Chương 92: Limitless Path Chapter Ninety-Two

"Alright," Beth said as she stretched after checking their statuses, "I think we're good now. Sorry about the long sleep, girl, I think using the gate so much put me under strain. I still feel a little… stretched thin." Blood rumbled a little in response, headbutting Beth lightly before the armored girl grabbed the wolf by the neck and gave her some deep scratches, enjoying a little quiet moment together. A little calm before the storm, as they were about to dive into the deep end with this dungeon.

Blood eventually straightened up and shook herself, regaining her equilibrium before trotting off down the only tunnel they currently had available. Beth followed along behind, quickly approaching the first room as they prepared for battle. She reached up and grabbed the hilt of her blade over her right shoulder with her right hand, injecting just a touch of mana to unlock the clasps that held it. She pulled the blade around in front of her, holding it firmly without keeping it in a white-knuckle grip.

She had the light stone back on her belt, not afraid of getting into a tussle with the new levels boosting her. They came up to the first room beyond the entry room, the light doing a much better job illuminating the interior this time. She was able to see three large kobolds within, none as big as the hulk, but definitely a good bit larger than the ones she had been fighting outside the dungeon.

She was able to fire off a quick Identify on all three, returning all of them as: Level 38 Enfrosted Kobold Miner Luckily, it didn't appear that there was anything more dangerous than three high level miners in the room. It would also appear that Blood's concerns about the light had been well-founded, as after a handful of seconds of observing the room, the nearest kobold turned toward the light source and started shrieking in a warbling voice.

This, of course, attracted the attention of the other two kobolds, who also joined their scratchy voices to the shrieking, before the three beasts all charged the two girls. Their leveling really paid off here, as they were able to meet the high-level kobolds two-versus-three and beat them. Beth did have a chuckle at thinking that level thirty-eight was high, considering even the weaker Enforcers were well into the hundreds, and that wasn't even their first time around.

The two tore the three kobolds apart, though they were absolutely tougher than the beasts they had been fighting before. The jump in strength in fighting beasts high in the thirties in level showed, as it took quite a bit of effort to kill the three kobolds. They rested for a time after the battle, Beth just doing a bit of due diligence in restoring the little bit of mana she had used and making sure nothing else came running because of their battle.

"What do you say, girl? Try lefts?" Beth asked, referring to the fact that this place was a labyrinth, and one strategy for solving mazes was to pick a wall and stick to it. This could be foiled by a number of exigencies of the architecture, but it would be a good strategy for them to start with. Besides, with their even further enhanced Intelligence and Wisdom, both remembering their path and calculating the maze's layout would be even easier.

Blood grumbled an affirming response, and Beth lifted her sword's point from the floor, keeping the blade to hand as they walked across the room and headed for the left-hand doorway. The opening led them into another tunnel, the rough greyish stone of the walls and ceiling shot through with little veins of black and brownish minerals.

Beth was certainly no geologist and had no idea what the stone was supposed to be or if the minerals were in any way unusual, so she decided to actually make use of the camera of her phone and snap a few photos. She didn't know if it would matter, but with the fact Jaq had upped her storage capacity to a ridiculous level, there was no reason not to snap a few photos of anything interesting.

The rooms here seemed closer than the other places she'd been so far as, minus the time she spent snapping the photos, it was only about thirty seconds for them to reach the next room. She stopped just slightly further back from the opening to the next room, trying to buy herself an extra few seconds to analyze the contents before alerting any beasts. She could see four large shapes shambling about in the gloom, determining them all to be kobolds, though one was a bit larger.

The miners had been just a little shorter than her six feet. Well, six feet plus an inch with her heavy boots on, but the fourth specimen in this room looked to be close to a hand taller than her. She quickly made use of Identify, just barely able to hit three of the four beasts, including the taller one. Level 38 Enfrosted Kobold Miner Level 38 Enfrosted Kobold Miner Level 39 Enfrosted Kobold Overseer The large beast was apparently an overseer, which she could only guess was an upgrade from the miners.

She signaled Blood to get ready before stepping forward, getting to the doorway and taking a single step into the room before the beasts spotted her and set to a frightful shrieking. The whole group charged her, which was just fine with her, and Blood darted out around her, a dim red shadow in the oppressive twilight created by her light stone.

The huge wolf bypassed the first three enemies, getting to grips with the fourth and final enemy, another miner that had been further back in the room, starting to dart around it and savage its legs with her claws. Blood's use of her claws to hamstring the kobolds was a key in their victory in this fight, as she was able to slow and wear down the miners. That let Beth free to face the overseer while also dishing out damage to the miners.

The overseer was much tougher than the miners, and it was also able to blast out a bit of frost and ice at them, something the regular miners didn't display the capacity to accomplish. That ability put Beth on the back foot a bit, making her more cautious, in turn making the fight longer as well as damaging her a bit in an unavoidable way. The long, gory fight was eventually brought to a close in a rather messy strike as Beth used her only sword skill, Monstrous Blow, to cleave the overseer in half.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. She decided to take a moment to get them a little cleaned up as, even though this dungeon would be a long and dirty affair, she wanted to avoid walking around with blood and guts caked on her as much as possible. She moved to the center of the room they had just cleared, looking around to see the passage they had entered through and two more doorways spaced unevenly along the walls, but not much else.

She unslung her pack and set it down, eternally thankful she had gone with the more expensive and much slimmer option, before shucking her gauntlets. No blood or guts had managed to penetrate them, leaving her hands and forearms relatively clean, allowing her to root around in the pack without introducing any filth. The two took some time to rinse off, taking advantage of the endless canteens to get mostly clean as well as hydrated, before they had a ration bar each and a little more water.

