Supreme Monarch

Tyler walked at the head of the group as they slowly proceeded down the path, deeper into the tunnel where the gold vein seems to be getting more highly concentrated. They would occasionally stop to extract the gold from the walls whenever they encountered Lodge chunks of gold embedded in the veins.

They also extracted bits of silver which gave them hope that the mine would possess even rarer metals like Orichalcum or adamantine. While that may have been a pipe dream since this was only a Grade 3 mine, it was still not within the realms of impossibility.

As they walked in the dark tunnel in what was considered the remnant of their former formation, Tyler suddenly spoke to them:

"It doesn't seem like the lack of light is affecting the monster's vision, neither is it preventing them from noticing us."

"Indeed. The spiders seem to be adept at locating or sensing other creatures in the tunnel so we are just putting ourselves at a disadvantage at this point."

"Well, they do have six eyes, it would be weird if they can't see better than us, haha..." Dohel spoke in his usual joking tone and Larut simply glared at him.

"You shouldn't be playing around right now leader, you're distracting Mr. Lix."

"Yes, Anne thinks so too."

"..."

Dohel had only tried to lighten the mood because everyone aside from Lix looked tensed as they traveled in complete darkness. They had decided to turn off their lantern as they headed deeper into the tunnel in order to avoid attracting anymore Lesser Djieien but that idea had not borne any fruits as they had still been attacked by several Lesser Djieien over the past few minutes they had been here.

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While Tyler could see very well within the darkness, his vision was still not perfect so the lack of light would only serve to give the monsters an advantage over him. Moreover, the other party members didn't have Darkvision so it was a pain leading them forward which also affected their movement speed.

Dohel quickly took out the magic lantern and lit it. He walked closer to Lix so he could shine some light on the path ahead as they kept walking. They had been walking for around ten minutes now and he was starting to get worried about the missing Kylyra and Lilith but Lix had assured them that they were fine.

He had no idea how this man would have had that information but he had still chosen to believe him. The girl known as Lilith was surely strong and maybe even stronger than Kylyra but she surely wasn't at Lix's level. However, perhaps she possessed a tool or item that guaranteed her safety.

As they kept walking, the hooded man in front of him suddenly stopped and by this point, the group already knew what this meant. They immediately readied themselves for a fight even though they knew they would not be of any help to him but their instincts as experienced Hunters, would not allow them to take a lackadaisical approach to something like this.

Dohel then raised the lantern slightly to shine some light further ahead. He then saw something moving rapidly at them. Five spider-like creatures were charging straight at them with insane speeds. Some running on the ceiling, others on both sides of the wall and only one ran normally on the ground.

Each of their six eyes flashing red the moment they got in range. it was obvious that they had used a blood skill on them so Anne quickly boosted everyone's resistance with magic. However, they were still unable to fully resist the attack and their bodies immediately felt sluggish making it hard for them to move even though they hadn't taken any damage as the skill was meant to inflict injuries within their blood.

Tyler also felt a bit sluggish as he had already realized from the previous Lesser Djieien that attacked them that he didn't have any natural resistance to Blood type attacks which was understandable, given as he hadn't been aware that something like this existed till now.

Reaching into the space before him, he pulled out his sword as he focused on resisting the skill with nothing but willpower alone. However, the moment his weapon left the void and into this plane, his body fully resisted the blood attack and his body felt like it was under the influence of the passive effects of the tranquility spell.

It was also the same feeling he had gotten in the presence of the peak Tier 6 magic crystal at the Darknar forest. Yet again another reason why using a magic crystal for this weapon was a good idea even though he hadn't gotten any good skills as Rain had.

As Tyler was in the midst of admiring his weapon, the Lesser Djieien on the ground suddenly shrieked and swiped both claws at him. 

Blood Skill- Blood Strike.

Ten blood-red waves of energy left its claws and tore through the earth at Tyler in the shape of an X. While the attack would normally be easily avoided, Tyler didn't want to put the Hunters behind him in harm's way so he had to face the strike head-on.

'I guess I'll use a skill of my own then.'

°Uppercut Slash°

Tyler casually swung his sword and a huge gust of energy he hadn't even expected almost exploded out in a straight line as it completely shattered the blood Strike and even went further until it had split two of the Lesser Djieien in half.

One ran on the ground and the other on the ceiling. The other three monsters seemed enraged by the death of their kins but they had quickly come to a halt, no longer charging in recklessly as they once did.

