Chapter 341: Boss Rewards

The blood filling the arena, including that which was oozing out of the floral cocoon, stirred and flowed towards the centre of the room. It pulled itself up, forming two cubes, before the blood pulled itself together and crystallised into treasure chests that looked like they were made out of pure ruby.

This was expected, bosses in these types of repeatable dungeons always dropped at least one loot chest, two for those with good performances such as no deaths in the party. What was not expected was the third chest.

The earth beneath their feet shattered and rumbled, causing a portion of the floor between the two ruby chests to crumble to dust, as a singular chest rose from beneath the floor. This chest was formed not from blood, but from stone.

Specifically, the volcanic stone that was all around them, with hints of lava’s orange glow between the cracks of the stone.

Their wonder and amazement at the newest discovery was cut short, as the vines Figg had created withered and died off, as they often did when he stopped filling them with mana. Which allowed their ’contents’ to spill out onto the floor with a resounding squelch.

It wasn’t even a person that was left. Just a disgusting pile of mulch and bone, that persisted just long enough to give them a horrible look, before it disappeared into twinkling red dust along with the rest of the corpses in the boss room.

"Jesus Figg." Vestra muttered, shivering at the thought of that mashed flesh pulp, before turning to look at the one responsible for it in disgust.

"Was that really necessary? You couldn’t have just used thorns or something?"

"What? It was efficient. Not my fault she took her time disappearing. Besides, you haven’t got much room to talk little miss betrayer. Sure you aren’t just annoyed I ruined your lover’s pretty face?" He teased with a cocky smirk.

Vestra’s face flashed a deep red and her ears burned so hot they nearly caught fire. She could remember everything from her time as that Succubus’ lust slave, and worst of all she could remember enjoying it.

The feelings that filled her body, the love she felt. None of it felt fake, exactly. Just... overwhelming. It was hard to shake, and impossible to forget. Not to mention, completely and utterly embarrassing. I mean how humiliating was it to be the only one to fall for a thing like that, when you shared a party with that idiot?

Vestra clenched her jaw, pointing a finger at Figg and spoke in a low tone as she stared daggers at him.

"Don’t make me get the Gribbles out again."

Figg paled, gulping as he straightened up and even recoiled slightly.

"You wouldn’t dare."

"Push me and I will antler boy."

"Wait, Gribbles?" Belladonna asked, "You mean those little gremlin things from that cheesy horror movie? I remember that. The effects were just awful."

"Mhm." Vestra smirked wickedly, "That’s what he saw while I was hypnotised. He’s scared of them."

"W-what? I am not! They just... creep me out ever since I saw it as a kid. Ugh... The scene where that one laughs as it eats the pregnant woman..." Figg shuddered at the memory, before glaring at them with flushed cheeks.

"But I am not scared of them!"

The two girls broke out into a fit of laughter, which was only made worse by Figgs constant attempts to explain himself. After nearly a full minute of laughter after his mention of ’realistic graphics’ he remembered the movie having, he decided to simply stop talking and accept his fate.

It was for the best.

Once they had finished their laughter, or at least gotten it to a few giggles they were incapable of holding in, the party gathered round as they opened the chests one after the other. As they did so, a brief message appeared before them, floating in the air.

[Scanning Party... Distributing Rewards...]

The ruby chests glowed with a bright silver light, before shattering into a million pieces whilst the stone chest glowed with a dazzling golden light before it crumbled into a pile of stone that was rapidly absorbed by the ground.

In total, their rewards were; A Breastplate forged from the same demonic black metal that the Vi’fer had been wearing, A classical black witches hat, a twisting staff made of a pure bleached white wood, a set of rings, a small bar of metal and finally two scrolls.

There was also an assortment of gold, gems and a few Essence of Sins.

Lilith took the Essences and the Breastplate, the latter of which was absorbed into her Aura and changed the form of her aura to compensate.

Seemingly she took the term ’breast plate’ literally as that was all it covered, looking like a short metallic tank top that exposed her arms entirely as well as showed off her abs.

Saige took the metal bar, which was not just the size of a chocolate bar, but exactly what Saige treated it like as he stuffed it into his mouth and crunched on it to fuel his bloodline ability. He also took the rings, which were named the ’Ring of the Faithful’ and the ’Ring of Devotion’, one of which he gave to Lilith as they were styled like wedding bands.

The former allowed the user to teleport over to the wearer of the latter. Whilst the latter allowed the wearer to transfer their resistance stat over to the former. It would be expected of most that the Healer would wear the Ring of the Faithful and that the Tank.

That way the healer could teleport over for emergency treatment whilst the tank could transfer their resistance over to the healer for last minute defence.

Saige chose the opposite. Taking the Ring of Devotion for himself, and giving the Ring of the Faithful to Lilith. That way he could use his bloodline to further bolster her defence to a ridiculous degree, whilst she would always have an immediate path back to him for any reason. Including the fun ones.

Clearly one of these was more thought out than the other.

Vestra took the hat, after some convincing that she deserved it after she strongly refused. It allowed her to float slightly, although it didn’t grant any flight capabilities, and also bolstered her mental defences.

It was if the gods were specifically telling her to pull her shit together and not let that happen again.

Figg took the staff, which was frigid to the touch and fed him knowledge of ice magic, which would be useful not just in this dungeon but going forwards.

Finally, Belladonna took the scrolls. One of them was for a spell similar to the enrage status, called [Beserkers Blood Rush] which would increase stats at the cost of energy and some sanity, like a lesser version of her transformation.

The other was a summoning scroll, for summoning a demon. It was unclear why she would want that, or when she would ever use it, but that didn’t stop Belladonna from placing them both in her bag.

The fact that they were aligned so perfectly for their party was also not a coincidence.

These drops, unlike everything else they encountered, were always tailored to the specific party members that defeated the boss, along with some basic monetary rewards. Once those were evenly split, all that was left was the contents of the lava chest.

Five more fragments of the shattered item that they had been gathering, sat there waiting for them, alongside one final Essence of Sin. This one was unique, as it was dyed a very peculiar shade of pink.

At the very least, it seemed that the other teams hadn’t gotten to the fragments first. At least, not the ones in the boss rooms. They could only wait and see if the same could be said of the rest of the dungeon.