"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"

A roar filled with rage and indignation resounded inside the boss room.

*Crash

A fist just smashed the ground creating a small crater and causing the ground to violently shake.

*Kaching

A ninja bathed in a shadowy aura, wielding a katana sliced in a diagonal motion, successfully cutting off the rock monster's arm.

The skinny man shifted his gaze and saw the scene of a minotaur bathed in the same shadowy aura wrestling a giant rock monster in a test of strength, so far, neither had taken an advantage of each other and were locked in a stalemate.

The skinny man looked upwards and grinned in a sinister manner.

"Looks like they are approaching, time to end this quickly"

He put his hand up, mana gathered on that very hand's palm.

"Shadow Bind"

Under the rock monster's feet, their shadows suddenly turned darker and numerous hands emerged from it and started grabbing their legs.

With that said, the rock monsters looked down and panicked.

They mustered all of the strength they could in their legs and even tried to pry them away to free themselves, but the shadows that were holding them down were too resilient and it would take them a while to escape.

But it was already more than enough for the minotaur and the ninja to take advantage of their situation to finish them off.

"Don't destroy their magic cores, or else I would be unable to turn them into my summons"

The ninja's red eyes revealed a sharp glint and pulled out three shurikens, mana gathered and veiled the weapon in a transparent bluish light.

When the ninja threw the shuriken, it would leave behind a blue trail of light, the ninja aimed for the rock monster's remaining limbs.

Suddenly, the blue glow that covered the shurikens turned red and immediately exploded, the rock monster's limbs exploded into a million pieces and completely left the rock monster immobile and defenseless.

With no more legs to support it, the rock monster fell with a loud thud, one could see the despair in its eyes.

The ninja landed on top of the monster and looked down on it, their gazes met and without any hesitation, the ninja swung his arm and tried to decapitate the rock golem.

However, his attack only gave a small nick on the rock monster's neck and was unable to slice through it.

The impact caused the weapon and the ninja's hands to vibrate.

The ninja furrowed his brows and looked at the katana that he was wielding, there were several visible cracks all over the blade, it looked so bad that it wouldn't be a surprise if the weapon were to disintegrate right at this moment.

"These fellas have amazing defenses, I just got you that not too long ago and now we have to get a new katana for you"

The skinny man said while cackling.

Of course, before the start of the battle, the katana was in perfect condition, this was a testament to how high the monster's defense was.

Seeing this, the rock monster gave a disdainful sneer and its face showed clear mockery towards the ninja standing on top of it.

A summons from a necromancer doesn't have any emotions and was not angered by this in the slightest. 

The ninja's shadowy aura suddenly flared up and covered the blade with it, the ninja swung the katana one more time and was finally able to slice its head off without much trouble.

Even in its dying moments, the expression that the rock golem showed on his face was a sneer with a disdainful smile on top.

The ninja turned his head and saw that the black minotaur had already pulverized every single body part of the rock monster that it was fighting except for the chest area where its magic core should be located.

It was still pounding at its head, the head had already turned into powder but the minotaur refused to stop.

"Alright that's enough, return"

The skinny man waved his hands, and the ninja and the minotaur dissolved into the ground, turning into an actual shadow, and moved to the skinny man's shadow and merged.

With a smirk on its face, the skinny man put his hand up to one of the rock monsters.

"Arise"

Dark-like energy started enveloping the rock monster's corpse.

"Krieeeek"

A monster screamed in anguish as it perished under Ironclaw's spear.

After taking a break, the expedition party proceeded to move forward, the trip could be considered smooth sailing since no deaths have occurred yet and only a single adventurer was unable to continue due to a serious injury.

They had already arrived at the entranceway where the boss room should be.

Gazing at the dim entrance, the adventurers here could tell that there was barely any glow stone that lit up the boss room.

However, contrary to what one might think when the expedition was so successful thus far, all of the adventurers wore heavy expressions as frowns marred some of the adventurer's faces and there was one reason for that ...

"The tremors have stopped, captain"

An elven adventurer asked while gazing at the dim entrance, for some reason, he had felt an ominous feeling the more and more they got closer to the boss room.

Tremors kept appearing now and then and it caused plenty of adventurers in the expedition party some uneasiness.

There was no one in the expedition party that didn't feel an invisible pressure weighing down on them as their instincts were telling them to run away as far as possible.

However, if they backed down now, the expedition will fail, new monsters will respawn after a couple of hours and everything they did will be in vain.

Also, it will cause their reputation to suffer a blow, especially so for the Iron Maiden Adventurer Group, they had already failed once, and they don't want to fail once again.

There is also one more reason why they didn't run away, it was because of the existence of the master rank champion, Ironclaw, the strength he displayed during this expedition left them in awe.

'If sir Ironclaw is here then everything will be fine'

That is what they thought.

Nevertheless, some still didn't feel assured even if Ironclaw was with them.

Seeing that some of the adventurers had some hesitation on their faces, Ironclaw knew that he had to encourage them to bolster their fighting spirits.

With renewed confidence, some of the adventurers shook off the uneasiness in their hearts and marched forward with caution.

They already have information about what the boss was, so the expedition party was already in a formation that was best suited to deal with the rock-like monsters.

However, much to their surprise, the area was empty, they scanned with their magical sense and were unable to find any hidden monsters which made them all frown.

Ironclaw wore a puzzled expression as well and turned his head to look at a fellow adventurer, one of the expert ranks in his adventurer group.

"Is this the place? Why can't I find anything? Or were there more hidden areas around?"

The adventurer shook his head and had a confused expression.

"I swear, this is where we found the boss monster, maybe it is hiding somewhere or it's just like you said, maybe there is a hidden area somewhere"

Ironclaw looked around and saw traces of battle, there were craters and smashed rocks and boulders, there were even sword marks and some fallen stalactites that impaled the floor.

