Against the Wind (2)
Whoosh!
The wind slapped against his face, cutting through the thick, gray mist. Dalen tightened his grip on his spear, glancing sideways at the status window hovering in his peripheral vision.
Name: Dalen
Level: 21
[Strength: 34] [Dexterity: 30] [Stamina: 31]
[Perception: 25] [Intelligence: 28] [Magic: 29]
Skills: Dehaman’s Armored Combat (D), Night Vision (E), Leap (E), Flame Arrow (D), Rapantella’s Crushing Sword (C), Hegaleus’s Rain of Fire (C), Piercing Lightning (D), Curse Ward Seal (D), Leredonara’s Flying Blade (B), Sacred Flame’s Ember (C), Crimson Dragon’s Blood (A), Key to the Gates of Hell (C)
The status window reflected his recent level-up and the spoils from a corpse he had retrieved.
It was the half-melted body of a dark sorcerer, found after he had slain a sandworm in the Scorching Desert. The ghastly, ash-gray remains, with most of the soft tissue dissolved, had granted him new abilities and items.
[You have retrieved the melted corpse of a dark sorcerer from the sandworm’s stomach. You inherit its powers.]
[Inheritance Reward: Magic +2, Perception +1, Blood Ritual Dagger]
The dagger, neatly stored in a pocket dimension by a demon, would surely come in handy someday. But for now, his focus was elsewhere.
A subtle tingling sensation spread through his hand as he gripped the spear, an intangible energy lightly coating it. His dexterity had reached 30 with the level-up, and the new ability he gained was more than just the power to throw an axe across space.
“The way I wield power has changed.”
From the first day he landed on this continent, when he had taken on his current form, the strength coursing through his body had been growing relentlessly. Until now, he had only known how to use it in brute force, overwhelming his foes with sheer power or the gap in abilities.
Whether it was beating up thugs in a tavern long ago or bringing down the injured Azure Dragon from the sky, it had always been the same.
But now…
The tingling in his hand was a completely different sensation. With this feeling, he could harness the power that had long surpassed human limits, not just in quantity but in skill.
“Ignel Rot.”
The Flame Arrow skill, now at 100% mastery, was the first realization of this potential.
Fwoosh!
Flames flickered along the spear’s blade. As it left his hand, the fire began to dance across it.
A masterpiece of Reberon, cutting through the headwind.
The B-rank skill, Leredonara’s Flying Blade, conveyed Dalen’s intent through the spear without filter.
Crackle!
The flames, initially scattered, reached out to each other, forming a braided rope of fire.
Sizzle―
The fiery braid wrapped around the spear, emitting a strange friction sound.
Whoosh!
Each knot in the braid exploded into a brilliant crimson flame.
Dots became lines, lines became surfaces, and soon the flames around the spear took on a distinct shape.
What remained was not a mere spear, but a colossal serpent of fire.
Its eight-parted maw revealed hundreds of sharp teeth.
Dozens of eyes around its mouth glowed a fierce red.
[Hiss!]
The fiery serpent bore a striking resemblance to the sandworm from the Scorching Desert, perhaps because the timing of mastering the Flame Arrow coincided with his battle against the sandworm on the second floor of the labyrinth.
Though Dalen had ultimately defeated it, the sandworm remained one of the most formidable predators on the labyrinth’s second floor.
The majesty of a predator witnessed with his own eyes was worlds apart from the graphics he had seen on a screen.
A small impression, but enough to fuel the sprouting of new possibilities in his mind.
Around this time, the Flame Arrow in Dalen’s domain began to coil into the form of a massive fiery serpent.
“Go.”
Boom!
The arrow, obeying its master’s command, shot forward.
Defying the headwind, it swam down the passage like a water snake, its fiery maw open wide, devouring the tentacled creatures swimming in the updraft.
Gurgle! Grumble!
The monsters, startled by the sudden appearance of a predator, scattered like fish in a stream, each seeking its own escape.
But escaping the serpent’s teeth was not the end.
Sizzle…
The shimmering crimson scales vaporized the surrounding mist with their heat in an instant.
For a brief moment, the area was completely visible.
