Chương 64: Chapter 61: The Gauntlet of the Guard

Mike and I activated our sneak proficiencies the moment our boots cleared the threshold of the staircase, slipping silently past the stone framing of the open archway. The cavern beyond was cavernous and poorly illuminated, lit only by the same type of crude, soot-stained iron braziers that lined the stairwell. The flickering, weak oil flames cast long, distorted silhouettes across the stone terrain, creating an abundance of deep shadows perfect for our advance.

I briefly looked at the notification before swiping it away, focussing on the battle to come: [Floor III: The Scaled Redoubt] I cut hard to the right, pressing my back against the damp cavern wall, while Mike veered left, completely dissolving into the darkness. I locked my eyes on the nearest target—a compact, reptilian humanoid standing roughly twenty feet away. It was clad in boiled leather armor and casually leaned against a heavy, rectangular bone shield.

Drawing a long dagger from my ring, I advanced from its blind spot, tracking its movements. The creature turned its head slightly, tasting the air with a bifurcated tongue, but its passive perception was too low to pierce my approach. Once I stepped within arm's reach, I focused my intent. [Skill Activated: Ambush (Beginner 1)] A sharp spike of artificial momentum surged through my limbs.

I lunged forward, wrapping my left arm violently around the creature's jaw to stifle any vocal warning, and buried my dagger deep into the base of its skull where the neck scales met the leather cowl. The blade slid home with a sickening crunch. The Kobold's health bar instantly cleared out, dropping from full to zero in a single tick. Critical Hit! damage multiplied by 250%.

Holding the dead weight tightly against my chest, I slowly lowered the body into the dirt, ensuring its bone shield didn't clatter against the stone floor. Across the perimeter, Mike executed a flawless mirror strike, slipping his twin blades through the throat of an isolated shield bearer on the left flank. Working in a grim, silent rhythm, we pressed deeper into the outpost's shadow line. Within five minutes, we systematically cleared out three more sentries patrolling the darkness.

Once the primary defensive line was severed, I stored my dagger, unslung my bow, and nocked a heavy arrow. It was time to break their cohesion. I drew the string to my cheek, targeted a leather-armored spearman standing near the central campfire, and let the arrow fly. The shaft whistled through the dark, piercing the creature's chest and throwing it backward into a pile of raw timber.

Before the surrounding guards could even process the sound, I nocked and released two more arrows in rapid succession, dropping a pair of flanking spearmen where they stood. With the camp instantly erupting into chaotic, hissing shrieks of alarm, I abandoned my shooting position and melted backward into a deep recess in the stone, refusing to let them zero in on my location. Down the stairwell, the rest of the team caught the audio cue.

Joe and Pete erupted through the archway shoulder-to-shoulder, their massive tactical and tower shields locked together to form an impenetrable wall of steel and reinforced wood. Alex sprinted directly behind them, using their heavy frames as a mobile blind. The moment they cleared the bottleneck, Alex slammed both palms onto the ground, channeling a massive portion of his mana pool directly into the cavern floor.

[Skill Activated: Bramble Wall (Journeyman 2)] Two thick, interlocking barriers of jagged, iron-hard briars tore out of the stone floor. Alex angled the eight-foot-tall structures outward from the walls, slanting them inward to form a massive, narrowing funnel that terminated directly at Joe and Pete's locked shields. It was a classic military choke—a localized killing field designed to prevent the incoming wave of reptilian infantry from outflanking our front line.

Dozens of Kobolds swarmed out from the wooden lean-tos and shacks, brandishing iron swords and hunting spears as they rushed the funnel. From the shadows, Mike and I began working the flanks of the charging mass. I maintained a highly mobile shooting cycle; I would draw my bow, pick off an advancing shield bearer to strip away their front-line protection, and immediately execute a rolling reposition to ensure my sneak never dropped from being seen by the horde of lizard men.

On the opposite side of the cavern, Mike was a phantom, his daggers flashing out of the darkness to ham-string trailing combatants or sever the tendons of spearmen trying to thrust through the thorns. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Alex pushed more mana into the funnel, conjuring two massive, thorn-lined vine whips at the left and right perimeters.

The magical tendrils became a blur of violent motion, swatting thrown hunting spears out of mid-air with heavy, cracking impacts. The rogue projectiles that bypassed the vines slammed harmlessly against Joe and Pete's locked shields with sharp metallic rings.

