บท 65: The dark wyvern.
The path continued to be narrow for a few more minutes, then it suddenly expanded by several meters, and resting at the end of the path was a skeleton wielding a rusty sword.
"A dead end with a skeleton, huh?" I mumbled when I couldn't see any path past the skeleton.
"Shall we turn back now?" Nina asked me.
"Let me kill that skeleton real quick." I said before breaking the skeleton with telekinesis.
After killing the skeleton and harvesting its mana core from its skull, I made sure there weren't any hidden paths at the dead end before returning to Nina and going back the way we just came from.
Once we arrived back at the split, we took the right path this time and continued moving deeper into the cave.
After walking for a few minutes, the narrow cave expanded again, but there wasn't a dead end this time.
A few more minutes later, we encountered a bunch of skeletons with shields and swords.
"D-Rank Skeletons Soldiers." Nina said.
Nina wasted no time killing these skeletons.
After killing the skeletons, she harvested the mana core with her skeletons.
Over the next several hours, we would continue walking the path, encountering mostly D-Rank monsters that Nina killed almost instantly.
The next time we came to a full stop was when we arrived at another split. This time, there were three paths to choose from.
"The middle path." Nina said.
"Alright, let's go." I didn't even bother to check the other two and went straight for the middle path.
Shortly after we began walking the middle path, Lilith came back.
"Where have you been this whole time?" I said to her.
"I had no reason to come back, so I decided to stay a few steps ahead of you to make sure there were no traps." She said.
"Since you've come back… Is there a trap ahead?" I then asked.
"No, I just felt like returning because I was bored of being alone. I doubt there are any traps in here, and the monsters are quite ordinary as well." She shrugged.
"I see… Thanks for your effort, anyway."
"Anything for my best friend!" She gave me a thumbs up.
Sometime later, we encountered a new kind of monster.
"C-Rank monster, Cave Trolls. They're just like goblins but with a bigger size and more strength." Nina said.
When the Cave Trolls noticed our presence, they immediately tightened their grip on their weapons that were pickaxes and charged forward.
Naturally, they didn't stand a chance before us and were quickly killed.
Several more hours later.
"Wow…" Tia muttered in a voice full of awe when they arrived at the end of the path that led to a massive underground cavern.
"This is where the B-Rank monsters are." Nina said to her.
Once they entered the tunnel, we immediately noticed something different about the path.
"The ground is slanted… Looks like we're going down." Nina said.
As we went deeper into the cave, the ground became more slanted.
After walking for about ten minutes without encountering a single monster, we came to a sudden dead end— at least that's what it looked like from a distance.
"Wait… Is that a dead end?" I focused my eyes to get a clearer look.
"I'll go take a look." Lilith said as she flew ahead.
Once she reached the end, she turned to look at me and shouted, "It's not a dead end! There's a sharp turn over here, so it only looks like one!"
"Actually, there is a sharp turn there." I said to Nina after hearing Lilith's words.
"To think there would be such a sharp turn here… I'm surprised that you'd managed to see it from back there." Nina mumbled in a surprised voice at the turn.
"I was just helped by a friend." I said while looking towards Lilith
Lilith's face was blooming with happiness.
"Anyways, let's continue."
Nina nodded, and we continued traveling down this weird tunnel.
After a few more hours and several turns, we finally reached a realy huge room with a giant lizard like beast in the middle.
"It looks like a-- " Nina exclaimed.
"A wyvern!" Lilith completed.
"A wyvern!!" Nina finished her sentence.
"Are wyverns difficult to fight?" I asked Lilith.
"They are just A-rank creatures but they are rare because they have dragonic genes."
"Then they are just waste." I said before pointing my forefinger towards the wyvern and casting tier 1 black bullet.
Black bullet moved at extreme speeds and entered the wyvern's forehead and exited from the end of its tail.
Dead wyvern fell to the ground as it's body started to rot at a visible rate due to dark magic.
"The end. Let's move forward." I said to stunned Nina and Tia.
After walking for many hours, we finally found what appeared to be the end of the cavern, but this new path was vastly different from the others.
"This is… a staircase?" I mumbled as I stared at the staircase before me.
"Looks like it… And it looks fairly old. It's probably been many years since someone last used this staircase." Nina said.
"Let's go down and see what's on the other side." Tia said a excitedly.
"Okay."
We began descending the staircase the following moment with me walking in front of Nina and Tia
I suddenly recalled my first experience inside a Labyrinth and its long staircases.
Several minutes later, we eventually reached the end of the staircase.
After exiting the staircase, we entered an underground hallway, and at the end of this hallway, there was a massive gate with a complex design on it.
I saw the scene before me with excitement, as the giant doors and the eerie aura it emanated reminded of the boss room from a Labyrinth!
"What a weird place. Why would something like this be inside a cave? Not to mention at the very bottom of it." Nina muttered after seeing the place, but she didn't appear to realize that it looked exactly like a boss room that could only be found in Labyrinths, which was natural for her because she's never been in a Labyrinth before.
"This is a boss room! I am sure of it!" I said to Nina.
"A boss room? Like the ones you find inside a Labyrinth? So this was a Labyrinth the whole time?" Nina was shocked to learn this information.
"What should we do? We're not supposed to enter Labyrinths without warning the teachers first."
"I think it's a little too late for that." I shook my head. "And I am not going to go all the way back just to let the teachers know. Since we're already here, we might as well clear it."
"Okay." Nina nodded.
"Alright, let's go inside." I said a moment later.
"I'm ready whenever you are." Nina said to me.
"Then I'm opening it now."
I kicked the door with my leg as the giant doors just flew open with a bang.
We entered the room.
Bang!
The doors suddenly shut behind us.
"It's empty. This place is also smaller than I expected." Nina said as she looked around the small circular room.
The interior of the room was about the size of a medium-sized ballroom, and there didn't appear to be any places for monsters to hide at glance, much less bosses.
However, before we could do much, the atmosphere in the room suddenly changed.
I immediately noticed this change due to my enhanced senses.
"Something is coming! Be on guard!" I warned Nina, who quickly began preparing to summon her servants at any moment.
"Over there!" Lilith shouted as she pointed to the center of the room, where the figure of an old man had suddenly appeared.
His body was flickering, almost as though it was a hologram.
The flickering eventually stabilized itself. When that happened, the old man turned to look at us.
"Welcome to my Labyrinth, potential successors to my legacy. I am called Edgar Darkmore, but most people address me as 'Elder'."
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง