Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Two weeks had passed since Jalel’s death, with little gained other than a couple levels for each of them and no results in terms of a way out. Kajit had also been very quiet ever since Riven had denied her request, ever since he’d said he had more important things to do at the moment. She had yet to show up again at all, actually, which was a welcome thing in Riven’s opinion.

They’d never found the boat Jalel had once spoken of, the one that was supposed to have been tethered to an outcropping of rock on the river of blood that traced itself through the city. Perhaps this was because Jalel hadn’t specified which river of blood, as it was a far larger area than they’d anticipated, with many waterways branching off the main channel. They’d wandered aimlessly trying to find an exit, killing or running from undead and demon spawn alike when they weren’t scavenging off the battles between different monsters.

The things he’d learned in that time were quite interesting.

First off, there was actually a way to see HP (health points), MP (mana points), or SP (stamina points) even though they were usually hidden. Athela was insistent that if they found someone that had attained an Identifier class title, these people would be able to join a party and allow visualization of such things. These identifiers at higher class tiers were also able to give a lot more detailed information concerning the durability of items, the tiers of said items, the estimated value of those items, and various other things that normal people with no class title or other class titles could not see. It was apparently commonplace for guilds, armies, or explorers to incorporate an Identifier into their journeys to get more accurate reads on their enemies.

Then Riven came across a lich one day in the process of resurrecting the dead. Not just raising it to become an undead itself, but actually resurrecting the creature. He hadn’t realized that even possible until now, and he had gawked like a small child on Christmas when he’d learned that if he ever became powerful enough, he too would be able to perform feats such as that if given the right conditions. However, at the current moment that was way out of his league—the lich he’d seen do it was over level 200.

And finally, he was beginning to understand how magic worked at a deeper level than what he’d been able to glean in the past. Every day he practiced the ins and outs of the spells he already had, and he was now able to manipulate them far faster and with more efficiency than he’d been able to at the start of his journey. Athela had told him that he was a magical genius and a born caster, in her own words, and that he had an extreme talent for the Unholy arts. What would take people years to learn, Riven had learned in almost zero time, and the magic responded to him almost as if it was a separate limb he’d been able to use all his life. His spells were beginning to cost him less and less mana as time went on for the same amount of magical output, even disregarding level gains. Athela couldn’t really piece together why this was happening, but she was always visibly excited about it whenever he found a way to improve or expand upon his magical output for less mana cost simply by changing the way he manipulated mana or visualized the spell.

This practice was what consumed Riven’s time in the two weeks since Jalel’s passing while they searched for a way out. Riven wanted to get back home to Earth, or to whatever Earth had become since this “multiverse” had incorporated it. He needed to get out of this hellscape dungeon. He still had yet to find a portal exit out of here, and he hadn’t yet spotted any bosses or minibosses to attempt to kill for a ticket out.Cheêck out latest novels at novelhall.com

But their efforts hadn’t been entirely fruitless. While they’d been searching for a path out, they’d realized quite quickly that there were different tribes of creatures that lived here in Dungeon Negrada—and mapping out the city in small pieces at a time had doubtless saved them from stumbling into certain death on more than one occasion.

There were the red-skinned, three-eyed Jabob demons, like the cultists they’d encountered when Athela had been imprisoned. The Jabobs were brutal, barbaric little shits that often employed varieties of magic, making them rather dangerous at a distance, but they were physically weak up close. It made them easy targets for Azmoth, as he’d crush them one by one after barreling through their fire-based attacks head-on while having the time of his life. Meanwhile, Riven stayed in the back lines for suppressive fire, dealing heavy damage at a distance, and Athela would focus on keeping Riven safe or on assassinating the back lines of enemy casters, depending on the situation. The arachnid was particularly sneaky and was often able to subdue a target without ever being spotted prior to the all-out fight.

There were the harpies, too, which had nests scattered among the rooftops and higher places of these ruins. In particular, the juvenile harpies were far weaker and smaller than fully grown harpies. The adults were twice the size of the ones Riven had first fought and far meaner. On one instance, Azmoth had nearly died fighting off three of them that’d tried to carry Athela away. Azmoth had the hardest time with the adults, as they were hard to catch and he had to rely on Riven or Athela to bring them down to ground level in order to tear them apart.

There were also the undead, with large packs of them each controlled by one or two minor liches. The liches in particular were incredibly powerful, and these were the enemies that worried Riven the most. They were often surrounded by monstrous flesh golems made from bunched-up corpses that smelled terrible or a small legion of ghouls and zombies, while being able to cast obliterating magics from the back lines, just like Riven preferred to do. Many of the undead also roamed the city without a pack, often unbound to any master and aimlessly wandering until they found food or were killed to be eaten themselves.

