Dungeon Heart 03 - Hell Gate, page 6
Looking down at the spot where he had been injured, Pala twisted and stretched slowly, testing the area. It was a little tender and it still had a very subtle throbbing sensation, but it was certainly healed properly. “That’s a convenient ability.”
Arturus sat a bit straighter, his tail wagging at the compliment. “I am in agreement. Father seemed quite pleased with my ability to heal. He said that healing in battle could make the difference between defeat and success.”
“After watching the adventurers, I am bound to agree,” Pala said with a sigh as he looked over Arturus. Weighing in at over four hundred kilograms and measuring two and a half meters in height when he stood on his hind legs, Arturus was more than just a healer. He nearly doubled the weight of Echo in her full battle gear, and had the power to command bears and wolves at will.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Arturus was likely the most powerful creature to roam the dungeon. Add to that the new skill that he had been developing with his claws, and he was sure to be an even more fearsome foe in the near future. In comparison, Pala felt that he was lacking. While he boasted the highest mobility and highest skill with his weapon in the dungeon, he lacked the sheer power that Arturus and Echo could deliver.
Even with his new spear skill, [Penetrating Thrust], which allowed him to focus his qi into the tip of the spear to give it explosive power, he wasn’t confident that he could claim the title of the strongest in the dungeon. In a sense, he was the eldest of the siblings, the first to be given form and a way to protect his father. It frustrated him to lag behind the rest despite having had the most time of the bunch to improve.
Heaving a resigned sigh, he resolved to increase his skill as much as he could. If humans could defeat creatures more powerful than them with tools and skills, so could he. He would polish his skills even more in actual combat, for the more he could hunt, the closer he would be to achieving his next evolution.
As much as he loved practicing with his spear, there was no denying that evolving was the quickest way to gain tremendous amounts of power. The difference between being a kobold chief and a kobold lord was already like comparing a child to an adult in terms of the difference in strength. How much stronger would he be if he evolved again?
Father had once told him that kobold were a very flexible species with multiple evolutionary paths. As such, as long as he worked hard, he should be able to evolve far beyond his current state, and thereby be able to protect his father better. The only concern was that the amount of power and experience he needed to gather increased greatly between evolutions, but that was something that couldn’t be helped.
“Pala?” Arturus's voice called out, bringing him back to reality.
“Sorry, I was distracted,” Pala replied, shaking off those thoughts as he rolled his shoulders. “Where is Echo?”
“She is also training. She is struggling with the petrified wood golems,” Arturus said as he stood on all fours and shook himself, momentarily looking like a cloud of fluff as his fur seemed to defy gravity before it all settled down again.
“Hmm… Let us go and observe. We might gain some insight from her fight,” Pala said as he twirled his spear absentmindedly, before hitting the butt of it lightly on the ground. Wordlessly agreeing, Arturus guided Pala in comfortable silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
Soon, the sound of fighting was heard as Pala and Arturus came over the crest of a hill, and in the small valley below them they spotted Echo going toe to toe with a petrified wood golem. One could tell at a single glance that the battle was quite different from the one Pala had had. Like a willow tree, Echo swayed and twisted and bent, but for the most part, her feet grounded most of the time as she let her body absorb the blows from the enemy.
A fine tactic for someone like her.
Weighing in at about two hundred and thirty kilograms, Echo packed a lot of mass in a small body, allowing her to absorb the impact of the golem that doubled her in height. While the golem was made of petrified wood, Echo was created of hard stone, putting them on near equal standing in terms of toughness. That said, Echo’s body glowed a faint blue, and the clawed hands of the golem would screech by her, scratching but not penetrating her hard body.
On the other hand, Echo’s halberd struck violently against the limbs, as she swung with her weight, chipping away at the hard surface of the golem. Every blow caused the golem’s five arms to accumulate damage, as Echo closed the distance between herself and her enemy. It was a technique that was the exact opposite of Pala’s. She weathered an onslaught of strikes, absorbing the damage and deflecting force away from impact as she faced the enemy head on.
