Thinking about what they should do next, Verdell who had originally felt cautious about getting anywhere near the powerful senior from the Eternal Life Sanctum capable of commanding two people at the SS Rank, felt his own confidence growing now that he himself had officially stepped into the S Rank.
Although his strength was still far from the SS Rank, he did at least have some confidence in being able to fight back against someone like that working together with Scaly. Not to mention, he had a feeling that it wouldn’t matter if they descended downwards or not, as the one behind those two SS Rank members of the Eternal Life Sanctum would undoubtedly come chasing after them upon discovering those two people had never come back with the crystals that they had been supposed to gather.
With that in mind, he decided that it would be best for them to return to the path below the now gone mountain of flesh and descend to the unknown floor below. Knowing that by moving out immediately, they would at least gain the upper hand in any confrontation and should be able to catch the senior member of the Eternal Life Sanctum off guard in an ambush if needed.
Even if the other party turned out to be some powerful necromancer, his fire magic that had already evolved into the more powerful dragon fire magic had a natural restraining effect on undead creatures and those necromancers who had essentially turned into undead creatures themselves. Of course, the restraining effect was nowhere comparable to something like light magic, but it was at least better than nothing and would ensure he had some real ability to fight a potential SS Rank Necromancer.
"Let’s go back to the place of that flesh mountain and sea of bones, we are going down the path hidden beneath that flesh mountain before it disappeared." And with his mind settled, he didn’t waste any time informing Scaly about his plans. Only to meet with the somewhat confused eyes of the other party, a look that seemed to tell him that she saw no reason for this and instead just wanted to continue hunting down monsters here to continue increasing her strength.
"Not only will the monsters below be more abundant, but there will also be some stronger monster like the mist bound behemoth around... And if I’m not wrong, we should also be able to encounter several such monsters in an injured or dead state." Knowing that it would be impossible to convince the dragon before him without throwing out something valuable to goad her along, Verdell decided to take a gamble. Informing her of the fact that he believed they would have a good chance of running into injured powerful monsters along the way with little to no effort.
This wasn’t him deliberately lying to her, as he did indeed believe they would run into powerful monsters that had been fatally wounded by the person behind the mountain of flesh. The one thing he didn’t mention was the fact that he doubted most of those monsters would still be around and the ones that might have survived might be on the weaker side or those lucky enough to not get crushed when the necromancer of the Eternal Life Sanctum had swept through and only ended up injured.
Roooar
~!
Of course, Scaly didn’t think too hard about it and just let out a sound of approval after hearing what he said. More than willing to follow behind him if it meant she would be able to hunt down another monster like the mist bound behemoth.
She might even be lucky enough to encounter another monster with a dragon bloodline like the mist bound behemoth, that outwardly didn’t look like it carried even the slightest bit of dragon blood inside of its body.
As for the danger involved? She didn’t care much about; her confidence having reached the peak after having just successfully felled an SS Rank member of the Eternal Life Sanctum on her own.
Weakened as the other party might have been during the battle, it was still clear that he wasn’t anywhere near as weakened as the guardian shadow walker had been. Putting up a valiant struggle that had even forced her on the defensive for most of her battle. Surviving mainly thanks to her superior flying ability, as she felt her chances of winning wouldn’t have been that high if her enemy had the same flying speed as her.
Rustle~
And with both sides in agreement, Scaly and Verdell didn’t linger around the temporary campsite Verdell had set up for cooking and began their journey back into the mist towards the place where the flesh mountain and their previous deadly battle had taken place.
The thick grey mist they had escaped not long ago once again engulfing the two. Forcing Verdell to jump back onto Scaly’s back to avoid getting lost in the mist, as it became clear that it had thickened even more while they had slept to recover from their strength.
Strange as this might be, it was hardly time for them to worry about the mist that had now calmed down completely following the fall of the flesh mountain. The once lively long-necked mist sheep that had been abundant and difficult to miss had disappeared alongside the flesh mountain. Meaning Scaly had to do without the free experience she had grown used to while wandering through the grey mist.
Depressing as this was to her, it was something she could live with given the powerful monsters that waited for her to cut down on the floor below. Killing them should more than make up for the potential loss she suffered from the lack of mist sheep throwing themselves at him without any regard for their own lives.
...
"Goddamnit, why do dungeons have to do something like this whenever they feel threatened? Makes our job so much harder. Almost like they are trying to get their core destroyed." At the same time Scaly and Verdell officially began their journey back through the mist after spending an unknown number of hours recovering from the battle with the members of the Eternal life Sanctum, somewhere on the fifth floor of the swirling sands dungeon, one of the members of the guild team sent to investigate the state of the dungeon cursed loudly to himself as he angrily kicked the muddy water below in anger.
A sight that none of his companions said anything, as they were all feeling a similar sense of exhaustion setting in from having spent most of their time searching for a specific unique passage on the fifth floor of the dungeon without any success. The records they relied on specifically mentioned that this damnable passage was truly a unique one that loved to move around between four different locations located in completely opposite areas of the fifth floor. Truly a painful path to find, but they didn’t exactly have much of a choice given the normal passages between floors had indeed vanished due to the instinctive fearful reaction from the dungeon core that caused it to seal all normal passages once it felt threatened.
The only saving grace was the fact that a group of weaker adventurers they encountered along the way had stumbled on a new unique passage that led all the way from the first floor to the fifth floor. Saving them a lot of time.
How this group had even managed to return from the fifth floor with a few of them even being weaker youths was a truly amazing story, but they unfortunately didn’t have much time to hear much of it given the urgency of their task.
"Don’t worry too much, we only have this one place left to visit. The passage should be there. Not to mention, this passage lead directly to the seventh floor, getting to the final eighth floor from there shouldn’t take too long." Hearing the complaint from behind, the one in charge rolled his eyes at the complaint he had already heard over a dozen times over the past few hours before reassuring the other party knowing they would soon get to the seventh floor.
"Oh? That grey world? I remember visiting in the past when I was out searching for some special materials. Indeed, one of the more unique dungeon floors I’ve encountered. Not to mention, the strength of monsters on that floor are nothing to laugh at, even with our strength, we will have to be a bit cautious."
"Yeah, yeah, we know, this place is famous among those alchemists for the unique materials found on the seventh floor, you aren’t the only who ended up being commissioned by those old fossils to go there."
"Not just the alchemists, I was once requested by a dwarf to fetch a unique metal that apparently only emerges beneath the grey sun of that floor."
"So many unique things. No wonder the guild goes to such lengths and decided to dispatch all of us to ensure nothing happens, I almost-"
"We are here; the passage is indeed here." As the group began chatting amongst themselves about the seventh floor that awaited them, the hunter who had taken the lead in scouting the path for them called out. Immediately drawing everyone’s attention.