While complaining to the light god I've never met, I started to run up the tunnels leading to the pillar-area.

Who the heck push the self-destruct button with people's still inside the building?! It's decided, no offerings to that guy.

I checked the Dungeon Core before I started running, but it was locked on self-destruct mode. The clock that I had received is synchronized with the Dungeon, meaning it shows me the remaining time before the Dungeon goes kaboom! Right now, the remaining time is:

01:27:54

That's not enough! I need 30 mins just for crossing the pillar area, and going through the lower-layer tunnels! And that's for the shortest stretch! The Dungeon is built like an upside-down pyramid in the ground, meaning that the lower levels are smaller than the upper ones. Just running through the middle-level is gonna take me 45 mins, even when using the shortest route!

I won't make it! Or, that was what I thought, but I already reached the pillar-area.

*splash, splash, splash*

The pillar-area has turned back to normal, now that the Emperor Poison has been purified. There's some difference between now, and before the poison spillage. First off, there are the pillars. Some of them are destroyed by Glavras' attack, but the remaining ones are out of order. Must be because the Dungeon's water-collection function is turned off now.

Also, there's water leaking out of the remains of the broken pillars, flooding the area, and the tunnels leading towards the underground lake. It reaches my ankles. Good these boots are waterproof. I used the shape-changing function of the Mirage Mantle to shorten it so that it wouldn't be drenched in the water.

There are no monsters here, probably still scared of any lingering poison down here. Can't blame them. That poison was scary as hell, and that says the Hydra-user, so you know it's true. Despite the fear, the purification function is working overtime even now, cleaning not only the water but also the corpses that lay in it. I took the opportunity to store the poison-free corpses that were in my way, while I was running through the area. 

---

01:22:42

Okay, I know that I'm a speed-freak, but not even me can be this fast! Is this the result of the Increased Movement Speed of the Dark Blood Shorts? Or is it that my current species is more suitable for running than Reha Zera? There's also the fact that I'm following the direct route towards the next area by using my map over the Dungeon. Or more likely, a combination of them all.

I've reached the entrance leading to the middle-layer. I've cut down my time by half. If this keeps up, I'll get out of the Dungeon with time to spare. There are just two big problems, along with lots of smaller ones. The monsters.

Regular monsters ain't that big a deal for the current me, but the problem is the two boss-monsters, the queen spider, and the hydra turtle. If either one of those two manages to escape the Dungeon, I'll be hit with some divine punishment! Not knowing what it is, makes it even scarier!

If I'm lucky, then most of the monsters should have left the Dungeon by now. The spider queen and the hydra turtle are still here, according to the Quest information. If that's the case, I'll just dash through this level, and start making obstacles in the river area, and the upper-layer. Fight them? Without any planning, Emperor Poison, nor any time left? Are you crazy?!

---

And, my luck is the worst today. While running through the tunnels, I encountered several types of monsters, including frogs, spiders, and rats. Luckily, there were no turtle snakes or Pararats, so I just acted like a kamaitachi, slashing through them while on the run. I used a string to catch and collect the remains without stopping as well.

This netted me some more corpses, so I won't run out of supplies anytime soon. Strange thing is, I haven't gone up a level yet. Is Kur Kigal difficult to level up, or is the quality of the monsters gone down because Glavras is dead?

Or maybe the Emperor Poison polluted the whole Dungeon before I reactivated the purification system? To check out the theory, I appraised some of the monsters, and what do you know, their HP is lower than the maximum amount. 

In any case, the mobs won't be a challenge for me anymore. Talk about living life on easy mode.

Let me demonstrated with the frog over there. I started to run towards it while hiding myself with [Stealth] and using the new [Silence] skill in parallel to dampen mute the sound of my footsteps. Not that [Silence] is doing that much difference, as it's still at LV1, but doing this will increase its level. It doesn't use any MP, SP, or whatever as well, so why not?

Back to the frog. It hasn't noticed me yet, so I slash at its neck with my katana. Thanks to [Surprise Attack], and the katana's critical boost, the frog died in one fell swoop, quite literally. I then passed the corpse, and used a string to snag the frog corpse, and shoved it into my storage. I'm used to saying 'storage' by now, so it feels a little weird if I start calling it 'vault' so suddenly. Therefore, I'll keep calling it 'storage'.

Speaking of the storage, while I haven't had the time to appraise any of the new skills yet since I'm running for my life and all that, I've found out some new functions of [Demonic Vault] that [Demonic Storage] didn't have. First off, is its larger storage space. And, I'm now able to add to, or take out, items from the storage, even without using my shadow! 

