CHAPTER 38: CHAPTER 38 - THE DUNGEON PART 2

"Now monsters wanna show up? I guess they were waiting for us." Rupert said as he blasted a goblin with fire magic, pulverizing it to ash.

Dylan carved through his enemies as if they were mere scraps of parchment, his greatsword an unstoppable force of destruction. The narrow corridor did little to hinder him—each swing not only cleaved through foes but shattered the stone walls as though they were air. He let out a triumphant laugh, his voice echoing through the ruins. "These wretches are nothing! They don’t call me the Goblin Slayer for nothing!"

"Allow me to help!" Jenea clasped her hands and a radiant light drowned the area in a silver glow. Dylan, Rupert, and Zion were now blessed by the God of Arion, boosting their speed and combat capabilities.

"Nice one, Jenea!" Rupert bellowed, slamming his hands onto the ground. The earth rumbled in response, jagged spikes erupting from the stone floor, skewering goblins and hobgoblins alike. Screeches of pain filled the air before silence fell once more, the battlefield now a forest of bloodied stone.

Zion, however, stood back, calmly observing as his companions carved through the horde. With a mere gesture, vines and roots wove through the air, mending their wounds with his wood element. Now and then, a goblin or hobgoblin strayed from the chaos, lunging at him in desperation. He dispatched them with effortless precision—barely an inconvenience, barely a distraction.

"Aw man, is that it? I was starting to have fun." Dylan complained.

"We only encountered weak enemies, so the stronger ones should be further down." Rupert assumed as he cut the ears off the goblins to sell later or use for experiments.

Suddenly, the corridor trembled, nearly knocking the four of them off their feet. A deep, guttural rumble echoed through the stone walls as dust and loose pebbles rained from above. The very ground beneath them pulsed with raw power, each tremor sending rocks skittering and bouncing like marionettes in an unseen dance. The air grew thick with tension—something was coming.

A single, monstrous eye peeked into view, sending a jolt of alarm through Dylan and Jenea. Then, the rest of it followed—a towering, muscle-bound behemoth, its body etched with the scars of countless battles. Bloodstained teeth gleamed as it bared its fanged maw, a grotesque grin of hunger and malice.

With every lumbering step, the corridor crumbled around it, its sheer size too much for the fragile structure to contain. Massive chunks of stone crashed to the ground, sending up clouds of dust as the beast fully emerged, ready to annihilate anything in its path.

"HOLY SHIT ITS A CYCLOPSE!" Dylan yelled, stepping back to assess the situation.

"Jenea! Buff the three of us again! Zion, use your wood element to heal us constantly. Dylan, you take point and keep that monster on its toes. Zion, you aid Dylan and help confuse it. I have a spell that can take this monster down, I just need you to buy some time!"

Zion nearly chuckled at Rupert’s urgency. An expert-stage mage, rattled by a mere Cyclops? The thought was almost amusing. He shook his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. ’Of all things, this is what gets him nervous?’

"RRRRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRR" The cyclops bellowed, its massive hands getting ready to slam into the stone floor, causing mass destruction.

"Get ready!" Rupert yelled, but suddenly, a beam of light tore through the cyclops’s eye, killing it in an instant.

"Hmph." Only a finger. That’s all it took for Zion to kill such a creature. "If a Cyclops gets you spooked, then I don’t want to know how you’d feel if we run into a demon." Zion chuckled, storing the monster in his storage ring.

No one said a word, only looking at Zion with shocked expressions. One moment they were prepared to fight a serious battle, then the next, the monster was stuck down as if it was a simple bunny being hunted by a lion.

"Come on, those people aren’t going to save themselves." At Zion’s words, they all snapped out of their trance, resuming their exploration.

---

"Now, Crystal, freeze it’s legs!" Patricia yelled as she hung from a large Cyclops back, her greatsword lodged deep in its muscles.

Crystal cast [Freeze Bind], a spell that encased the cyclop’s lower body in a thick sheet of ice alongside ice shackles that bound its arms. However, because of her strength or lack thereof, the ice cracked under the immense strength of the Cyclops.

"Hurry! I can’t keep it bound for long!" Crystal spoke with urgency.

"Everyone stand back!" Christen pulled out her staff, a tool all mages use when they want to cast their spells on a destructive level. The blue crystal at the top of her staff radiated a brilliant purple light as vast amounts of mana were being absorbed by it.

Using her free hand to concentrate the mana perfectly into her staff, a magic circle then appeared under her.

"She’s going all out huh?!" Lordrick laughed.

[CometBurst] A colossal beam of purple mana erupted through the corridor, obliterating the Cyclops’s abdomen as if it were nothing more than flimsy paper. The sheer force of the spell sent shockwaves through the air, almost reducing the entire area to rubble, but before the spell could spiral out of control, Christen calmly cut off the spell, halting the destruction before it consumed them all.

"Quickly! Before it regenerates!" Chrisiten yelled.

Without wasting any time, Lordrick and Patricia lept into action, slicing off its arms and legs before finally killing the Cyclops with Patricia stabbing it in the heart, and Lordrick slicing off its head.

"Phew, that was the third Cyclops we came across. Even the Trolls and Orgers weren’t as tough." Patricia grabbed some water out of her supply bag, quenching her dried throat.

The others followed suit, tending to their wounds with Christen’s healing magic and taking a moment to catch their breath.

"If these monsters are trying to stop us from finding where the missing people are, just how many monsters are in the main area?" Crystal asked, her eyes slightly sunken in from tiredness.

"Don’t worry about that. Just focus on the task at hand. If anything, we’ll regroup with the others and face those demonic human bastards altogether."

Crystal smiled wryly "Yeah, I guess you’re right." She felt weak as if her power wasn’t needed. Sure she helped, but her help wasn’t anything special. Everything she did, Christen could do with ease. She really felt out of place here. ’What if I was strong, like Zion?’ she wondered.

"Let’s take a ten-minute break before continuing. Hopefully, we reach the end of this corridor soon. The longer it takes for us to find them, the more likely they are suffering."

Everyone nodded in agreement and rested their bodies before continuing on their mission.