758: Reaching A New Dungeon Stratum

Reaching A New Dungeon Stratum

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After the death of the Hivemind's Avatar, Veronica and Ervas' group quickly continued their exploration of the underground dungeon.

After having reached the last floor of the first stratum, they took a night break and quickly resumed their exploration into the next stratum.

What greeted their sight the moment they stepped forward was yet another forest, but this time the forest by itself was even larger, denser, and darker.

The light from the outside barely reached here, and there was a large amount of powerful energies flowing everywhere within this place. However, these energies seemed now corrupted, as if there was a lingering miasma within the air.

Most of the areas with land were covered in swamps, where hideous monsters lived, mostly creatures from conventional dungeons such as gigantic bugs and other creatures, alongside living animals from the surface which had adapted to life in this underworld and had been mutated by the miasma, turning into monsters themselves.

These powerful beast were way stronger than the goblins from the previous stratum, but they were nothing too impressive to be able to compare to their current power level. However, it was still noticeable that they gave a nice amount of EXP.

The swamps themselves possessed a large density, but the floors had become actually smaller than the first floor, and it was possible to find the stairs down even faster than before.

Goblins seemed non-existent here, and only beasts dominated these marshlands. The group was having a field day by simply going around slaying the monsters that they came into contact, without much care about other things.

Of course, the leaders of the group, the split souls and also the twins and Yggdrasil, were often wary while walking around here, there was certainly something of the Hivemind within here.

Perhaps the Miasma itself, which was infecting the entire stratum could be the one at fault in that.

"This place is quite interesting, I don't think we have visited a swamp before as much as this one, haven't we?" wondered Anna.

"We haven't… I think the only swamp we have ever visited was in the Demon Continent, but it was very brief, mostly because there were lizardmen there that Veronica wanted to bring to the Kingdom." Said Shade.

"Oh, those guys! Right, I wonder if there are lizards here?" wondered Aqua.

"There are certainly lizards wandering around, but nothing intelligent yet." Said Veronica.

"I am a bit bored…" said Anna.

"Me too…" sighed Aqua.

"And me…" said Shade.

"Ah! I guess it is pretty boring to go through the dungeon, isn't it? But its something we gotta do to beat that guy… Damn it, we almost got him… Well, we just have to hurry up and continue descending, the EXP is good at the very least! Right?" asked Veronica.

"You girls can go to the divine realm meanwhile, you can rest there, we are also there too…" said Ervas.

"Yeah… I guess I am going inside… I am tired of this boring swamp." Sighed Anna.

"Me too… I want to take a nap…" sighed Shade.

"I'll stay with Veronica! I can still manage…" said Aqua.

Anna and Shade had given up on the trip for now, and well, they were not the only ones, most of the party they were carrying around quickly went back to the pair's divine realm, just hunting mobs that died instantly wasn't so fun after some time, so the group was able to concentrate into rushing through the dungeon faster.

Of course, some still were coming in and out occasionally, but the progress in the dungeon wasn't as slow either, in just a two days they were already in the floor previous to the las one of the second stratum. Most likely they'll be able to reach the last stratum tomorrow.

Yggdrasil, who was using an avatar to explore the inside of her own roots, was feeling a bit restless, she was constantly sensing and feeling the dark presence of the Hivemind growing stronger with each passing second, something bad was slowly being brewed…

"We have to hurry…" she said.

"You felt something?" wondered Ervas.

"What was it?" asked Veronica.

"I don't know how to explain but… it is not good to stay here for too long, let's use our power and quickly fly towards the next floors, I think the last stratum is the last one… that place is where… the Hivemind has been manifesting himself the most… I think there might be something dangerous there…" said Yggdrasil.

"Hm… Certainly, he won't easily let us get down there without a fight." Said Veronica.

"Then let's hurry." Said Ervas.

The twins nodded as the five quickly flew through the skies of the swamp, ignoring most of the monsters, as they left their summons taking care of them to gain a passive income of EXP.

"The stairs are there!" pointed out Kuro, Veronica's daughter had been sticking to her mother this entire time, as she wanted to help out as much as she could.

"Let's get there!" said Veronica.

FLASH!

Everyone flew into the stairs and reached the last floor of the stratum, where they were quickly greeted by the Boss!

Boss Monsters were also present in this dungeon, as it was created a lot like the conventional dungeons from Kritias, Boss Monsters were a thing, of course, and they were strong as well, giving a lot of energy or essence, which was converted into EXP through the System.

The first stratum last boss was the Furious Forest Manticore, a large twenty-meter-tall chimeric monster with the appearance of many monsters stitched together, it had died rather quickly when the split souls' group just burned the entire last floor where the Hivemind Avatar had infected…

And now, the last Boss of the second stratum was… an enormous and sticky salamander!

"GRUUUOOKH!"

The monstrous salamander wasn't just a simple one, as it was covered by many venomous spikes, and it had several eyes across its head. It emanated a strong and threatening aura… but how strong could it truly be against Supreme God-Realm beings?

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