Chương 100: Dead Things Are Surprisingly Hard to Kill

The enormous Mana Sword shot forward the instant Sieghart released his control over its position, filling the narrow passage with a violent hum. Loose stones jumped from the floor as the construct accelerated toward the guardian already lunging through the darkness. Sieghart had aimed directly at the corrupted core inside its exposed rib cage. The target was large, glowing, and conveniently visible, which naturally meant that hitting it cleanly was apparently too much to ask from the universe.

The guardian lowered its head during the final instant of its charge, perhaps reacting instinctively to the incoming attack despite lacking functional eyes. That tiny movement placed its enormous skull directly between Sieghart's sword and the core hidden farther behind it. The Mana Sword struck. A deafening crack exploded through the tunnel as the translucent blade pierced the front of the creature's skull.

Bone fragments erupted outward, bouncing against the walls while the massive construct continued forward without losing enough momentum to immediately stop. The sword tore through the rear of the skull before plunging into the upper section of the guardian's spine. Several enormous vertebrae shattered one after another, their fragments scattering through half-regenerated flesh before the blade finally began losing momentum.

Unfortunately, bones were considerably less cooperative than targets normally found on training grounds. The sword struck one vertebra at an angle, shifted slightly downward, then collided against another fragment that redirected the point even farther away from Sieghart's intended trajectory. The difference was probably less than thirty centimeters. Thirty centimeters was still enough.

The enormous blade passed beside the corrupted core instead of through it, carving across several ribs and finally slamming into the stone floor beneath the guardian. The impact sent cracks spreading through the passage while dust burst upward around the creature. Sieghart stared at the glowing red core.

"This is..." For approximately one second, he considered complaining further about the unreasonable durability of ancient undead monsters. Then the guardian's enormous body lost every trace of coordination, reminding him that missing the intended target did not necessarily mean accomplishing nothing useful. The creature crashed onto the ground hard enough to shake the entire passage.

Its front legs folded beneath it while the ruined skull struck stone, producing another unpleasant crunch as several already damaged sections of bone collapsed completely. Sieghart raised both hands immediately, preparing another spell. He had learned enough during the current mission to understand that assuming something was defeated merely because its head had been destroyed was an excellent way to become unexpectedly dead. The guardian began trembling. Not breathing. Not struggling.

Tiny movements passed through its remaining bones as the corrupted core continued pulsing between its ribs, sending dark-red energy along whatever pieces of regenerated tissue remained attached throughout the creature's unfinished body. Sieghart narrowed his eyes. Technically speaking, saying that the monster had survived having its skull and spine destroyed would have been inaccurate. The thing had never actually been alive during any portion of their fight in the first place. It had died centuries ago.

Apparently, death had merely become a temporary inconvenience.

"Still moving!" Hernan's voice echoed from the opposite side of the fallen guardian, followed immediately by the sharp metallic sound of his rings changing formation. Sieghart shifted sideways, gaining a clearer view through the enormous opening created by his sword. The attack had accidentally accomplished something almost as useful as striking the core directly.

Several ribs had been broken or displaced, leaving the dark-red sphere completely exposed instead of partially protected behind the guardian's remaining skeletal structure. Sieghart began gathering mana. The others were faster. Six metallic rings separated around Hernan before rapidly locking together into three narrow spears. Runes flashed across their surfaces, and the weapons immediately launched toward the exposed core with considerably more force than his earlier attacks.

Lucia's flying constructs moved simultaneously. Two damaged scouts swept around Hernan's projectiles, releasing brief pulses of mana that adjusted their trajectories in flight and guided each spear toward slightly different points across the corrupted core. All three struck almost together. The first spear cracked the surface. The second widened it. The third buried itself nearly halfway inside. Dark-red light flashed violently through the passage, accompanied by a sound resembling glass breaking underwater.

The guardian's trembling intensified while several disconnected bones jumped across the floor as energy surged through them without any organized movement. Kart was already advancing. His heavy guardian construct stepped onto the creature's collapsed shoulder, crushing several loose bones beneath its weight. The bulky metal frame raised both arms overhead while glowing lines spread through its reinforced joints and central control structure. Kart drove his rod downward. The construct copied him.

Both metal fists slammed into the exposed core. The resulting impact forced the cracked sphere against the stone beneath the guardian, producing another sharp fracture while the entire creature jerked violently. One of its hind legs kicked outward despite no longer possessing anything connecting it properly to the spine. Sieghart watched the core deform. Still not enough. Mellia apparently reached the same conclusion.

Several defensive plates detached from around her and rushed forward, something Sieghart had rarely seen her do aggressively. Instead of forming their normal barrier, the plates arranged themselves around the exposed core from multiple directions.

"Move!" Kart immediately pulled his construct backward. The plates slammed inward. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Mellia had effectively transformed her defensive barrier into a gigantic vice. The already damaged core compressed between six reinforced surfaces before another fracture spread across its center and released a burst of corrupted red light. Sieghart felt the mana surrounding the guardian become unstable. That seemed promising.

It also seemed like an excellent reason not to stand nearby. He stepped backward while raising Mana Shield between himself and the creature. Hernan apparently possessed similar instincts, because his remaining rings immediately withdrew while Lucia's scouts climbed rapidly toward the ceiling. The corrupted core began falling apart. Not exploding. That would have been unnecessarily dramatic.

Instead, cracks multiplied across its entire surface until chunks started breaking free, each fragment losing its red glow seconds after separating from the main sphere and striking the stone floor. The effect on the guardian was immediate. The remaining muscle tissue stopped twitching. Every bone still held in place by corrupted energy suddenly became an ordinary piece of ancient material subjected to gravity, which turned out to be considerably less impressive than an undead dungeon guardian.

