Chapter 80 - Hard Mode

"Hmmm… this is unexpected." Liam smiled, his lips curling upwards. 

"Why are you happy, bro?" Shin Soo looked at the debuffs and wanted to cry. Not only did the final boss of the dungeon have more health but also their debuffs were worse.

This was completely different from what everybody had mentioned in the forums.

"Pay attention. Stop thinking about other things." Liam raised his hand almost at the same time as the wraith moved its arms.

While a big fireball materialized in front of him, black wisps of energy leaked from the wraith and spread all over the lake and the neighboring ground.

The next second the ground started to quake and sputter as if something was trying to break through to the surface. 

Crack. Crack. Crack. Bony hands started sticking out of the ground. Dozens of skeletons arose from within and started running towards the group of five. 

[Lava Rain] Liam immediately activated his aoe skill.

"Form a circle and attack whatever is closest to the circle. Don't worry about the ones in the back." Everyone nodded and quickly adjusted their formation.

With their backs to the lake, they sort of stood in a semi-circle with the healer and the other mage in the center. 

The tank, the thief, and Liam stood on the outside and bombarded their attacks on the incoming skeletons, clearing the army of undead one after the other.

"Bro only a few of the villagers buried around the lake were supposed to resurrect! Why is our run extra difficult?" 

Shin Soo asked Liam for the nth time and just as he muttered those words out loud, he realized the answer to that question finally.

Their run was extra difficult! What did that mean? 

They were running it on a different difficulty level compared to the rest of the players!

While others were yet to unlock any hidden bosses or the various modes for the dungeons in the 'Evolution online' game, they had undoubtedly stumbled into one.

Or at least that's what the tank thought.

Liam, on the other hand, was completely aware of what he was doing right from the beginning. 

Every dungeon except for the beginner's dungeon had varying difficulty levels, but one cannot simply select a difficulty.

It is automatically determined by the skill level of the players training in the dungeon. 

In fact, this was only the second stage. If they had cleared it even faster, then the difficulty level would have risen some more.

Everything in the game was basically designed to train human beings to unlock their hidden potential and prepare them for the life that laid ahead.

The group continued with the painful clearing of the resurrected villagers one after the other as they dashed towards them endlessly.

These provided experience points as well, so they were essentially farming for experience points right now.

This was both a test and a reward for the dungeon. It was difficult but if somehow one managed to clear it, they would get a lot of experience points. 

After breaking apart a few of the undead, Liam took a second to cast his basic necromancy spell [Awaken]. 

Immediately the broken bones that had fallen down at their feet combined together and started to once again become undead warriors.

5 skeletons appeared next to Liam and started fighting against the incoming horde of undead. They did not last long but they took down 3 to 5 enemies along with them.

And it was also easier for Liam to cast fireballs and focus on the mana regulation when he was not paying attention to the close combat part.

As they were in the middle of a chaotic situation, the tank and the thief standing beside him and fighting did not notice this but the healer and the mage noticed.

Chung Hee, who had not opened his mouth so far had a frown on his face as he asked Liam. "Liam, are you really a mage? How are you able to control the undead?"

His words startled everyone as they all stared at Liam with a look of bafflement on their faces. Sword, magic spells, pets, and now undead…?!

Liam, however, simply smiled. "This is also a mage skill. There is nothing special about it." He didn't explain anything further and continued culling down the undead herd.

Chung Hee was unwilling to accept this answer and looked like he wanted to ask something, but Shin Soo interrupted him. "We can talk about these things later. Let's first clear the dungeon."

The mage nodded and continued throwing spells at the undead. He just couldn't understand how the other person with the same occupation as him was doing so much better than him.

It was one thing if it was just a matter of a few tens of damage plus or minus, but to have hundreds of differences in their damage output was simply shameful. 

Not to mention the wide variety of spells the other party possessed. He couldn't help but feel very envious. Chung Hee sighed.

However, he didn't have a lot of time to feel down and depressed. The horde of undead was unrelenting so everyone had to give their best in order to not be completely overrun.

At the same time, experience points were also showering endlessly. 

After a while, the wraith shouted loudly, once again muttering something in an archaic language and a red aura appeared on the undead villagers who were still standing.

These undead suddenly became much stronger and tougher and it was becoming more difficult to deal with them.

"They give more exp too!" Liam chuckled, reminding everyone about the bright silver line.

This continued on for a few more minutes when finally none of the undead villagers were remaining. Only a pile of broken bones and dust was heaped around the group.

RAAAAA! RAAAAA!

The boss started loudly shouting as if it was enraged to see all of its summons being slaughtered. 

"Is that going to summon more undeads?" Shin Soo wiped the sweat off his forehead and nervously muttered.