Monarch Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Rayne darted sideways as the beetle charged, its six legs hammering the ground hard enough to make the dirt jump. Its mandibles snapped shut where he’d been a second ago, biting into empty air with a sound like steel grinding on stone.

Rayne exhaled, realising that the beetle was going to give him a much harder fight than the undead.

As he watched, the beetle pivoted faster than something that size had any right to. Its shell rippled as it moved, and he saw the light bend over it, trying to blur its edges.

Not again.

Rayne kept circling, sword held low, breathing steady. The room felt smaller now with the beetle standing there, the three fruit trees looming behind it.

It towered over him, its back brushing the thicker roots, mandibles dripping with some thick, clear fluid. Saliva if he was lucky. Poison if he wasn’t.

It shrieked, a high-pitched screech that made his teeth clench.

Then it lunged.

Rayne sidestepped toward its blind spot, sword flashing. He hacked at the side of its shell, putting his full weight behind the swing. Steel slammed into chitin with a sharp crack and bounced.

The blow rang through his arms like he’d hit solid iron. The beetle barely flinched. At most, he’d left a faint white line on the black shell.

“Great.”

The beetle turned on him, mandibles opening wide, clacking like a pair of guillotines. It struck low, trying to snip him in half at the waist.

Rayne jumped back. The mandibles clicked shut in front of him, close enough that he felt the rush of air on his chest. One wrong step and his intestines would’ve spilled all over the floor.

He took another step back to get distance, then darted forward again, aiming lower this time. Every armoured monster had gaps in their bodies, and he needed to aim for those.

Rayne slashed at the junction between its front leg and body.

The shell was thinner there. His sword bit in—barely an inch. Green ichor oozed from the cut.

The beetle shrieked louder this time. It stumbled, then thrust that same leg at him like a spear. One of its clawed feet raked across his chestplate as he twisted away. The impact knocked the breath out of him and pushed him a step sideways.

[Lesser Regeneration] buzzed faintly in the back of his mind, warmth spreading under the bruised skin as he regained his footing.

“Alright,” he said through clenched teeth. “Leg joints.”

The beetle charged again, this time not straight-on. It veered at the last second, trying to sideswipe him with its massive body. Rayne saw the move and dove into a roll as the shell barreled past him.

He came up on one knee and slashed at its back leg. Again, his sword bit into softer chitin but not enough to cripple it. The leg jerked, ichor spraying, but the monster didn’t topple.

He barely got his blade up in time to block a backward kick. The blow hit like a hammer. Pain shot up his forearm and he was flung back, boots sliding across dirt and grass until his shoulder slammed into one of the trees.

His fingers almost lost their grip on the hilt.

The beetle skittered around, mandibles chattering as it faced him again. Its body kept flickering, colour blending with the background.

It didn’t vanish completely—more a distortion, like looking through warped glass—but with the moss, roots, and glowstone shadows, it was enough to make tracking its exact position a nightmare.

The air rippled.

Rayne pushed off the tree and moved. He didn’t wait. Monsters like this only played around at the start. It thought of him as easy prey. Once it got serious, he would be dead before he knew it.

He sprinted to the side, eyes narrowed, watching for any shift in the air. He saw a flicker. A low wobble near the ground.

He jumped just as something massive slammed where he’d stood. The floor cracked, dirt blasting outward.

“Missed me,” he muttered, heart pounding.

He slashed toward the distortion, feeling his blade scrape across the hard shell again. A shallow line. Not enough.

The beetle screeched and tried to bowl him over with its body. He let it pass, clipping his shoulder, and used the momentum to spin around to its rear. He aimed for the back joint of its hind leg and stabbed.

This time, the sword punched deeper. He twisted the blade and yanked out. Thick green ichor gushed, splattering the floor.

The beetle lurched and let out a painful shriek, that leg now dragging slightly. It snapped its head back toward him, but Rayne was already retreating, keeping just out of reach of its mandibles.

The shell shimmered again. Its outline blurred, but this time, the beetle disappeared completely.

The shimmering vanished, leaving nothing but an empty stretch of stone and three trees heavy with fruit. He couldn’t even see the ichor.

