Chapter 341: Chapter 325 – The Guardian of the Ironclad Abyss II

Chapter 325 - The Guardian of the Ironclad Abyss II

Chloe's legs screamed in protest as she rounded a corner. She didn't know how long she had run, or even how long she would need to keep running. Whatever the case, her continued survival was clearly at risk; her undead pursuers showed no signs of slowing, while she, on the other hand, was running out of juice. Her legs had practically turned to jelly, her breaths were ragged, and her eyes were bleary with a mix of sweat and tears.

The only pursuers that had fallen in the chase were those in the line of friendly fire. The skeleton mages would occasionally launch powerful spells without regard for those in their way. The maid was lucky enough to have avoided most of the damage, but her luggage was far from unscathed. Half the bedrolls were already gone—an arcane bolt had blown them away. Common sense dictated that she ought to drop the bag, as well as the rest of the excess weight she had hidden beneath her skirt, but she refused to leave it behind. Claire would never let her hear the end of it if one of the supposed frontrunners failed on her account, and they were going to need all the resources they could preserve. Given that it was filled with the undead, the dungeon was unlikely to provide any edible materials. And if the first floor’s size was any indication, they would surely starve if they lost the things she carried.

She didn’t want to imagine the crypt that lay beneath the mausoleum. The seven days of food she carried was starting to look like a fearfully tiny amount.

Deciding that she was better off not worrying, the maid filled her mind with beautiful, bouncy breasts, but she could only distract herself from reality for so long. Eventually, the pain in her legs grew to such an extent that random thoughts no longer allowed her to ignore it.

She nearly collapsed after a particularly sharp turn, though it was in part because her spirit was crushed by the scene that lay before her. There was a second horde of monsters, nearly thirty members strong, gathered in the middle of the corridor. Unlike her pursuers, they didn’t immediately turn towards the maid and her clacking heels. They were too busy attacking something else, but she couldn’t quite tell what at a glance.

“Hey! Maid! Give a man a hand, would you?”

A closer look at the centre of the formation revealed a pebble in the midst of being kicked around. Though the zombies’ attacks didn’t appear to be doing much harm, they were bumping the rock around the mob.

“I can’t!” she said, in a panicked shout. “There’s like a hundred of them behind me!”

“Just grab me and I’ll gut the bastards,” said the dwarf. “My skills don’t work when I’m being kicked around!”

“How am I supposed to grab you when you’re in the middle of a crowd!?” she shouted.

“I don’t fucking know! Dive in!”

“No way!” screamed the maid.

“Don’t worry, they’ll ignore you!” replied Enrique. “I’ve got a thing that makes them focus me, so hurry the hell up and grab me already!”

Chloe was reluctant to play along, but she eventually gave in and dove at the bearded rock with her dagger extended. She cut through a wrist and a foot before bumping the tip of her blade against the dwarf’s body and pushing him out of the crowd. Surely enough, the monsters continued to ignore her. They reached for him with their rotting, grasping fingers, but she restrained their movement by needling their shadows and tethering them to their umbral forms.

Against such high-level monsters, the binding only held for a second. But a second was enough. She swivelled past the zombies, slid under the skeletons, and grabbed the talking stone. She came to a sliding stop on the other side of the crowd and raised the dwarf triumphantly, lifting him over her head while her ankles screamed in agonising pain.

“What the hell are you doing!?” cried the rock. “Don’t just lift me! Throw me goddamn it!”

“Huh? Throw you? Wou—”

“Stop asking questions! Just do it!”

“Alright, fine!” Chloe turned around and winded up her arm, only to be yelled at again.

“Not that way! Into the crowd! Are you stupid!?”

“Why the hell would I throw you into the crowd!? Didn’t I just ge—”

“Shut up and fucking do it already!” he shouted frantically. “We don’t have the time for this shit! They’re getting closer, goddamn it!”

Thoroughly confused, the maid eventually followed through on the dwarf’s instructions and launched him back into the mob. The rock hit the closest zombie dead on. For a second, it didn’t look like anything would happen, but his body started to glow before its momentum was lost. And then, with a burst of magic, he launched himself through the corpse, the crowd, and even the walls. The hole he bored was anything but rock-sized. Everything within ten meters of his beard was bathed in holy light and cleansed by purifying flame.

The pain in Chloe’s legs abated. The system breathed life back into her tired, noodly limbs, righted her posture, and fixed her blemished skin. She didn’t know how many levels she gained, but it was certainly more than just a few. Her whole body felt much, much lighter. The encounter had done wonders for her already inflated agility.

Breathing a tired sigh, she collapsed where she stood and slowly caught her breath. It wasn’t until the dwarf yelled at her again that she paid the world any attention.

“What are you doing? Don’t just leave me here! Pick me back up already!”

The beard-possessed rock was slowly rolling towards her. Oddly enough, moving seemed to be a struggle. He had definitely been more mobile up on the sandy beach than he was on the bare stone.

“Are you a priest or something?” Picking herself up off the ground, Chloe retrieved the rock and looked in the direction of the mausoleum. She held the dwarf by his bare rear; the sensation of his stiff beard against her skin was irritatingly uncomfortable. The individual strands were as tough as rusty nails.