Pala had to admit that she had improved her mobility greatly, and he felt a twinge of jealousy watching her withstand the storm of blows. Once upon a time she could scarcely walk a couple of steps without wobbling. Now she could even parry and deflect some of the attacks from the large petrified wood golem, which would have been impossible for her even a month ago. With her newfound skills, Echo eventually managed to come within range of her enemy. She deflected one strike, and dodged under two more. She wound up her muscles for a horizontal slice, the halberd behind her ready to cut her adversary.
As Echo swung her halberd, a fourth limb came up to strike her like a club right on her ribs. Tilting over like a falling tree, Echo still managed to deliver a brutal blow as her swing angled upwards due to the impact she received. The halberd struck the weakened limbs, shattering two of the golem’s five arms.
Rolling on the ground, Echo recovered and stood at the ready again to face her foe. Looking worse than she ever had before, she stared the petrified wood golem down with a cold, calculating look. Her face was dirty, her bracers and breastplate sported a variety of dings and scratches, and even her stone skin had not managed to remain unscathed. Yet she approached the creature again carefully.
The tree-like golem was unbalanced now. The limbs on its right side were just shattered stumps, while its other three limbs remained mobile. The moment she entered the range of its arms it began to attack, and soon started to tilt due to the lack of weight to counteract the momentum of its swings. Unsteadied, the petrified wood golem took longer to regain its balance and adjust to its swings, but that was enough to make a difference.
The opening only lasted a second or two, but it was all that Echo needed. Stepping to the side, she spun on her foot to dodge a predictable attack from her enemy, pulling her halberd along with her in one fluid motion. The halberd followed its master, drawing a wide arc in the air as it swung at full force, the axe blade of the weapon smacking the enemy in its upper body and throwing it completely off balance.
The petrified wood golem groaned as its side was split, but more importantly it started to fall. Already off-balance, and now pushed by the tremendous force of the blow, it could not remain upright. With a thunderous crash it fell on the ground, its limbs in a tangle squashed by the rest of the heavy body.
Echo followed up without missing a beat, leaping onto the wide body of the creature, and swung away at it with the pick of her weapon instead of the blade. The long halberd smashed against the fractures where its “face” should be. The hard petrified wood shattered on the third swing, clearly revealing the glowing core of the golem. One simple rotation of her weapon, and a follow up strike, ensured that the core was split in half by the axe blade, and the petrified wood golem finally stopped struggling. It looked like any other fallen tree one might encounter, no sign of the killing machine it was before.
Sighing, Echo put down her weapon, and knelt down, reaching into the golem to take the two halves of the mana core and popping them into her mouth like a human might with a berry. Closing her eyes as if to savor the taste of the mana core, Echo stepped off the golem’s body, and bowed to it slightly, a show of respect for the fallen enemy.
“Nicely done,” Pala said as he clapped his hands, walking towards her with Arturus.
“Thank you,” Echo replied as she turned towards her siblings, looking rather beat up. “Arturus, could I ask you to heal me?”
“Of course,” Arturus said with a nod, trotting over to her side to examine her wounds first. “Let’s see… It’s nothing too serious by the looks of it. A lot of scratches and small cracks, however. I would have been concerned if you could bleed. You would look like a mess right now… but I should be able to get you back to normal quickly.”
“Thank you,” Echo said with a sigh as Arturus started to use his magic. This time, the incantation was different from the one he had used on Pala just minutes ago, for Echo’s body took far longer to regenerate. “Father truly created some fearsome creatures this time.”
“That he did,” Pala agreed. He was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one that found the creatures difficult to deal with. That would have been a bit of a blow to his pride. “Those golems are quite something.”
“Glad I could give you all a challenge, then,” Smit’s voice boomed with a laugh behind them, making them turn to look at their creator. Striding down the hill leisurely, Smit held his hands behind his back, looking them over. “These big ones are quite brutal once you get in their range aren’t they?”