Rayne froze. His grip tightened on his sword. It wasn’t playing anymore.

The room went quiet except for his breathing and a faint, wet clicking somewhere he couldn’t place. His eyes scanned for any sign—a shadow, a flicker.

He found nothing.

“Come on…” he whispered. “Where are you hiding?”

He kept moving around, not standing in one place to give the beetle an easy target. His eyes looked everywhere, trying to find it, and then—

Something slammed into his back like a boulder.

The force sent him flying. He crashed shoulder-first into the ground, skidding over dirt and stone. His chestplate took most of it, but the breath still rushed out of him in a harsh wheeze.

Pain flared along his ribs and spine.

He rolled by instinct as something heavy crushed down where his head had just been. Mandibles sank into the stone with a crunch, cracking it clean through.

“Fuck!”

He scrambled to his feet and stumbled away, using one of the fruit trees as cover. The beetle flickered into sight again, shell glimmering, ichor still dripping from its damaged leg.

Rayne forced himself to breathe in slow, controlled pulls. Panic wouldn’t help. Thinking would.

He needed a way to break its invisibility. The beetle was far easier to deal with when he could see where it was. It was clearly not as high-level as it looked.

But how could he do that?

As that question buzzed in his mind, Rayne’s gaze dropped to the ground. The floor was dirt in some places. Grass in others.

An idea flickered.

“Let’s see how you like this,” he muttered.

He crouched and dug one hand into the dirt. His fingers closed around cold soil and he scooped up a big clump.

The beetle shrieked again and started moving. Its body began to shimmer, edges disappearing once more. Its outline blurred, then faded.

Rayne didn’t wait for it to vanish fully. He sprinted toward where he thought it was circling, watching for the faintest ripple in the air.

He felt a low shimmer to his left and immediately turned.

He hurled the clump of dirt.

The soil burst against… nothing. It scattered, hanging in the air for a split second, and then some of it slid down an invisible curve.

Rayne saw it. Dirt stuck to empty air, outlining a portion of the beetle’s shell in a rough streak.

“Got you.”

He dashed toward that outline, holding his sword low. The beetle screeched and charged, dropping the invisibility as it moved, but he was already slipping aside, using Swiftwind footwork to stay just barely out of reach.

Mandibles snapped where he’d been.

He spun around its side, sword flashing low toward the same damaged hind leg. Steel dug in deep, cutting mostly-soft flesh and tendon this time. The leg buckled.

The beetle crashed onto that side, screeching as it tried to steady itself with its other legs.

Rayne didn’t let up. He scooped another handful of dirt and flung it straight at its face.

Soil splattered across its mandibles and eyes, sticking to the fluid there. It shrieked and shook its head, but the dirt clung to it, entering its eyes.

He surged forward, using all the strength in his legs. His sword came up in a brutal thrust, aimed under the chin where the mandibles met the head.

Steel met resistance for a second, then pierced through.

The blade stabbed into softer tissue, sliding up through the creature’s mouth. The beetle convulsed and shimmered, legs spasming, mandibles scraping across his chestplate as it tried to bite down even with a sword jammed through its skull.

Rayne grunted and shoved harder, sinking in as deep as he could. He twisted the hilt, grinding the edge inside its head, and even kicked it in the belly.

Green ichor poured out over his hands, sticky and hot.

The beetle screeched one last time, a high, broken sound. Its shell shuddered. The shimmering finally died completely as its body sagged under its weight.

It slumped sideways and collapsed, shaking the room one last time when it hit the ground.

Rayne held on for a moment longer just to be sure, then ripped his sword free and staggered back, chest heaving.

His arms trembled. His ribs ached. Dirt clung to his gauntlets, and ichor dripped steadily off his blade. The sweet sound of notifications buzzing in his head relaxed him.

You have slain dungeon beetle x1.

You have gained adequate experience.

You have levelled up. Level 26 reached.

+2 points gained in Strength. +2 points gained in Endurance. +2 points gained in Agility.

Skill Stealer Activated.

+1 point in Vitality.

Rayne smiled at them. Another level was good news, even if the dungeon beetle hadn’t given him a point in Arcane.

