The tunnel they passed through didn't lead them to a lower level, instead, it led to another large open area on the same level they were already on.
Reign and the others had already made a formation and were ready to fight the monsters that were present in this area, which, according to the kobolds, were rock lizards.
The rock lizards were powerful monsters whose bodies were completely covered in rocks. None of them here were that strong, to be honest, with the most powerful amongst them being Tier IV rock lizards, but the problem was the rocks.
Over time, rock lizards would take in mana from the surroundings and their rocks would become more powerful, they would be tougher.
As the rock lizards had been for a long time, the rocks covering their bodies were the same ones that were found around them, and since even Tier IV combatants had a hard time destroying them, the rock lizards were able to defeat the kobolds time and time again.
Even the dragonized kobold had to retreat the last time they fought as the lizards were able to defend against his attacks with their powerful defense, and there were more lizards than kobolds present.
The lizards were about 1.5 to 2 meters long, with the longest being the most powerful amongst them, a peak Tier IV rock lizard that was about 2.2 meters long.
They were very fast, could climb on walls and even stick to ceilings, and were able to defeat most of their enemies simply by charging them and hitting them with their heads, which were completely covered by the rocks and were incredibly difficult to break.
As Reign and the others arrived in the open area, they were confused by the lack of lizards.
From what the kobolds that Aethion had interrogated told him, the rock lizards would quickly sense any intruders entering the area and would appear almost instantly, with more and more coming in the next 2 minutes.
They were highly territorial and were a nightmare to be dealt with as they attacked without any care for themselves. They would simply use their large numbers to overwhelm the enemy and destroy them.
Reign and the others stared around them before Basred opened his mouth.
"I found them, about a thousand, around that corner." Basred pointed his finger in a direction, and nobody could see any corner as the entire place was enveloped in darkness.
Reign used his light manipulation and created even more balls of light that he scattered around them, and sent some to where Basred was pointing at.
Upon their arrival, the balls of light clearly showed a corner, and Reign and the others glanced at each other before Liara stepped forward and pointed in the same direction.
"Dammit, they're right at the entrance." Reign said as he glanced at the others.
"Get ready, I wanted to try fighting them here since the tunnel would give us an advantage as we could go in and eliminate the high number advantage the lizards have on us, but it seems that is impossible."
"Could they have known about that?" Alistair asked, to which Reign shrugged his shoulders.
"Could be, the kobolds used a similar tactic in the past, so the lizards might have learned from it, after all, they did suffer more casualties than they usually would have thanks to that."
"Something is weird, none of them are moving, not in the slightest," Basred said with a frown.
"My waves are quite hard to notice, but I already sent multiple, and I even used some that were a bit stronger to intentionally try and injure some of the lizards and get them angry so that they would attack us, but none of them have moved for even an inch."
"Could they be sleeping?" One of the Tier IVs asked from behind Basred who sighed.
"They must be very heavy sleepers, the sonic waves I sent were not weak, even with the rocks covering them, the waves would have done some damage to them, I don't know how they wouldn't have woken up."
"Are you saying they might all be dead?" Reign asked, to which everybody tensed up.
The lizards were a problem, quite a big one, but if they were dead, then it would indeed make it easier for them, but the problem was that if the annoying and strong lizards were dead, just what the hell killed them?
Reign and the others clenched their weapons and made their way over to the corner of the area.
The area was shaped like the letter r, and upon leaving the tunnel, one would find himself in a very long area that was about 20 meters wide, and when one got to the end, one would find that there was more to the area to the right side.
Reign and the others arrived at the corner and Reign, together with Siggurd, Basred, Alistair, and two more peak Tier IVs, went forward to see what was going on.
Reign waved the others over to tell them they could come as well before moving forward. Each one of them had a solemn expression on their face as the corpses of over a thousand rock lizards were present in the area in front of them.
"What the hell killed them?"
"Their bodies are perfectly fine, no injuries are present at all."
"Yeah, not even a bit of blood was spilled here."
"Reign, their souls?" Basred asked, to which Reign shook his head.
"A soul will dissipate naturally after death, so there is no way for me to be certain whether or not something had destroyed their souls or if they died from something else."
"Of course, I don't know many other ways a person could die without suffering any injuries, a sound-based attack similar to yours, but one that might only affect the insides could be what killed them as well," Reign told Basred before taking out his swords.
"Hold this one steady, let's check the insides." Basred nodded his head as he and another Tier IV grabbed the lizard from both sides and held it steady.
Reign coated his sword in a white mana that started moving around like a saw before lifting his sword high up. He slashed down with full force, aiming at the small cracks between the rocks, which was the only weakness the lizards had. Of course, the cracks were about 1cm wide at their widest, and during a battle, it was incredibly difficult for one to hit right there.
If you were using a hammer or any type of blunt weapon, you could forget about trying to exploit the weakness at all. The rocks weren't just very sturdy, but they were resistant to attacks, and were able to absorb shocks very well, so they basically had no weakness other than the light element, which was what Reign was using right now.
His sword cut through the body easily, even some of the rock he managed to strike was cut without much effort.
Reign then placed his sword back in its sheath before taking a deep breath and grabbing the corpse with his two hands. He grabbed where he cut the body and then started pushing it on both the left and right, causing the body to start ripping in half.
Some of the people who had weaker stomachs even looked away, nobody vomited or anything, they were all Tier IV combatants that had gone through their fair share of combat. The amount of blood each one had spilled was not small at all.
Reign managed to open the body with his bare hands, and he stared inside as gallons of blood started coming out of the body.
"Everything seems fine, of course, they are monsters, so I can't be certain that this is how their organs are supposed to look like." Reign said as he continued looking as he moved the organs around with his hand.
"There's a possibility they were poisoned, after all, there exists quite a lot of poisons that could have killed them without their organs changing at all, some would simply force their organs to stop working, which would kill the bastards."
Reign continued looking and giving more ideas of how they died before he stopped.
"This one's heart has been crushed completely." Reign said with a serious expression.
He suddenly got up and took his sword out before again coating it with light. He arrived at another corpse, and simply slashed down with full force, splitting the body in half. Without mana in their bodies, the lizards couldn't further enhance their defenses, so Reign was able to easily cut through the rocks that proved to be weaker than the rocks of the cave because of that lack of mana in the body.
He put his hand in one half again and grabbed the heart.
"This one has been crushed too, we can't be completely certain without checking the rest, but I think all of them died from their hearts getting crushed inside the body."
Everybody gulped as they felt slight fear. For all of the lizards, over a thousand of them, to have suddenly gotten their hearts crushed, just what the hell was able to do such a thing?
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