Chương 156: Fire and Ash

The Water Ape collapsed on the ground just a meter short of a trembling Gene. When the Demonic Beast had charged at him, he did not know what to do and froze. Luckily, Damion was able to kill the D Rank Demonic Beast before it could actually attack the boy.

"Let's find the entrance to the next floor," Damion told his team, snapping them out of their collective shock.

"We'll take a rest on the next floor." Just as with floors seven and eight, the passage from nine to ten was near to where the floor guardian resided. It only took the team a few short minutes to locate the passageway. Damion led the way through the passageway and when they emerged on the next floor they were all quite surprised. The previous floors had all been green and full of life. Grasslands, along water, in a forest. The tenth floor was a stark difference. All around was a burned wasteland.

The air filled with ash and soot. Small fires burned in patches around them, adding to the destruction.

"Is this floor always like this?" Gene asked bringing a cloth to his mouth to breathe through.

"No idea," Damion answered. Mage Teft had not let him research the labyrinth floors ahead of time. She said it was important for him to be able to adapt to the unforeseen. In principle he agreed. Knowing what each floor contained would allow him to plan ahead for each area and be prepared, it was the sensible thing to do. But not knowing meant Damion had to improvise and do his best to plan ahead for the unknown.

Damion pulled the mask he had bought months ago for the desert dungeon in Saung from his one of his belt storage pouches and put it on. The mask was meant to protect against the sun, but it would also work to protect him from breathing in the ash and soot.

"Does anyone else have a mask?" Damion asked his team, though Arica had already put one of her own on. When no one answered he had a tough decision to make.

"Maybe you all should go back. You all won't be very helpful to me on a C Rank floor and breathing this stuff in can't be good for you."

"We'll manage," Elicia told him through a sleeve of her shirt she had ripped off and tied around her face to filter the air.

"You all rest here for a few minutes. I'm going to scout around, maybe put out a few of these fires," Damion told them as he looked around the area. True Sight did not reveal any Demonic Beasts within its range, but that was typical, it would not be until he moved away from the entrance that Demonic Beasts started showing up. Damion moved quickly across the scorched terrain. Every step he took caused little clouds of soot to appear around his feet.

The more he moved, the more he stirred up the soot on the ground, sending it into the air where his friends would have to breathe it in. When Damion arrived at the first small fire he took a big breath through his mask and then lifted it so he could cast Ice Breath. The spell streamed out of his mouth freezing the fire and completely putting it out. As soon as the fire went out Damion noticed that all the soot and ash in the air fell to the ground.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Seeing the air quality go up so quickly, just from putting out a single fire, Damion realized the fires must be magical in some way. They kept the ash and soot in the air to make it harder for anyone in the dungeon. Damion quickly moved on to the next fire and put it out. When it went out the same thing happened. The soot and ash put out by the fires and what he had kicked up in the air collapsed to the ground and stayed there.

With him getting the same result as he had at the first fire, Damion quickly made his way to all the fires around the entrance to the tenth floor and put them out. When he returned to the entrance and his waiting friends, they had all lowered their masks and were expressing disbelief at how the air quality had changed so drastically.

"I can lead the way ahead, taking out the fires to let you all advance more comfortably."

"What if we are attacked by a Demonic Beast while you are ahead of us putting out fires?" Gene asked rightly fearful of the Demonic Beasts on this floor.

"I haven't spotted any Demonic Beasts nearby, but I won't be too far ahead," Damion told him.

"In fact, I haven't seen any Demonic Beasts on the floor at all." When Damion thought on this he realized it was quite odd. He had moved far enough from the entrance to be noticed by Demonic Beasts. And when he put out the fires he had half expected to be attacked by a Demonic Beast that wanted the fires to burn. But no such attack came, and Damion had yet to spot any Demonic Beasts at all.

"Lack of Demonic Beasts in an area usually means we aren't looking in the right place for them, or they are very strong and waiting further ahead," Arica suggested.

"This type of landscape would not be habitable for most Demonic Beasts. Just like any creature, Demonic Beasts like to live in places they are comfortable in. Only strong Fire affinity beasts or some type of toxic Demonic Beast would like to live in this wasteland." Elicia added. Damion paused to consider their words. Both were quite right. Where they were was not a place most Demonic Beasts would like to live.

The closest Damion had ever seen to a place like this was Galen's farm, where the Fire Scorpion's liked to burn the old farmer's fields. But they had not lived in the scorch, they lived in burrows and would come up to the surface to eat and to burn. A quick scan of the area and recalling the places he had walked to put out the fires told Damion there were no noticeable burrows in the area. He also had not seen any tracks or spotted any of the usual traces of Demonic Beasts.

If there were Demonic Beasts in the area they would have to have come by air.

"The Sky!" Damion suddenly realized. Looking up Damion could see things moving in the air, high above their heads. Even with the increased range True Sight had gained after Ranking up, Damion was not able to tell how strong the Demonic Beasts in the air were.

"What are those?" Gene asked, looking up after Damion's shout.

"Whatever they are, they are fire breathing. How else do you explain the devastation." Josephine said stepping closer to Gene. Damion stood there watching the flying Demonic Beasts in silence while the others discussed retreating back to the previous floor. The ability to retreat, Damion realized, was the only reason the Demonic Beasts had not attacked them yet. The Demonic Beasts did not want to swoop down only to have their food flee out of reach.

Most likely if they moved further away the Demonic Beasts would attack.

"You all stay by the passageway. I want to see how far in we have to go before they attack," Damion told his team. Damion slowly started moving away from the safety of the exit to the previous floor. As he moved he kept his eyes on the sky watching for one of the flying Demonic Beasts to attack. When he was about 50 meters from the rest of his team one of the flying Demonic Beasts turned and folded its wings close to its body and suddenly dive-bombed Damion.