Jen was talking in a low tone to Dani, gesturing to the blood moss all around her. "Are you sure the moss isn't poisonous or otherwise harmful to us?! After all, it seems so scary, like it's about to open its mouth and swallow us..." And shook at her own narrative, while Avan tuned her out and just grinned briefly.

They had already reached the second chamber, which led at a slight downward angle deeper into the earth realm, and were trying to absorb as many samples of the dungeon's surroundings as they could. Of course, out of sight or earshot of his group, and especially away from Linob, whose gaze seemed less hostile since the fight in the forest, but still pierced.

Avan still didn't know what to do with this special dungeon inventory, which he always sensed easily and immediately somewhere in his subconscious. But it didn't stop him from taking the various materials and samples he found on his journey. While his sphere of influence and senses dulled further and further into the deeper part of the dungeon, he was still able to act normally behind him, experimenting with pulling blood moss out of his dungeon inventory or making entirely new ones with his ambient mana, which he then stashed away as well. Surprisingly, the blood moss was simply infused with blood, and even the glowing properties were not magical in nature, but an apparent chemical reaction with fluorescent bacteria that lived on the moss. This was the only way he had been able to mine the moss at all and add it to his dungeon inventory.

A hand on his shoulder jerked him out of his attempts in the last room, and as he turned his head slightly, he saw a friendly grinning Patris just resting one of his leather gloves on his shoulder.

"Say, while we're here already so comfortably entering a completely completely harmless dungeon, where probably no one had been before and the monsters certainly have nothing to do with creepy blood.... And the two girls also talk about their things, I wanted to get to know you better!"

Avan couldn't help a short suppressed laugh and the young warrior's smile got a little wider. "Hah, I knew it. Not at all as emotionless as you want to make it seem! See right through it!" And patted Avan once, then a second time firmly but playfully on the same shoulder as they followed side by side the two women deeper into the dungeon.

"So, how do you get to Tria? You said something about Haipu and that you passed it briefly? What's the situation over in the capital? Both my parents and both my little brothers and sisters live over there and our family runs a small grocery store. Any news from the infested city?" He asked him, still grinning, and Avan was sure he didn't really despise the city, but probably didn't completely like it either.

"Um, not much... Oh, yes!" He stopped for a moment, then continued walking while looking thoughtfully at Patris and chewing on his lower lip. "You surely know that black ominous tower, by the kolloseum."

"Ah yes, everyone around Haipu knows our dungeon! The pride of our city, but so full and crowded with adventurers that Dani and I wanted to look around out here, and so in Haipu we ran into Jen and Linob. And in Tria, ran into you, haha."

"Hmmm, well, the point is that I didn't even stay an hour because apparently something had happened to that dungeon tower."

No sooner had Avan reported this than he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he felt a dangerous glare from Linob at his back, while even Patris briefly tripped over his own feet and stared at him in bewilderment as he mechanically walked on. "How - what, how do you mean? W-what happened?!" And the grip on Avan's shoulder grew pleadingly stronger.

"From what I've heard from the guards, some underground organization in Haipu did something to the dungeon core, and the entire tower is.... Imploded." Before Patris could force anything out of his shocked mouth, which was opening and closing, Avan quickly followed up with something. "But it didn't really hit the merchant district! The debris spread mostly toward the eastern city wall, some even a little beyond."

One could sense Linob's incredulity, and a certain fear for his loved ones, friends or relatives, while Patris didn't know what to say to that, and had finally stopped to stare at him.

A short time later, everyone was standing around Avan, and he turned a little inwardly at the attention to get more information from him about the city and its condition.

Avan himself, as often, stuck to half-truths, trying to recount the talk of the guards at the gate, and what he had seen on the outside near the city wall itself, without revealing that he had been more than just in the vicinity of the dungeon implosion.

"But, w-how?" Jen whispered, giving her guard an incredulous look that also seemed as if he couldn't quite believe it, while a trace of hatred and deepest anger danced in his eyes as Avan came to the conclusion of the Blight's Hand and its suspected involvement.

His three teammates asked him all sorts of questions, and Avan tried to answer them as best he could without raising more questions.

Distracted as he was, he didn't realize until relatively late that his slightly blurred senses were transmitting to him seven winged shapes approaching them from a room ahead.

[Ghost Bat - 101]

...

[Ghost Bat - 103]

"Guys! 7 ghost bats are approaching us from the front! Level 101 to 103. Kinda make an impression of shriveled vampire skin, have two fangs, and leathery wings that are so thin you could look through them." Avan abruptly interrupted the others with a raised hand, and the others looked at him in confusion, until they realized that they had found the first dungeon monsters, and they had probably found them as well.

"Okay, blood-sucking bats, typical organs with ultrasound, seeing nothing else. Noise messes them up, and they go berserk, attacking friend and foe when hungry or injured!" Came it from Dani the walking monster lexicon as if shot out of a pistol. "We should split up and make noise from at least two sides as soon as they get near the entrance to this cave here! When the time comes, Patris runs ahead and taunts, while the rest of us first injure their wings so they can't fly up here in the cave, or if possible, directly kill them with a well-aimed headshot right away!

With this rough plan and short concise sentences later, Avan ran to the right across the wet and slippery blood moss with Jen in tow to stand by to the right of the tunnel entrance while Patris took up position with Dani on the left.