Though the updraft soon brought more mist, the brief clarity was enough for skilled marksmen to take aim.
“Aim—”
Through the dissipating mist, the special ops agents raised their rifles.
“Fire!”
Ratatatat!
At the command of their leader, dozens of bullets soared through the air.
Thud, thud, thud…
The bullets, fired with the updraft in mind, pierced through the tentacled creatures’ bodies mercilessly.
Their grayish skin burst open. Unlike their tough tentacles, their translucent muscles and flesh offered no resistance.
Yet the damage was minimal. Unless hit in the heart, the creatures quickly regenerated like slimes and attacked again.
“…!”
“Switch to silver bullets!”
Commander Sasha swiftly ordered. The initially flustered agents deftly swapped out their ammunition.
Click! Click, click!
Relying on ropes, they changed their ammo while hanging from a dizzying cliff.
Meanwhile, beneath the agents’ feet, Sienna’s protective barrier skillfully redirected the gusting wind, maintaining balance.
Whoosh!
The delicate balance between the gravity pulling them down and the wind blowing upward.
Without the near-acrobatic mana control of a skilled mage, even the best special ops agents wouldn’t have dared to attempt such a shot.
Gurgle! Grumble!
Of course, the monsters had no intention of waiting idly.
The tentacled creatures, momentarily disoriented by the clearing mist, lunged at the special ops team once more, extending their tentacles.
Bang!
The steel-like tentacles were not easily stopped by the hurried pistol shots.
Swoosh!
Paralyzing stingers emerged from the tentacle tips, aiming for their prey, as venomous liquid oozed out.
Boom! Boom!
A massive explosion erupted between the monsters and the special ops agents, blasting the approaching tentacles away.
“Hahaha! Wind and mist! Perfect weather for a bomb!”
The explosion’s mastermind was Bjorn, the one-eyed craftsman.
The bombs he pulled from his backpack and lit exploded at the perfect moment after leaving his skilled hands.
The flames and shockwaves from the explosion were enough to halt the tentacled creatures’ advance.
The blast’s force was neutralized by Sienna’s timely protective magic.
It seemed they had worked together more than once, as Sienna had known Bjorn since childhood.
Watching the scene unfold, Dalen chuckled and recalled his spear.
Boom!
The fiery serpent, which had descended far below, surged back up, painting the entire passage red.
Sizzle…
The heated air from its body rode the updraft, clearing the mist once more.
This time, they had ample time. As the marksmen aligned their sights on their targets.
“Fire!”
Ratatatat!
Sasha shouted again, and the barrage of bullets tore the tentacled creatures apart.
Thud, thud, thud—
The sound of impact changed as the silver bullets hit their mark.
The tentacled creatures were almost ethereal beings.
While their bodies were somewhat immune to physical damage, except for the heart, they were vulnerable to magic, curses, or silver weapons.
Boom!
As the fiery serpent continued to roam the passage, clearing the mist and devouring the tentacled creatures.
The repeated gunfire established a stable barrage, with Sienna’s spells and Bjorn’s grenades flying in between.
Crackle—
With the situation stabilized, Dalen summoned his axe. Testing new powers was one thing, but he preferred not to overexert himself.
Swoosh—thud!
His axe flashed, and without any explosion or spell, the number of severed tentacled creatures steadily increased.
Gurgle…
The tentacled creatures, on the brink of annihilation, soon began to flee.
Of course, the deep crevices they sought for escape became their fiery graves, cooked alive by the serpent’s heat.
The smell of roasting fish lingered in the passage for a while.
Splash!
His leather boots squelched in the muck. A foul stench rose, assaulting his nostrils.
Dallon furrowed his brow as he surveyed his surroundings.
The ground was damp, and a sluggish, sticky swamp stretched out before him.
This place was reached by crawling down a passage where the air currents rose, passing through a large cave in the rock wall.
“The third level of the labyrinth. The Bottomless Swamp.”
Floating debris completely covered the swamp’s surface.
Dark moss, thin vines, rotting bark, and fragments of bones from unknown creatures.
The swamp was relatively shallow near the entrance, but that was no reason to let one’s guard down.
