Chapter 73 - Thirty-First Floor (6)

Bonerakard and Boking were watching the scene of Lumen taking shelter inside the amber-colored skeleton.

"Will you allow this?" Boking questioned. He wasn't happy that Lumen was cheating by using the skeleton.

"I don't see why not. It's my fault for not teaching the little one," Bonerakard replied.

"But we never expected such a thing to happen! The little one is only two thousand years old. He is still so young we haven't even given him a name yet!" Boking exclaimed.

"And it seems there won't be a need for us to do that since he will get a name within a few days," Bonerakard replied.

"But it's our tradition that skeletons get their name after they pass the five-thousand-year mark," Boking said.

"The little one isn't exactly a normal skeleton, so that tradition doesn't really apply to him," Bonerakard told him, and Boking let out a sigh.

"I only wanted us to be ones that name him," Boking sadly said. "I remember when you granted my name. I was so excited that day."

"I remember it as well. It took me a long time to decide on your name, but I think I chose the best one possible." Bonerakard replied proudly.

"Me too! You are the only one that has a better name than me!" Boking stated just as proud of his name.

Meanwhile, the group was recovering their strength in the Hydra heart chamber, and about six hours had passed since they had destroyed the Hydra heart.

Androssi was sleeping on Tiana's thɨġhs when she suddenly sprang up and looked around in confusion.

"Where are we? How long was I asleep? How much time do we have left?" Androssi asked Tiana a series of questions in a quick manner.

"We are in the chamber of the second Hydra heart, and you've been asleep for around eight hours. We have about five more days left." Tiana informed her.

"What about Lumen? He's been fighting on that island for two days straight by now. Is he okay? How is he keeping up?" Androssi asked in a panic.

"I talked with him earlier. He said he found a safe place where he wouldn't be attacked by the Bone Hydras. Everything will depend on us from now on." Tiana answered her, and Androssi let out a sigh of relief. "Good, good, good."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go and get deal with the rest of the Hydra hearts!" Androssi exclaimed.

"We are ready to move, we were just waiting for you," Leesoo said, and Androssi turned towards him with hatred in her eyes. Before he could even realize what happened, he was sent flying towards one of the walls.

"You shut up. No one asked you." Androssi told him, as Leesoo weakly stood up while bleeding from his nose.

"You broke my nose!" Leesoo yelled out, which resulted in him being shot by a pink Shinsoo beam in the stomach.

"I told you to shut up!" Androssi said, and Leesoo didn't dare reply to her.

Tiana shook her head and manifested her white tulip. It covered his wounds and healed him up.

Leesoo gave Tiana a thankful nod but didn't dare thank her out loud.

"We first need to open up the passage that we blocked," Merrie said.

"Leave this to me!" Androssi confidently declared. "I will smash this in a second!"

Merrie shook her head and stopped her. "It's better if you save your strength as much as possible. You are the only one that could deal with the monsters in the poisonous sea."

"Fine." Androssi pouted in response.

"Anak, can you use your needle to deal with it?" Merrie asked.

"Yes," Anak responded and walked up to the blocked tunnel with Anoph in her hand. She placed the black needle in front of the rubble and decompressed her weapon.

Anoph enlarged itself and destroyed everything in its path without Anak even attacking. There were hundreds of bone spiders that were behind the rubble, but they were also destroyed by the black needle.

"Done," Anak stated and returned to the group.

"Let's go," Merrie told the group and led them in the correct direction. Hatsu stayed in the front acting as the Fisherman and dealt with any enemies that they encountered.

They quickly maneuvered through the tunnels and reached the poisonous sea.

"I can sense two Hydra hearts. One is around six or seven hours from here, while the other is about eleven hours away." Merrie told the group.

"Shouldn't we..." Leesoo was about to give his suggestion when he saw the look in Androssi eyes and quickly shut up.

"Let's go to the closest one," Androssi stated.

'That's what I was about to say.' Leesoo thought.

"I think we've rested enough to go for the one that's further away," Merrie replied. She had a weird feeling about this.

"Shouldn't we deal with the closest one first, so we destroy them as soon as possible?" Androssi questioned.

"I'm not sure. Something is blocking my senses of a Guide. I don't know which is the correct choice here." Merrie said.

"If you are not sure, then let's just go for the closest one," Androssi said. "We can save up our energy like this and make sure we can deal with the rest on time."

"What do the rest of you think?" Merrie asked the others.

"You lead the way, and we follow. You and Leesoo are the brains of the team, while the rest of us are the brawn." Aleksai replied, and the rest nodded to his words in agreement.

"Leesoo?" Merrie asked about his opinion.

"Well..." Leesoo thought about saying that they should go for the one that's further away since Merrie had a weird feeling about this, but he then noticed the look in Androssi's eyes.

"Let's go for the closer one." Leesoo weakly said.

The group created their Shinsoo bubble and proceeded towards the closer Hydra heart.

"That might backfire on them. They might not have enough time to reach the last one with the current path they took." Boking said as he observed the group.

"Maybe," Bonerakard replied and turned to look at Lumen and the amber-colored skeleton.

