Reaper's Resurgence - Book 3 - Chapter 68 - The Swarm (Patreon)

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Don't mind this fluff. It's so that free readers can't read half the chapter.

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Alexia

It doesn’t take me long to understand that touching the acid is a bad idea. After the bottom of my armor’s boot begins to melt in seconds.

How these monster corpses are lasting so long in the acid is beyond me.

Just goes to show how powerful this boss is.

Although it’s odd to be judging a monster’s strength by the strength of its stomach acid.

That aside, I frown at the bottom of my boot, feeling rather strongly that a certain blacksmith is going to yell at me when I get out of this place.

I stare at it for a few seconds before looking back down at the pool of powerful acid again.

Whatever. That’s a future me problem.

Anyways, it’s a pity that acid doesn’t count as a status effect. Probably because it directly attacks the body and begins to melt it.

It’s still annoying trying to figure out what is considered a status effect.

My thoughts grind to a halt when I notice something.

Is it just me… or are the parasites moving closer to me?

I narrow my eyes at the parasites in the stomach before nodding my head.

Yep. They’re all slowly moving to the place where I dipped my boot.

Wonder why?

Also, I don’t have the soul to waste constantly teleporting up here. So I’m gonna have to find a place to-

A parasite suddenly jumps out of the stomach acid while opening its mouth and letting the smaller mouth jump out as it flies towards me. But I just teleport back before summoning and swinging my polearm, slicing the thing in half before it falls back down into the stomach acid below.

Dead.

Okay then. Unexpected.

Another one jumps out of the stomach acid. Then another. And another.

This is…

My thoughts trail off as I see some of the parasites that missed me beginning to move those arms of theirs back and forth so fast that they become a blur. And the parasites begin to fly in the air.

Using regular human-like arms as wings.

What… the hell?

As if on cue, more and more parasites begin jumping out of the acid and flying themselves. Leading to a large swarm of these parasites just flying in the stomach, making me question my common sense.

Then again, one of the first lessons we learned at the academy is to not use common sense in the dungeons, so…

You’re just asking to die if you try.

All of the parasites begin flying over towards me while swinging around the smaller mouths in their mouth. Which looks rather disturbing, but I’ve got bigger issues right now than how disturbing they look.

I teleport from one place to another, tearing them limb from limb. But every time I kill one, two end up jumping out of the acid. Sometimes even three.

So the space within the stomach continues to fill up with more and more parasites floating in the middle of the organ. And the number continues to grow even as I slaughter them, occasionally blasting them with Quantum Breath and Quantum Singularity Implosions. Wiping out entire dozens of them in moments.

No matter how many I kill though, more replace them.

Okay, seriously, what sort of creature has this many parasites in its body? It can’t be healthy.

I hurriedly look around the increasingly crowded stomach for some sort of Safe Zone. A place I can get away from all this. A place to rest and recover my soul. And a place where I won’t be overwhelmed by a massive swarm of parasites flying with human arms.

What I can see slowly gets swallowed up by the parasites as I teleport around and eliminate entire swaths of the creatures. But after searching for an entire five minutes across the massive stomach, I find what I’m looking for.

A large hole in the stomach wall with a rift over it.

So I immediately begin teleporting over there, wiping out the parasites as I do so. All the way till I jump straight into the rift, not bothering with slicing it open this time since I don’t want those parasites to follow me through. And they may be able to if I opened up the rift.

It doesn’t take me long to realize what the hole is though. Since I almost immediately get a System Message about entering a Safe Zone the moment I enter the rift.

Then I collapse onto the ground of the strange red bubble I find myself in now.

Holy shit… this place really is a hellhole.

I instinctively pant in exhaustion as I stare up at the ceiling with my hands spread out to my sides.

This dungeon really is a Tier 4 dungeon.

I understand that dungeons really aren’t designed for solo trips, especially when your level is as low as mine, but still… this is a lot tougher than I was expecting when I entered.

Everyone’s always said that Tier 4 dungeons are hellholes. It’s just one of the most common descriptions of them.

If anyone ever tries to enter a Tier 4 dungeon, it’s with an entire team of several people, most of whom are all far above the lowest level of the Tier. So level six hundred or above for most of them. At least a few above level seven hundred.

And they all have supplies for days, including oxygen masks, bodysuits to handle swimming through dangerous stuff like that acid, enchanted rings for stuff like that as well, and all sorts of other things.

None of which I have with me.

Not that it’s really my fault, since we don’t really have that sort of equipment after the Reset. Not yet at least.

I stare up at the ceiling for a while as I pant in exhaustion before eventually glancing down at the entrance. Which just looks like a glowing blue portal on one of the walls of this sphere.

Then I drop my head back down again to continue staring up at the ceiling as a rather terrifying thought comes to mind.

If Tier 4 dungeons are like this… what are Tier 5 dungeons like?