Chương 48: Live or Die?

Not long after, Tina came to give the rest of the badge to Alicia.

"Okay then, this is my time to go now, Princess and Miss Firia. Good luck for both of you," Alex said.

"Good luck to you as well, Alex. Please, be careful," both of them said almost together.

"Yes, you two must be careful too," after saying that, he turned to the other teammates, "I will leave both of them to you guys, please take care of Princess and Miss Firia. I count on you."

"Don't worry man! We will surely protect them at all cost," Rery said hurriedly, his face turned pale when he saw Alex's golden badge. He didn't even dare to bother him again.

The rest of the two also nodded repeatedly, knowing that they were in the same team with a princess they would more likely give their best to protect each other.

Alex then said goodbye and walked to the dungeon confidently.

He went to the 40th floor immediately because he knew that this floor onward was filled with rank 4 monsters. He planned to kill mainly on the 40th to 49th floor.

After a week, he decided to go to the 50th floor where the boss was. After defeating the boss, he wanted to go to the 51st floor. It was the floor that he didn't step on a few months ago because he knew it was too risky for him to beat the boss. Especially after he spent so much of his energy to kill the turtle monster.

The boss on the 50th floor was a rank 5 Fire Lion. It could be seen clearly how fire covered all of its body. Not only that, its speed was super fast and even a gold rank party will find it hard to kill it. But, Alex was not afraid, he knew he was capable of killing it. It was a bad day for the boss since it had to face Alex.

'Roar!' the lion spit a fire immediately when he noticed Alex got on the floor.

Alex quickly made an armor with his fire, the special thing was when the lion's fire touched Alex's fire armor, it immediately became submissive and absorbed.

Alex sent his Flame Sword Wave, he could suppress the lion with his absolute flame since he had an elemental advantage. This was also the first time he used the Flame Sword Wave with his new sword, he was a bit surprised with this Sword Wave. It seemed like the sword boosted its power. The lion was scared with Ales's Sword Wave, it could feel the elemental suppression coming from Alex's flame.

Didn't want to get hurt, the lion dodged to the side, but its movement was sluggish and Alex took this chance.

'Fire Snipe!'

A small fireball moved toward the lion like a bullet. Sadly, the fire on the lion's body can't protect its body because of the elemental advantage, so the small fireball pierced its body easily.

"ROAR!" the lion was screaming in pain.

Alex sent a few fire arrows to the lion right away to not miss this chance. Several of them manage to hit the lion resulting in a series of explosions. The lion was severely wounded.

Alex used his boost step, making him appear beside the lion immediately, he used his sword to behead the lion's head. The lion couldn't fight anymore and die. Alex then picked it and went to the stairs.

"From this point onwards, the floor would only be filled with rank 5 monsters," Alex prepared his heart and stepped on it.

He walked several meters and he was greeted by 5 lizards with rank 4, this was the first time he fought a few rank 5 monsters at the same time. He could easily take a rank 5 monster but if they banded together this would be more difficult for him to beat them all at the same time.

After he saw them, he intended to separate them first and take them one by one. He wanted to fight them one by one rather than fighting them all together which would be hard to win. So he made nine fire arrows, each monster got targeted by three of the arrows.

After a series of explosions, three of the lizard's movements were hindered. Since Alex didn't target one of them, it already closed its distance with Alex. He wanted to take it down with a surprise, so he used his boost step, his movement became so fast and reached the lizard's side. Alex tried to chop the head in one go, but the sword didn't penetrate enough.

"Tch, too shallow", Alex's sword only penetrated a few inches to its body. Alex wanted to attack it once again, but the rest of the lizard already moved toward him.

"Fire Claw!" this was another skill that Alex created when he was in the dungeon last time. A big claw made from fire, the claw grabbed the lizard in front of him. Alex aimed instantly and he threw the lizard to its companion.

Luckily, the lizard's companion was not banded together. Two of them were together and the last was alone. Seeing this, Alex threw the injured lizard to the lizards that were being close to each other and sent a few fire arrows. He planned to take on the lizard that was away from the other two.