“Not exactly,” he said, with a grunt “This rock I’m on right now is a piece of moonstone, and possessing it lets me access its power.”

“Couldn’t you have just used it when they had you surrounded?” She put her map away as she asked the question, strapping it beneath her skirt again for safekeeping.

“Doesn’t work like that. It only activates if the conditions are right, and me being thrown is one of them.”

“That seems a bit overly specific.”

“Well given the output, I’d say it’s probably well worth it.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” said Chloe. “Well, at least this makes everything a lot easier. We should be able to head straight for the centre.”

“Right, about that,” said the dwarf, with an awkward laugh. “That blast actually used up all my mana. I’ll need a quick nap to get it back. Shouldn’t be out for more than thirty minutes.”

“I’m sorry?” said Chloe, with a blink.

“I ain’t exactly much of a believer, so using the moon goddess’ power is tiring and expensive,” he said. “Napping’ll kick off my meditation and get it regenerated in a jiff. Anyway, off to bed with me.”

The maid could only stare in awe as the rock’s beard deflated. He shifted from talking to snoring like a trumpet in the blink of an eye. The booming snorts were so loud, in fact, that they even drew the undead.

“Oh no, not again...” Her eyes teary and her legs already shaking, Chloe shoved the rock into her apron, retrieved her map, and started the cycle anew.

___

“She got me good.” Krail Greenwood placed a hand against his aching skull as he slowly wandered through the maze. “I haven’t been hurt that badly by a single attack since the time I raided that one cultist base.”

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His steps were slow, assisted by his cane not because of his age, but because his wounds had yet to heal. He had acquired a certain unwanted status condition on his three hundredth birthday, and its awful effect reduced his health regeneration to a fifth of its usual effectiveness for as long as he stayed in motion.

Only about a quarter of the damage that he had taken had stemmed from the undead creatures. The rest could be traced back to his method of entry; the girl had thrown him with enough force that he nearly died from hitting the wall. He would have to ask the dwarf to heal him when they met up. Either that, or he would require a safe space where the monsters couldn’t reach. The latter seemed unlikely. There were always more of them no matter how many he killed, and they respawned so quickly that wiping them out was simply not an option. It almost felt like his victims would come right back to life each time he made a turn.

Fortunately, the spawns were rather thin, and he was unlikely to exhaust his mana for another few hours. Case in point, he found only a pair of zombies when he rounded the corner. Lazily raising his staff, he drew the usual magic circle and chanted the usual spell.

Six arrows formed in the space behind him, with three focused on the zombie on the left and the other three aimed at the one on the right. They launched in sequence, their metal tips and wooden shafts moving exactly as the so-called archer had envisioned. Both targets saw their right legs crippled; the arrows were lodged straight into their hips and placed right between the joints in their pelvic bones.

A second barrage finished the job. The mage crafted another thirty-six arrows and buried half in each undead’s skull. The monsters practically looked like pincushions; there was nothing left of their heads but bits of metal and wood.

“The monsters are easy to deal with, but I’m totally lost. I remember hearing that I should keep a hand against the wall, but I doubt I have enough time for that. The damn thing’s at least a full hundred acres.”

Stepping right over the fleshy quivers, the archer continued his trek through the maze. He had lost the entrance some fifty turns ago, and heading towards the obvious centerpoint was proving itself a pain in the rear. His twists and turns had only carried him further away.

“If only I could do away with the fliers.”

He had tried climbing above the walls and navigating them from a bird’s eye view, but the approach was entirely untenable. The climbing part was hardly any trouble at all. Even with his back broken by old age, he could easily create footholds in the walls by way of firing his arrows. But getting on top provided more pain than profit. The wraiths were impervious to his attacks. Their ghastly bodies could only be harmed by objects of a magical nature, and his usual projectiles didn’t count. Only one of his many abilities was able to take them down, but it was far too costly to use willy-nilly. He could manage maybe seven casts before running out of mana, and there were far more than a measly seven wraiths.

He would have been dead in a heartbeat had they swarmed him outright, but they only ever attacked when he cheated the maze.

Left with no other choices, the old elf continued wandering around the dungeon and killing everything in range. His warpath was practically unhindered until he came across a particularly large hall, though it would have been more accurate to describe it as a room. It was over ten times as wide as the three-meter paths otherwise spread throughout the maze. There were four entrances, each representing what the elderly archer assumed to be the cardinal directions.

An undead warrior rose up from a shadow as he stepped inside. It was a skeleton. It stood a little taller than most of the others he had encountered, with a total height of roughly two and a half meters.

“Why, hello. Aren’t you dressed handsomely?”

The ancient fighter's bones were made of glistening sapphires and its eyes were dim rubies. The same gemstone motif extended to its equipment. Its spear was a single cut of emerald, while its shield was an oversized diamond. It was practically a walking treasure trove, though the gems would no doubt lose their sheen by the time of the skeleton's demise. He could tell at a glance that it was the type that would keep moving until he obliterated its body.

A cursory test confirmed that it was immune to his normal arrows. All six of the projectiles he summoned and loosed bounced right off the monster’s body. There wasn't even a scratch on any of the gems that he had attempted to mar.