Lumen was sitting in the bone structure while telling stories about his climb to the skeleton. Besides him were Saber and Berserker, who had both compressed their size.

Berserker normally couldn't decrease his size, but Gustang, as a Floor Ruler himself, had granted him that ability. That, however, had really hurt the dinosaur's pride since both the annoying snake and the lazy cat were able to change their size without being granted that ability.

"So, most creatures have this thing called skin, outside this place?" The skeleton asked in surprise as he looked at the animals around Lumen.

"Mostly, yes." Lumen replied.

"Wow! So does that mean that everyone there is special? Or are the skeletons here special?" He asked in wonder. The amber-colored skeleton loved calling everything that's not normal to him, special.

"I'd say that the people here are special." Lumen said with a chuckle.

"But you are also special, right? Since you can transform into a bird made of fire?" The skeleton asked.

"You can say so." Lumen replied.

"So that makes us both special, right?" The skeleton asked.

"Yes, yes, we are." Lumen answered with a laugh.

"Wow! So my first friend and I are both special!" The skeleton exclaimed. "You will even give me a name in a few days! Meeting you was the best day of my life!"

Initially, Lumen wanted to use the amber-colored skeleton to his advantage since the Bone Hydras avoided attacking him, but he started liking the gullible fellow.

While the two were chatting, the group had reached the cave for the third Hydra heart. The moment they stepped inside the cave, hundreds of bone ants exited the tunnels and swarmed them.

They've already gone through this a couple of times, so they all knew their roles. Hatsu jumped in the front while Verdi and Vespa ȧssisted him with killing the bone creatures. They quickly dealt with the swarm of ants, and Merrie led them towards the location of the Hydra heart.

Two massive bone ants were guarding the bone orb. The two creatures looked terrifying, and power was radiating out of them. However, the bone alligator they met in the first chamber was a lot scarier than them.

"Hatsu freeze them, and Verdi, use the cannon," Merrie said.

Without a word, Hatsu ignited Ryu and send an ice wave at the two creatures. He froze them in place, but cracks were already forming on the ice around them.

At the same time, Verdi had pulled out a cannon that was far larger than her. She propped it on her shoulder and aimed at the frozen bone ants. The rest of the group all had their hands blocking their ears since they knew what's going to happen.

In the next moment, a massive beam of Shinsoo erupted from the cannon, followed by a really loud noise, akin to the sound of thunder. The entire cave trembled from the noise, and a few rocks dropped from the ceiling.

One of the ants was shattered and destroyed from the attack, and Verdi aimed at the other. Another massive beam of Shinsoo was shot from the cannon and destroyed the other ant.

"THAT WAS FUN!" Verdi yelled out after she stored the cannon.

The weapon she used was called the Roaring Thunder, a B8-Ranked weapon. It had amazing firepower but had the downside that it could only be used twice. After that, it would have to be recharged for five days before it could be used again. (ED: Well that's awfully convenient.)

The user would also have trouble hearing after using the Roaring Thunder. Which wasn't a big problem for Verdi since she can hear other people's thoughts.

"Verdi, no need to yell, we are right here next to you," Aleksai told her.

Verdi tilted her head in confusion and said. "BUT I'M NOT YELLING."

Tiana walked up to her and patted her on the head. "You did a good job."

"THANK YOU!" Verdi replied to her.

Hatsu walked closer to the Hydra heart and sent a wave of fire with Donghae and destroyed the bone orb.

"Three down, four more to go. Let's take a quick rest and make our way towards the next one after that." Merrie asked and turned towards the gray-haired girl. "Verdi, can you block the tunnel, please?"

"YES!" Verdi manifested her squid and used it to block the passage, by hitting the ceiling and filling it up with rocks.

Lumen was chatting with the amber-colored skeleton when he sensed that one of the Bone Hydras froze in place.

"Let me just deal with this, and I will be right back." Lumen told the skeleton and stood up. He walked out of the bone structure, send a blast of black fire at the Bone Hydra, and returned back inside.

"That was Bone Hydra No. 734 that you just killed." The skeleton stated.

"That's its name?" Lumen asked.

"No. I don't know its name since it never talked with me. Apparently, they are too young to talk. Either way, I named it that since there are so many of them, and I had to differentiate them in some way." The skeleton explained.

"How many have you met?" Lumen questioned.

"I think the last one I met was Bone Hydra No. 5789." The skeleton answered.

Lumen's eyes widened in surprise when he heard how many of the immortal creatures lived in Bonerakard's domain.

"Wait, you said they were too young to talk. Do you mean that there are Bone Hydras that can talk?" Lumen asked.

"Yes! They are way cooler than the others. They have a thousand heads, and they give me bones to eat when I meet them." The skeleton exclaimed.

"There's this one called Bonezunna. From time to time, we compete at who can swim faster. I'm the best swimmer here, and she is the only one that can keep up with my speed."

"Bonemoke is also pretty cool! He goes out of his way to get me the best bones he could find!"

"Bonezuk sometimes..."

The skeleton started telling stories about the Hydras that have one thousand heads. Hearing them, Lumen was thankful that he had to face the ones that had only one hundred heads. He shuddered at the thought of having to face seven Bone Hydras, with each one having one thousand heads.