Chapter 342: Delving Deeper

After the boss room there was a small break room, which existed so that people could log out safely or heal after the boss fight, both of which they did.

But once they had fixed their bodily cravings and dealt with any bio issues, they delved deeper into the pits.

The fourth floor was, unfortunately, not too different from the first two, such was the issue with many dungeons throughout gaming, and in real life too it seemed.

The main difference was the distribution of the demons in the roaming groups, with the addition of a few tougher units, as well as some of their behaviours.

At this point, the ’Eye-spies’ had been relegated to scouts, which meant that you had to constantly keep an eye on the skies for those annoying winged eyeballs. If one spotted out, it would sound out an alarm and bring its group running towards you.

It had been the fatality of many groups that had made it to this floor, as they found themselves focused too much on the battle at hand against the tougher enemy, only for a new group to suddenly flank them out of nowhere.

The Four-armed Roiders and the Lizard-Hybrid demons took the centre point of the groups, whilst the ’elite’ units of the group were now a strange werewolf-like creature.

A gaunt creature with wolfen features and which walked on two legs, with wiry blood coloured fur covering its body and a singular beady eye in the centre of its head. It’s mouth was permanently open and twisted into a hyena-like smile as it panted heavily.

It was a creature that tripped many people up, as they were fast, wild and often unpredictable with their attacks. However Belladonna had plenty of practice against wolfen creatures, and was starting to become her very own wolf’s bane.

It was as if fighting creatures like this was in her blood, she could hardly explain it.

Still, even if it wasn’t the most interesting journey in the world, with a few trip ups as they got flanked in the middle of combat or had group after group being kited towards them by the irritating Eye-Spies constantly letting out alarms.

The main benefit of it was the strength it was racking up. The higher strength of the enemies gained them more life force upon killing them, which shot up their levels. Not to mention the increase in aura that Lilith was gaining from the harvested ’Essence of Sin’s.

More than enough to bring her real life aura up to a more appropriate level, so that she wasn’t a handicap come the next battle against the corrupted.

Unlike others, they were also able to take their time, thanks to their walking potion factory known by the name of Figg. Whilst other parties had to buy or prepare their potions, Figg could grow the basic components on the go and had brewed a few new batches in the rest room.

By the time they finished the fourth floor and moved into the fifth, the lowest level in their party was just breaching into the sixties.

This floor was the one that felt mostly like it resembled the dungeons title of ’Siege of Infernus’ as along with the wandering groups of enemies, there were small war camps.

Taking these down, according to the players who had beaten them to these levels, would net serious wealth and loot. Although only one of them had ever dared to do it, as by this point most groups were rushing through the dungeon to get to the end before their potion supply ran dry.

Although the Fate Breakers had yet to discover one of these war camps, the consensus between them was united. They would raid the camp like they were bandits.

However before they could do that, they discovered the other addition to the floor. Traps and ambush sites. However not all of these were constructed by the demons, as they found out when they were on the trail of another relic fragment.

Their ’dousing rod’ let them to a solid wall, and like they had a few times before, Belladonna and Lilith took their places and began to slam their fists into the wall.

The wall shuddered with every blow, but it didn’t crumble or crack like they expected. Instead it... growled?

It was a low rumbling growl, like boulders rolling down a cliff side, before the wall opened its eyes.

The two women were stunned, their hearts seized in their chests as for the briefest moment their minds flashed back to the creature that had nearly killed them both.

It was a moment that the creature eagerly leapt upon, as it raised its head, which was actually a part of the wall and not simply disguised to blend into it, before it shot out its tongue.

The sticky pad latched onto Lilith’s arm, dragging her closer to its slobbering maw. That was enough to snap Lilith out of her stupor, as she dug her heels in and started to pull back against the tongue. Her strength was not just enough to stop her movement, but also enough to pull the creature out of the wall, and take the wall with it. At least that was what it seemed.

In reality, the ’wall’ surrounding the creature was formed of an armoured frill, which was covered in stone plating and was perfectly disguised to look like the wall, and behind which hid a brown lizard-like body.

It dragged its feet, trying its best to resist the pull of what was supposed to be its prey, as it was dragged out of the hole it had tunnelled into the real wall and into the open. It couldn’t even retract its tongue, as its ’prey’ had a tight hold on it.

The last thing the frilled lizard saw as it was dragged from its home, was Belladonna’s hand lowering towards its face before she struck it straight in the forehead and sent a [Shredding Strike] directly into its brains, scrambling them like morning eggs.