61 Chapter 61 : : Tragedy

At midnight…

The Poison Crypt, second floor.

Two humanoid figures darted out of the diversion canal leading to the second floor, they kept running like their life was on the line, they had pale expressions, as soon as they entered the floor, they were followed by a group of Poison Swamp Lizard.

This group of Poison Swamp Lizard wasn't common, it included three Purples Scaled Alligators that were twice the size of normal Poison Swamp Lizards. Their bodies were covered in purple scales that looked tougher than steel, their tails were long as the rest of the body, with just a touch it was able to shatter the stones around it.

The Purple Scaled Alligators occasionally opened their mouth and shot purple acid balls at their fleeing preys, wherever the purple acidic balls landed, they let out sizzling sounds as they burned their surroundings, plants withered and wood burned, even the tough rocks showed cracks on them.

The two silhouettes were running at the best of their abilities, the one in lead was a man in green armour, his armour was highly damaged from behind, his shoulder was continuously bleeding, he was emptying a potion bottle in his mouth as he ran.

The other one was a woman, she was wearing a mage's robe and held a magic staff in her hands, she was desperately running for her life, her robe was torn and burned at places, her clothes were tattered revelling her burned skin hidden beneath them, her legs were bleeding due to overexerting herself, her condition was worse than the man running before her.

If Kale was here he would have recognized both of them, they were the same people who chased the three Poison Swamp Lizard to the second floor in the afternoon. The main difference was that they didn't have their third member, the robust man who was carrying the luggage behind them.

Vivie was feeling intense pain as she pushed her body to move, she didn't have enough mana left to cast a spell, her potion reserves were spent, but at this time when she saw the man in front of her gobbling up potion just when he had told her that there was none left, she was enraged, her condition was worse than him but he didn't share a single drop moreover after finishing one bottle he took out another and started drinking it, she couldn't take more of it and shouted "Dale, how dare you! If you have Health Potion left then give one to me,"

Dale kept running without stopping or responding in any way, he completely ignored her.

Vivie was anguished, she shouted again "You scoundrel, I now understand, you had potions before too but you let Dev die, you beast, it was you who told him to use Monster Attracting Essence in larger quantity and you didn't even try to save him,"

"Shut up bitch," Dale interrupted her "Don't act like a Holy Saintes now, you were more than willing to ignore everything at that time, didn't you take a share of profit every time, and now it's my fault that you are only dead weight? Humph, I spent so much money on you, now go fight them and buy me some time or else even if you escape, you won't have a good end,"

Once he said that, he fastened his pace, due to the effect of potions, his health was being recovered and the distance between them increased again.

Vivie got anxious, she was aware of his nature all along but she chose to turn a blind eye because of profit, she didn't think that a situation like this would arise someday, she was filled with regret and remorse, after a moment of thought, she resolved herself, Vievie imbued her last bit of mana into her staff and forcefully sacrificed it to activate a low tier spell.

The purple crystal on top of the staff glowed, then cracked appeared and covered it wholly, a Tier 2 spell activated, faint sparks of blue lightning covered her body and her speed rose.

Destroying her precious staff was like damaging her foundation, she had placed so many efforts into the building, but there was no choice, life was more important.

"It worked," Vivie exclaimed. Under the effect of the spell, her speed rose, she was able to match up to Dale's speed and soon surpassed him, her expression was joyous, she now had a hope to survive.

Dale's raised his eyebrows in surprise, his expression then turned gloomy, he looked down at the sword on his waist, a ruthless light flashed in his eyes. He took it out and threw it at her back like a spear.

Although the sword's magic crystal was overexerted and can't be used now, it was still a sword and the mages don't have a tough body, to begin with.

The sharp tip of the sword pierced her back, Vivie's face paled, she coughed out blood, the spell was interrupted, her balance broke and she fell to the ground.

Dale ran past her, he looked back at the lizard group who were attracted by the smell of a Tier 3 Practitioner and sighed in relief 'This should buy me some time,'

Vivie led on the cold ground, her bleeding wound had formed a puddle of blood around her, there was no hope of survival in her eyes. She looked at the vague figure of Dale, her body kept twitching because of pain but she had no strength to stand up and run.

Soon she felt a big jaw of a monster biting her arm, it's a sharp row of teeth penetrating her skin.

Pain!

Intense pain assaulted her body.

Before she could overcome this pain it was followed by other monsters, her flesh was torn in a matter of seconds, her head became dizzy, her thoughts drifted away from her body as she died.

The lizards were ruthless and cold-blooded when it came to dividing their prey, they grabbed whatever they could hold on with their jaws and ripped out a big chunk of meat using brute force, blood-splattered, pieces of inner organs and intestines scattered all around on the ground. The smell of blood further intoxicated the hungry lizards, a fight broke out among them for the ownership of the last bit of flesh, in the heat of the movement, a few Poison Swamp Lizards even daringly faced a Purple Scaled Lizard, as a result, two of them were directly killed by it and became the next serving because of trying to compete against it.

Once the monster lizard finished getting their shares they joined in with the few lizards that gave priority to chasing the man.

All of them passed through the area, what left behind was a pungent smell of blood, bloody pieces of cloth fragments, the corpses of half-eaten Poison Swamp Lizard and a few bones of the now-dead female adventurer.

But this sight was only for a normal person, a hazy silhouette of the dead lizardman and a woman was floating in the void, the most circulated term to define them was soul. Normally in such a situation, once the soul leaves the vessel, it either gets destroyed and turns into energy that can nurture another soul or leave for the afterlife, though these were just the belief of WitchCraft Practitioners from Kazeer.