"They're bunching up in the center!" Joe bellowed, his boots skidding back an inch as a cluster of three armored Kobolds threw their weight against his shield face.

"Derrick, lock 'em down!" Seeing the primary assault force completely compressed within the narrow neck of the funnel, I stowed my bow and extended my hand toward the center of the crowd, burning a chunk of my mana pool. [Skill Activated: Spike Growth (Beginner 3)] The dirt beneath the Kobolds' feet exploded. Dozens of razor-sharp stone spikes shot upward from the cavern floor, shredding through leather boots and scales alike. The spell immediately triggered a localized mass-rooting effect.

The frontline lizards screamed as the spikes impaled their lower limbs, while the wave of reinforcements rushing from behind couldn't halt their momentum, stumbling blindly over their pinned comrades and collapsing into a tangled, bleeding heap of limbs and broken weapons.

"Light 'em up!" I shouted, the command echoing off the vault. The time for subtlety was entirely over. Every member of the party instantly sent their archaic weapons into their rings, their hands returning with the heavy, familiar frames of our AR-15 rifles. We brought the selectors from safe to semi and opened fire into the trapped mass. The small cavern transformed into an absolute furnace of muzzle flashes and deafening, rhythmic reports. Jacketed 5.

56 rounds tore through the wooden lean-tos, punctured bone shields, and ripped through the packed formations with catastrophic kinetic force. The Kobolds didn't possess the health pools or the magical mitigations to withstand modern ballistic trauma; their health bars plummeted in massive, simultaneous drops. Within a minute of sustained, disciplined fire, the chaotic huddle of bodies went entirely silent, leaving nothing but brass casings and a thick layer of gun smoke hanging in the air.

We lowered our barrels, the ringing in our ears intense as the echoes died out. I waited for the familiar golden text boxes to flash across my vision, but the interface remained entirely blank. [Current Objective: Active Engagement Pending...]"Hold up," I muttered, changing out my partial magazine for a fresh one.

"No out-of-combat notification. No floor clear chest."

"Are you kidding me?" Pete grunted, chambering a fresh round into his rifle.

"We wiped the whole damn camp."

"The system says otherwise," I replied, my eyes narrowing as I scanned the grayed-out sections of my mini-map.

"Stay sharp, we'll clear this outpost section by section. Keep your eyes on the shacks." We moved through the ruins of the settlement in a methodical sweep, checking the interior of every crude timber lean-to and overturning piles of raw hides. There were no hidden combatants, no cowering scouts, and completely absent of any loot drops. That told me everything I needed to know: the true anchor of the Floor wasn't out here in the dirt.

When we finally reached the absolute back wall of the cavern, hidden behind a cluster of hanging roots, we discovered a heavy, iron-studded door set deep into the stone. I stepped up to the frame, easing it open just a fraction of an inch to peer through the gap, using my tracker passives to scan the interior. The chamber beyond was vast, cold, and mostly barren, save for a raised stone altar constructed at the far end of the room.

Standing directly behind the dais was a solitary, robed figure chanting in a low, guttural dialect. Past the altar, a set of massive, reinforced double doors stood locked and heavily barred from the inside. I focused my gaze on the robed figure and let my primary scanning skill lock onto its silhouette. [Inspect Result: Kobold Shaman — Level 15 (Elite)] I carefully eased the door shut and turned back to the team, keeping my voice down to a sharp whisper.

"We've got a Level 15 Shaman at the back of the room. He's running some kind of casting sequence behind a central altar. There's a massive set of barred double doors behind him—that's our passage down to the third floor." I looked over at Mike.

"Can you manage enough clearance to get inside the room and snag him with your Mage Hand before he can trigger an area-of-effect spell?" Mike checked his mana bar, a confident smirk playing on his lips as he nodded.

"I can lock him down." I turned my attention to Joe. The big man smiled grimly, unslung his tactical shield, and reached deep into his Ring of Holding. When his hand returned, he was gripping a heavy, matte-black Remington 700 bolt-action rifle chambered in. 308 caliber, complete with a high-magnification Leupold optic.

"Let's see how much magic resistance his skull has," Joe whispered, cycling the heavy bolt to seat a match-grade round into the chamber.