Burning Soul

“Look, I’m sure about being able to lead up to the 6th floor, that’s how long we could go in,” Nuae said with a serious look.

“What did you come across exactly?” Theo asked knowing that the enemy they faced earlier wasn’t the only foe there, they must have come across something more powerful, something that the imperial knights couldn’t hold off.

“I don’t really remember what happened but there were some very formidable dark elves who attacked us. But, that’s from a very long time ago, I’m sure that they must have fled the dungeon by now. Who’ll stay here for 10 whole years?” Nuae replied to Theodore while taking the last sip of his soup.

“Well, we’ll be getting up-to at-least 6th floor today. As per the records, it’s a 20-floor dungeon so we might need to spend another 2-3 nights here, be prepared. And yeah, the higher the floor, the higher the threat of being attacked.”

Hearing this Vivian raised a question, “Wasn’t this dungeon cleared off by Dark elves? If this place is connected to the Underworld, there should be a path at the bottom, not at the top. But we’ve encountered almost no enemy up until now. Isn’t it possible that they’d have already cleaned it off? That could also explain why we faced them outside the dungeon not inside, as they’ve already plundered it.”

Her question made sense, Nuae looked at Aeneas with a questioned look.

“That’s bad! What if they’ve also taken the Shard with them?” Theo stood up with a sense of realization. His statement startled everyone. After all, it’s been over 10 years that the dark elves were living here.

“There’s only one way to know that,” Aeneas said looking at the depths of the dungeon,

“We need to move!” He grabbed his sack and spoke. Everyone got ready and started moving at a quicker pace.

As they moved through the dungeon, they did notice the absence of any life-form, but strangely, they discovered some corpses. Corpses of lizard-men, a tribe of strong fighters from the underworld. It was strange to find one dead, they had incredible regenerative abilities, but they were all slain and not only slain, but they were all smashed. As of, some big hammer flattened them.

Now the dungeon looked very suspicious, ‘why would such a strong fighter tribe stay in a place like this for so long? And who killed them off, in such a way?’ The corpses were quite fresh, it was like from a fight from a day ago or something like that. Everyone had such thoughts as they moved through the dungeon.

“Be on guard, there is someone more formidable than just the dark elves here,” Aeneas warned everyone as he felt something amiss.

…

They reached the 5th floor in just an hour. In their whole journey, they had seen over 20 corpses of giant Lizard-men and now the things were getting even suspicious, as they came across a dead warlock.

“Another one! There were more than one in the vicinity?” Theo asked with a shocked expression, of course, he had known the strength of a warlock as he fought one.

“It’s just not dead, someone has smashed him very badly. Like a wall getting smashed on you!” Vivian said while looking at the corpse in pity.

“I sense traces of magic Aeneas! Something big is waiting for us.” Nuae said looking at him as he examined the body. He was quite serious about it; his tone spoke for that!

“We can deal with it; we got some crazy dragons by our side.” He casually replied while looking at the latter.

To his reply, he felt some very frightening gazes from around.

“Ahem! Why not we keep moving?” He then said so in a low tone and walked by to avoid those gazes.

As they moved to even higher floors, they faced even more deadly foes, all slain by some mystical force. All they could find were some very weak monsters and dead bodies all around. Whoever had passed through that dungeon, didn’t even bother killing these low-level monsters, but for Theo’s party, it was a nice exercise.

Getting rid of them helped them loosen up a bit, after all, they hadn’t faced any enemy in the dungeon, so it was a good exercise. But the scene was no better than a war field.

…

As they reached the 12th floor, they came across even bloody scenes, there were even monsters lying around, all dead.

These were no ordinary monsters either, they were all very strong.

Looking at the scene Vivian said, “Is it possible that the Emperor of the Imperial Knight’s kingdom could have ordered to clean off the dungeon after the last expedition failed?”

“That could be possible, right?” Theo joined in on Vivian’s theory.

“I don’t think so!” Naomi, who was quite all the time spoke for the first time.

“Look closely at the corpses around, they are all smashed in exactly the same way. It’s not a group of people, but only one person. And if that is true, we are in trouble.” She said looking at them as she stood a bit away.

Hearing this they all had troubled expression.

‘Who’d go through all this trouble? And why?’ they all had the same question on their minds. But they had no other way that to get to the top to know the truth, and only then they could figure out what was going on.

“Suit up, we might face whoever is up there in no time,” Aeneas said looking at the entrance of the next floor.

They all prepared themselves for a fight, as they still had no clear idea who was the person they were to face.

Sylph sat on the shoulder of Aeneas and gave a cheerful pose to another saying, “Let’s…Go! Fight…We win!” Hearing this they all felt the stress that was building up, fade away.

…

Next two hours, they ventured through the dead dungeon floors, only coming across a few low-level monsters now and then. They were sweeping off the remaining dungeon in their fire.

At last, they were on the 18th floor now and were just two floors bellows the highest in the dungeon. Now it was obvious that someone was there just a while ago, as the bloodstains on the floor were very fresh, and the bodies were warm too.

On Aeneas’s mark, everyone prepared for the faceoff.

They were walking slowly through the dungeon now, as they were not sure if anyone was there to attack them or not.

Just a little bit later they heard some noises coming from the deeper side of the floor. It was like, the sounds were coming from the floor above through the entrance of the floor. As they closed in on the entrance, the noises got louder.

The noises were of someone’s fighting, metal clangs, and loud roars as well. Just hearing such voices was more than enough for everyone except Aeneas and Nuae to sweat. Even they were on guard though.

Just as they were thinking of entering through the entrance, they heard a loud roar which was followed by a deadly silence. Everyone thought that whatever that creature was, it was put to silence now and so they stepped forward.

Bang! A loud thud and then there were smoke and dust everywhere.

Everyone was thrown a few steps back by the shockwave. It felt like the whole mountain just moved vigorously. All were stunned by this sudden event.

They looked around and found that everyone was there, and no one was hurt.

Now looking at the entrance trying to figure out what just happened, as the dust settled a bit, they were all having a shocked expression.

Theo, Vivian, Catherine, and even Naomi had dead expressions, even Nuae and Aeneas were shocked. There was a dragon lying at the entrance, a freaking Dragon!

It wasn’t dead though it looked exhausted and was moaning as it moved a bit, just as he moved another loud bang was heard and it looked like someone crashed on the other side of the dragon, so hard that the dragon moved almost 20ft towards Theo’s side.

Another bang and a shadow came crashing in the facing side of Theo. There were two people, one who was getting beaten and another looked more like a beast. He held a huge hammer that emitted a golden halo, similar to Aeneas’s sword, and he was holding a delicate-looking woman who most likely was fighting with claws.

He grabbed her by the neck and threw her at Theo’s feet.

Without even looking at him, he looked straight at Aeneas, who was shocked by the event, and said with a smirk, “So the rat finally decided to step out of its hole, am I right? Legendary Ace Aeneas?”