Chương 285: Limitless Path Chapter Three Hundred Nine

"What's the plan?" Andrea asked during a lull.

"Keep the area clear for one minute; I've got to make a call," Beth answered.

"OK," Andrea replied, a bit nonplussed at that answer. Beth stepped away from the formation so she wouldn't be interrupted mid-call before sending a request to Rell.

"Lassie," he answered almost immediately.

"Hey, Rell, how are you or Itharion with formations?" she asked.

"Ah, lassie, I'm a decent hand. What kinda trouble ya in now?" he responded.

"Went out with Blood and a couple people I met dueling in the Hall. We found this weird formation on the ground that's spawning a bunch of bear beasts constantly, but none of us are very good with runes. Think you could take a look?"

"Sure, lassie," he said.

"Send me any pictures and mana readings you have."

"I have pictures and videos…I don't have any equipment to do mana readings. I can tell you what the mana feels like. I recently got a skill for mana detection," she said before sending him the pictures.

"Ah, that stuff ain't reliable, lassie," he replied.

"What do you mean it's not reliable? The skill seems pretty strong," Beth said.

"Nah, that's not what I mean," he said, humming a bit as he looked over the pictures.

"Skills like that are very good for an individual to better understand mana, and the more you use it, the more you'll be able to understand what's happenin' around ya and interpret it. But, unless I got the same exact skill as ya, I might not be able to make heads or tails o' your explainin'. When you're more familiar with the skill, you could describe mana in a more orderly way usin' the proper terms, but if'n ya tried to explain it to me now, it'd be all a mess."

"OK, I get what you're saying," Beth replied.

"If I started talking about how the mana feels thick or looks like it's swirling up, that wouldn't make any sense to you."

"Exactly, lassie," he replied, and she could just imagine him pointing his pipe stem at her.

"So, lucky fer you, this formation ain't that bad. Ya got two options here; one, go through that thing to the other side and fight through about a million of whatever enemies its linked with or, two, break it in a specific way I can tell you and fight either a boss or a big challenge."

"So, you're saying if we bust up this formation the 'correct' way, it'll give us a difficult challenge and then stop teleporting in all these bears?" Beth asked for confirmation.

"Aye, lassie. I'm guessin' that's what ya be wantin' ta do?" he asked, his accent quite thick as he was rather comfortable with talking with her at this point.

"Yeah, if you could tell me what to interrupt, I'm pretty fucking good at breaking things, if I do say so myself," Beth replied.

"Alright lassie, no problem. I marked up the first picture ya sent; ya'll need ta crack the formation in six places in this order," he said, sending her an image with markings overlaid on top.

"Ya gotta break all six spots within two minutes or the whole thing'll go haywire. If that happens, ya gotta run, cuz that's gonna be a really big explosion."

"Right, got it. Thanks for the help, Rell," she said.

"Aye, lassie. You kids have fun out there," he said before ending the call.

"Alright, I've got it," Beth said to the others before sending them the image.

"What's this?" Andrea asked after finishing the beasts she was currently fighting.

"Friend of mine said if we break the runes in those places in that order, we can get this thing to stop," she replied.

"That doesn't sound fun," Andrea whined.

"It'll either spawn a boss or some big challenge for us to fight," Beth said then with an eyeroll.

"Sign me up," Andrea immediately cheered up.

"I can do this quickly," Adam interjected then, finishing the beasts he was fighting. Beth acknowledged that with a nod before she and Andrea moved in to cover for him. Adam leapt out of the area, moving back a couple hundred feet to get into a clear space. That gave him the opportunity to leap high into the air unimpeded, where he managed to hover briefly thanks to his Presence and Mana Physique.

He used those few seconds in the air to send out powerful sword waves, swinging his blade and firing off crescents of mana that flew like bullets into the runes on the rocky ground. Every swing of his was quick and precise, and in less than five seconds, all the key points that Rell had outlined on the photo Beth had taken were shattered. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He then landed quickly, especially seeing what happened next, as a huge dome had snapped into place overtop of where the now-fading runes had been. The dome was a clear shield that stretched over a thousand yards and isolated the area from the outside world. Beth had expected a massive attack or something right away, but it took a moment for their challenge to be determined, as the mana from the shattered runes gathered in the center of the dome.

After ten seconds, that mana coalesced into four beings, one massive bear and three smaller ursine beasts, though the smaller beasts were still the size of a truck. Beth quickly checked them with her eyes to see what they were facing. Level 210 Great Ursine Guardian Level 215 Elder Ursine Terror"Uh, the big one says it's a terror," Beth spoke up as the four of them maneuvered around the bears.

"This isn't so bad," Andrea said before the terror slapped her with a paw traveling so fast it was a blur. She only stopped tumbling when she slammed into the dome surrounding them, though she did pop back up to her feet after only a second.

"I've got it," Beth said after watching Andrea tumble, leaping into the fray and confronting the terror head-on. The beast was the size of a small house, had hide tougher than steel and layers of muscle and fat that absorbed everything Beth threw at it while barely making the creature flinch. Despite its enormous size, the gigantic bear still moved like greased lightning, Beth having to push her Swift to the maximum just to keep up with its paw swipes and bite attempts.

She didn't really have any attention to pay to the rest of the fight, but she assumed from the fact that she didn't have to deal with any other beasts that the others had the rest of the fight under control. With Beastly Tyrant at max, Beth even managed to catch a massive overhead paw swipe from the main beast, the rocky ground shattering under feet as she blocked the paw with both arms.

She immediately latched onto the bear's arm and twisted her body with all her strength, her Presence deploying as she used everything she had. The bear roared in surprise and anger as it was lifted from the ground, spinning around as it swung through the air before being slammed into the earth with enough force that everyone else in the dome was staggered.