Avan's senses sharpened as he paid attention primarily to the approaching bats, and he gave a quick signal with a raised fist as three black spheres popped out of nowhere above him and hovered over the tunnel entrance. The bats had already picked them up with their sonar, and four split toward Avan and Jen, while the others headed toward the other two.

Just as the ghost bats emerged from the tunnel, Avan nodded to the tense Patris, and he ran forward, shouting odd curses and insults.

Huh, insults count as taunts? Ahahaha... he shook his head in disbelief at the obscene scene in front of him, as the warrior ran towards the flying monsters, cursing and insulting, and in fact attracted the attention of all 7 of them.

What the abyss? Ahahaha! Is it the skill, or do they just feel the mockery he radiates towards them?

Back to the fight, Avan! You can laugh at him later, hahaha...

The first arrow already flew, effortlessly piercing the wings of two bats, which let out a shrill and ultra high-pitched scream as they fell two meters to the ground, and a kind of red mist indicated that they were now in rage.

Patris, meanwhile, blocked an attempt by another bat to bite his head off, deflecting the creature's ugly leathery skull and extended fangs to the side, while his sword parried the claws of yet another bat.

Jen cast her incantations again, whispering to herself as a white glow emanated from her and surrounded Patris, giving him various buffs. "In the name of the holy mother, protect, nurture and guard..."

Finally, Avan's three forms joined the fight in spear form, effortlessly piercing one bat in the head, while a second spear slipped off the skull of one of the two monsters in a frenzy, and the third brought down another bat from flight.

One monster out, four on the ground, two more flying over!

He mentally concentrated his forms on the two still flying monsters, while Dani helped her boyfriend with arrows to avoid being caught by the bloodsuckers.

Avan himself knew that if he had been alone, he would have had no problem annihilating the monsters he had seen so far, including the red wolves. However, since he had a very good impression of his abnormal abilities, he had to try very hard and restrain himself, which resulted in only three of his forms. His attempts on the way to Tria had shown him that he could easily conjure up a little more than 30 spheres, but then it turned into an increasingly severe headache when he overdid it. The former Akkalon's spheres, in lesser numbers, required almost no concentration to maintain, but became multiplicatively heavier and more taxing on his mind the more he summoned.

And so this time only three of his midnight-black forms whizzed through the air, bringing both still-flying bats down to earth, while he made short work of the wings and the monsters hit the ground with dozens of holes in their wings.

"Avan, here!" Came the cry of Dani, who was forced into close combat, and had no time to draw her dagger as she tried to fend off an enraged bat with her enchanted bow. At her feet lay two more dead ghost bats, and Patris tanked the last three.

At a mental command, his three black spears whizzed through the air, piercing another of the three bats fighting the warrior, and drilling into the spine and back of the monster's head that had just snapped at Dani.

A quick gesture with his head to Jen and the healer ran over to the ranger to look at the scratch marks and any further injuries, while Avan himself let one of his forms fizzle out and the remaining two wrapped around his hands and forearms like gooey darkness as gauntlets.

Linob watched him with interest as Avan suddenly switched from mage to magical melee, grabbing the head and neck of one of the last two bats with his two gloved hands, which reached just to his shoulder, and with a yank separated the monster's head from its shoulders with a juicy clap.

The last bat, apparently no longer quite so offended and mocked, turned at the sound, and Avan could have sworn to see something like intelligent fear flashing in its eyes, but this was immediately overcome by rage again, and he had to fend off the two claws snapping at him, which it aimed at his head and belly.

One side of the bat hung uselessly, dragging a hole sideways, while the monster nevertheless flapped both wings, allowing the two limbs with the claws to be aimed at him.

No sooner had he pushed the claws aside than the monster charged again and next drove forward with her throat to rip his throat out.

A sword bored into the monster's spine from behind, the forgotten warrior taking advantage of the situation, and Avan was able to dodge with a side step, only to form his right hand into claws himself in the next step, and with a single swing cut the monster's throat without resistance.

A smacking sound rang out as the last bat's head hit the ground, and everyone gathered around Jen to check the group for wounds or venom.

None of the others found it odd when Avan switched to close combat, seemingly normal for a [battle mage] as his status indicated to others. A respectful nod from Linob also showed confirmation of his assumption, although the lack of questions or curious looks also spoke for themselves.

The group of four paused, and Avan looked at his post-combat reports, which again did not tell him of a level increase for such low-level monsters.

And so it went on for the next few hours, through many caves, against many ghost bats in the same level range, while here and there an alpha variant with level 110 was among them. Traps were only in the form of poisonous looking sharp stones, in which an inattentive adventurer could grab or stumble, and soon the group took a small break to eat and drink something, directly in front of a stone double door, which according to the stories of the others made up a boss room and separated the first level from the others.

As it is probably NORMAL in dungeons. Akkalon!

The boss of each level normally represented an extremely strong variant of the level monsters, which could end in a king bat for example, or a similar boss variant, only here with the theme of blood.

With another push and shove of his sphere of influence, which was now much more difficult, Avan could also look behind it into the boss room, and saw between hanging stalagtites and stalagmites on the ceiling of the thirty meter large cave a huge blood-red bat hanging upside down.

[Emperor Bat - 135]

He shared his discovery with the others, and no one knew exactly what this boss had in the way of special abilities, so they rested further and then soon stood before the stone double doors to the boss room, ready to complete the first level of the dungeon.