The ribs collapsed first. Several simply dropped inward where the core had previously supported them, while others separated from deteriorated joints and scattered across the passage. The guardian's rear legs folded completely as bones rolled away from one another. Its ruined skull followed. The remains of the neck collapsed beneath it, allowing the enormous head to tilt sideways before separating completely from the shattered vertebrae. More fragments broke free and rolled several meters down the frozen passage.

Then everything became still. For several seconds, nobody spoke. Dust drifted between them. Fragments of corrupted core remained scattered beneath the collapsed skeleton, none larger than Sieghart's palm. The pieces slowly lost their crimson glow until only faint traces remained inside their cracked surfaces. Someone released a long breath. Then another person did the same. Sieghart realized he had also been holding his.

"We actually did it." Lucia sounded exhausted rather than excited. Kart leaned against his control rod while his guardian construct lowered itself beside him, its movements noticeably slower after the repeated battles. Hernan simply stared at the remains as though expecting the skeleton to reconstruct itself out of spite. Mellia waited several more seconds before finally lowering her defensive plates.

"Sieg?" The guardian's enormous remains blocked most of the passage between them. Several ribs still formed a crooked wall of bone, making it impossible for the others to immediately see what had happened to him after the final attacks.

"Are you alive?" Sieghart looked down at himself. No missing limbs. No mysterious holes. His clothes were considerably dirtier than they had been several hours earlier, but considering everything that had happened beneath Bellhaven, cleanliness had stopped being a realistic objective.

"Yes." There was a short silence.

"Are you hurt?"

"No." Another silence followed. Then Hernan's voice came from behind the bones.

"You could sound happier about it." Sieghart almost answered that surviving should have been the expected outcome rather than an achievement worthy of celebration. Considering they had nearly been crushed, eaten, buried, drained of mana, or some combination of those possibilities, however, that argument felt slightly unreasonable. Instead, he stared at the remains. The others had every reason to celebrate.

They had encountered an unfinished Dungeon Guardian during what should have been a simple extermination assignment, discovered an organized group of bandits, fought hundreds of giant bats, and somehow survived everything without losing a member. Sieghart understood all of that. He simply could not feel particularly satisfied. His enormous Mana Sword had destroyed the guardian's skull and enough vertebrae to stop its movement, but he had still missed the most important target.

More importantly, most of his strongest magic had performed considerably worse than expected. Fire had worked. Lightning had worked. Ice had worked. None had worked particularly well. Sieghart crouched beside one of the broken ribs and examined the faint traces of red energy disappearing from its surface. The sensation reminded him unpleasantly of something he had already encountered years earlier. The Firians.

Their bodies had been extraordinarily resistant to fire because they consumed flames and transformed that energy through whatever strange power existed inside them. Overwhelming their absorption had required Sieghart to produce absurd quantities of magic. This guardian had been different. It absorbed raw mana directly. Yet both situations shared something Sieghart disliked.

His magic had been interacting with another power derived from mana, or at least something close enough to mana that the difference mattered far more than he currently understood. That possibility created several uncomfortable questions. If monsters developed abilities through altered mana, corrupted cores, or similar energies, then simply increasing the power behind his spells might eventually become inefficient. Infinite Mana solved quantity, but quantity did not automatically solve compatibility.

Sieghart looked toward the enormous Mana Sword still embedded in the stone. It had possessed enough force to destroy bones thicker than his torso. That sounded impressive. Against the actual core, however, it had accomplished nothing because it had missed. Power without precision was wasteful. Precision without understanding was unreliable.

And blindly throwing increasingly large spells at unfamiliar enemies seemed like an excellent method for eventually encountering something capable of sending those spells directly back into his face. Sieghart stood. He needed more information. Books about monsters. Books about corrupted energy. Books about mana transformations.

Books about magical resistance, Aura interactions, elemental affinity, dungeon cores, foreign races, and preferably anything written by someone who had actually tested those subjects instead of repeating theories from three centuries earlier. He also needed better spells. Not necessarily stronger ones. Magic capable of piercing defenses instead of overwhelming them. Magic designed to disrupt mana structures.

Perhaps attacks that changed elements halfway through activation, preventing creatures from adapting to one particular form of energy. Maybe compressed mana. Maybe rotating elemental layers. Maybe using Mana Rune directly inside another spell. Sieghart stopped. That last idea was interesting. Dangerous, probably. Potentially explosive. Almost certainly something Mira would tell him not to test beneath the guild. He mentally added it to the list.

"Sieg!" He looked toward the others. Mellia had climbed across part of the collapsed skeleton and was staring at him through a gap between two ribs. Exhaustion covered her face, but she was smiling despite everything they had just endured.

"We won." Sieghart looked at the shattered core once more. Then he looked at the enormous corpse surrounding them.

"Yes." A small smile finally appeared on his face.

"We did." It still did not feel like enough. But perhaps that was useful. Because somewhere beyond Bellhaven existed people who had murdered his grandparents, framed him for their deaths, and successfully hidden themselves for years. If creatures like the Firians and this guardian could resist his magic, then people could eventually discover methods to do the same. Sieghart had no intention of reaching that day unprepared. The dungeon had nearly awakened because of his Infinite Mana.

The guardian had nearly eaten him because of his Mana. And defeating it had required every member of the party instead of another demonstration of endless spellcasting. Annoyingly enough, Mira might have had a point. Getting stronger apparently required more than simply having infinity.