Following the quick escape of the leading necromancer riding on top the massive bone construct in the shape of a giant lizard skeleton that left behind a trail of purple colored miasma, the mist serpent wasted no time lingering around as it joined her in escaping before the countless bodies falling down towards them from up above could crush it.
Although the mist serpent was confident in being able to survive even if it was buried beneath a mountain of monsters and undead creatures and had no idea about the danger of drawing the attention of the dungeon core at this moment, it could still clearly sense the inherent fear in the actions of the leading necromancer as she did everything in her power to increase the speed of the bone construct to escape faster.
Because of this, the mist serpent similarly wasted no effort trying to escape from the place where the two of them had first landed upon reaching the blank, ninth floor of the swirling sands dungeon.
Something that ended up paying off almost immediately, as only a few seconds after the two powerful beings surpassing the SS Rank escaped from the place now covered in a heavy rain made from all those who were part of the earlier battle against the dungeon core, be it for the dungeon core or against, a terrifying power descended upon the few monsters, skeletons, undead and necromancers within the space-
RUUUUUMBLE-!
As this power spread, at the very center of the rain where a small mountain of bodies had already started to take shape, space suddenly twisted violently before grinding up the countless bodies that made up the small mountain of bodies. Even worse for those not dead to the initial appearance of the vortex that had now formed, as they found their bodies slowly being torn apart as they were dragged in.
But the worst of the bunch wasn’t even these unlucky souls. Instead, it was those above, who had yet to even land on the blank ninth floor of the dungeon, as they could only watch helplessly down towards the terrifying vortex expanding directly below them.
At the very least, the few lucky ones that had managed to land close to the edge of the vortex still had the strength to forcibly break the somewhat weak force exerted by the growing vortex and escape along with the leading necromancer and the mist serpent that had already left everyone else far behind.
Of course, it would only take them to the blank part of the ninth floor, to make it out successfully, they would ultimately have to find a weakened section of the expanding circle of development that was the dungeon core’s current work area and successfully find the right opportunity to slip through while a majority of the dungeon core’s attention was focused elsewhere. Only then could they be considered to have safely made it out of danger and would just have to wait for the dungeon core to finish creating the ninth floor of the dungeon before passages back up to the eighth floor of the dungeon emerged.
As for still targeting the dungeon? That was impossible in the short term, as after successfully advancing downwards one more floor, a dungeon core would enter a sealed state relying on some of the power left behind during the development stage. Making it close to impossible to do anything to the dungeon core without risking a backlash from that terrifying power.
In a way, the only ones with the strength to still attempt seizing the dungeon core were those few above the SS Rank and the leading necromancer who controlled a skeleton at that level, but to risk it or not was something she would have to carefully ponder on if she managed to successfully escape the expanding circle of development of the dungeon core.
The funny thing was, the best opportunity for everyone to cross the circle of development of the dungeon core was none other than now, when the dungeon core’s attention was almost entirely focused on the vast quantity of brand new resources flowing into its system through the vortex that had formed in the form of the countless monsters, undead, skeletons and necromancers who willingly donated their own bodies for its use along with the mana and other energies within their bodies.
Unsurprisingly, the most abundant type of energy resources that became accessible to the dungeon core was none other than death energy.
All thanks to the selfless donation of the Eternal Life Sanctum that provided a vast quantity of bones and flesh saturated with death energy. Especially the hundreds of necromancers who contained far more death energy than their undead creations and were almost akin to death energy loot piñatas in the eyes of the dungeon core. Exploding forth with death energy worth anywhere between a hundred times that of a normal undead all the way up to tens of thousands of times that of a normal undead.
The main reason for this being that most undead and skeletons, even those at the SS Rank, didn’t require much death energy beside the little that made up the mental imprint allowing the necromancer to control them and ensure they didn’t perish. In fact, a majority of undead and skeleton beings under the control of necromancers relied more so on normal mana compared to death energy to survive and continue existing.
Not that undead and skeletons couldn’t survive on death energy, it was just that in the eyes of necromancers, this unique energy was far more valuable compared to normal mana because of how it was required for their future advancement and continued growth as a necromancer.
Therefore, unsurprisingly, few necromancers were willing to waste even a single bit of death energy more than required on their undead and skeletons. Only a few rare unique and powerful skeleton and undead like the Miasma Devouring Bone Construct utilized by the leading necromancer needed to be entirely filled with death energy, as it was simply impossible to create such a high-level skeleton without relying on death energy.
Even if S Rank and SS Rank also required far more death energy, it wasn’t anything like the bone construct that couldn’t utilize any mana and had to entirely rely on death energy to sustain itself.
In simple words, though the leading necromancer looked confident in everything she had been doing so far and managed to fend off the mist serpent and even pushed it back, she was burning through death energy accumulated over hundreds of years for a seemingly meaningless battle. Internally, she was already crying tears of blood thinking about the dwarf that had forced her into this kind of losing situation.
The only way for her to make up her loses in this kind of state was to either kill the mist serpent and harvest a vast quantity of extremely high-quality death energy or seize the dungeon core like she had originally intended to do.
But both goals weren’t exactly simple to accomplish, as the dungeon core’s current state meant it was an impossible opponent for a little necromancer like her who still hadn’t reached the rank of lich, while fighting with the mist serpent that had been pushed into a wakened state by her during their earlier struggle had the chance of drawing the attention of the dungeon core.
Even if the dungeon core might not care about ordinary monsters or necromancers, faced with two beings who had surpassed the SS Rank along with a death energy loot piñata in the shape of a necromancer, it wouldn’t hesitate for a second faced with the losses of shifting its attention away from its expanding circle of development and would instantly make a move.
The expanding at where those who had fallen into the blank dungeon floor landed was a perfect example of this, as the dungeon core had only shifted its gaze towards the place for a bit, but in turn caused the expanding circle of development around the dungeon core to not just pause and slow down, but visible crack as it strained to keep the expansion going and was forced to throw more resources at the problem- or that was at least what was happening according to the dungeon scholar and researchers of the Adventurers’ Guild, to her, it just looked like the expanding circle of development wavered for a brief instant before continue to push forward. Albeit a bit slower compared to before.
It looks like it won’t be possible to slip through the circle of development before the dungeon ore’s attention refocuses on it. How troublesome... Looks like I will have to look for another opportunity...
Shaking her head as she silently thought this to herself while gazing towards the dungeon core during her escape alongside the mist serpent, the leading necromancer knew that the best opportunity to escape from the blank part of the dungeon floor was gone.
The main reason having to do with the fact that she simply didn’t dare to escape in the direction of the dungeon core earlier. Fearful that doing so might draw the attention of the dungeon core itself...