Monarch Chapter 75

Chapter 75

They kept moving.

Varrick remained at the front, [Force shield] flared and steady, greatsword rising and falling with ruthless efficiency. Every time another pack of dungeon wolves rushed them from the shadows of the walls, he met them head-on—shield first, blade second.

Bone and blood littered the stone behind them in short, brutal intervals.

Rayne followed a few steps behind, sword loose in his grip, his attention taken by the prickling sensation of death mana that kept growing the more they walked.

It was cold, like fingers brushing against his spine. If Rayne didn't focus on it, he couldn't even feel it, but it was undoubtedly there. At first, he had doubted it, but now, he was sure that something in the dungeon used death mana, and wasn't hiding it.

Varrick, despite being a higher levelled spellsword, didn't react to it.

He cleaved through another pair of wolves with a clean diagonal strike, shield surging forward to slam a second into the wall hard enough to break its neck. When no other monsters came, he looked back, gave a smile, and started moving again.

Rayne frowned.

Either Varrick had simply not sensed it yet, or he was ignoring it. Though it could also be that while using his shield, any sensation of death mana simply didn't reach him.

Force mana felt completely different to death mana, after all. Almost opposite in their sensations.

Another wave of seven wolves soon hit them and jumped at the shield at the same time.

This time, Rayne stepped in to help, cutting down a wolf that tried to dart past the shield. Nate and John moved in sync behind him, shields raised, blades striking low. Bran’s arrows thudded into skulls from the rear, each shot precise and silent.

The fight ended quickly, as usual.

The dungeon wolves were hardly level 10–15, and by now, he guessed that even Heins was in the early 20s in regard to his level, and he was the weakest of them all. No wonder the campaign in Pascar Plains was seen as the perfect way to train new recruits.

But even as they moved without any major problems, Rayne couldn't shake the feeling that something worse waited for them. The sensation of death mana never disappeared.

It made him keep looking around at the ceiling, at the shadowed corners of the hallway, in case a monster suddenly attacked them.

Kesh noticed it and put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay, Rayne?”

Rayne nodded. “Yes, I'm just thinking of something,” he whispered.

“About the [Force shield]? I'm thinking about it too. Imagine getting a class that lets you conjure barriers like that. Monsters would be like helpless kids in front of it, and I’d be a captain in no time.”

He didn't reply, focusing ahead.

If he guessed right, they were at the end of the hallway, and the level was going to end here. The walls were closing around them and the ceiling was dipping slightly, but the death mana never disappeared.

With each step, it only got denser.

They were getting closer to the source of it, and soon enough, the hallway ended into stairs that descended below. The steps spiraled out of sight, swallowed by shadow after barely a dozen paces. Cold air flowed up from below, carrying a stale, rotten scent with it.

From the top, it was hard to see how deep the stairs were, but he knew nothing good awaited them there.

If he was right—and Rayne knew he was—then undead were down below.

“Guess we need to walk more to kill that damn bear,” Varrick said, taking a step down. “I'm sure there's a wolf boss here too. I have fought a fenfur before, and it should be a piece—”

“Wait!” Rayne interrupted as the man took more steps. “I don't think wolves would be the only thing down below.”

“What else would be there?”

“Undead,” he replied at once. “I'm sure this is one of the dungeons the necromancer is using to store them.”

At once, his party stilled, staring at him, while Varrick frowned as if what Rayne was saying was complete nonsense.

Before he could even ask his questions, Rayne continued. “You should feel it too. There's death mana in the air. I'm surprised you hadn't noticed it yet.”

Varrick shook his head and continued to walk backwards, shield protecting his back. “Dungeons give out all sorts of mana. Some mages and scholars even think that the dungeon core is simply a crystallised form of different aspects of mana put together. It might have been leaking. Maybe the bear got to it and managed to crack it. Or it could simply be another monster—”

Something burst from the side corridor halfway down the stairs just then.

A blur of bone and ragged armor slammed straight into Varrick’s shield. The impact rang out like iron on stone, the force rippling through the force barrier.

“Undead!” Bran snapped.

Two more of them followed.

Varrick had been half-turned, attention split from the conversation, and one of the undead slipped past the edge of his shield. Its rusted blade scraped along his thigh guard, biting shallowly before he could react.

Varrick swore and twisted, driving his greatsword forward in a brutal thrust that skewered the creature through the chest. Necrotic energy hissed as the corpse went limp and slid off his blade.

The second one tried to do the same, but this time Varrick was prepared. He simply willed his shield to slam into its side, and the undead cracked into the wall, immediately flopping on the ground.

The third undead never reached him.

An arrow punched clean through its skull, the impact snapping its head back before it collapsed down the steps in a clatter of bone. Bran was already drawing another shaft, eyes narrowed.

The stairwell went quiet again.

Varrick exhaled sharply and adjusted his stance, eyes moving over the three undead, then back at Rayne. His expression hardened.

“…All right,” he said. “Maybe there are undead.”

“Told you,” Rayne replied, walking down the steps. “The last time we encountered undead in a dungeon, there was an undead lord sitting with them. I believe we will find something similar down there.”

“Shouldn't we go back?” Nate asked, following behind him. “The undead lord nearly killed John.”

John's forehead creased. “Yes, I would rather not face another one.”

Rayne felt the same. If he could, he didn't want to head down in what could be a trap. There was no telling how many undead would be down there, and if the stonefur bear had ventured down, it might already be dead.

The death mana also got denser with each step, and that was all he needed to know to step back. He didn't fear them, but he had gotten to know more about undead with the recent events, and they could easily overwhelm his party with sheer numbers.

One of the parties under Captain Verella had died just like that two days back, crushed under a few dozen undead.

Unfortunately, the decision wasn't in his hands here.