“They are,” Echo agreed. “It’s the first time that my body has suffered damage. But at least I got to try out my new skill.”
“Aye, of course they are capable of injuring you! These golems are a mix between organic and mineral matter, so even though they are not as hard as real petrified wood, they still approach the natural hardness of the rock that you are made of, Echo. Add to that the speed at which they swing those heavy arms of theirs and I have to say you look better than I expected for your first encounter. Seems like you managed to at least make proper use of that [Harden Skin] skill, eh?”
“Yes, Father, it is as you say,” she said with a small bow of her head. “Without it, I fear that the battle would have been much harder to deal with.”
“Of course it would have been. You might have lost a hand in the process even,” Smit added with a small chuckle, glad that she had succeeded like she did. “Arturus, seems like your healing has improved a little, hasn’t it? You are making decisions on which spell to use faster, and the actual act of healing seems to take less time to complete.”
“Ziggurd’s pointers on mana handling have been of great help, Father,” Arturus said with a small bow of his head.
“Good, very good,” Smit said as he stroked his beard. “You are all making fantastic strides to better yourselves. I approve of that. Enough duels to the death for now, go all three of you and meditate. Reflect on what you have learned.”
There was a collective agreement to his words, and the three siblings left Smit to his own work. He watched them walk away, and considered the situation. His golems had performed better than he expected, and he fully expected them to be able to handle lower B rank adventurers with the aid of the new ravens he had created.
Humming to himself, Smit walked back to the boss room of the tenth floor, finding Ziggurd meditating in the waterfall. Looking like the embodiment of water, Ziggurd called forth its essence to surround himself, creating an archway of slowly moving water above him. Light danced on within the currents, glittering as if there were grains of gold and silver flowing through it.
Though perhaps this didn’t look like much to the uneducated person, Ziggurd was carefully regulating the essence of two elements, while keeping the flow of water in motion. This was a feat that would have been beyond his reach as a human. But now that his new body was finely attuned to the elements of water and light, he was capable of feats that he would have believed impossible without decades of practice.
As Ziggurd had once explained it, magic is usually only released upon the completion of a spell. Unlike qi users who used their internal energy, magic casters manipulated the mana around them to manifest a phenomenon, and this was achieved through some sort of incantation, be it in the form of spells, rituals, or magic formulas. To be able to manipulate the mana directly, and make it influence the elements of the world without an incantation, was something that only those on the level of grand mage or higher could hope to achieve. And yet, there he was, manipulating the very water and light without using an incantation.
Smiling, Smit said nothing as he moved quietly around Ziggurd. He entered into his core room and sat down comfortably on the ground, crossing his legs. His sons and daughter were working hard and it wouldn’t do to fall behind them. As a father, he had to set an example, after all.
Closing his eyes, Smit started to cultivate once more.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sonja trudged along with his gnarled staff, slowly making his way down the dusty road wearing a calm demeanor. There was no rush in his movements, no wobble to his step, nor any sign of discomfort. The hem of his long grey robes fluttered gently in the breeze, only revealing the worn leather sandals that covered his feet. His appearance was that of a man in his thirties, with a short orange beard and moustache. Despite his broad shoulders and portly appearance, he was clearly a priest or monk. In fact, if he had donned armor he could have easily passed for a soldier of the kingdom.
“What a beautiful day it is, is it not Ensa?” Sonja asked as he observed his surroundings. With a shining sun and a sky dotted by a few white clouds, the weather was perfectly suited for traveling at the moment. A welcome change after the storm they had to endure just two days ago that had soaked him and his companion to the bone.
Beside him, a second man and a large lynx-like creature walked. Wearing leather armor to protect his chest as well as leather bracers for his arms, the man was just as tall as the monk beside him, but thinner, with sharper, more elongated features. With a whip on his belt and a small holster of knives on the other side, this man fashioned himself a beast tamer, given the lynx that walked by his side.
