All of a sudden, the ground shook. A deep rumbling echoed through the ruins as cracks spiderwebbed across the ancient stone floor. Dust and debris rained from above, filling the air with a choking haze.
Jager’s red lens flickered as it warned, “Sir, the Mana Energy levels are spiking. Estimated dungeon break in progress.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes, “Okay. A dungeon break arc, huh?”
Out of nowhere, a sharp screeching sound tore through the air as a jagged obsidian pillar erupted from the ground, impaling a nearby Malekith who was still bound midair. Blood sprayed in an arc, and his body twitched violently before falling limp, his lifeless eyes frozen in shock.
Samantha clicked her tongue, “Well, that’s one less headache.”
Rayan and the surviving Malekiths flinched, their expressions shifting from disbelief to raw panic. They had prepared for a standard dungeon exploration, not a full-scale dungeon break unfolding right beneath them.
Lucas ignored their distress and turned to Chloe and Samantha, “We’re getting dragged into this whether we like it or not.”
Chloe cracked her knuckles, “Good. I was getting bored.”
“What about them?” Samantha gestured toward the still-bound Malekiths.
“Humans, let us go!” Rayan immediately turned to Chloe, desperation creeping into his voice. “We can fight! We must avenge our comrade!”
The quaking intensified as more jagged obsidian pillars jutted from the ground, tearing through the ruins like spears thrust from the depths of the earth. Then, the pillars began to writhe before monstrous beasts clawed their way to the surface.
These quadrupedal creatures were armored in dark blue chitin, their segmented plating gleaming with a metallic sheen under the sunlight. Each plate interlocked seamlessly, forming an exoskeleton that appeared impenetrable. But their most striking feature was their elongated, bladed snouts, the obsidian that had first emerged as the very "pillars" piercing the battlefield.
One of the beasts rose from the ground with the unfortunate Malekith still skewered on its nose. With a violent shake of its head, it let out a snort and flung the lifeless corpse aside like a piece of discarded trash. The body tumbled through the air before crashing into the ground.
Rayan’s breath hitched, “By the abyss…”
When the beasts spotted Lucas and the others, they turned in perfect cohesion and let out a deafening roar. Then, without hesitation, they charged!
The ground trembled beneath their stampede, their bladed snouts cutting through the air. Dust and debris kicked up in their wake, creating a rolling cloud of earth and stone as they bore down on their prey.
Samantha cracked her neck, rolling her shoulders. “I don’t think their meat will be edible, though.”
Lucas chuckled and shook his head, “I think you just stole my comment.”
Rayan and the remaining Malekiths, still restrained, were thrown into a frenzy. He cried, “Release us! We need to fight together, or we’re all dead!”
Lucas glanced at him, then back at the stampeding beasts. “Hmm, alright then.” Snapping his fingers, the restraints fell away, freeing the Malekiths. “Try not to die too quickly.”
The Malekiths barely had time to regain their footing before the first beast lunged. Its bladed snout shot forward like a lance, aiming straight for Rayan’s chest.
Rayan failed to react in time and cursed under his breath. As he hastily raised his arms in a desperate attempt to block, Chloe appeared beside him in a blur. Slashing upward, her sword deflected the beast’s bladed snout, sending sparks flying. Without missing a beat, she twisted her sword and carved a deep gash across the creature’s face.
The beast screeched, reeling back as dark ichor sprayed from the wound. Chloe clicked her tongue, “Tough skin.”
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Before she could press the attack, another beast lunged from the side. Samantha stabbed her spear forward, piercing its eye and forcing it to veer off course.
Meanwhile, Lucas flicked his hand, and countless bows, arrows, and daggers materialized on the ground. “Buddy, I think you need some kind of stuff if you’re going to fight,” he called out to the Malekiths.
The Malekiths exchanged glances before immediately grabbing their respective weapons. One of them nodded at Lucas and said, “Thank you, human. We’ll remember this grace.”
‘Huh? Grace? What?’ Lucas was once again baffled by the Malekith’s odd choice of words, but he kept his thoughts to himself and simply nodded in response.
Meanwhile, a bladed-snout beast rushed at Lucas. Glancing at the beast, his windbreaker morphed into armor as he raised his arms and fired a beam from his wrist. The scorching blast seared the beast’s face before his mechanical soldiers fanned out and unleashed a barrage from their laser rifles.
