Maybe you might think about leaving the vase intact and observing it to see if it does anything unusual, and if it didn't, then break it. But Flain really needed a strong artifact right now because of the trouble in the valley.
So, Flain decided to break it. He grabbed it firmly and started applying pressure. The vase shattered easily, and its pieces began to fall to the ground.
TTTTIIAAARR!!!
AAAAARH!!!
DDSDFF!!!
Suddenly, from the broken shards, souls began to fly out — faces of various people Flain had never seen before. The souls let out all sorts of guttural screams.
Flain immediately ran to the other side of the room. "What the hell?" he muttered while watching the souls pour out of the shards and then vanish into who knows where.
Flain didn't know what to make of it — was it a trap, a boss, an artifact, or something else? The thought crossed his mind that maybe he had to kill those souls. He was ready to charge at them and attack, but after the last ones flew out, there was nothing more.
Flain picked up one of the shards from the floor and examined it. There didn't seem to be anything special about it. He tried to crush it, easily grinding it into ceramic dust — nothing.
Flain reconsidered the situation. He tried exploring every part of the room, but no secret passage opened. Then he even tried cutting himself with the shard.
[-5 HP]
It only took 5 HP, and nothing else happened. This was the end of the dungeon — there had to be something here. Flain tried various ideas, like throwing the shard at the wall, but nothing worked.
Eventually, Flain ran out of ideas. "Hmh, pretty useless dungeon ending. I expected some kind of reward for reaching the end, but instead, I just got some spirits flying out of a broken vase." Flain sighed.
Then Flain left the room and headed back to the base to check on Itai. When he arrived at the base, he saw Itai, who was accompanied by two skeleton snakes and was summoning a third.
"Hmh, how's it going?" Flain asked.
"I've summoned them four times already, and the last one took me 22 tries." Itai said with a smile.
"Hmh, alright, I guess I can go bring some more. These ones might be a bit more useful since they're green lizards." Flain muttered.
Then Flain headed to the place with the prepared corpses, stuffed all 15 Green Lizards into the mech, and made his way back to the base.
"Alright, now it's time for some fun." Flain said as he dumped the corpses out of the mech.
"What kind of fun?" Itai asked curiously as Flain destroyed the skeleton snakes and Itai began summoning a Green Lizard.
"I'm going outside to test my strength. First, I'll go hunt down some basic Green Lizards and wipe them out since they're weaker." Flain declared.
"Don't you want to wait so I can summon some Green Lizards and send them with you?" Itai asked.
"Maybe they'd help a little, but I think only a little. If you were summoning black skeletons, that would be something else — they're stronger than the Green Lizards." Flain noted.
"Alright, I'm going. Stay here and definitely don't go into the valley," said Flain, to which Itai nodded.
Flain then took out the magic map and left the cave. He arrived at the exit, which was guarded by three Black Lizards who had heard the sound of Flain's footsteps, so they were already turned toward the entrance and on alert.
Flain dashed out of the entrance. The Lizards spotted him and started spitting toxic saliva at him, but Flain dodged it. It was pointless — Flain easily reached them and killed all of them without any trouble.
[+260 EXP]
[+270 EXP]
[+290 EXP]
[+Evolution Dusk]
Flain then ran to the left side into Green Lizard territory, using the bouncing tactic to make as little noise as possible, though it was still somewhat audible. Flain jumped as quickly as he could, and after a while, he saw bone walls ahead of him.
'That's probably it,' Flain thought.
----
All the Green Lizards were looking at each other.
One of them smeared his face with toxic saliva and approached Aran.
"My Lightlord, do you hear that? Could it be the monster that killed our commander?" he asked.
"I doubt it, because the corpses showed signs of a big fight, not a quick and easy kill. So even if it's him, don't worry — we'll easily kill him," said Aran.
----
Flain had already arrived at the bone walls and examined them. He recognized the bones the walls were made of very well — they were the bones of the skeletons Flain had been killing in the dungeon.
Flain saw that further ahead was an entrance guarded by two Green Commanders who were searching for the source of the noise Flain had made. They hadn't noticed Flain yet because he was hidden behind the wall.
But before anything else, Flain opened his stats and leveled up Swift Slash, since he had noticed before that it was cheap to level up. Even though everyone would start fighting once they heard Flain, it was still worth leveling up just in case.
[Swift Slash lvl: 1 -> level 2]
[Swift Slash lvl: 2 -> level 3]
[Swift Slash lvl: 3 -> level 4]
Flain didn't have enough EXP for more. He ran forward, used Swift Slash in mid-air, and sliced both commanders apart before they could even move.
[+700 EXP]
'I expected them to be stronger. I wasted my EN on them when each one only gives 350 EXP,' Flain thought.
Then Flain started carrying out his plan to defeat the Green Lizards as quickly as possible, just in case the Blacks came to help.
Flain went to each wall, placed his foot on it, and with full force knocked it to the ground. The entire settlement echoed with the screams of terrified and dying Green Lizards.
AAAARRR
SSSPP
DDDDTTTR
[+14230 EXP]
[+5 Evolution Shard]
[+23 Evolution Dusk]
Flain's eyes lit up when he saw how much EXP he had gained. He looked at the scene before him. Scattered bodies of Lizards lay on the ground, blood everywhere, and sharp broken pieces of the walls were strewn across the area.
Only a few Lizards were left, and Flain noticed a Lizard he had never seen before. It was about 2 meters tall, with massive muscles, holding a spear in its hands...