Dungeon Novel: Chapter Thirty-Two (Patreon)

It ruined one of the boss’s greatest weapons. The ability to strike without warning in the underground space combined with it’s immense physical might meant at least one member of the invading party tended to die upon their meeting with the Elemental Boss.

With fire revealing the cavern the boss’s position was going to be swiftly revealed so Unbound gave an order to remain behind one of the largest pillars and wait for them to order the knights to do a sweep.

The fire mage was wasting stamina swiftly, the constant usage of fire magic draining her mana without giving her time to regenerate it. Her face was now cherry red and dripping with sweat from the exertion, the noble didn’t seem to care what was happening only watching as the fights took place with a smile upon his own face.

After the mage illuminated a large amount of the cavern the knights were ordered similarly to Unbound’s suspicions. They went in two sets of three to explore the cavern as the remaining knight stood as a meat shield before the noble, it seemed they were acting slightly more careful with the knights after they had lost so many.

The first group of three knights scouted the area to the left of the entrance as the second group scouted the right, where the boss was hiding. As the first knight peered around the pillar with his sword held high the stony fist lashed out twice. The fist thudded into the chest and head, the first blow forcing the man to lower his weapon and the second to tear his life away.

The other two knights in the group didn’t hesitate, giving a shout to draw attention whilst simultaneously hitting the Elemental Boss with their weaponry. The slashing damage swords excelled at was ineffective against the stone body of the boss but the force behind the blows could still cause minor damage through small cracks and chips.

Whilst the two knights held off the boss by dodging strikes and lashing out with swords their shouts had drawn the attention of the rest of the group. The other group of knights ran over followed swiftly by the noble, his knight bodyguard, and the two mages.

But even as they raced towards the fight the boss lashed out again and one of the knights was too slow to dodge the blow. Their chest caved in, the armor crumpling underneath the power the blow contained, launching the knight away directly into the path of the fire mage.

She tumbled to the floor as she tripped over the steel-covered carcass. Instinctively bring her arms up to brace for the impact as she rolled across the floor, the noble and her fellow mage gave no concern for the falling mage and simply continued towards the boss.

It was the first time Unbound saw the space mage use his powers offensively and it was impressive, a great blade of empty space opened up. It wasn’t of the Void but it was void of space and the blade sliced off one of the boss’s arms.

The stone limb fell to the floor with a loud, heavy thud and the boss’s offensive and defensive abilities were immediately shortened. Without the extra arm, the boss could not ward off attacks and could not punch as often.

The invaders took advantage of the weakness immediately, the knights striking at the weaker side as the boss was thrown off balance by the loss of weight upon his left side. The third-floor boss managed to catch one more knight, it’s fist squeezing the head into a pulp before it finally fell to another blade of empty space which decapitated the stone giant.

There were only seven members in the group now, the noble, the two mages, and the remaining four knights. The noble strangely showed no fear, despite the fact that Unbound could understand it was likely the noble's first time being in an extremely dangerous situation, he didn’t seem worried or bothered about any sort of impending death at all.

They then went to enter the fourth and final floor, a floor designed specifically to destroy large numbers of Undead by removing natural advantages. The only traps well suited to sentient races were the wired hooks for tearing out eyes and blinding foes.

The knights went first, holding their swords in a relaxed guard, acting like toy soldiers for all the humanity and emotional range they displayed. They were similar to Unbound’s own defenders, likely a result of the mind sigil within their skulls and acted upon the noble’s orders.

What was creepier was the fact that both mages seemed similar to the knights but with slightly more freewill. It was scary to see because Elvinia had told him that magic required a mind to cast, the stupider monsters like trolls and ogres unable to use magic at all for that reason.

Walking through the tight tunnels of the fourth floor was able to give a sense of claustrophobia to even the fearless. The tight corners and inability to maneuver could cause anybody to become twitchy unless you appeared to be more robotic than sentients like the knights and mages.

The tight conditions would hamper the fire mage's ability to cast spells, if she fired a single fireball it would more likely harm a knight than an enemy due to the lack of space. Unbound didn’t know about the space mage’s offensives, it was possible the mage could remotely twist the area around a defender instead of the large dimensional slices from before.

From what Unbound could feel from the mage, the man was somewhat linked to his own Void affinity likely a lesser variant with far more weaknesses and far more stable within reality. If the man had a will of his own it would be likely that the Dungeon would improve the mage's abilities to another level.

So as the intruders advanced closer to Unbound’s core he watched them, silently noting gaps in his own defenses and waiting for the mystery of the intruders to unfold.