Sir Nick had swung around his weighted chain in a large circle over his head and entangled the wolf with it immobilizing its legs while he planted the shaft of his sickle into the ground behind it with the sickle blade facing it. 

He then whipped the beast forward toward the standing blade gashing it all the way from its mouth down to its behind.

Meanwhile, Zoe tended toward treating Liss but no matter what she tried, she couldn't heal her wounds, not even a shallow cut on her forehead.

"She must've fallen too deep into her soul abyss. That's the only possible explanation I can think of," she said, looking at Sir Nick as he lifted his crank from the ground and trudged towards them, completely exhausted. 

"We have to pick up our pace. The infection is spreading more rapidly than anticipated. At this rate, she doesn't have much time left."

"How much...?" he asked, his face all sad and gloomy and his mood darkened.

"An hour at the most. Maybe less." Zoe replied.

Clusters of glowing particles emerged from within the corpses and clumped together to form big shining spheres with a divine glow, levitating on top of their mutilated remains.

"Time to eat, Bone Slicer." when Sir Nick raised his weapon up in the air, it created a magical force field and siphoned all those energy spheres in. 

That mass of energy gathered in it then got transferred within his body to his heart where it vanished in a split second.

"Ryan's body won't make it through another crank up for a long while. That's two down. By the looks of it, you used a considerable amount of your power on those puny feeble creatures." Riley analyzed their current situation to Sir Nick in a taunting manner to provoke him.

"Without Liss, I'm the only one left with a decent attack-type crank in our team. So, you have to follow my lead. That's your only option if you want your daughter to not die." she told him, her tone very much domineering.

"Guys, this place seems weird to me," Ryan said. His inner sniveling alter ego had already shitted himself a thousand times at the less scary more sinister look on Riley when she rolled her eyes onto him.

"Speak," she ordered him to explain what he said as she walked up to him, the heavy tread of her boots gave his skin goosebumps.

Sir Nick sat on his knees beside Zoe, both gazing at Liss lying in front of them. Their grave concern for her could be seen on their depressed and gloomy faces.

"I haven't seen one-horned hybrids in such large numbers in one place before. Have you?" Ryan said.

"What's your point?" she asked, slightly angered but more annoyed.

"These creatures never hunt in packs. It's not like them to gang up on their prey. They enjoy taking their time to chase their prey and catch onto them before they give up."

"Moreover, they don't lurk around in first floors where the magic dust levels in the air are arguably considerable." he said, voicing his qualms before everyone.

"You think someone unleashed them onto us? That someone has been controlling them?" Sir Nick enquired. He stood up and advanced towards Ryan promptly to join their conversation, leaving Liss with Zoe.

The first and foremost thing Ryan did the second he recovered from the rash landing was creating an energy barricade on the staircase connecting the first floor to the second. 

It was meant to danger-proof his team from the many unknowns that were loitering around on the floor above them. 

It was still in place, not a single scratch on it the whole time those hybrids made their entrance known to them.

"Most possibly. But the real question is from where did they enter this floor. There must be some kind of secret passage that opens into other floors of the dungeon. If we can find it, there is a slight chance we could save Liss and get out of here in one piece." 

Ryan came up with an idea and put it forward for consideration by others.

"Done, you two? Now shut up and carefully listen to each and every word I am about to utter." Riley got annoyed with their discussion or more precisely leaving her out of it. 

She got used to ordering people around, one of the privileges she gained by wielding an elite-class crank, and she very much loved being the boss in the room.

"I am the leader of this group, am I not? Do you know why? Because I'm the strongest among us. So, you two fine gentlemen better stop playing adventurers in a lost jungle before anyone else gets hurt."

"We are taking the visible main route to the second floor, the third floor next, and the fourth after that. Got it?" she raised her voice with both the men, one old and one young,

She didn't care that she was talking to her teammates. She never did. All she ever cared about was herself, and forcing her decisions onto others and dominating them every chance she got was the only thing she ever loved.

"No disrespect to you, madam. But even if you go all-out with your power, clearing twenty floors in one hour would be like a toddler reaching out to grab the moon." Ryan stood firmly before her as he expressed his opinion of her both flawed and stupid plan.    

While they were arguing, putting their cards one by one onto the table, Sir Nick disintegrated his bone slicer into an infinite number of tiny molecules that looked like a group of fireflies sparkling to the eyes as they floated in the air.

A spell cast for any technique would demand equal chi for elite, rich, middle, and poor cranker. And offers equal result, oppression, and effect against them. 

Nick just completed the first part of a detection technique that had created a raging tempest with howling gales, rumbling thunder caps, and lightning flashes extending over a few feet around his spell caster named bone slicer.

... to be continued.