"I never imagined a day like this would come..." Muttering this to himself as he felt countless gazes locking onto him for a brief second before shifting back towards the battle taking place in the distance, Verdell undeniably felt a sense of extreme nervousness. Knowing full well that the people whose attention he had garnered were far stronger than him and would be able to easily kill him should he end up in a battle against them.
The group of adventurers and the leading necromancer aside, there was no lack of powerful undead, skeletons and even monsters down below whose strength far exceeded his own. After all, at the end of the day, he had only recently reached the S Rank and stood no real chance if placed against a monster or undead that had reached the SS Rank- of which there were many of down below.
Luckily for him, he didn’t have to face off against these powerful undead and monsters thanks to Scaly, but the fact that he had turned into one of the main parties in the current large-scale conflict remained and he couldn’t afford to lower his guard for even a second or he might suddenly end up ambushed by one of those powerful being watching him down below.
But then again, with his current strength, he couldn’t really do much even if he saw one of those powerful beings rushing up towards him. All he could do was hope Scaly discovered it in time and took action to get the two of them out of the way.
Rummble~
As Verdell found himself in an existential crisis over the situation, he found himself in because of the mist serpent’s earlier attention, the bone construct hidden beneath the purple miasma continued clashing against the equally massive mist serpent a short distance away.
Purple miasma churning wildly as it clashed with the mist of the mist serpent.
Pressing forward slowly bit by bit as it consumed the mist utilized by the mist serpent. Forcing the mist serpent back, as even with a higher level, it was in a clear disadvantage against the bone construct.
But even if part of the reason had to do with the miasma devouring bone construct being specialized in dealing with the mist serpent. Another reason for its advantage also had to do with the leading necromancer on top of the bone construct utilizing countless curses to forcibly weaken the defenses of the mist serpent. Allowing the purple miasma to more easily break through the defenses of the mist serpent.
Of course, the mist serpent had long since realized this and wanted nothing more than to take care of the leading necromancer before focusing its full attention on dealing with the miasma devouring bone construct.
However, whenever it attempted to launch an attack towards the leading necromancer standing on top of the bone construct, the purple miasma would surge forth from below and shroud her in a protective layer of purple miasma that blocked the approaching mist before it could do any damage to her.
Not only rendering the attacks of the mist serpent against the leading necromancer useless but also taking the opportunity to drive the purple miasma deeper into the mist domain the mist serpent had formed around its body to protect against the purple miasma.
In the end, though the mist serpent was far from beaten, it became clear that the leading necromancer and her bone construct were going to win the battle unless the dungeon core sent the dungeon guardian construct in to lend a hand in dealing with the leading necromancer and her bone construct.
Unfortunately for the mist serpent, the dungeon core had no intention of doing this, as it was far more beneficial for it to wait on the sidelines while the two of them fought to the death before jumping in at the last second when one side was exhausted and the other about to perish.
Or that was at least how Verdell, the adventurers and the necromancers watching the battle, perceived the current state of the battle that had already carved out a clear no man’s land where the two towering beings clashed with each other. The undead, skeletons and monsters that had once been around the center of the battle had either perished due to them getting in the way or had escaped.
The only one who didn’t think this way was scaly, who had clearly noticed the dungeon guardian construct in the distance doing something strange even while it stood still seemingly keeping an eye on the battle in the distance- or rather, it didn’t stand entirely still, but had seemingly separated part of its body that formed a few hundred smaller golems that entered the pristine temple that the dungeon core resided in.
To others observing, this just looked like the dungeon guardian construct taking precautions against someone potentially trying to sneak past it and take advantage of the situation to destroy of seize the dungeon core, but to Scaly, it didn’t look like this at all, as she paid these golems far more attention than the other people present. Seeing clearly that these golems had begun scribbling some strange symbols on the sides of the temple containing the dungeon core on the outside, while majority made their way into the interior of the temple to do the same.
At least that was what she guessed, but she couldn’t really see much of what was going on inside the temple and could only guess.
The strange actions of the dungeon guardian construct causing her to momentarily ignore the battle between the leading necromancer and the mist serpent, as part of her felt that whatever the dungeon core was up to was bound to have a significant impact on the battle between the two of them.
Not to mention, though the battle was going in favor of the leading necromancer and her bone construct, it was also clear that the battle itself was nowhere close to ending and was bound to drag on for a few more minutes before something happened.
And even then, it was bound to take even longer before the two were weakened enough for her to make a move on the necromancer and her bone construct.
Instead of following the rest in admiring the sheer power on display by the two sides, she much rather be ready in case the dungeon core decided to pull some trick and drag everyone into this little trick or trap it had come up with.
The scribbles... Are spreading from the temple across the ground?
And as her attention remained focused on the temple containing the dungeon core, she noticed that the scribbles attached to the side of the temple began to slowly spread towards the mountain side that the temple was attached to before merging with it and spreading outwards in a subtle and almost undetectable manner that made it difficult for even her to spot with her having kept an eye on the temple the entire time.
For the necromancers and adventurers whose entire attention remained on the battle between the leading necromancer and the mist serpent, none of them noticed anything, let alone the two fighting parties, who were far too preoccupied with their battle to notice anything strange taking place at the dungeon core’s side.
Even if they noticed the dungeon guardian construct splitting off part of its body to create a few hundred small golems that then made their way to the temple containing the dungeon core, it wouldn’t make them feel something was wrong, but might instead make them think the dungeon core had decided to place all its attention on guarding itself while waiting for the two of them to finish their battle or reach a point where it could jump in and take advantage of the situation.
If anything, it might have even made the two of them feel more secure during their battle, as the dungeon guardian construct would have to merge back with those smaller golems to regain its full strength. Giving them a clear visual for when the dungeon core might be thinking about joining the battle through those small golems starting to merge back into the dungeon guardian construct.
Swish~
Because of this, even as small, almost undetectable scribbles spread across the ground beneath the two sides, none of them noticed anything, even the observers didn’t notice anything happening as there weren’t any mana fluctuations from those scribbles.
The only one who noticed something was happening was Scaly, but after starting to retreat to avoid being caught by those scribbles, she quickly noticed the speed at which the scribbles were spreading was speeding up. Reaching a speed that made it impossible for her to fly out of range, she soon saw those scribbles moving past her below before accelerating.
Soon enough, spreading far into the horizon before disappearing entirely from view as everything on the ground, be it trees, mountains, hills or even small rocks within eyesight was covered by those strange scribbles.