Making their way back through the mist, it didn’t take long before Scaly and Verdell found themselves back at the place that had once been covered in bones with a mountain of flesh towering above said bones. Only now, there were no bones and no mountain of flesh around. The damage from the battle a few hours earlier and the passage leading downwards were the only thing still visible within the thick grey mist that had covered up the desolate landscape. Mist that seemed to have surged forth following the destruction of the flesh mountain that in Verdell’s thoughts should have exerted some kind of invisible influence on the surrounding environment to push back this thick mist that had surged forth in its absence.
The reason behind this being rather clear, as the thin mist made it easier for those members of the Eternal Life Sanctum to find their way to the passage hidden within the mist.
However, at the same time, it also meant that there was a good chance that the one waiting for those members of the Eternal Life Sanctum might have expected them to have returned by now. Meaning there was a good chance that the other party had already sensed something was wrong and would be on guard.
With that in mind, there was good chance that if it was truly a powerful necromancer from the Eternal Life Sanctum, they would place some kind of skeleton or undead guard at the passage to the floor below. Keeping an eye out for any potential enemies who might attempt to descend through the passage.
Although this guard was unlikely to be powerful enough to pose any real threat to them, Verdell had learnt a bit about necromancers over the years and understood that while necromancers generally had a connection with all the undead, skeletons and other abominations under them, they generally didn’t have the ability to sense every being under their control and might not even notice a few hundred or a few thousand perishing if the number under their control was large enough.
The problem here was that a necromancer also had the ability to focus their attention on a specific being under their control. Able to not just sense it the second they perished, but also capable of seeing what they saw before they perished... And if there really was a skeleton or undead guarding the path, it was likely one with such a connection. Meaning killing it would not just alert the necromancer behind it but would also make the necromancer aware of what they looked like.
Just thinking about dealing with this kind of troublesome enemy who was on guard against them specifically was headache inducing, as killing or even fighting a necromancer on guard was impossible for their small party of two. Especially considering that the necromancer they were potentially facing off against was one at the SS Rank. An entity capable of overturning an entire kingdom on their own with the large army of undead, skeleton and powerful abominations under their command.
Maybe because of this, Verdell didn’t dare to immediately approach the passage and instead had Scaly stop before she got within a hundred meters before getting down from her. Much to Scaly’s confusion, as she watched Verdell silently instructing her to remain before he began to silently sneak towards the passage in the distance.
Of course, curious as she was about this strange behavior, she decided to listen to him and silently plopped down on the ground to watch as the small dwarf silently swept into the passage without a sound thanks to the stealth ability learnt alongside his dagger skills in the past before he officially became a mage. Feeling somewhat amazed at his swift yet silent movements. Making her wonder if learning this kind of silent movement from him would be helpful in her ambushing monsters in the future.
Swish~
Unaware of the admiration of the dragon watching his stealthy movement from behind, Verdell silently slipped past the opening and descended through the passage that soon enough turned into a familiar looking spiral staircase, something that immediately caught Verdell’s attention. Drawing upon his knowledge of dungeons to come to a simple conclusion from an instruction class for new adventurers, he had attended on the state of dungeons whenever someone threatened their core.
The information in question fit with everything that had happened so far where the normal passages between dungeon floors closed and only a few unique and less travelled passages remained intact.
But there was one clear bit of information he remembered from this class about the final floor of the dungeon where the core of the dungeon resided and that was the fact that the passage between the final and second lowest floor of the dungeon couldn’t be severed by the dungeon core itself and would thus remain intact even when the dungeon core was threatened and attempted to close off all passages leading downwards.
The facts presented before him now essentially confirmed that the grey sun floor above was the second lowest floor of the swirling sands dungeon and at the same time also made it even more clear that the necromancer from the Eternal Life Sanctum should be targeting the core of the dungeon.
The last bit of hesitation about whether he and Scaly truly faced a necromancer having essentially vanished shortly after stepping onto the spiral staircase leading down towards the final floor of the swirling sands dungeon, as he saw a dozen or so skeletons blocking the path downwards by leaning over the edge of the spiral staircase. Confirming his earlier suspicions from earlier about the one from the Eternal Life Sanctum already having sensed something off and thus stationed guards close to the entrance.
As for the reason why, these skeletons weren’t located closer to the entrance of the passage... It most likely had to do with the other party being worried about exposing the passage by accident to someone who might not be aware of its existence. Not to mention, monsters at the SS Rank undoubtedly had the strength to ignore the dungeons influence to some extent and force their way down the passage if they sensed something unusual.
Together with the dungeon core already feeling threatened, it wouldn’t be odd for the dungeon core to cut that normal influence that stopped monsters from travelling between floors to get these powerful monsters down and fight the necromancer from the Eternal Life Sanctum.
In a way, Verdell felt that the necromancer might already be engaged in such battles with powerful monsters drawn over by the dungeon core to defend itself. The large quantity of bones gathered alongside the flesh and blood within the flesh mountain likely being material gathered for the creation of a vast legion of undead and skeletons to face off against these monsters rushing forth to fight for the dungeon core, a battle playing out at a scale rarely seen.
Still, none of this was important to Verdell, as he only cared about finding a way out of the swirling sands dungeon that could hopefully be obtained by grabbing one of the weaker members of the Eternal Life Sanctum that had undoubtedly been dragged along to join this epic battle for the dungeon core taking place somewhere down below.
Getting involved in the terrifying battle that would undoubtedly involve dozens if not hundreds of monsters at the SS Rank wasn’t something a small dwarf who had barely reached the S Rank like him had ever thought about. Knowing full well, just how terrifying a dungeon could become once it felt threatened and drew upon the vast numbers of powerful monsters spread throughout its floors to defend itself.
Then again, he had promised Scaly that there would be powerful monsters around for them to easily kill off and in that regard, he hadn’t exactly lied, as they would undoubtedly have to join the battle to some extent to get their hands on someone from the Eternal Life Sanctum who knew the way back to the surface. Information that Verdell felt would be simple enough to obtain given how these people from the Eternal Life Sanctum would be happy if a powerful enemy decided to just leave instead of joining in the battle on the side of the dungeon core.
The only worry he had in this regard was that Scaly ended up becoming a bit too greedy and decided to join what would be the core battlefield down below where the SS Rank Necromancer was leading the charge- or well... His creations were leading the charge. Drawing attention from this terrifying entity belonging to the Eternal Life Sanctum.
Busy as the other party might be with the dungeon core, there was no necromancer who could easily ignore something like a dragon, be it their flesh, blood, bones, everything about a dragon was of immense value to a necromancer whose main strength came from manipulating the dead and creating living dead abominations by stitching together dead bodies.