“Aye, that it is,” Ensa replied. “Flo is certainly enjoying the weather as well. He isn’t a happy fellow when it rains.”
“Ha, I know that much. Have I ever told you how comforting it is to have this big ball of fur as our companion?” Sonja asked as he tracked a butterfly drifting through the air. “Having a great lynx on our side is never a bad thing.”
“Aye, you have mentioned it on occasion,” the man said with a half-smile. “Especially after those bandits tried to get the jump on us a few nights ago, your appreciation for Flo seems to have grown.”
“Hmph, of course it has,” the monk said with a chuckle. “Though he might occasionally try to steal my food, it is a minor price to pay in exchange for his security services. His night vision never ceases to amaze me.”
“He is a feline, Sonja. Of course his night vision is excellent,” he said proudly, reaching down to pet Flo’s head. The cat was quite large, the size of a large dog in height, managing to stretch nearly six feet in height if he stood on his hind legs. Definitely not a creature you wanted stalking you in the night, unless you were prepared to bleed profusely.
“Yes, he is. And it’s precisely because he is a feline that it never ceases to amaze me that he hasn’t yet eaten your feathery friend,” Sonja said with mirth.
“Not for a lack of trying,” Ensa said with a laugh. “When Flo met Beek, he tried to eat her half a dozen times. Didn’t work out too well for yah, did it you big fluff?”
The lynx gave him a look that could be interpreted as annoyance, before coughing and continuing to walk as if nothing had been said. Clearly the creature did not find the topic of conversation interesting in the slightest. Rather, the feline was just happy to be left alone and walking along with them.
“It also amazes me how much he understands,” Sonja added as he stroked his beard slowly, eyeing the cat with interest. The special bond that connected a tamer and the beast was quite something. It enabled them to communicate with such efficiency and clarity that it was hard to believe that the tamed creature was still just an animal and not something else.
“Aye. It’s a lot of work to get a familiar though,” Ensa said with a sigh. “I’ve been a tamer almost six years now, and I have managed to only obtain two familiars. I suppose I might be able to obtain a third now that Flo and Beek are comfortably settled and work well in tandem with each other, but that might be a long endeavor.”
“Ah yes. Having a permanent familiar is a long process, isn’t it? A couple of months at least,” Sonja said with a sagely nod.
“If you are lucky,” Ensa nodded. “You need more than just a touch of magic and some fancy words. Intimacy and trust are required for a tamer bond to be formed properly. Flo needed nearly a year to become my familiar, but I will blame partially my inexperience on that one. Beek still required about half of that.”
“Ah, speak of the devil,” Sonja said as the cry of a hawk rang out, echoing in the distance. Looking up, he spotted a rust-red bird with a sharp beak sailing through the air in wide circles, eyes locked onto the small party of travelers.
“Ah, there you are,” Ensa said as he raised his arm, exposing his leather bracer for the bird to perch on. Like a well-trained acrobat, the bird dove down fearlessly, spreading his wings at the last minute to slow his descent, carefully landing on the bracer, proceeding to look around regally. The hawk was rather large, sitting about twenty-seven centimeters in height. He looked at his tamer and cawed twice, relaying some sort of message to Ensa before exposing his neck.
“Well done, Beek,” Ensa said as he reached out and gently scratched the neck of the hawk, who looked quite happy to be pampered. “Beek says that the Nam village is in sight just over that hill. We should be there by the end of the day if we maintain a good pace.”
Clapping his hands, Sonja smiled brightly and nodded. “Excellent! Let us move then, friend. We shouldn’t dally more than necessary. As pleasant as the weather is, I would prefer to sleep indoors today.”
“Agreed,” Ensa replied, promptly passing the hawk over to his shoulder so he could resume walking without having his arm awkwardly stretched out for the rest of the journey. “What will we do once we are there, though?”
