a half left.
She began to despair, knowing that without her Qi she wouldn't be able to leave the dungeon.
This damn Yashito, he's going to get me killed like that. Or more likely, he wants me to be killed. Those were the thoughts going through Aeryn's mind at that point.
Time passed, and Aeryn was ready to accept the fact that she would die there. She had only killed sixty-three hellhounds, with much difficulty because she had injured her left hand in a fight, and she had only thirty minutes until the end.
She stood on a pile of dead hellhounds, hoping to get their attention as quickly as possible.
But not a single monster showed up, and time was running out.
Aeryn began to feel dejected and simply accepted that she would spend the rest of her life there without being able to see her mother again.
Fifteen minutes were left, but she did not even move. Instead, she picked up the book her mother had left behind, the same book she had last appeared in, and hugged it as tightly as she could.
Tears began to flow from her eyes as she thought of dying alone with no one to care for her.
Again, her tears fell on the book, but nothing happened.
While she was lost in her thoughts, she did not notice that a hellhound had approached her and was ready to attack her.
Luckily, she saw it just in time as it began its attack. But she did not have enough time to grab her weapon, so she tried to use the book as a shield.
Even if she died, she would not give up without a fight.
The claws of the hellhound pierced the blue gemstone that was in the centre of the book cover and shattered it.
As the gem was shattered, a blinding light appeared and the Hellhound was thrown back ten feet by a small explosion.
Aeryn had closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she saw the figure of a girl about her age standing before her.
She had white hair with a bright rainbow hue, beautiful rainbow-coloured eyes, and wore a dark red dress with a chain around her neck and black leather stripes around her legs that reached to the end of the dress. In the left side of her hair she wore some kind of strange chain that was sharp at the edges. It looked like a sword that had been cut into pieces.
As soon as she saw Aeryn, she knelt down in front of her and said in an elegant voice, "Master, now that I am finally awake, I will do anything to protect you."
Aeryn didn't know what to say. She had no idea what the hell was going on. The only thing she knew was that this girl appeared in front of her as soon as the gem on the book was broken.
While Aeryn was still trying to figure out what to do with what had happened, the hellhound from earlier tried to attack her again. But this time, as soon as she saw it, the girl said, "How dare you stand in the same place as my master?" and with a movement of her fingers, a beam of light appeared from the sky and blew a hole in the hellhound.
Aeryn was startled because she didn't even see the hellhound being killed, she only saw it fall down dead next to her.
"W-who're you?" She asked the girl in an anxious voice.
"My name is Alpha." She replied.
"I ... see."
"How did you get here and what do you want from me?"
"I was sealed inside this gem, which broke five minutes and forty-one seconds ago. My only job is to protect my master."
"Wait, wait, why are you calling me master? I've never seen you before and I'm sure you've never seen me before either."
"This is the mission I've been entrusted with."
"Mission? Who gave you this mission?"
"Access to the answer is denied. You're not strong enough yet."
"What the hell? What're you?"
"I've no idea, and to be honest, I'm not eager to find out."
Suddenly an alarm sounded through the dungeon and a clock with a countdown appeared in the sky above them.
"Shit, I only have five minutes left, what should I do? What should I do?"
"How can I help you, master?"
"Are you able to kill thirty-seven of these monsters in five minutes?"
"I can kill anything that breathes, master."
"Oh, really? Then let's see."
Alpha raised her right hand and a few drops of water rose from the ground and floated in the air.
Then she closed her hand and rays of light appeared from inside the water drops and began to fly in different directions.
The kill counter, which was next to the time countdown, began to increase at a crazy speed.
[70]
[87]
[99]
[124]
[147]
[168]
[201]
{The dungeon has been cleared. All players please proceed to the portal to exit the dungeon}. A voice could be heard coming from the dungeon.
Aeryn had been left open-mouthed from what she'd just seen.
The girl in front of her had just slain nearly a hundred hellhounds with a wave of her hand. She was the real deal.
Aeryn wasn't sure why someone so powerful would want to protect someone like her, but she didn't care as long as she could help her increase her power and save her mother.
Alpha looked at Aeryn and understood that she wasn't going to move on her own, so she just walked up to her, grabbed her by the wrist, and dashed to the portal so fast that it was like she teleported there. Even Aeryn didn't notice how she was next to the portal, since she was in the middle of the jungle just a second ago.
"O-okay, Alpha, we have a lot of things to talk about. But now let's get out of here before the portal closes."
Alpha nodded and followed Aeryn through the portal.
[00:02]
[00:01]
[00:00]
[Initiating dungeon reset...]