"Someone has been here," An elven adventurer said.

"Was it those bastards that separated from us?"

Ironclaw said with an angry tone.

"I don't think so, that new guy was only intermediate rank, he would get squashed immediately if he faced off against the boss monster"

"I don't see their corpses as well"

Another adventurer interjected, the expedition party already knew that Jack and the woman had gone awol which caused utter displeasure, if they ever see them again, they wouldn't mind breaking their noses.

"So what happened here? Don't tell me some random strong adventurer got ahead of us and cleared the dungeon before we could"

"There were only traces of a fight here but we didn't see any on the way"

Ironclaw said.

Ironclaw's brows shot up in realization.

"Either someone used stealth or concealment magic or teleportation magic"

"I think someone used stealth magic to avoid getting spotted by the monster on the way here, if it was someone who could use teleportation magic... that possibility is almost slim to none"

An angel adventurer said his opinion.

Ironclaw nodded.

"You are right, such a capable champion wouldn't waste his or her time hunting monsters to earn a living, such people, they would do well anywhere they go and would be scouted by any kingdom or clan" 

Suddenly, Ironclaw flinched, like a cat that had gotten his tail stepped on.

He turned his body and looked in a certain direction, he squinted his eyes to peer into the darkness.

"Who are you?"

Ironclaw said while his grip on his spear tightened.

The others wore confused expressions due to Ironclaw's sudden actions and all of them simultaneously turned their heads to look at where Ironclaw was looking at.

No matter how much they looked, they still couldn't see anything but when they saw Ironclaw wearing such a serious expression on his face, they raised their guard and remained vigilant since Ironclaw rarely showed such an expression.

The expert rank angels in their group finally picked up something and wore wary expressions on their faces.

"As expected of the strongest adventurer in Turron Town, looks like I underestimated you a bit, kekeke"

A spine-chilling cackle reached everyone's ears and gave them goosebumps.

The fact that they were unable to detect someone hiding was a testament that the other side was not weak.

They raised their guards once more and even though they still couldn't see the one who just talked earlier, they more or less figure out where he was from the voice he out earlier.

"Super first-class master rank"

Ironclaw muttered, what he just said was pretty much heard by everyone and this piece of news pretty much shocked them since the strongest people in Turron Town were only second-class master rank champions.

Ironclaw himself was also a second class, even though he had never met a super first-class master-ranked champion before, he had met a first-class in another town and the pressure and magical aura that the skinny man was giving off were much stronger than that first-class that he met.

The difference between a single sub-rank could be as wide as a gulf, Ironclaw had already guessed that the one who slew the boss monsters was this man who was leisurely sitting on a rock in front of him.

It was not uncommon for non-adventurers to interrupt an adventurer going on a mission but the problem was that Ironclaw's gut feeling was telling him that the cloaked man did not come with good intentions.

"What is your purpose in being here good sir?"

Ironclaw put on a grimaced smile and asked politely, he was also secretly rousing up his magical power in preparation.

Seeing everyone's wary faces and attitudes, the skinny man thought it was somehow amusing and cackled once more.

"Kekekekekeke, my purpose?"

"AHHHH!!"

An anguished scream reached everyone's ears and everyone turned their heads to look at the source of the voice.

At the very back, they all could see a miner getting stabbed in the heart by a red-eyed ninja covered in dark wisps of aura.

"A summon?"

"Shit! A necromancer?"

"Rick!! Noooo"

Everyone reacted differently when they saw this situation and they were also flabbergasted.

The ninja quickly pulled his katana out, the blade was now covered in red liquid as the miner's lifeless body fell and a puddle of blood slowly formed on the ground.

Just as the adventurers were about to get out of their stupefied expressions, several dozens of dark energy emerged from the floor as creatures bathed in a shadowy aura appeared out of nowhere.

"No way, this magical power... that ninja and minotaur... master rank?"

"Hey look, the boss monsters in this dungeon are here as well, but they look completely different"

"The others are also expert ranks, don't tell me that this is an ambush set up by a powerful necromancer?"

The adventurers in the expedition watched on with fearful expressions, they expected to at least fight 2 master-ranked monsters and already steeled their resolve before joining the expedition party.

But seeing not just two but four master rank enemies, they couldn't help but wear fearful expressions and despaired, no matter how much confidence they had in Ironclaw, he was only one man, there were also expert rank monsters that surrounded them as well.

"Well your purpose is to be my food"

A spine-chilling voice echoed in the area and the faces of the adventurers all paled in fear.

"Kekekeke, I love seeing those expressions, I-"

Before the skinny man could finish his usual bad guy dialogue, Ironclaw had already launched himself towards the skinny man, spear in hand.

He already figured out that the cloaked man in front of him was the one responsible for this situation.

Even though he pretty much abandoned the rest of the expedition party to deal with the skinny man's summons by themselves, he resolved himself and thought that the summons would disappear if the necromancer himself perished.

His thoughts were right on the money but the only issue is...

'Can I beat him?'

This question passed through his mind.

 

<<Afterward>>

Revlo: Nope.

Celine: Nope.

Vorne: Nope.

Ironclaw: At least have some faith in me dammit! What blunt replies.

Celine: You are obviously going to die shithead and we'll forget that a minor character like you existed a hundred chapters later.

Ironclaw: T_T

Vorne: Hey honey, you just spoiled the story.

Celine: Spoiled? Who in their minds cares about a minor character? If Iron shithead here was a sexy female knight, sure, but it is obvious that he will be sacrificed to make the new villain look like a threat, anyone can see this from a mile away.

Ironclaw: Mr. Author, I want a new role!

Author: No, just die obediently.