Vitality was an important stat too.

He wiped some of the ichor off on the beetle’s own shell, then dragged himself over to one of the trees. He took out one of the fruits as a reward and leaned against the bark, legs suddenly weak.

He ate the fruit slowly, letting it and [Lesser Regeneration] fix his body and kept his eyes on the monster corpse. He had expected something like it in the first three dungeon rooms, but had faced it when he had gotten slightly relaxed.

He could see it. The whole room was a trap. First, let a delver eat the fruits on the bottom floor, climb up to see more, and when they were plucking them, the dungeon beetle would crush them.

A trap he had barely escaped.

“I need to be more careful,” he muttered, taking another bite.

But then another question rang in his mind. Why was this room so different from the rest? Was the dungeon core finally respawning monsters on this level?

It was likely since it was pretty far away in the level, but it still didn’t explain the staircase and trees.

Dungeon rooms were seldom like this. The journal only had one mention of a different kind of room that was more than just a monster’s lair, and it had huge rewards inside it.

He hadn’t seen anything like that aside from the fruits.

Rayne moved his gaze across the chamber slowly, but didn’t see anything other than the moss, grass, dirt, and the corpse of the dungeon beetle.

He finished the fruit and stood up, intending to search everything thoroughly. He looked behind the three trees first—nothing. Just roots gripping stone.

He looked around the walls. But only moss covered them.

He checked between two larger root clusters, pushing aside the hanging strands of dirt.

Still nothing.

He let out a frustrated breath. “There has to be—”

A glint caught his eye.

Rayne froze, turned, and squinted at the base of a thick, crooked root near the back wall. He caught something metallic… just barely visible beneath a curtain of earth and vines.

His heartbeat kicked.

“Don’t tell me…”

He immediately moved there and crouched, swept the moss aside, and dug his fingers under the edge of what he thought was stone.

But it didn’t budge for a few seconds.

He pulled harder—roots snapping under his grip—and finally dragged the object free with a grunt.

It was a chest. Old and made of wood that was darkened with age. Dust puffed into the air as he set it down.

It immediately reminded him of the chester that had killed the soldiers on the first level, but this one looked far smaller, and he doubted one room would have two monsters.

“I hope I don’t find tentacles inside,” Rayne muttered.

He braced one hand on the lid, ready to jump back in case of a monster, and lifted it slowly.

All his concerns evaporated in an instant. There were no tentacles, spiders, or explosions.

Two things sat inside. A rusty bracelet and a folded parchment.

Rayne blinked and lifted the bracelet first. He dusted it off, and saw some inscriptions on it that he couldn't understand, and it was almost a bit bigger for him to properly wear.

He put it in one of his pockets, deciding to find out what it did later. He was almost sure it was a dungeon artifact, but to know what it did, he would need to get it appraised first.

Then, he picked up the parchment. The edges were crisp. Clean. Almost new.

He unfolded it, and froze, reading it for a few seconds.

It was a map. One of the whole dungeon.

It had the three levels sketched out with details on each room, every tunnel, and even the river flowing through the third level. Apparently, there was a different shore he could have landed on, which had another monster lair.

His eyes tracked across the first level, spotting the bridge, the rooms they had passed through, and then the second level that looked more or less the same, just with bigger tunnels and twice the rooms.

But when he got to the third level, he frowned as his eyes caught something.

“What is this?”

Near the far right corner of the third-level layout, a mark stood out—a circle around one of the rooms he had passed. From that room, a long narrow line was drawn going straight upward toward the first floor. A vertical shaft.

A hidden path.

Rayne’s stomach tightened.

Just to be sure, he traced it again with his fingers, but he was sure it was a hidden path. One he would have had no idea of if not for this map.

“I don’t think that path would have been disturbed by the person who cleared the dungeon,” he muttered, eyes looking over at the dungeon trees.

He could always find out for himself.

Without wasting time, Rayne folded the map and put it in one of his pockets and sprinted toward the tree, plucking each of the fruits.

Once he was done, he picked up his sword, gave one last look at the dungeon beetle corpse, and left the room, moving to see if the map told the truth.