Beth repacked everything neatly before indicating for Blood to look around the room a little, curious if there was anything to find. Based on the theme so far, she expected at least a little crappy ore lying around, but after ten minutes of fruitless searching, decided to call it and move on. They picked the leftmost of the two doors, sticking to their plan of hugging the left wall, and headed down the tunnel with Blood scouting ahead.

The wolf moved to the point she was just a little ahead of the cone of light Beth was generating with the stone stuck to her belt, letting her highly proficient sense of smell and rather good hearing do most of the work. This tunnel proved to be rather short as, even walking at a moderate pace, Blood trotted back to Beth after just under twenty seconds to indicate there was something ahead.

They went though several rooms like that until they cleared one that had eight kobolds in it, a tough challenge for the two at their current level and skill. They rested for a few minutes after finishing the fight before scanning around to see what their options were, finding this room only had two other tunnels leading out from it, and, after scouting around and finding nothing in the room itself, they moved out the leftward of the two tunnels.

They ventured down this tunnel for a minute or so until they encountered a large, circular room that Beth's light stone was just able to illuminate. The room didn't look like it had any other doorways or tunnels connected to it, and there was only a single enemy in the center, far enough away from the light that it didn't attack immediately. Beth took the opportunity to use Identify before backing up slightly, not wanting to start a fight before doing a proper assessment.

Level 42 Winter Kobold Ravager Backing up slightly further, Beth signaled to Blood to circle up for a quick consult.

"What do you think, girl? In the forties, special variant, special type; too much for us?" Blood tilted her head to the side, golden green eyes narrowing as she considered, one ear flicking a little. The huge wolf tilted her head the other way, eyes still narrowed, giving the matter quite some thought. Eventually, she looked directly at Beth, staring into her eyes as she nodded once while sending a strong warmth back through their bond, the faint echo of a 'yes' coming along with it.

"Harass and disable, I'll go toe-to-toe with it. I don't think we can run from it, based on our experience so far, so we have to finish it once we start," Beth elucidated.

"Don't do anything risky, however; we can take it slow and steady and take a big bastard like this down at our pace." They strode back down to the room, finding the large kobold still waiting for them. It was clear right from the outset that this beast was both faster and much stronger than anything they had faced so far. Beth engaged it immediately after the frost blast, noting that instead of a wooden rod or pole, this beast clutched a massive hunk of lumber in both its frigid, grimy hands.

Beth stepped in with her right leg and swung her blade hard, deflecting a fast and powerful smash from the beast's club, feeling the force of the deflection ring through her sword and slightly numb her arms. The fight was long and grueling, Beth and Blood dancing around the beast for several minutes as they exchanged blows and avoided being flattened by the massive hunk of wood.

Things took a bit of a turn for the worse when the boss, enraged by the numerous attacks that had sliced up its limbs, shrieked and exploded with frost, shooting a storm of freezing mana and tiny slivers of ice out around itself. Blood was only able to close her eyes to try to block the blast while Beth leapt back and put her hands up, preventing any ice from getting in her own eyes or mouth. Ice Resistance Copper[0] acquired. Well, at least she was seeing some immediate benefits to being coated in frost and ice.

She winced a little, feeling where several shards of ice had sliced shallow cuts into her face, the wince turning to a frown as she felt a slightly deeper slice on the right side of her neck. Fortunately for her and Blood, the kobold seemed to get slightly tired after such an immense frost blast, giving them a few seconds to recover before it charged her again. Beth responded by pumping mana into the enchantments on her blade, not just a trickle, but a flood, causing the blade to burst into flame.

The fire coated the entire blade and billowed nearly three inches outward, a bright, red flame heating up the entire room. Fire underground was not the best idea, for several reasons, but Beth figured she could make this quick. She was slightly wrong about that, but the flame did make the kobold go berserk, roaring and rampaging for a time before shooting out more ice. Blood was luckily able to dodge most of the second blast before closing back in, getting a great hit in on the beast's left knee.

The damage was really starting to stack up at that point, with the elite kobold slowing considerably, funnily enough for an ice-based beast. It wasn't entirely out of tricks, sending out a third blast of ice before speeding back up, furiously swinging at Beth as it went fully berserk.

She was able to go toe-to-toe with it for a time, even getting in a nasty cut on its arm, before she wasn't able to move quickly enough and had to block a heavy swipe with her armored left arm, feeling the bone in her upper arm fracture. The strike had pulled the elite out of position, the beast staggering down to one knee, a weak position that Beth took advantage of despite her injury.

She lashed out, her precise timing and powerful strike coming from some finely honed sense of battle as the heavy ridge of burnished copper over her knuckles crashed into the kobold's skull. There was a sound on the impact like someone had fired an artillery piece right next to her, the force slamming the kobold's head down and to the side at faster than highway speeds.

The beast's own retaliatory swing went well wide, missing Beth entirely as its skull smashed into the ground with a thunderous shattering sound, the head of the creature breaking apart the stone and forming a webwork cracked pattern that extended in a two feet radius around it. The blow certainly fractured the skull of the creature, as well as heavily scrambling its brain, but the beast persisted, scrabbling weakly with its arms as it couldn't quite mentally recover from the strike.

Blood darted in as Beth staggered back, cursing at her cracked knuckles as she kept an eye on the beast. The wolf wasted no time in getting the beast's back and grasping its neck in her jaws, clamping and twisting, tearing flesh while she strained and growled. The kobold's neck was only able to hold up so long, the beast thrashing as its lifeblood spurted out onto the cold floor until, finally, there was a sickening crunch accompanied by a loud pop, the beast's neck snapping with a final twist.