Earlier, just as the barrier guarding the city fell to the unexpected attack from Scaly and the adventurers began their slow retreat up the spiral staircase to avoid being overwhelmed by the seemingly endless sea of monsters that had surrounded them on all sides, the one S Rank Adventurer holding down the line and ensuring that the adventurers still inside the city could retreat safely, was constantly using different spells to scan the battlefield. Searching for the culprit behind the attack that had ended up breaking through the barrier...
"This damnable monster! Where in the world is it hiding!?"
However, as he continued searching for the S Rank Monster behind the attack, he never found even the slightest clue about it. Only able to silently curse to himself as he forced himself to be ready in case that monster launched another attack.
After all, now that the barrier guarding the city had been destroyed, there was a very real possibility that the S Rank Monster was still lurking somewhere below looking for an opportunity to launch a sneak attack on him... And given the power of the attack that had destroyed the barrier, though it might not kill him immediately, it would do more than enough damage for the S Rank Monster to launch a second attack to finish him off.
Because of this, even as he continued to fend off the monster horde below while retreating, he couldn’t go all out and had to constantly keep an eye out for any potential attacks from the S Rank Monster hidden amidst the sea of monsters.
Unfortunately, even as he was pushed all the way up the spiral staircase and found himself at the second floor of the dungeon that was a bit easier to defend because of how narrow the tunnels were, there was still no sign of the S Rank Monster... And although he wanted to stay and hold the line at the edge of the staircase leading down to the third floor of the dungeon, he understood that doing that would be impossible with his own mana already starting to run low and the adventurers relying on him to stay safe similarly starting to run out strength.
The best option would be to retreat to the first floor where they would be able to recover and regroup with the other adventurers that had already begun retreating to the first floor after learning about the barrier breaking at Fish Stone City from the messengers he had sent out.
Although it would still have taken some time for the messengers to reach the other locations that were being defended, he had managed to hold the line for a good half an hour. Giving the messengers who were specialized in speed more than enough time to reach the other adventures and make them retreat entirely from the third floor of the dungeon.
The only ones that might be a bit more difficult to reach in time were the ones still on the fourth floor of the dungeon, but if he could by a little more time holding the line on the second floor of the dungeon, it should be possible to buy enough time for everyone to gather at the first floor for a last stand.
Low as his mana was, the second floor of the dungeon was relatively easy to buy a bit more time on, as the walls and ceilings of the tunnels were far weaker than other locations. Allowing them to collapse on top of the monsters and block the path of the monster horde.
In fact, the other adventurers who should be making their way up from the third floor of the dungeon should already have collapsed large sections of the second floor of the dungeon to delay any monsters that might attempt to follow them, a last second measure to delay the monsters that could be used on dungeon floors like the second floor of the Howling Caverns Dungeon where the construction of towns or cities was impossible.
Of course, though this would delay the monsters, it wouldn’t be more than a few hours, as there were countless monsters specialized in digging that would cut their way through the collapsed rocks and dirt with time. In the end, collapsing large sections of the second floor of the dungeon was merely to buy more time for everyone to gather at the first floor of the dungeon for a final stand in face of the monster stampede that had already formed.
The sole reason why the S Rank Adventurer who had been guarding Fish Stone City was delaying collapsing the tunnel and retreating in full was not just because he wanted to buy as much time as possible, but also because he hoped that he would be able to catch a glimpse of the S Rank Monster that had ended up destroying the barrier. After all, if he could catch a glimpse of it, he might recognize it and would be able to come up with a plan on how to deal with it together with the other S Rank Adventurers.
But... As the adventurers holding the line alongside him became increasingly exhausted in the face of the endless flood of monsters emerging from the third floor of the dungeon, it became clear that it would be impossible to remain-
Whoosh~ BOOOOM-!
"Everyone! Retreat to the first floor, we will meet up with everyone else and prepare a final defensive line!"
And so, with some reluctance, the S Rank Adventurer threw out a massive fireball that directly exploded and collapsed a large section of the tunnel on top of the monster horde. Blocking the path forward while at the same time calling out for everyone to retreat, something that was met with cheers from the surrounding adventurer already at the breaking point.
Rumble~!
Rooar~!
Roooar!
R-Roooaaaar!
However, as everyone began retreating after dealing with the last few monsters that were on their side of the collapsed tunnel, a steady rumbling sound followed by the roars of countless monsters caught everyone off guard, as even the S Rank Adventurer turned to look towards the collapsed section of the tunnel with a frown on his face.
"This sound... A Digger Wolf? Or maybe a Mole Lord? Looks like we will have less time to prepare than expected..." Muttering this to himself as he listened to the sound from the other side, a look of worry slowly made its way onto the face of the S Rank Adventurer as he began to rapidly retreat from the second floor of the dungeon alongside the adventurers who had been nervously looking towards the collapsed section of the tunnel-
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Of course, while retreating, they didn’t forget to collapse the tunnels behind them. Ensuring that they would be able to buy as much time as possible before the monster stampede reached the first floor of the dungeon.
Not just because they wanted more time to prepare for the inevitable battle, but also because there was still a lot of weaker adventurers present on the first floor of the dungeon, as most of those without much strength who had originally been staying on the third floor of the dungeon for trade and other things had been evacuated to the first floor of the dungeon for now and were spread throughout the first floor of the dungeon.
Although they would have already learnt about the situation by now, the first floor of the dungeon was no smaller than the third floor of the dungeon and together with most of those there being weaker and less experienced adventurers, it would take longer for them to retreat from the dungeon.
Not to mention, there would also be those who had gone out on their own and still didn’t know anything about the dangerous state of the dungeon and the fact that a monster stampede was already heading in their direction.
For lone adventurers like that, there wasn’t much anyone could do to help outside of sending people out through the first floor to find them and inform them about the situation but doing something like that was time-consuming and time wasn’t exactly something they had in abundance.
The best-case scenario was that the sealing of the second floor of the dungeon bought enough time for those moving throughout the first floor of the dungeon to inform the weaker adventurers had enough time to do their job and get those weaker adventurers out of the dungeon in time before the final battle erupted.
Of course, outside of that, there was also the hope that the critical situation of the Howling Caverns Dungeon would be able to reach the capital city of the Great Sky Kingdom in time and result in the one in charge of the headquarters group of adventurers rushing over to solve the situation.
After all, only that person had the strength to ensure complete stability with how things had developed so far in the eyes of the S Rank Adventurer leading his group back in the direction of the first floor of the dungeon while collapsing tunnels behind himself in the process.