I can make something like a portal that's connected to my storage. I tried to use the portals to block a tongue attack from one of the frogs, but that didn't end so well. The tongue passed the portal and hit me. The frog is now lying in my storage as a corpse by the way. 

The portals look like black ripples in the air. I can make them appear anywhere from within a 2-meter radius from my body, and only items that I place in there will go in. I can't put my arm into the portal, but the items I want are shoved halfway out so that I can pick them up. Putting living creatures, or attacks is a no go. For the latter one, I tried to store one of the water blasts that a spider shot at me. Don't ask if that one hit me as well, please.

The bad news is, I don't get so much EXP from killing the weaklings anymore. But I already told you about that.

The second piece of bad news is that I can't produce threads when I'm wearing my gloves. Why? Because my fingertips are covered when I'm wearing the gloves! A complete blind spot. Why didn't I think of that before?

The simple solution is to remove the gloves, but at the cost of losing the poison-, and darkness boost, the HP-drain, and the Insta-Kill Immunity. Good thing I don't need any of those at the moment, sens the poison boost. I want that. Gotta find a way to customize those gloves.

Then, there's the HP-, and MP-regeneration skills I got. They do work, but I only recover 1 HP per min, and 3 MP at the same time. These two must be pushed up to higher levels. The MP-regeneration is fine and all, but I'm kinda troubled with figuring out how to improve the HP-regeneration. I'm not the type who likes getting hurt. If anything, I'm more for dishing it out.

Anyway, except for those small missteps, things are going smoothly. Therefore, I'm expecting some kinda accident's gonna occur anytime now. It always does.

---

Why am I always right at stuff like that!? 

I've reached the end of the middle layer and is just a few steps away from entering the river area. And what do you think I found there?

=====================================================================

Nameless   | Boss of [The Water-Knot of Glavras]

Race: [Glavras Hydraortress]   | Level: 66

Skills: 16

Titles: 1

 

HP: 702/702   | MP: 331/331   | SP: 882/882

STR: 671   | VIT: 1853   | MAG: 227

RES: 554   | SPD: 334   | DEX: 225

INT: 96   | LUC: 87

=====================================================================

=====================================================================

Nameless   | Sub-boss of [The Water-Knot of Glavras]

Race: [Glavras Queen Aquaect]   | Level: 56

Skills: 11

Titles: 2

 

HP: 602/602   | MP: 51/51   | SP: 990/990

STR: 33   | VIT: 651   | MAG: 43

RES: 650   | SPD: 4   | DEX: 5

INT: 66   | LUC: 91

=====================================================================

Both of them, I repeat, both of the freaking bosses have converged in the river-area! 

Why are they stuck here? Wait, the tunnel leading towards the exit is too small for them! It barely fitted Virt, so no way those two can use it. Unless they start to dig out the tunnel. Stop that!

The hydra turtle is bashing away with its head on the walls, while the spider underlings to the queen are helping it, by removing rubble, and shooting at the wall with their water blasts.

If they keep this up, then they'll barely reach the outside. I need to slow them down somehow. Just a little distraction will work, but then they will go after me. Hmm, as long as I get rid of those helper-spiders, then their speed will drop like a rock in the ocean. But how do I take out so many at once? The only AOE-attack I have is [Hydra], and that's more focused on power than range.

I need something else for this to work, but what? None of the skills I have is for attacking several targets at once. Even light magic has only single-target spells if you don't count Flashbang. And any new skills I decide to pick up will be at LV1, in other words, damn weak! 

Or maybe...? I think I had a lightbulb moment there. How much more time till the Dungeon's destruction?

00:56:28

If I'm calculating this right, then I should need around half an hour to clear the upper-levels. In that case, I need to stall these guys for around 20 minutes, or so. Let's see, skill shop, skill shop...

=====================================================================

SKILL SHOP

Available skill points: 26.5

Search by word: poison

Search by skill []

Available skills:

• [Poison Dust], 2 skill point
• [Poison Magic], 4 skill points
• [Poison Attack], 5 skill points

=====================================================================

Just that!? Despite having [Hydra, Dragon of Poison]?! Is it because my species ain't venomous enough for you, skill shop? Better than nothing. And the skill I wanted is there as well, so I'll let bygones be bygones. Just gonna appraise it for good measures, and... just what the doctor ordered! I'll take this one, please.

=====================================================================

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

Garami has obtained skills 

[Poison Dust LV1]

from the skill shop.

Skill [Poison Dust LV1] is integrated into skill [Hydra, Dragon of Poison LV4]

=====================================================================

Bingo! Just what I was hoping for! Ku-ku-ku-ku. Time for some chemical warfare!