Then there were the lone solo monsters or less common species, ranging in size and variety. Aside from the liches, it was often these creatures that took the title of apex predators—often being some sort of demon or abomination that Riven had no intention of ever facing in battle lest he be immediately killed. They’d seen a huge yellow-eyed basilisk with shiny black scales, another muscular, axe-wielding minotaur twice the size of Azmoth, an elemental wolf created from fire and lightning, and even a gorgeous gorgon surrounded by statues and nesting atop a mountain of rotting bodies that they’d dared not approach. A couple of other tribal creatures also called this place home, but they were sparse in number and not a significant percentage of the dungeon’s occupants.

Aside from the types of monsters, they’d also learned much about how the monsters came to be. The dungeon...this place that the system called Negrada...spawned monsters at random. Meanwhile, there were other certain species that were seen reproducing. The Jabob demons in particular had been seen carrying eggs, and one of these eggs had hatched into an infant while Athela watched from a distant window—as she’d been unfamiliar with this breed before now even though she was a demon herself. Meanwhile, Riven had actually seen a zombie ox being created out of thin air from nothing but mana. He’d even gotten a warning notification from the dungeon system saying he was in the spawn area of another creature.

That’d been the same day that Riven had learned the river of blood had healing properties. The first time he’d actually thought about utilizing it for this reason had been shortly after the encounter with the giant blood squid creature in the pit trap. Back then, right before Gluttony had ripped the monster apart, he’d been instinctively drawing on the blood pool to heal himself, and he was pretty damn sure it’d been the same type of blood as the stuff flowing through the rivers here. So after engaging in a battle nearby that’d been drawn out into the river, Riven had been made keenly aware that drinking it regenerated his body even faster than his already abnormal regeneration could produce.

They’d been quick to bottle it in the six glass vials taken from Jalel’s bag—one of the few things that’d actually been worth anything in the supplies they’d dug through. The resultant pseudo-potions weren’t really even potions at all, but rather had quite a different label to them entirely when inspecting them through system commands.

Riven hummed to himself as he stepped over two more bodies of low-level ghouls he’d already killed, tossing the copper knife to Azmoth, who put it in their loot bag, and yawned as he turned a corner in the small hallway. With every breath he took, tiny puffs of blood mist would exit through small pores in the mask he wore...a rather cool visual effect for a vampiric item, and he was pretty damn sure the mask was also purifying the air around him, as every time he inhaled the air felt crisp and refreshing.

Looking down at his chipped, gnarled staff, he could only hope he’d get a new weapon soon, too. It was looking much worse than when he’d first gotten it, and although he kept it for the mana regeneration, he tried not to use it as a physical weapon anymore because he didn’t want it to break.

He turned another corner and came to a stop as his eyes locked onto yet another undead, the last of the small pack that was inching its way toward them.

[Level 2 Ghoul, Undead]

The approaching ghoul, the straggler of the group, had finally seen him after turning the corner and nearly tripping over a small pile of rubble. With a roar and a phlegm-filled, barking cough, it began barreling down the narrow hallway with bloodlust in its eyes, either too stupid or too hungry to care about the peril it was in under the cold stare of the warlock.

Athela glanced Riven’s way with a raised leg. “I believe it’s still your turn?”

He nodded and wiped the sweat off his brow while stepping over a partially broken skeleton. “Mine.”

Riven’s fingers clenched into a tight fist as red ribbons of magic drew up the length of his arm to his right bicep, licking his skin and smoldering as the mana was condensed and prepared for a strike.

The blood magic immediately bristled, streaked through the veins of his forearm and into his fingertips—and his mind homed in on the intended target. It only took a few seconds, and the ghoul was still ten feet away from him as he let the magic soar through the air like a crimson torpedo. In an instant, the monster’s body ripped apart in a blur—tearing into the shrieking, bloodthirsty creature with a clean hole the size of Riven’s thigh carved out of its chest and left shoulder.

The blast ripped the undead creature backward, flipping it over and spraying black blood everywhere while it shrieked. It slammed into the ground with a wet splat, lying broken on the floor from the aftershock of the magic and only letting out low groans.

Riven snorted, then casually walked up to the monster—lifted his boot—and slammed it into the creature’s head. He repeated this two more times until his heel went through the skull and into the groaning undead’s brain.

[You have landed a critical hit. Max damage x 2.]

[You have grown one level. Congratulations!]

“Another critical?” Athela asked curiously with a paw to her mandibles as if in thought.

Riven chuckled and lowered his hand, accessing his character sheet to assign the stat points to Intelligence. “Yep. I mean, I did kick its skull in.”