Blood Skill- Blood Web Entanglement

Thin threads that looked like they had been dyed in blood sprung out from all around the group as they entangled and tried to bound them all. Dohel and Larut quickly realized what was happening and immediately tried to cut the threads with their weapons.

However, the threads had already wrapped around and bound their weapons in place and they were unable to make it budge. Before they had even realized it, the threads had somehow attached themselves to them, and no matter how they tried to struggle the threads only got tighter.

Aine and Anne had the least physical resistance amongst the group and as the skill had been unexpected, they had been ill-prepared and were unable to cast any spells before the threads had strung them up even to the point of ripping parts of their clothing's even though they were relatively high-quality items.

Tyler's weapon had also been restricted and seeing this, the three monsters quickly charge at him. Tyler slightly tugged his left hand that was also bound and felt some resistance. It seems he would've really been in a bind if he didn't possess his magic weapon.

Still, this wasn't enough to stop him as he was right now. Using a bit more strength, he tugged his left arm again and parts of the wall that the threads has been attached to shattered. 

Tyler sighed, seems the threads were a lot more durable with the blood effects as he had been unable to snap them with brute force alone, but the walls it had been attached to had come off. If he continues like this, there was a chance he would bring down the entire tunnel upon them.

"Well, no worries."

He then tightened the grip on the magic weapon on his right hand and the mana within it went rampant. As he tugged the weapon, all the blood-red strings that bound it instantly began to snap like twigs on a dead tree.

With his arm freed, he lightly swung his blade at one of the charging monsters as he simultaneously used the skill: Uppercuts Slash ones more. A line of whitish aura gusted out of the blade and cleanly sliced through the monster with any resistance, it had died immediately.

Tyler then quickly used his sword to completely free himself and the Hunters behind him as another Lesser Djieien lunged at him and its blade-like claws came down upon him.

The speed of the attack was immersed but Tyler was able to avoid the strike by simply moving to the side as the claw slammed into the ground and dugged several meters into the hard rocky ground in the shape of a claw strike.

Before the other monster could reach him, he swung his blade diagonally and the Lesser Djieien that had attacked quickly lost its arms. As the creature shrieked in pain, the second monster finally reached him and used a similar blood skill as the first that sent a streak of bloody aura at Tyler in an X shape.

Tyler raise his sword to block the attack but the power within it had surprised him a little. However, he still withstood it and countered with a skill of his own, albeit another basic one. 

°Burning Strike°

An absurdly intense and dense amount of fiery aura gusted out of his sword slash and cut the Lesser Djieien cleanly in half while setting both halves ablaze even though the monster had quickly activated a defensive skill that wrapped its blood-red strings around it. 

The strike had still cut cleanly through several layers of that and through the body within while setting it on fire. The last armless Lesser Djieien— seeing all his kind die— immediately activated its stealth skill and dashed away.

However, while Tyler could not see through invisibility, the monster had been too close to him and clearly still registered on his magic sense. He didn't even need to use a skill before a wave of pure energy had cleanly deprived the monster of its head.

"As expected of Mr. Lix, you took on so many intermediate class monsters and won so easily, I'm in awe."

Tyler turned his head to look at Dohel who seemed to be on the verge of clapping as he wondered why the group were now acting like his fan club but shook the thought off his head as Larut proceeded to retrieve the monsters cores and web gland while the twins changed their outfit which had been torn earlier.

Aside from the web glads, the monster corpses were also very valuable so Tyler stored them in the small Spatial storage box with him as he still didn't like the idea of storing anything like that in his storage ring that had the description of living properties.

"Alright, let's keep moving, I think we're getting closer to our destination."

"Roger."

As Tyler was about to turn around and lead the group further into the tunnel. He suddenly sensed something and turn his head around to take a look. His actions were mimicked by Larut and soon the entire group.

For a second, they had thought there was nothing there, however, they suddenly soon saw two slender figures running at them in an insane amount of speed as their every step seems to make the tunnel tremble a bit.

"What is that?" Dohel asked with a perplexed expression on his face as Larut pushed his vision to the limit so he could identify what was headed their way.

"Looks like Kylyra, I think."

"You're right Aine, and Ms. Lilith as well... Why are they running though."

"Wait, what. What the hell are those!?"

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"Oh my Lord, are those all Night Terrors?"

"Impossible, how are there so many of them... Don't mess with us Larut!"

"We, we, we need to run," Larut spoke in a panic as he instinctively took steps back which drove home his feeling to the group.

"What do we do Mr. Lix, we should really get out of here, the numbers are just too much even for you."

"You're right Anne... With such numbers, there is a high possibility of casualties if we fight them here. Let's move."