Chapter 268 The Inferno Depths
The first floor of the dungeon was a blazing forest, the trees engulfed in flames while the air shimmered with heat, and the scents of charred wood and smoldering ground lingered in the atmosphere.
The forest was devoid of any greenery, but it was still filled with rare vegetation that thrived in such harsh conditions while the air was thin and heavy to breathe, making even fourth Rank individuals constantly lose stamina.
The monsters that roamed the floor were Flame hyenas, Flame Eagles, and Ember Treants, with their strength ranging from early Fourth to middle stage.
The condition to clear the first floor was to hunt down the floor guardian, who could belong to any species with no set destination, so locating him on a massive landscape filled with hundreds of creatures was time-consuming and challenging.
After three hours and killing close to a hundred creatures that attacked him, Alex found the floor guardian, which was the worst one can encounter in the nightmare difficulty, a blaze eagle.
The eagle was massive with razor-sharp talons and a beak and had four majestic wings that shimmered with searing heat, allowing him to fly at astonishing speed.
Alex used the death illusion to momentarily stop the eagle in his track before using the Darkness Veil Reaper Slash to slice off his head clean, killing it before it could even land a single strike on him.
Alex teleported to the second floor, which was a network of intricate cave systems, a stark contrast to the open forest of the first floor.
The walls were glowing from the intense heat, and the air was damp and heavy, carrying a distinct earthy scent mixed with the metallic tang of minerals.
The creatures that roamed these caves were Lava Rock golems, Explosive beetles, and Lava salamanders, while the floor had two guardians, both being at the peak fourth Rank, one of them being a Lava Salamander residing in the north area of the cavern in the Lava pools.
The second guardian was a lava golem who didn't have a fixed location and freely roamed the deeper area of the cave system.
It took Alex a little over two hours to reach the location of the Salamander and engage him in battle, and unlike the first-floor guardian, the battle against him lasted for a few minutes because of his tens of underlings.
After dealing with the Salamander, Alex started roaming the tunnels in search of the golem and found him after four hours.
The Golem was a massive creature, standing at a towering thirty feet in height with veins of molten lava crisscrossing its hulking body, giving it an imposing presence.
The golem possessed a remarkably vast pool of health and great defense while having dangerous skills in his arsenal, ranging from lava fissures that left the area around him in deep lava oozing cracks and condensed flame beams that left deep creator in the ground incinerating everything it touched.
Alex relied on his agility to dodge the guardian's relentless assaults, not engaging in a useless, head-on battle while observing for the perfect opportunity to strike.
Alex patiently waited for the guardian to use its devastating plasma beam attack, which required the guardian to open its armored chest, exposing his core, his only weakness.
In the span of ten minutes, Alex managed to land three precise and powerful strikes on the guardian's core, shattering it to ruble, causing the golem to crumble into a heap of molten rock and fading embers.
Alex took some time to recover his condition to peak state before teleporting to the third floor because he knew it held only one creature, the dungeon's final boss.
After teleporting to the third floor, Alex appeared on a massive and solid platform of obsidian, its surface radiating waves of heat, and it was located in the mouth of a volcano.
The platform was elevated above the rivers of lava, and pillars of steam and ash occasionally burst forth from the surrounding boiling lava, creating an otherworldly atmosphere.
The air was thick with the acrid scent of sulfur, and the faint roar of the volcano's fury echoed while the ground trembled occasionally from the rumbling of the fiery core beneath.
At the center of the platform lay the final boss creature of colossal size, stretching for over forty feet, covered in dark, obsidian black, spiky skin threaded with molten red and orange veins, pulsating with fiery energy.
The creature was a mutated drake, with his body being long and thin like a serpent with four mighty legs covered in dense muscle, and he had two small horns on his head.
Alex had only watched raid videos of the battle against the mutated drake but never faced it himself, so a bit excited, he used phantom walk to appear above the sleeping drake and used the fourfold death point on the head of the drake.
The attack that could rip through any peak fourth-rank creature only left a small wound above the drake's head, and with a mighty roar, it lunged toward Alex.
Despite its immense size, the drake exhibited a remarkable nimbleness, darting across the platform with the agility that defied its bulk. Its obsidian skin, as tough as the very stone it stood upon, acted as an impenetrable armor, rendering Alex's strikes less effective.
The Drake's arsenal of skills were also devastating. It unleashed torrents of scorching flame that scorched the air, leaving shimmering heat trails in its wake.
The Drake's most potent ability, an Elemental Concept Skill, was a fiery breath of concentrated plasma that melted the hardened lava floor into molten glass, a testament to the drake's mastery over the element of fire.
As the battle progressed, the drake's health dwindled, its obsidian scales marred by the wounds inflicted by Alex's relentless attacks, and as his health dropped to a critical point, he entered his second phase.
All the injuries Alex inflicted were healed, and a surge of strength coursed through its monstrous form, renewing its vigor and enhancing his strength.
After entering the second phase, the drake disengaged from Alex and made his way to the center of the platform before summoning an infernal storm of revolving flames, creating a cyclone that enveloped its form.
The Drake then used his strengthed plasma breath on the obsidian platform, and like fire going through the ice, the plasma breath bore a hole through the thick ground until it reached the oozing lava below.
The Lava below erupted with a massive roar and, in mere moments, shattered the platform into fragmented pieces, spewing lava and molten rocks into the turbulent air.
Expecting this to happen, Alex employed his Phantom walk, shifting himself to safety just in time.
What was once a sprawling platform now lay fragmented, reduced to smaller, precarious platforms no larger than twenty meters in length while lava surged between the fractured remnants, and the once-vast expanse had been transformed into a treacherous battleground.
The volatility of the volcanic environment only escalated as the drake exploited its familiarity with the lava's flow to his advantage. Pillars of molten fury erupted intermittently, a deadly display of the volcano's unstable temperament.
The drake, hidden within the molten chaos, ambushed Alex with cunning strategy, aiming to drag him into the boiling lava and certain doom.
Alex used his honed mana sense to deal with drake's ambushes, and as the battle continued, the drake's health plummeted to a mere sliver, reaching a cal point.
The drake entered the berserker state losing his sanity and engaging in a head-on brutal clash, driven by sheer desperation and fury.
After mere moments, Alex once again used the fourfold death point, plunging his sword through the drake's skull, piercing it open, and crushing its brain, taking away the last of its health.
With the boss's demise, the oppressive atmosphere began to concede as the constant eruption of lava slowed, and the once-fiery landscape settled into a tense calm.
Alex collected his hard-earned reward from the drake's corpse, including the coveted Fire Element Source Crystal, before leaving the dungeon and making his way back to the city.
This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by (f)reew𝒆b(n)ovel.com