Chapter 447 – No pain No gain
“Everyone, go to their positions. This does not look like a usual dungeon, so let’s be extra cautious.” Liam said as he stepped forward out of the small cave at the entrance into the long dark tunnel of the dungeon.
He was just about to reach into his inventory and take out a flare for lighting up the place when suddenly he noticed something strange.
There was absolutely no noise behind him! No clanking of weapons, no murmuring noises, and no enthusiastic shouts.
“Hmmm?” Liam quickly turned around only to find out that the rest of the guild was somehow missing. Only he was there, all alone.
Kyuuuu!
A soft head rubbed against his leg, reminding him that she was also there.
“What the hell just happened? Did we get separated from the rest of the group?” Liam unsheathed the purple semi-epic sword and looked at Luna who was still present there with him.
“This dungeon is getting more and more interesting.”
“Let’s go.”
“And now that it’s just the two of us here, why don’t you all come out?” Liam chuckled.
The dungeon might have mysteriously isolated him from the rest of the team but he still had an entire readymade party with him.
The next second, the group of soul undeads appeared beside him, all of them looking gnarly and ready to fight.
Liam then lit up the flare and walked through the long winding tunnel along with Luna and the undeads.
Before long, the group paused as a couple of nagas rushed towards them from the sides.
They were Level 50 nagas, surprisingly the same level as Liam and they seemed to have magically appeared out of nowhere.
“Hmmm…” Liam observed their movements and quickly used his sword to block and parry the tridents of the two nagas.
Their speed and agility also weirdly matched his own but this was before he used mana to enhance his moves.
The sword and the tridents clanged for a few times before Liam directly retreated a few steps back to unleash [Nether Firestorm].
-1000
-1500
Big damage numbers popped up on the nagas and their 100,000 health points quickly started dwindling.
Luna standing behind Liam also started throwing out fireballs, along with the lesser dryads and the imps.
And since Liam held all the aggro as he was still the maximum damage dealer, the other small fry undeads as well started pounding on the couple of nagas from the sides.
With all the soul undeads doing consistent chip damage, the health of the nagas floored in no time and the two dropped dead.
Kyuuuu! Luna immediately sprang forward to pick up the drops but weirdly nothing dropped? Or rather the bodies of the two nagas disappeared as if they never existed.
The corpses as well typically disappeared inside the game but the way these guys had disappeared was very different. More importantly, there were no drops.
“Wait, there are no experience points also?” Liam was now sure that something weird was going on. Every kill definitely gave some experience points.
“What the heck is this dungeon?” He gripped his sword and continued walking forward. There was only one way to find out and that was by heading further inside.
Liam took a few steps and then paused, suddenly turning around to look at one of his soul undeads. To be more specific, the odd one out.
“Don’t think that I did not notice what you have been up to.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at the casually chilling ghost coldly.
Gorak instantly shivered. “Yes, boss.” He responded immediately without thinking too much.
“So you can talk huh?” Liam’s eyebrows twitched. “It looks like I have to pay you some special attention really soon.”
Among all the undeads he had forged, the human one really looked like it was more special and had far more secrets to it.
He definitely needed to poke and prod the guy to understand more. “You better fight properly and not laze around.”
After giving the guy another threatening look, he made a mental note to do this later and went back to pay attention to the dungeon.
Copying him, Luna also gave a similar look to this disobedient servant.
“Ahhh…” Seeing the two, Gorak shivered again and gnashed his teeth.
The thing was that he had a small secret, a very small one which was that… he was different from the other soul undeads.
He was not just a mindless drone who obeys orders. He could think and feel to a certain extent. He also retained all of his memories from when he was alive.
Sure, it was painful to know that he was now a ghost and someone else’s slave but this also gave him hope that maybe one day he will be able to break free?
So at all costs, Gorak had wanted to hide from the damn bastard’s eyes but it looked like that was going to be difficult.
The guy found him out even when he tried his best to be invisible!
Just as the ghost was thinking about various things, two more nagas popped up in front of them, and without realizing Gorak had already started attacking the monsters.
Even though he had some consciousness, he still felt compelled, needed to obey the direct orders of his master. “Fuck my life.” He whined and attacked the two nagas.
He was a mage when he was alive so now also he attacked with magic spells. He had retained all of the skills he had previously.
He mindlessly switched them out one after the other and continued barraging the spells on the nagas.
His order was to fight properly and not laze around so this time he really had to put in his best efforts.
“Just wait bastard… one of these days I will have my revenge.” He cried while he fought to the best of his capabilities to serve Liam.
He did not realize it but this time Liam was paying more attention to him even though he decided to experiment with the guy later.
He had noticed each and every single expression on the ghost’s face and also the moves he made.
More importantly, what Gorak did not know was that… if Liam paid more attention to a specific undead, he was even able to hear its thoughts and feelings.
“Interesting.” Liam grinned. It looked like his first human soul undead was indeed very special. He had some amount of free will and free thinking. It seems he could even curse him freely.
But did this mean his potential was higher than the other soul undeads? Or did he become like this only because he was a vengeful ghost to begin with before getting forged?
There were too many doubts and too many questions. He really wanted to learn and understand his class better to tap into the full potential of his class.
But first… Clang!
Liam blocked the naga’s next attack as he took a step forward, and used [Spirit Slash] to finish off its last bits of health.
With all the soul undeads now working to their bones, two more nagas fell, and once again there were no drops and no experience points.
A dungeon that gave neither of these things was definitely a waste of time but Liam continued quickly plowing through the nagas to get to the bottom of this mysterious place.
A few seconds later another wave of nagas arrived, and there were five of them this time.
Liam’s expression changed as he observed that all five of them were again Level 50 and moved with a similar speed and agility as his own.
And since there were five, the difficulty this time had exponentially increased!
He was still more than capable of handling this much but the issue that he was concerned about was how the others were doing. Was everyone in the same boat facing a similar situation?
“No point in thinking about that right now. I first need to get out of here.”
[Nether Scythe] Liam raised his hand to command the swirling nether in the air and started cleaving the nagas left and right.
With the soul undeads and Luna giving support to him from the back, this battle as well did not last long. However, before the last naga could go down, Liam suddenly stopped.
“STOP.” He commanded the others as well to stop and stepped forward defenselessly to take a hit.
There was something about this place that was bugging him from the beginning. So he wanted to confirm something.
Just a couple of hits from the snake man wouldn’t do much damage to him. He stepped forward and when the naga raised the trident to strike him down, he simply stood and took the damage.
Or rather no damage at all!
“I was right!” Liam gazed at the naga in front of him in puzzlement. The damn thing could do no damage to him if he did not attack it in the first place.
It was an illusion! Everything inside this place was an illusion!