The development was less than ideal. As an archer, most of his attacks depended on his ammunition's effectiveness, and there wasn't much he could do against a monster whose skin was too tough to pierce. It was fortunate then that the old man had a few more tricks in his bag. He began by working his racial trait. He silently called to the plants that inhabited their surroundings and offered his mana for direct control. The fallen trees readily obeyed. Their roots shot out from beneath the surface and seized the skeleton by the legs. The purpose was not to bind it. Rather, he ordered the plants to pull as hard as they could so that his foe would be drawn and quartered.

It was a fair but unsuccessful attempt. A swing of the spear broke the skeleton free from its prison. The monster lunged. It closed the distance between them and swung its weapon with a feral screech, but the elf was unperturbed. He warded off its weapon with his staff and unleashed another barrage. The second set’s projectiles were much larger than the first. They looked more like harpoons than regular arrows, but they were unleashed with the same speed as their smaller counterparts. Despite their mass, they proved equally incapable. Even the bolts that had landed dead center left only the faintest of scratches.

They did, however, buy the elf an opportunity to chant. He recited an old poem whilst retrieving a talisman from one of his pockets. The aged paper, covered in crimson runes and azure markings, formed the shape of an arrow in front of him. And then, as the final words left his mouth, multiplied itself sixfold and fired.

Only one of the six projectiles struck the skeleton. The wayward talisman found itself lodged directly between the skeleton’s ribs, stuck in its chest with no damage inflicted. Exactly as the caster had intended.

The other five papers lit up. Each projected a line from its place on the ground and formed a pentagram that perfectly encased the skeletal warrior.

And then, with a shing, the magic circle unleashed its barrage. An explosion of harpoons erupted from beneath the skeleton’s feet. The projectiles themselves were unchanged. They were exactly as they had been in his previous attempt, but the sheer quantity saw his foe overwhelmed.

Five seconds and roughly sixty thousand projectiles later, the skeleton was defeated, leaving the arrow mage to scratch his ever-beardless chin as he pondered aloud.

“If a random monster under five hundred was that tough, then I’m really not looking forward to the bosses.” The elf walked himself over to the skeleton’s corpse and picked up a few pieces of jewelry. There was a surprising amount still intact, so he quietly pocketed as much as he could before setting off into the maze again.

___

Three curious onlookers turned their eyes away from the elf as his battle drew to a close. Each directed their gaze to a different projection; there were a little over two hundred of them in all, with one following each intruder and an extra few to highlight key monsters and locations. The observation deck was located deep within the dungeon’s core, far, far away from even its most ambitious explorer.

The feature was one that most dungeons went without. Born of a long-lost technology, it allowed the dungeon’s overseers to keep a close tab on everything going on within it. For gods, such a function would have proven itself entirely unnecessary. True deities were practically omnipotent within their own domains, and though dungeons were not quite churches, they fell under the same authority. Of course, even omnipotence was useless in the hands of the inept; while the system was capable of providing a near-infinite amount of information, it was up to the individual god as to how each bit would see itself used.

It was most often celestials that would make use of the dungeon’s built-in features. Much like their fully-ascended superiors, demigods experienced extreme time dilation, as well as modifications to their bodies that bolstered the efficiency of their brains. The individual responsible for the ironclad abyss, however, was no celestial, but rather a poor soul another full step down the hallowed ladder.

As an aspect, she was a celestial’s servant, a mortal with a single toe across the line that separated those that ruled over concepts from those that endeavoured to employ them. With nothing to do but follow orders all day, she was bored right out of her mind. To allow the intruders to live was strictly to her benefit, but the aspect was tempted to hit the kill switch and summon a horde of demonic beasts that would easily wipe them out. As the progenitor of nightmares, such a feat was as simple as breathing a lungful of air.

In fact, she was rather confident that it was the right choice. She had been instructed against unnecessary murder, but she knew for a fact that at least half of the jury would vouch for the decision if it produced the results she projected.

Still, Sylvia stayed her hand. She understood the importance of her duties, and she wasn’t about to totally ruin Arciel’s year on a random whim. She did complain, however. “Uhmmm… I don’t know if it’s just me, but all these guys kinda suck to watch.”

“I believe that particular fault stems from your point of comparison,” said Arciel. “There are few fighters as absurd and unpredictable as Claire.”

“I’m not absurd,” said the lyrkress. “And being unpredictable is a good thing.”

“Perhaps if your choices and conclusions fell within the norm.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Claire, with a blink.

It took Arciel a moment to recognize that, for once, the statement was genuine. “I am uncertain if I am to find it more or less concerning that you fail to recognize the problem.”

“Definitely more,” said Sylvia. Taking her eyes off the many, many screens, she stuck her head out from the tentacle monster’s lap and flashed her usual seat an unamused stare.

Claire rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with being creative.”

“Everything in moderation,” said the squid.

“Not levels,” said Claire. She curled up into a ball as she spoke. “Wake me up when they clear the third floor.”

The first part of the dungeon held none of her interest. Only after they passed the halfway point would the so-called champions be made to test their mettle.

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