“It would be cowardly to head back,” Varrick said, shaking his head and moving to crush the skull of the undead that had managed to land an attack on him. “If the undead are down below, we are in a perfect situation to handle them. Most of them charge without reason, and my shield would easily take care of them. It's similar to fighting wolves. The Crown’s Hand came here to take care of this exact thing. It would be a shame to not venture further.”

“We don't know how big this dungeon is,” Rayne said. “And how many undead we might have to fight.”

“It's no more than two levels. We already cleared one,” said Varrick, taking a step away from the mushed undead. “I have been in dungeons before. I know. We should walk more than talk. With me here, you don't have to worry about anything else. Don't be cowardly like your house, Rayne.”

He said the last sentence with a hiss.

Rayne didn't react to it. Insults like that meant nothing when he had no connection to his house. But before he could try to convince Varrick further, he already started walking, blade raised in case of more undead attacks.

Having no choice, he met eyes with his party before crossing over the undead corpses.

They walked in silence for the next ten minutes, anticipating the undead to rush at them. But no such attacks came. And while they walked, Rayne kept his focus on the death mana in the air.

He hadn't expected to become so sensitive to it just because of a skill, and wondered if he would be able to sense the undead before seeing them. Though that seemed like another skill in itself.

The stairs finally ended, spilling them out into a large room, quite similar to the dungeon entrance room, but rather than one door, three hallways stretched in front of them.

Bran immediately moved to check them and found undead foot marks on all three of them. Not sure how to proceed, his party looked at Rayne, and even Varrick stood on the side as if content to let him choose their path.

Rayne didn't randomly choose one.

There was a good chance that if they entered one, undead might try to flank them from the rear. He focused on the death mana flowing through each of the hallways before making a decision.

“We should go right,” he said. “The death mana is the densest there.”

Varrick nodded, then stared at Rayne. “Good choice. I wonder how you are so sensitive to death mana.”

“I fought undead before and picked up on the mana they gave out,” he replied simply, not liking the line of questioning. “Why don't we start moving? I will take the rear in case the undead try to trap us.”

Without any more discussion, they fell into the formation, with Rayne joining Bran at the back. The first level didn't have any traps, so it was likely this one would be the same.

It made moving far quicker.

The passage was narrower than the one on the first level, its walls slick with damp stone and old grime. It also gave off a strong scent of rot and decay. But there was enough space to battle without bumping into each other, and they had to battle a lot.

The undead came in waves.

A group of undead staggered out of a side alcove five minutes in—half-rotted soldiers with rusted weapons and eye sockets burning with dull light.

Varrick met them head-on without breaking stride.

The [Force shield] was enough to hold them back as they crashed into it, aiming to tear it through. But they only broke their bones.

Before Rayne could even lift his blade, Varrick was already moving, greatsword sweeping in controlled arcs that cleaved skulls, severed spines, and reduced bodies to twitching heaps on the stone floor.

It went like that again. And again.

Groups of three. Sometimes five. Once, nearly ten poured out together, crawling over one another in a frenzy to kill them. Their weapons were rusted as usual, and Varrick took care of most.

The ones he missed, Bran’s arrows hit right in the skull. Nate and Kesh picked off the stragglers that slipped past the shield, with John and Heins covering flanks when needed.

Rayne barely swung.

He stayed alert, eyes flicking back and forth, waiting for something to rush them from behind or drop from the ceiling. But nothing did. Every time undead emerged, they came from ahead, drawn to the shield and the man holding it like moths to flame.

Halfway through the walk, Rayne noticed the corpses of dungeon wolves.

They were scattered along the edges and centre of the corridor, being little bigger than the ones they fought on the first level. All of them had dried blood under them, with their bodies being stabbed repeatedly.

Bran inspected them when they took a break and summarised that they had been dead for a while. Probably weeks.

That's where the majority of the rotting smell had been coming from.

By the time they reached what had to be at least an hour into the hallway, Rayne had counted over three dozen undead destroyed. His arm ached—not from fighting, but from the constant tension of being ready and unused.

And then, Varrick slowed.

“The hallway opens to a chamber around the corner,” he said quietly. “Probably the boss room.”

The force shield dimmed slightly as he took a few careful steps forward and rounded a bend to inspect the room. Rayne waited, expecting him to turn to tell what he saw, but the man stayed still.

“What’s in the room? You saw the boss?” Nate asked in a whisper.

Varrick didn’t answer.

Rayne frowned, looking at Bran, who shrugged, and decided to check himself. He stepped forward, past Kesh and John, careful as he approached the end of the hallway.

He peered around Varrick’s shoulder, and froze the same as him.

The room beyond was massive, far larger than any chamber they had seen so far. The ceiling arched high above, supported by thick stone pillars that had been smeared with blood. Undead rested everywhere, and the floor was a ruin of torn flesh, shattered bone, and congealed gore.

At the center of it all lay the female stonefur bear.

Or what was left of it.

Its massive body had been ripped open, stone plating shattered and peeled back like broken armor. Limbs lay detached at wrong angles, one missing entirely. The chest cavity had been forced open, ribs snapped outward to reveal the organs.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The bear had been… altered.

Dungeon wolf corpses had been sewn into it. Flesh stitched to flesh with thick, black thread. Extra limbs grafted onto its sides. A second jaw fused beneath its own, filled with mismatched teeth. Dark veins pulsed faintly through the seams, glowing with sickly green light.

It wasn't a monster anymore. It resembled a chimera more.

Just the death mana pouring out of it was overwhelming, thick and dense with something foul mixed into it.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Varrick muttered, a horrified expression on his face.

But before Rayne could even begin to answer, the door to the dungeon core room right behind the stonefur bear corpse creaked open.

Both of them hitched their breaths, and the next moment, a woman stepped through.

***

I'm better but still have weakness updates should be regular.