“WHAT?” Justin was slack-jawed after hearing the price of a star-sealed sword. “It’s worth 50,000 dollars? Isn’t that too much when the sword barely spits fire?”“That’s why it’s only 50,000 dollars,” the vendor replied. “If you are not interested, leave. Don’t waste my time.”Justin felt aggravated by the vendor’s rudeness, but he could also understand where that rudeness came from. The market was buzzing with customers. At least one customer would be visiting every shop. Naturally, the vendors had swollen egos.“I was given only 10,000 dollars when I entered the city,” Justin responded. “How can I pay 50,000?”The vendor was an old man with wrinkles. He sized Justin from top to bottom. “You have all the limbs, and you look young. If you work as a porter for any group that enters the dungeon, you can easily earn 50,000 in a month or two. There’s always demand for porters, after all. If you’re lucky, and some group finds valuable goods, they might even give you a bonus.”“Porter, huh…
The dried blood marks on the floor and walls marked the entrance to one of the six paths starting at the sinister Nether Dungeon.Myles and others didn’t go more than 300 meters in, and they already came across puddles of blood, rat droppings and messy cobwebs every few steps.“Even though there’s so much traffic outside, the inside looks like nobody has passed by this way recently,” Justin opined, looking around with the help of his head-torch. “It’s giving off quite the ominous feels.”“We should be ready to face the monsters, but also keep an eye out for any locked chests or abandoned weapons,” Kong said as they kept walking through the twisted path.Myles, who was in the back, was leaving faint marks on the walls with a rusty knife he found soon after entering the dungeon.“Wait, guys, what if we get lost inside,” Biskie asked. “I forgot to buy food.”“We don’t have the luxury to buy food,” Justin replied. “If we hunt well this time, then we’ll maybe have enough money to buy food
The group of three human mages, with a tall woke-bear standing behind them, together looked anything but friendly.Out of fear, Kong and others moved to the sides of the pathway, giving them room to walk. Well, everyone except Myles.“Mr. Myles, what are you doing!” Biskie hissed and hurriedly pulled him to the side.The four men walked past them, with their hands in their pockets, showing how confident and comfortable they were.“You seem to be new to this dungeon,” the youngest one among the four, who didn’t even have a mustache, spoke, “so let me give a little piece of advice. If you don’t want to die, turn around and leave. However, if you don’t mind dying in this place, then you should be ready to fight anybody—monster and human alike. Even your teammate if necessary. Once you go deep into the dungeon, you will never know for sure who’s on your side. The moment you start trusting others, you will be making yourself vulnerable, babies.”Soon, the four of them left.“Who the hell a
A monster equipped to frighten anyone had met the man fearful of no one. A mighty clash between them was as certain as heaven above and hell beneath.The dark gray wolf reminded Myles of his younger days. It was a big, macabre wolf like this one that had attacked him but the old woman that raised him stepped in and saved him but then got killed right before his eyes. Those were times when every child wanted to be a brave warrior or a powerful mage. He, too, being an abandoned child, wanted to become strong and brave and one day take on an army by himself. However, all those dreams shattered when the wolf took the old lady by the neck and dragged her away into the distance. He couldn’t move. He sat paralyzed like a coward, and to this day, that moment was one of his biggest regrets. He wished he had run after that wolf and fought to death. Then perhaps, he might have saved the woman who saw him starving and suffering in the snow and brought him into her home and fed him and took care o
Myles swiped his hands against each other, and his nails grew in size. He immediately blocked the wolf’s claw attack.The wolf was astonished to see his claw-like nails.“Don’t look so surprised now,” Myles hissed softly. “I’m expecting you to put up a decent fight.”The wolf sucked in a breath and spat an acid bullet at Myles’ face. All he had to do was move his head a little and dodge the attack.At the same time, the wolf’s burning tail wrapped around his waist.“Double attack,” Myles nodded in appreciation. “Not bad.” His body released a chilling wave and resisted the flames.The wolf whipped its tail and smashed Myles' body into the wall. Before his feet touched the ground, the wolf’s face zoomed in to bite his head off.Myles hand moved at a blistering speed and socked the wolf’s jaw from the side, sending it packing into the distance. The wolf’s body flew across the large space and hit some stalagmites. The wolf still managed to land on its feet.Myles seemed a little surprised
The blue crystal baffled everyone alike. When the torch light fell on the crystal, it gave off an ethereal glow. It even had this strange aroma that pulled them toward it, as if asking them to consume it.Casey and Biskie especially looked like they were hypnotized. They slowly raised their hands to touch the crystal.Justin closed his fist and moved his hand away from them. The women acted normal again.“That crystal had many cracks,” Kong quickly said. “It can’t be a star-crystal.”Justin also thought the same. He had heard about the star crystals, that they were highly resistant to fire and were extremely difficult to break because they were tougher than diamonds. Since diamonds wouldn’t crack, Justin and Kong believed the same was the case for star-crystals.Justin looked at Myles. “Is this really a star-crystal?”Myles nodded. “It is the pack leader’s crystal.”Biskie’s jaw dropped. The others also looked amply shocked.“No,” Kong shook his head in defiance. “First of all, there’
The whiptail wolves were surely one of the feared creatures in the Nether Dungeon, but there were plenty of other vicious creatures that could pose great threat even to alphas, especially when in groups.This was why nobody liked to roam alone in the dungeon. Even alphas with great pride would generally avoid wandering alone because nobody knew what kind of threat would pop up at any place.A slight mistake could lead to death, so one group didn’t easily let another group come closer to them, as it could affect their teamwork negatively. After all, new plans needed to be formed if multiple groups were to join for a hunt.The same issue cropped up today when two groups spotted Stone Soldiers at the same time. The stone soldiers were like medium-sized golems that were known to work under a Stone Hulk.And a stone hulk was known to guard star crystals and power crystals until the higher ups—the creatures that lived in the deeper levels of the dungeon—showed up to collect the crystals.Na
These were no ordinary rats but Irontooth Rats, ones that were capable of eating iron with their extraordinarily tough teeth. And a mischief of such rats swarmed onto the five humans with no mercy.Together, they could eat a bull down to the bone in under a minute, so five humans were worth nothing more than snacks.Kong threw his fist at a rat, but the rat bit his fist and chewed on it. Another rat jumped on his nose and bit it off. He or the others in the group wasn’t even given any time to breathe.It seemed like they were all doomed to death, until Ria turned into a werehawk and started and flapped her wings, creating a powerful wind that startled the rats, forcing them to scurry back into the holes.While her new appearance shocked the others, they had more pressing matters to worry about, which was their injuries. Justin lost his entire left hand, Casey lost her ear, and she fell down and was bleeding from the neck, uncontrollably. Biskie's shoulder had a big chunk missing.Ria