Beth followed that attack with a fully charged Celestial Annihilation, lashing out with her leg to send an arc of golden light slashing into the downed boss beast. The bear roared in anger and this time, pain, as its tough hide and thick flesh were not merely damaged, but totally vaporized by the powerful skill.

Beth followed as soon as the attack was in the air, launching herself up and drawing her blade before falling on the still thrashing boss with a Monstrous Blow so strong all of her muscles bulged and rippled before the strike landed. She hit the beast's side, right where her first attack had torn it open, cleaving deep into the flesh of the creature.

She ripped her blade free in a gout of blood and viscera before spinning around a full three hundred and sixty degrees and delivering a second Monstrous Blow to the now-gaping wound just below the creature's short ribs. The bear rolled back to its feet, roaring and swiping at Beth, but she countered with a full strength swing that channeled Celestial Annihilation once again, the powerful skill halting the beast's swing and vaporizing a large wound in its paw.

The beast reared back with a scream and tried to bite down on Beth, but she twirled to the side, spinning her blade around and burying it in the creature's jaw with a humongous thrust. She activated Monstrous Blow after the blade was buried to the cross guard, flexing her shoulders and back muscles as she stomped her right foot into the ground hard enough to plant it three inches in the rock below her. Her blade tore open the beast's face, a shower of blood and bits of teeth splattering the ground around her.

She spun again, letting go of her blade with her left hand to deliver a spinning backhand to the beast's angry face, fully empowered by Crush and further shattering a part of the beast's jaw. Just as the beast retaliated, it was suddenly slammed down and to the side, Adam having hit it with a devastating strike from the side. Beth glanced around to find three truck-sized corpses littering the dome, one of them literally, as it had been torn to pieces before it gave up the ghost.

Now that the other four had joined her in combating the already injured boss beast, it was already over. It wasn't an excuse for her to get sloppy, but the four of them didn't have any trouble with the large bear, considering how handily she was brutalizing it by herself before. It took the four of them less than a minute to kill the tough beast, with Beth once again impressed by just how much damage Adam could do when he got serious.

As soon as the boss was dead, all the mana within the dome was drawn to the center, where the runes had been inscribed on the ground, before forming into a little object that hovered in the air. When Beth walked over to examine what was floating, the dome shattered and disappeared, the mana returning to the environment. When she arrived before the item, she found it was an old-style key, hovering in midair just waiting to be claimed.

She inspected it to see what it was, always a good idea before grabbing something and getting randomly teleported to the other side of the galaxy. Key to the Hidden Ancient Mine {This key allows an individual or group entry into the Hidden Ancient Mine. Returning from the mine without the key is only possible upon finding the hidden exit or clearing the mines. Uses: 2/2}"What's that you've got," Andrea asked, walking over while Adam and Blood cleaned the kills, though the beast Adam had taken care of was in a few too many pieces to get much of value out of it.

"Take a look," Beth said with a shrug, showing her the key.

"Oh, a hidden dungeon. Those are always nice," Andrea said.

"What's the difference?" Beth asked with a slight frown.

"Look, hidden dungeons are just that. Hidden. That means that they're hard to get to, and they usually have better rewards than 'normal' dungeons. They also don't overflow because of their special status, so they're really hard to find without special items or powers," Andrea explained.

"Cool. Sounds like money to me," Beth said, pocketing the key.

"Well, let's run it," Andrea said, looking at her expectantly.

"Sure, but let's clean up first. We should also find somewhere relatively safe to set up before using the key," Beth answered. Blood and Adam had made short work of the rest of the corpses, and afterwards they returned to the airship. Beth didn't really want to use the key in the city, nor did she want to activate it on the ship, so they flew to an area that was desolate at the northern end of the mountain range that extended up from the capital.

Beth found a good place for them to set down, and once Blood had landed them, she made sure the area was secure. The ship obviously had its weapons, which didn't just include the two main guns, but also a series of turrets that covered the whole area around the craft. In addition to that, Beth used the equipment they had bought long ago with their camping supplies that helped to isolate and protect a campsite, causing beasts to ignore the area and be subtly repelled from venturing close.

Once everything was set and ready, she showed the key to the other two and explained what it was, mainly for Blood's benefit, before asking if anyone had any objections to using the key now. When no one spoke up, and Andrea bounced on her toes excitedly for a time, Beth held out the key just off to the side of the front of the airship and pushed it forward slightly. She was able to feel a slight resistance when she pushed mana through the key, and she instinctively understood just to twist the key.

When she did so, a thin line appeared in the air, stretching ten feet from the ground up to above Beth's head before the space to the sides of the line undulated and formed into two large doors. Each door was four feet across and made of a pure black stone, almost with the appearance of obsidian, and had carvings of gems and pickaxes across their faces. Beth reached out and pushed on the right door, and both doors swung away from her, revealing an opening into a different space.

Beth was now staring into a tunnel that was about a dozen feet across and fifteen feet high, carved out of some kind of tough rock that left a fractured, harsh face. Whether the roughness of the tunnel was due entirely to the stone or the tools that had been used to carve it was really a moot point, as the whole thing had likely been generated by the Path, though occasionally such places were naturally occurring, a place that existed which had been flooded by mana and turned into a dungeon or instance over time.

Upon entering, the group found the air was quite cold, though Beth wasn't able to see or feel a particularly high concentration of frost or ice mana. As soon as Adam, the last of the four, was through the doorway, the doors swung shut behind him and disappeared, leaving a blank wall. Beth frowned at that, but she wasn't too worried, returning the key with its one remaining use to her necklace before starting off down the tunnel.