This time, Alex wanted to try another strategy to kill it. The lizard was already close enough to him and it tried to bite him. Surprisingly, Alex let himself be bitten by it. But soon, he made flame armor around his arm. When the lizard bit him, its teeth didn't penetrate his flame armor.

Alex went to kick the lizard's body, he added a boost step to make his kick more powerful. The lizard was blown away and it crashed to the wall. Alex immediately stabbed his sword to the lizard's head. It managed to penetrate better than last time, but still too shallow to kill it.

Alex didn't stop after that, he made a flame armor around his hand, he punched the sword handle like hammering a nail. This time, the sword killed the lizard and hang the lizard on the wall.

"Scree!"

Alex looked at his side, the rest of the lizard already beside him. He didn't realize this and the lizard already went toward him and wanted to bite him. Alex immediately covered his body with Flame armor. He could block the bite, but sadly, one of them managed to bite him on his left arm. The other two were trying to bite his legs so Alex immediately focused his flame armor on his legs.

It would be bad if he was immobilized because of the attack. His arm was bitten because of the sudden attack and he didn't have enough focus to guard it.

Alex bore the pain and he instantly took his sword from the wall. He stabbed the lizard that bit his right leg. This lizard was the one he previously wounded, Alex aimed at the previous wound. This time, he was able to pierce the lizard head and killed it.

Alex made a fire covering his fist and punched the lizard that bit his arm. As soon as his fist landed on the lizard's body, it exploded and blew the lizard away.

Alex quickly grabbed his sword and slash toward the lizard on his left leg with a Sword Intent. The slash wound was quite deep, but it did not kill it. He then kicked the lizard away. Alex then focused on the other lizard since the wound on the one he just slashed was quite deep.

Alex grabbed the lizard's mouth and sent a few fire arrows in and it exploded from inside. After confirming its death, Alex charged at the last wounded lizard. He slashed toward the last lizard with his Flame Sword Wave. Because the lizard was severely wounded, it didn't manage to dodge and split to two with Alex's Sword Wave.

"Huff..." Alex breathed with relief, this fight alone took a toll on his body and Mana. He took the restoration pill and recovered his Mana for a while.

"If the monsters onwards were like this, I won't have the chance to try the power of rank 6 monsters on the 60th floor," Alex muttered to himself. If there were other people besides him, they would have shouted 'Are you Crazy?' to him.

After Alex recovered, he continued his journey in the dungeon. This time, he found three kobolds, all of them had axes as their weapon. Their axes seemed like the ones from adventurer equipment. Maybe the kobold killed the adventurer or the ax was left behind because the adventurer was killed by another monster and this kobold somehow grabbed it.

Whatever the reason, Alex needed to kill them in advance and quickly. Alex took out his spear from the System and threw it to the kobold on the right. The kobold blew it away with its ax. The Axe seemed to be good, it was a rank 3 normal weapon. The weapon from the system was only a normal iron sword or spear, so it was useless. Alex actually wanted to make a spear after this dungeon event.

Alex waved his sword to make a Sword Wave. All of the kobolds sensed a tyrannical flame from the Sword Wave, one of them wanted to block it with the ax and the other two wanted to flee. The one who blocked Alex's Sword Wave was injured deeply on its chest. The weapon it held was also destroyed.

Since the distance was still very far, Alex made a fireball in his hand.

"Fire Snipe!"

The fireball flew like a bullet toward the injured kobold's heart and it pierced its heart easily.

The other kobold instantly charged at him when they saw their companion was killed. Alex didn't give them a chance to get closer. He sent ten fire arrows to each kobold to bombard them. But they seemed like they didn't care with his fire arrows. They become like a berserk beast, charging at him without thinking of any consequence.

After getting hit by Alex's fire arrow. Their injured bodies still charged toward Alex. They raise their axes and chop at Alex. Alex parried this with his sword, but he felt something.

'Heavy!'

This kobold strength was abnormally strong. He was pinned down to the floor because of this chop. This kobold didn't have any defense but its offense was something else. This was based on Alex's observation, so he decided to take a distance from it.

