Chapter 44: “Behold!”
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The smell was terrible. The dungeon looked similar to before, albeit with fewer tombstones and more trees, but the smell was stifling. Evren was standing near the entrance sensing the surroundings. The monsters felt like humans, so there probably weren’t anymore skeletons. However, their movements seemed a bit sluggish. Evren had a feeling that if they followed the archetypical undead monster standard, these would have to be zombies.

As he moved forward, and finally caught sight of one, he confirmed it. But these, betrayed his expectations. Sure, the movies displayed undead walking along with parts sticking out but dragging along behind or completely opened up where all the gory details are in full view, Evren didn’t think the most hardcore of producers would even do such things.

When they finally sensed him, they came shambling over his way. Evren shrugged and said, “Well, they’re slower than the skeletons.” But unlike the skeletons, these were grapplers, and biters. They didn’t carry weapons, he wasn’t sure if they would use weapons even if they had them, so Evren was a little disappointed. Perhaps though, this may be a floor to play with his magic, Evren thought.

“Ok then, let me try this one, ‘cavity’!” Evren said as he pointed at the ground. A hole opened up in the ground about the size of two fingers. Evren nodded, “Just as I suspected! Useless.” Evren left the wagon where it was and moved out through the tombstones, getting threat on several zombies in the process. When he had a large group of them, he started running in a large circle around them. When he felt they had gathered up enough, he used ‘squall’ to squeeze them closer together and push them away from him and then he used ‘explosion’ in the center of the group.

Fortunately, after the zombies died, anything associated with them would dissolve along with them, because Evren had been covered in gore. When it dissolved, it had sort of a cool feeling, and left Evren as clean as he was before he was covered. He then went over to pick up the milky white mana gems from the ground, tossed them into the back of the wagon and moved onward.

After experimenting for a while, Evren determined that the air spells were the least effective, and like water, they would empty the contents of the zombies. Aside from ‘explosion’ fire spells would make the zombies burning zombies, which would still pursue Evren. As for earth spells, ‘boulder’ ‘skewer’ and ‘avalanche’ all seemed to be able to dispatch the zombies, but nothing nearly as effective as using explosion.

One thing Evren learned through his passing through of the 26th floor was that if the zombie wasn’t killed, it could still control and move its detached limbs. One of the subjects of his explosion spell had an arm thrown at Evren, which then moved toward him in an attempt to grab him. He learned the larger the size of the group, the greater chance for survivors. Therefore, in his later travels, he would only draw groups from straight in front of him if possible.

When Evren tried fighting them in melee, he found they were tough even though they were slow, only a solid strike to the chest, or removal of the head was effective in defeating them. An attempt to cut the tendons, or cripple them in some way by hitting major muscles would be completely ineffective. Therefore, Evren stayed with his tactic of rounding them up and blowing them to pieces. It was a mentally draining level, not only for the spell casting, but for the smell and sight of the zombies.

When Evren finished the level after a day and a half, he rested in the passageway to the next level. His endurance had improved since entering the dungeon, so he was less fatigued than he had been previously. He felt this new body was stronger than he previous one in its prime, but the endurance was significantly lesser. He didn’t mind so much when he was in the first town, or in Plinth, but here was a situation where it would be needed. Especially since he was doing it alone.

The 27th floor introduced goblin and orc zombies. The goblin zombies were a little faster than the human ones, and the orcs were a little tougher, but they all died just as easily. On the 28th floor, ogres joined the party, and proved they were tough enough to handle an ‘explosion’. Evren would need to use ‘skewer’, or a telekinesis assisted ‘boulder’ to finish them off. The 29th floor brought trolls, who, like the ogres, were tough to defeat, and even possessed a regeneration ability.

It seemed fire would counteract the ability to regenerate when used on a wound, but the progress of the 29th floor had significantly slowed him down. After two days of exploration, he was still on the floor, and was unsure where the passage to the 30th floor lay. Finally, he had to get some rest. He wasn’t sure how safe it would be, so he cleared out a large area around him of zombies, sat against the wheel of his wagon and tried to take a power nap.

He awoke to the sound of zombies approaching him. They didn’t moan or wail or make any noise like that, but their footsteps would still make noise against the cobblestones. Evren wasn’t sure how long he had slept for, but it only seemed like a minute. He quickly struggled to his feet, his limbs sluggish and moved away from the zombies. There were more than just a few, but not as many as he had cleared out before his nap. He gathered them up and finished them off, deciding to push on and make it to the next level instead of trying to nap again.

When he finally found the passage three hours later, he collapsed in the passage, barely managing to block off the wheels and fell asleep on the floor without preparation. When he woke, he felt better, but still wanted to rest more. Still, he pulled his wagon to the boss’ chamber, which was similar to the crypt like chamber for the skeletons. Evren wondered if it would be a bull-headed zombie, similar to the boss of the 25th level.

Evren opened the door to the crypt and pulled his wagon inside. He drew his sword to be safe and approached the center of the room. There he found something floating. It appeared to be spherical in shape with a big milky eye directly in the center. Below that was a toothy mouth, and around the outside of the sphere were tendrils wit… no those were eyestalks. Evren tilted his head in confusion. He had never read about this sort of thing before and had no idea what it was.

He launched a ‘skewer’ at the central eye, but it stopped just before the eye and was held there momentarily before falling to the floor. Evren then tried to cast ‘explosion’ but something happened to the spell after he cast it. He felt the magic leave him, but no explosion happened. A dark beam shot out from the large milky eye and struck Evren in the right shoulder. He dropped his sword immediately afterwards. He looked at his right arm, but found he wasn’t able to use it anymore.

Evren looked down at his sword, and using telekinesis, he launched the sword at the eye. Again, the blade stopped just before the eye, but this time Evren was pushing against the resistance. Evren realized he wouldn’t be able to do anything with the sword and let it fall to the ground, beneath the eye. Evren cast boulder over the eye, and as the rock started to fall towards the eye, he saw one of the eyestalks look up at it and the rock stopped in place.

Quickly, Evren cast ‘skewer’ at the eye, and a different eyestalk looked at the incoming rock lance, and fired a yellow beam at it, causing the rock lance to disintegrate in the air. Evren lifted his sword, that was under the eye, straight up to pierce it from below. The eye silently screamed and started to move around. Evren tried casting ‘explosion’ on it again and succeeded in blowing the floating eye to bits. He heard his sword and something else fall and walked over to see what they were. He put his sword away and picked up the milky white mana gem and a steel spear. Like the battleax, Evren tossed the spear into the back of his wagon. Evren could finally move his arm a few minutes later. He adjusted the gear in the back of his wagon and headed to the next level.

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