“Randoc? What does that mean?” Lucas scratched his helmet but kept firing at another Randoc.
A chamber popped open from his shoulder, and countless tiny missiles darted toward the Randoc, exploding in its face. On the other hand, his mechanical soldiers leveled their rifles and fired volleys of beams, searing through the beasts’ thick hides.
The Malekiths, watching from the sidelines, swallowed hard as they compared their wooden bows to the devastating weaponry of the metallic golems. Their crude arrows couldn’t even scratch the beasts’ hides, let alone kill them. While they were still nocking an arrow onto their bows, the metallic golems had already fired countless times, killing another Randoc.
Their effectiveness and efficiency were off the charts!
While Lucas and the others were killing the swarm of Randocs here and there, another earthquake rumbled, and the walls of the ruins split apart, revealing a giant swirling red portal.
Looking at the red portal, Lucas couldn’t resist commenting, “That’s a dungeon break’s portal, alright.”
Then, all of a sudden, a cacophony of bestial roars echoed from within the portal. The next moment, countless monsters emerged from it. This time, they were monstrous lion-wolf hybrids covered in deep crimson fur. Their massive heads bore snarling maws full of razor-sharp teeth, and thick golden manes ran down their necks and backs, extending to their large, bushy tails.
Samantha saw them and frowned. “Is that a lion?” she said as she stabbed another Randoc.
“More like a dog?” Chloe added, flicking her sword.
The newly emerged beasts howled to the sky and propelled themselves at the group. Their speed was far greater than the Randocs’. Within a fraction of a second, one of the beasts swung its paw at Samantha.
Narrowing her eyes, Samantha flicked her spear and blocked the beast’s strike. However, to her surprise, the beast wasn’t just fast but it was strong too. Its sheer force pressed her feet deep into the dirt. She grunted, pulled her spear away, sidestepped, and flicked her hand to form a rune.
“Flame Burst.”
A spray of flame burst from the rune, burning the beast’s mane!
Howling in pain, the beast shook its head and snorted to extinguish the fire. Seizing this opening, red runes formed on Samantha’s spear as she thrust it into the beast’s eye.
As the beast dropped dead in front of Lucas with a hole in its chest, a message appeared before him, announcing the kill.
“Okay, I think it’s a lion,” Lucas shrugged, firing at another Gagaleon rushing at him.
Although Lucas and the girls were handling the Randocs and Gagaleons with ease, the same couldn’t be said for the Malekiths.
Rayan kept shooting his arrows at an incoming Randoc, but they only ricocheted off the beast’s body. Seeing this, a sense of dread gripped him. “How are these foul beasts this tough?!”
“ARGHH! H-help!”
He snapped his head around and saw a Gagaleon mauling his comrade, who desperately stabbed his daggers into the beast’s head. But the wounds were too shallow that the Gagaleon ignored them, chomping down hard on the Malekith.
“Arham!” Rayan shouted, wanting to rush to his comrade’s aid, but a Randoc suddenly arrived in front of him, aiming its bladed snout at him. “Back off!” he roared, twisting his foot and stabbing furiously with his twin daggers at the Randoc’s scales.
But instead of harming the Randoc, it twisted its body and slammed its snout into Rayan, sending him crashing into a nearby tree. Rayan felt his internal organs tremble, almost on the verge of rupturing from the impact.
“H-help me!” Arham gasped, his voice weak, eyes filled with desperation as blood poured from his wounds.
Then, out of nowhere, a massive mechanical soldier descended from the sky, slamming a giant hammer into the Gagaleon’s torso. Bones crunched under the force of the strike. As the beast shrieked in agony, the mechanical soldier yanked Arham out of its jaws.
“Damn, kiddo, you suck at this,” the giant mechanical soldier scoffed before throwing Arham to a nearby mechanical soldier. “Patch him up.”
The mechanical soldier saluted and immediately lugged Arham away from the battlefield.
Facing the horde of swarming beasts, the giant mechanical soldier slammed its hammer against the shield it was holding and bellowed into the sky!
“MUTTS, COME GET SOME! MANUEL'S HERE TO DROP THIS BANHAMMER ON YOU ALL!”