432 Dark Underground Normal Mode

Eva and co entered the dungeon on the same difficulty level as last time and encountered the very same Rancid Giantworm. Eva's attack had formerly only been able to deal -16,000 damage, but now they were doing -300,000 damage straight up! 

This was a major upgrade given the circumstances, and that was not even taking in Roma and Zaine whose basic attacks dealt damage in the millions. Zaine zapped the poor creature with endless lightning bolts while Roma summoned her Witch Slaves to drain it. 

Last time, only the Four Beauties had absorbed enough to Rank themselves up, so this time Roma planned to gorge them on the life essence of Rank 3 foes in order to increase their State of Being and Rank. 

Hikari didn't even have to buff or heal anybody as everything was completely under control. She just watched on boredly as they cleared the dungeon rapidly and with ease. 

Zaine eventually got tired of testing her new skills out and just cast Mirage on any foes they encountered so that Roma's Witch Slaves could drain them from beginning to end. 

The two dark-skinned beauties took turns using their Mirage skill in order to practice their utility with it. In practically no time they reached the boss's lair, where the Kobold King awaited them with his Royal Guards. 

｢Name: Kobold Royal Guard – Captain Rank monster 

Level: 120 

HP: 20,000,000/20,000,000｣ 

｢Name: Kobold King – Major Rank monster 

Level: 145 

HP: 35,000,000/35,000,000｣ 

They were truly powerful. Compared to NPCs of the same Rank, monsters would always have 10x more health due to their crazy endurance and well, game mechanics. 

However, to the squad of ladies who entered this shabby underground throne room, it might as well have been nothing new. Eva was the one most suppressed, since she was not only hit with the massive level suppression but also with the Rank suppression. 

She would have a bit of a hard time in greatly damaging this trio compared to the monsters out there. As for Zaine and Roma, they both frowned and got ready to fight. 

Kobolds weren't like Rancid Giantworms which were basically retards with strength. Kobolds were one of the few monster types known for their high intelligence mainly because they had a bit of dragon blood in them. 

This was shown when the Kobold King, while not being a named monster, waved his hand to his two Royal Guards lazily. "Adventurer's from afar, you have come here to claim my head to increase your strength. I too will have my Royal Guards capture you four as breeding pens for the next generation of my clan." 

Eva spoke coldly. "Go all out and show this filthy lizard what true despair feels like." 

Zaine and Roma, who had largely used their techniques alone to get by, stepped forth and planned to decimate these two Royal Guards in record time. Hikari also crushed one of her Aether Crystals and cast While Light Blessing on the duo, increasing damage, defense and stats by four times. 

The Royal Guard on the left wielded a greataxe while the one on the right wielded a lance. Likewise, the left one wore medium armor while the right one wore light armor. 

Their combination seemed strange, but Eva understood with a single glance that they must have been trained to complement each other given the way their stances barely had any openings and their partner expertly covered up those weak points. 

In other words, they would display 150% of their base strength when fighting together, but only 70% when fighting alone. Take one down, and the other should be easy to deal with. 

Ideally, a party with typical players would bring one main and one off-tank to this fight with each one taking on one of the Royal Guards. Then, the healers would focus on the main tank while the damage dealers rushed to kill the one the off-tank was keeping in line. 

Once that was done, they'd move over to the Royal Guard the main tank had been handling and kill it too, which should be easier. A simple strategy, but quite unbreakable. 

However, Zaine and Roma knew nothing of player strategies. Zaine simply trapped her target in a Mirage while using Psi-Blade. It dealt 150% mental damage while incapacitating the half-dead creature for 4 whole minutes. 

-10,500,000! 

Once the blade struck, Zaine released the Mirage and sneered. She then stood by the side as half of Roma's Witch Slaves drained the Royal Guard to death with ecstatic expressions. 

On Roma's side, her job had been even simpler. She just captured her foe into a mirage and led the other half of her Witch Slaves to gorge on their meal. The Kobold King watched this coldly, as if he wasn't bothered by his guards' weakness. 

He simply harrumphed and rose from his throne calmly, gazing down at the Four Beauties with interest. "It seems you females are not as weak and useless as those of my own race who require protection. Not bad." 

After giving a rude comment that made the frowns on the face of the Four Beauties deepen, the Kobold King leapt into the air and landed in front of them with a bang. 

He took out a simple greatsword from his back and stretched his body lazily. His size was 1.5x bigger than the women, and his form was muscular yet streamlined. 

He wore well-made medium armor and had a nice cape that fluttered behind him. He also wore a small crown that seemed like it had been glued onto his head. 

Despite wearing a calm smile and seeming extremely capable, the Four Beauties only gazed at him boredly. It was no different from how a superstar would gaze at a street singer daring to try and show them up. 

Zaine and Roma shared a look before nodding. They both cast Mirage on the Kobold King in order to overlay its effects. If he was strong enough to resist one of them, then two should be able to easily incapacitate him. 

The Kobold King's face changed as he was hit with the mental attack, yet he was barely able to retain 10% of his consciousness. Zaine and Roma were in disbelief at his mental prowess. It would be conceivable under normal circumstances, but they had just been buffed to 4x their strength by Hikari! 

