When Abel stepped in the stone door, a blood clan was charging at him. Unlike most blood clans that were red, the one that was coming at him was in gold. It must be the leader of the pack. Unlike the others, its entire body was flashing in bright, red light.
"Fire enhancement!"
Abel knew immediately when he saw the light that was flashing out of the golden blood clan. There was no point in fighting in close-range combat. With that mind, he drew his distance, then quickly drew a few "charged bolts" to the ground.
Under Abel's command, the five spiritual guardian knights switched to their Harry Bows to fire at the blood clans. As for the spirit wolves, they stayed in front of Abel as his protective barrier. The poisonous ivy was told to remain underground until there was a good chance to strike. The crows were the only ones that were not given any instructions. They just kept flying around to try blinding the blood clans with their beaks.
As it turned out, the "charged bolts" were not very effective against high-tier hell creatures. Abel was just starting to notice that, but suddenly, the number of lightning arcs on the ground increased to being nine. The level of his "charged bolt" spell just went up from 6 to
7.
The damage of his lightning attacks increased from 6 to 7 points. That might not seem like a lot, but his range of attack also increased. He was also dealing more "overall damage" to all of his enemies combined, which meant that while not a lot of harm was done to the blood clans individually, all of them were simultaneously weakened by the chip damage that he was dealing.
Not just that, but the lightning arcs could also zap the blood clans, greatly reducing their movement speed. Because of that, it was much easier for the spiritual guardian knights to aim at the same target. After Abel sent his signals, many of his enemies began to fall on the ground.
The golden blood clan was much more durable, of course. To protect its subordinates, it rushed towards the front to absorb most of the lightning attacks. That just made the other blood clans move a lot faster. Within an instant, they were actually running close enough to the spirit wolves.
Abel was trying to switch for another type of spell to attack with. However, the golden blood clan was strengthened with "fire enhancement," making it and its subordinates highly resistant against fire attacks. This meant that fire-type spells were pretty much useless, despite them being his strongest offensive spells.
Abel decided to switch to "ice bolts," which would cost him only 3 mana for each one of them. He could also shoot them out with both of his hands. While they were not as fast as his "charged bolts," they were just as effective to slow down the blood clans. In fact, ice countered fire element hell creatures, so they could actually deal more damage to the enemies he was facing.
With one hand, he shot at the golden blood clan. With the other, he shot at all the other clans. Within a few seconds, he had shot more than a dozen "ice bolts" at them. While that wasn't enough to stop them from rushing towards the spirit wolves, the spirit wolves could fight back with their sharp fangs and claws.
Abel focused most of his ice bolts at the golden blood clan, which was not stopping to get closer to him. When it was close enough to use its sharp ax, it knocked down one of the spirit wolves that tried to fight back. Yet, as soon as that spirit wolf went down, it revived when a purple light flashed across it.
Abel just used his "full-recovery potion" with his druid spirit. He wanted to save it for a better time, but if there was no spirit wolf to protect himself, the blood clan might just end him right here.
That being said, since the golden blood clan was confused about how its attack took no effect, it gave Abel a lot of chances to keep shooting them with his "ice bolts." It was far from being dead yet, but it slowed down enough from being able to unleash another fire-strengthened attack.
The golden blood clan howled as it tried to block the ice bolts with its ax. It was trying to cancel the freezing effect with its own fire element attacks. As unintelligent as blood clans were, this was actually a pretty effective method.
That was until Abel was shooting at it with both of his hands. Eventually, the ice bolts became too much for it to handle. Its body started turning blue from the frost. It was also moving a lot slower, which meant that there was more time for the summon creatures to attack it together.
With a loud, desperate scream, the golden blood clan gave up on trying to break through the spirit wolves' defense. It started releasing a bright red beam from its chest, which quickly undid the freezing effect of Abel's ice bolts. When it was free to move again, it tried to bypass the spirit wolves and go straight towards Abel.
Abel actually didn't mind that. In fact, he even told the spirit wolves to back away from him. Black Wind understood right away, so even without him telling it to, it backed away to lure the golden blood clan away from its subordinates.
While knights were trained to not back away from a fight, Abel had to be smart when he was fighting a bunch of extremely aggressive hell creatures. This was especially true for the golden blood clan. Their fire enhancement technique would give it a 66-100% fire damage bonus in close combat, as well as a 100% increase in its attack frequency. It could easily one-shot Abel, so sticking to principle wasn't exactly going to help him.
After the golden blood clan went away from its subordinates, it became much easier for the summoned creatures to sweep up the battlefield. The spiritual guardian knights quickly changed into their ice magic swords and shields. With the company of the spirit wolves, they quickly surrounded the blood clan troops and took an overwhelming initiative over them.
As for Abel, he could easily win over the golden blood clan with his speed. They were nowhere fast enough to land a hit at Black Wind, so all he needed to do was to keep attacking it with his ice bolts and dark-golden combat qi threads. After spamming the same attack for five minutes, the golden blood clan went down without being able to do anything.
While Abel did score himself a victory, he felt like his overall level was still too low. His spells barely did anything this time, and if they did, he would have to waste too much time to cast them repeatedly. If anything, it was his knight's techniques that helped him the most, but relying too much on close-range techniques would only increase the chance of injury.
Once the spiritual guardian knights finished clearing up the rest of the blood clans, Abel went back to them and continued to advance down the dungeon. The deeper he traveled, the more suppressive the atmosphere around him turned out to be.
Suddenly, a large stone shelf appeared on the sidewall. There were skeletons inside. Their hands pointed towards the ceiling, as though they were reaching towards the sky in a desperate effort to live. It was a good thing that they weren't moving, so Black Wind could just walk over the shattered bone pieces.
Right now, both the spirit wolves and the spiritual guardian knights were advancing through teleportation. It was the quietest way they could move while serving as Abel's bodyguards.
The crows, too, tried to be as quiet as possible. Apart from when they detect any sort of danger, they wouldn't just fly in the sky without making any noise. For the poisonous ivy, as long as Abel wasn't paying attention to it, even he wouldn't know where in the ground it was moving at.
So, after leaving out the oak that was floating in the air, Black Wind was the only one that was making noises. It was quite scary, but Abel was very pleased with the progress that he was making. In fact, he just stumbled across three coffins that were made of stones.
Shapes of human beings were carved on the lids of these coffins. They must've been what the people inside looked like when they were still alive. After encountering the wooden barrels, Abel was ready if this was another one of the hidden traps.
It had to be another trap. Still, while there might be poisonous gas or zombies inside, there could also be valuable items that could attract his interest.