"Boost step!"

He used a boost step to slip from being pinned down by the kobold. He used a boost step in his body and feet, making him like a rocket launcher. But with this, Alex could get away from it.

Alex sent another Sword Wave, he thought since these kobolds wanted to charge at him like before, they won't dodge this Sword Wave then. But what surprised him was when the kobolds now dodged his Sword Wave.

Alex frowned, he used his boost step to get behind them. When the kobold saw him move at high speed, they still could react. They swing their axes at Alex but Alex used another boost step to dodge in the air. The swing missed, but one of the swings didn't stop and landed on its partner's body and killed his partner.

Alex didn't waste the opportunity, he then slashed his sword to the remaining kobold and split him into two. Alex leaned to the wall because he got slightly exhausted.

"System, how is my ticket situation now?"

[Host have accumulated a total of 1701 Tickets, Host has 575 usable tickets]

"Another 300 huh, with the pace I have while killing rank 5 monsters was not enough. I will kill rank 5 monsters for a week and go back to the 40th floor to search for more tickets," said Alex after getting the information from the System.

Alex kept killing monsters on the 51st floor for a week, he didn't want to step further to the 52nd floor. He was afraid something might go wrong since he wasn't strong enough to kill rank 5 monsters that banded together easily. After a week, he was able to kill 113 monsters of rank 5 on this floor.

After that, he took another week and a half to kill monsters on the 41st to 49th floor. He was like a killing machine on this floor. Summing up from the first week, he almost killed a thousand rank 4 monsters.

He now faced four rank 4 mammoths, he only made his Flame Sword Wave to split all of them in half. This time Alex didn't bother with their core. He was too happy because of something else.

[Gacha Ticket 1x acquired]

[Congratulation Host for accumulating 2000 tickets, a System update will commence now]

"..." The system updated at its own pace without Alex's input. Alex then picked the mammoth's core.

Rather than waiting for the System update to finish, he decided to go back to the surface and open the gacha ticket he already accumulated.

He then brought his oversized bag and started going back to the surface.

...

On the 31st floor, five people were fighting ten rank 3 minotaurs. They were Alicia and the team.

"Alicia, let's aim at their feet first," Firia said.

Alicia nodded, she immediately used her magic, "Ice Spear!"

"Fire Spear," Firia followed.

Ten spears of Fire and Ice make their way to the minotaur's leg. A few of them managed to land on its body, while some of them missed their target. The one that hit was immobilized.

The remaining four of them dodged the spears and made their way to the party. They swing their big bodies.

"Locko, block them!" Rery shouted

Locko with his huge shield tried to block minotaurs charged, but two of them broke through his guard. Rery and Viola move their body to block the rest of the minotaurs.

"Ice Spear!"

"Fire Spear!"

Dozen magic spears charged toward the four minotaurs and pierced their body and killed them.

Now, only 6 minotaurs were left to kill. The rest minotaurs charged at them again and the party used the same strategy. Locko blocked 2 minotaurs, while Rery and Viola blocked the other two. As for the rest, Alicia tried to fight one of them alone. Since Alex had trained her close combat, she could keep one rank 3 minotaurs with her rank 2 strength.

Firia was the one who found it hard to survive in this battle.

"Fire...Gahh!" Firia didn't manage to finish her magic, the minotaur already launched its fist to her abdomen. She was blown away and crashed into the wall. She spurted blood.

"FIRIA!" Alicia shouted.

The minotaur went to Firia, the minotaur raised his big sword wanting to stab Firia's body.

"Is this my ending?" Firia muttered weakly, she closed her eyes, giving up on her fate to die on this floor. But the sensation never came. She opened her eyes again and she was shocked by what she saw. Alicia was already in front of her taking a hit for her.

Alicia protected her and she even saved Firia's life from the monster. Alicia was the one who got stabbed in the stomach instead.

"Ice sphere!" Alicia used her last effort.

The ice sphere exploded and blew the minotaur away.

"ALICIA!" Firia shouted.

"PRINCESS!" the rest of them also shouted when they saw Alicia was injured.