The souls were floating in the void, their faces were vague and expressionless, they were like humanoid and lizard figures made of smoke

The figure of the woman was less vague and more distinct compared to the mostly vague illusory figures of the lizards.

They were all slowly floating upwards when an unexpected change occurred.

Their direction of moving changed, it was like they were made of iron and a magnet started to pull them, the three vague figures moved in the same direction.

On the way, several more similar vague figures of rabbits, spiders, or even small indistinct insects followed along on the same way. Some were more distinct while some were very vague, so vague that it was hard to make out their shape.

There were even some formless firefly likes figures, they were coming out of grass, shrubs, flowers and all other plants, but they got absorbed as soon as they came in contact with bigger and more distinct figures.

All of them arrived at the same place, in the end, a big crowd of such figures was gathered at a certain place on the second floor. It was the same place where Kale buried the formation engraved beast core.

The crowd gathered above this place were not motionless, they were instead restless, crashing into each other, engaging into a brawl, fighting each other with listless expression and brute force.

A soul silhouette of a Poison Swamp Lizard clashed with a soul silhouette of a rabbit and destroyed it, the destroyed soul silhouette got converted into energy and got absorbed by the soul silhouette of the Poison Swamp Lizard, the Poison Swamp Lizard's figure became more distinct and less vague, it then clashed with the others.

All the vague figures were doing the same, they mindlessly fought with each other, after a while, only one figure was left.

It was the figure of a woman, her face was mostly expressionless like before but it was in complete contrast to its previous self, the figure had the outline of a mage's robe around her body, her facial features were more precise, a hint of emotion was present in those hollow eyes.

The figure of the woman then moved towards the ground and dived into it, passing through the hard surface like it was air and not some solid ground.

***

Several minutes later...

Outside The Poison Crypt.

Kale was sleeping inside the camp when the noise from a commotion woke him up, he wore his coat, put on his mask and headed outside his tent.

He didn't forget to wear his mask because it was almost like a habit to him, even last night, he didn't do dinner with others and took the food to his tent, and because he was direct with his words, Kallus could not stop him.

Kale came out and looked at Kallus sitting standing near the bonfire, he was on the night watch right now, he noticed Kale coming out and asked: "Did that wake you up?"

"Hmmm... Kind of, but what happened?" Kale asked.

"I was keeping a watch here, so I didn't go to ask, you keep a watch for a while, I will go and inquire about it," Kallus said.

Kale nodded in agreement.

Kallus left then came back after a while.

He told the reason for the commotion to Kale, according to him, the adventurers they saw in the daytime were ambushed by a group of monsters, somehow a few monsters from the fourth floor were included in that group.

Regardless of how hard he tried to save them, his whole party died under the claws of the monsters and only he survived.

Fortunately, the monsters could not pass through the main gate and he was saved, monsters beasts cannot stay out of their habitat, or into other monsters territories for long so they were bound to go back to their nest sooner or later.

By the end of his sentences, Kallus felt slightly embarrassed, he knew Dale's nature so most of the story felt like a joke to him but he also felt lucky, if the same incident had happened in the daytime then he and his team would have also been implicated.

"You said, one of his team members died on the third floor and another one on the second floor?" Kale asked to confirm his doubt.

Kallus nodded.

'A Tier 3 Practitioner died on the second floor? Hmm... A human soul is more stable and stronger compared to other creatures, so I believed it would be Tier 2 Practitioner's soul I can get if I am lucky or it would be just a monster soul but if a Tier 3 Practitioner's soul enters the game then things might be different,' Kale thought.

"You go take some rest, I will keep a watch," Kale suggested.

Kallus nodded. He was indeed feeling tired and a little lazy after eating a delicious meal last night. He wasn't worried about Kale pulling some dangerous trick while they were asleep, there were other adventurer camps around them, if something happened to them, Kale would be the first suspect. Furthermore, he now had more trust in him.

Unlike them, many Silver Rank adventurers chose to team up and dive into the dungeon quickly, it was to slay the three Purple Scaled Alligators and acquire free loot.

Defeating Purple Scaled Alligators on the fourth floor was a hard task, they live in a group and can show their true strength when they are in their territory but now, they had to fight other monsters to chase Dale to the main gate, they were in a weaker condition, while the adventurers in their peak condition.

It was free money for them.

***

Next morning...

Kale and the other two had finished collecting most of their stuff, right now, they were having breakfast.

"You sure? It is dangerous, We can come with you," Kallus suggested.

A few moments ago, Kale said he wanted to collect the sample of a plant from the first floor, he will go do it in a minute while they can wait here.

The monster lizards inside the first floor had already been chased down and hunted by several Silver Rank adventurers so they weren't a threat anymore. As a result, someone at Kale's level can also dive into the dungeon again.

"No need, heading in as a group will only slow us down, I have my means to escape if danger arrives. It will only take a few minutes, I might be back by the time you finish your breakfast," Kale said.

He had his own free will, Kallus could only bend to his choice.

Kale headed inside the dungeon. He used his other Earth Spell as soon as he entered.

'Rubber Touch'

When the spell activated, a change occurred on the ground below his feet. Kale took a step to start running.

As he exerted pressure on the ground to stride forward, the ground stuck to his feet like they were glued to it but once he took a leap, the ground burst out with a strong repulsion force pushing Kale forward, the same thing happened with his every step.

The distance he could cover within a few steps almost doubled under the effect of the spell.

He also activated «Mulan's Earring» to check his surrounding, after a while, he safely arrived at the place where he buried the beast core on the second floor.