Even in these shallower areas, there were deep pits over ten meters deep scattered throughout.
A single misstep among the floating debris could mean being sucked down into the swamp below.
And that would be the end. The creatures lurking in those depths were enough to make even veteran explorers shudder.
“The second level was a desert, and now the third is a swamp… Each level is like a completely different world.”
Sasha, the enforcer, approached, swatting away a fly the size of her thumb, muttering as she did so.
She, too, wrinkled her nose at the stench. Dallon replied offhandedly.
“It only gets worse the deeper you go.”
“You’ve been further down?”
Dallon merely shrugged. He’d ventured deeper with a mouse and keyboard, after all.
Sasha’s expression shifted, a mix of fear and respect flickering across her face.
“Let’s find a place to rest. Higher ground would be best. Most of the creatures on this level dwell in the deeper parts of the swamp. High ground is the driest place you’ll find.”
“Understood.”
The group quickly scouted the area, soon setting up a small camp on a nearby rise.
Despite the exhaustion from fierce battles, the agents moved without showing any signs of fatigue. They were elite, after all.
Once they had caught their breath, Sasha returned to Dallon by the campfire to express her gratitude and discuss their next steps.
“How did they set such a trap? Fish-like creatures in the desert passage… Our special unit had no intel on that.”
“They must have had help from a demon.”
Sienna answered in Dallon’s stead, while he continued to chew on roasted sandworm meat.
As it turned out, Sienna was quite the cook. With enough ingredients, she might even rival Lucia.
“A demon, you say?”
“The Tentacle Maw is blind but sensitive to vibrations, and its body is almost spectral except for the heart. It’s known to inhabit hell. For them to be in the lower levels of the labyrinth… It’s information only a handful of explorers would know.”
Sienna added as she transferred perfectly cooked eggs from the pan to a plate.
“But a demon would know. The demon the rebels are trying to summon, Kalcas, resides in one of the Tentacle Maw’s habitats. It likely provided detailed information on their habits and characteristics to set the trap.”
“You seem to know a lot about demons.”
“When you work in intelligence, you hear things you’d rather not.”
Sienna smiled wryly. Just then, oil splattered from the pan.
Dallon instinctively reached out to shield her face from the hot oil. To him, the scalding oil felt no different than warm water.
“Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Dallon casually lowered his hand and transferred the freshly cooked eggs to a plate.
As he was about to take a bite, another loud noise erupted.
This time, it wasn’t oil.
Boom!
“Ha ha! That’s the stuff!”
“How did you do it? Reviving wet gunpowder!”
“Heh, there’s a trick to it. Better to make another grenade than waste it, right?”
It seemed Bjorn was repurposing the special unit’s discarded gunpowder into grenades.
For a one-eyed master craftsman with rune magic and special techniques, such feats were not impossible.
Later, he’d even shove a bomb into a demon’s mouth and blow it up.
True to his love for explosions, the dwarf quickly bonded with the agents over their shared interest in explosive weapons.
“I should go over there to prevent any accidents.”
“Go ahead. See you tomorrow.”
Sasha stood and joined Bjorn and the agents by their campfire.
Now, only Dallon and Sienna remained by their fire. Sienna continued to cook meat and eggs, and fry a bit of rice, while Dallon chewed away.
The night was filled with the sounds of insects, crackling firewood, and sizzling oil.
It reminded him of a certain knight. If not for the damp air, it would have been just like those nights they spent together months ago.
Clear blue eyes. Blond hair matted with blood and sweat. Lips that cursed in a sweet voice. Soft lips.
”…”
Perhaps after this journey, he might have a chance to visit.
Helping Sienna regain her witch’s power and safely returning her to her nest was part of their deal.
In exchange, Bourbon had promised a body capable of withstanding the power of a true dragon.
“Come to think of it, that guy mixed a mean drink.”
His thoughts drifted to the bartender’s skill. He hadn’t had time to enjoy a drink this time, but next time, he’d definitely try one of those cocktails he’d only seen in games…
“My family is protected by a guardian dragon.”
“Pfft, cough!”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Just swallowed wrong.”
This woman really was a witch.