They couldn't understand why this was happening, yet Eva could. There was a large gulf between a Captain Rank monster and a Major Rank one. When Mephisto had appeared in Stagnant Moss Town after Draco killed Ratchet, his avatar had the power of a Rank 2 Major at level 75, yet his killing intent had been able to cripple the entire town. 

On the other hand, this was a bonafide Rank 3 Major dungeon boss in the flesh, so of course it would be resistant to such forms of damage. Their group so far had largely been playing with monsters at the Captain Rank at the maximum, so it was natural that to Hikari and co, this was a new lesson. 

She and Draco had fought with all kinds of monsters including those of the General Rank (World Boss) in the previous timeline, so she intimately knew the difference between the Monster Ranks. 

Despite the shock the two were showing on their faces, Eva did not step up to help Roma or Zaine. She wanted to see if their training so far had paid off, and she wanted this to catalyze their growth. They had largely jumped through one whole Rank in an instant, so they needed to get used to their power. 

The Kobold King rushed forward and slapped away the Witch Slaves who stood in his path, directly cutting some of them in half as they wore disbelieving expressions. Ever since they had come into being during the Flora and Fauna Quest, the Witch Slaves had easily dominated everything and everyone they were ordered to fight. 

This was their first time suffering such a loss, but luckily, they were mostly undead. Being cut in half was simply a matter of using the absorbed life force to heal themselves. Now, if they got hit with Light magic or the like, that would be a different story. In that case, they would be exterminated totally. 

The Kobold King launched at Zaine and swung his greatsword down on her. Wanting to test her skills, Zaine cast her Psi-Barrier. 

｢Psi-Barrier – Active Skill 

Effect: Create a protective shield of purified mental energy around the caster that negates 100% of all mental damage while reflecting 50% of the damage back, as well as negating 70% of all physical damage. 

Duration: 3 minutes 

Cooldown: 5 minutes｣ 

Zaine wanted to see how much damage it could soak up before it cracked, but she was not ready for the sheer power of the Kobold King's swing when it connected with her barrier and broke it at once. 

-200,000! 

Zaine was lucky her HP was currently above a million, otherwise she would have died in one hit. Fortunately, there was the 70% damage negation helping her, but the takeaway from this was that she had learned the strength of her Psi-Barrier. 

She quickly cast Psi-Restoration on herself which brought her back to full everything. As for the Kobold King, Zaine frowned at his follow-up attack and teleported away with Ultra Apportation. 

Seeing that his attack missed, the Kobold King honed in on Roma, who had been watching on silently per Eva's command. Once the boss monster made it clear that it was her turn, Roma simply smirked and used Dark Hands. 

｢Dark Hands – Active skill 

Effect: Summon a plethora of undead arms from the earth that trap all enemies within 1 mile and rip them to shreds. 

Duration: 2 minutes 

Cooldown: 30 seconds.｣ 

True to its name, a great multitude of hands shaped from darkness itself burst from the ground and reached towards the Kobold King. With a frown, the Major Rank monster tried to leap away from them but paled when the hands combined with each other to become larger and more fluid. 

Like a snake, they coiled and then sprung forth at prohibitive speed, capturing the Kobold King in its grasp before the eye could even follow. Immediately, the hands began poisoning him with Darkness Energy while physically crushing his body. 

-300,000! -250,000! -200,000! 

Each second, the Kobold King lost prohibitive amounts of health. If he had his full mental faculties, he might have been able to brute force his way through, but with only 10% of his mind unburdened, he was slowly crushed to death as Zaine and Roma sneered at him. 

A pitiful death for a Major Rank boss and the first of this kind of ending Eva had seen for a monster of this Rank. She lightly breathed out, feeling somewhat bad for it. As a Rank 3 Major, it was definitely super strong and had many crazy skills as well as techniques that could be used to party-wipe even a group of 20 average Rank 3 players. 

However, he got totally oppressed by Zaine and Roma thanks to Hikari's insane buffs, as their level of OPness surpassed anything he could reasonably fight against. 

｢Congratulations on completing: Dark Underground normal mode 

Time elapsed: 0:12:34 

Enemies killed: 24 

Team Deaths: 0 

Team Members: 4/20 

Assessment: SS+ 

Reward: 

3 Epic Treasure Chest 

20,000 Platinum｣ 

Eva frowned. She had made them speedrun this dungeon in hopes that they would get an exp reward, but it seemed that the AI had made its intentions clear: they should forget about any more freebies in terms of exp growth. 

3 Epic Treasure Chest and 20k platinum for SS+ was reasonable, but Eva felt depressed when she saw their total exp gain. 

They had gotten 236% experience for running the entire dungeon! Compared to when they got 69,081%, the difference was staggering. In fact, they only got above 100% exp because of Eva who was one Rank below as usual. 

Without her, the total exp might have been around 58%. It was crazy how much the AI limited player growth, it was like it wanted players to struggle and spend a lot of time honing their skills before gaining more power…