Chapter 5: Chapter 5 — The Goldfish Dungeon
We entered the dungeon through the stone jaws of the skull. The path led us downward through a steep, damp, dark underground tunnel, until we emerged into an immense network of ancient catacombs.
The whole place looked like it hadn’t been stepped on in centuries; the limestone walls were covered in thick layers of dust, dense cobwebs, and a subtle but unmistakable rancid smell of rotting flesh that floated in the stale air.
Rrrrrumble!
Suddenly, a deafening rumble shook the foundations of the place. The floor and walls trembled violently, as if a stampede of a thousand wild horses was charging straight toward our position.
Samira reacted instantly, drawing her weapon and settling into a perfect combat guard, her violet eyes fixed on the darkness of the corridor.
I didn’t fall behind; with a quick mental command, I summoned Dorko directly from the system’s dimensional storage. The giant orc appeared with a roar, gripping his crude club.
From the gloom emerged an endless white tide: hundreds, perhaps thousands of skeletons with empty sockets and rusted armor, rattling their teeth and weapons against the floor.
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
Instead of getting scared, a confident smile spread across my face. After the brutal level increase of my ether core thanks to the previous night’s cultivation, I was dying to test my true potential.
I immediately summoned Runi, the little floating flame, who began orbiting around me, releasing fiery sparks.
Fwoosh... crackle...
I extended my left arm and positioned my right forearm back, imitating the exact posture of an elite archer, channeling all the ether from my chest toward my hands.
With a firm voice and a dramatic flair worthy of the most epic anime back on Earth, I recited my incantation:
"I proclaim the flame of the first era, the one that belongs to the sleeping god! The one that slumbers the unfaithful, the one that destroys the corrupt!"
The ether responded immediately. Runi’s fire expanded wildly, intertwining along my arms until it manifested an imposing bow made of pure living flames and a massive fire arrow that distorted the air with heat.
The concentrated power made my loose muscles tremble. I released the invisible string.
BOOM!
The resulting explosion was deafening and devastating. A torrent of crimson and violet fire swept through the catacomb corridor.
The direct impact reduced hundreds of skeletons to mere floating ashes in the blink of an eye, leaving charred bones scattered across the floor.
Sizzle... crackle...
Samira glanced at me sideways and offered me a smile full of pride and complicity, clearly impressed by the control I now had over my spirit magic.
"Nice shot, master!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm.
With the vanguard of the horde decimated by my attack, the rest of the team joined the party.
Dorko charged forward with his brutal physical strength, smashing skulls and ribs three at a time with each swing of his heavy club.
CRUNCH! SMASH!
Samira moved with lethal grace; with the help of a lesser wind spirit that danced around her, she sliced through the phalanges and limbs of the undead with gusts of cutting air as sharp as scalpels.
Shiiing! Slash!
While they cleaned up the flanks, I took care of the rear, firing minor fire projectiles that reduced to ashes any straggler that tried to flank us.
We were a perfect assault machine.
...
The number of enemies seemed endless; for every row of undead I reduced to ashes, two more emerged from the absolute darkness of the catacombs.
They were immense hordes, a relentless tide of bones and rusted steel.
However, for some strange reason, instead of feeling terror, a wave of pure adrenaline and excitement coursed through my veins.
I didn’t stop channeling ether for a single second, firing continuous bursts of flaming arrows while Dorko kept smashing them with pure club blows and Samira sliced them with her cutting wind gusts, dismembering them so easily that the skeletons went flying, unarmed, like loose Lego pieces.
Crash! Clatter! Fwoosh!
Suddenly, the rhythm of the battle changed drastically. The vast majority of the undead halted their advance in their tracks.
Silence.
In unison, the creatures raised their empty faces toward the ceiling and began to bellow heart-rending shrieks in a kind of dead, incomprehensible tongue.
The sepulchral echo reverberated off the walls as they clashed their chipped swords with great clamor against their rotten wooden shields, performing a macabre bow.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
...
BOOM!
Colossal, incredibly heavy footsteps made the stone slabs tremble under our feet.
Something truly enormous was approaching from the depths of the corridor.
Finally, a gigantic, grayish hand peeked out, gripping one of the stone corners, followed by a horrifying head covered in patches of putrefied flesh and with an exposed skull perfectly visible on half of the face.
It was a zombie orc, a monstrous beast that far surpassed Dorko himself in size and bulk.
Thud... Thud... THUD!
The great undead orc finished emerging into the light of the clearing, revealing a completely shattered and rusted heavy armor.
Half of its torso was purely skeletal, but in its sockets shone two menacing eyes of spectral green fire.
Enormous claws held a giant greatsword and a square metal shield so massive and angular it immediately reminded me of the armor of a Mech from Mazinger Z.
Clank... scrape...
At first, a pang of nervousness tightened my stomach at the sight of such a zone boss.
But as I glanced away for a second toward Samira, who remained unperturbed by my side, and toward Dorko, I felt deep relief.
I was no longer alone in a dark room back on Earth. This week I had been brutally beaten, I had learned the fundamentals of spirit magic, I had learned to cook to survive, and to truly fight.
So, what the hell was I afraid of? Of course I could do it! I didn’t plan on taking a single step back, much less on going back to being that pathetic office idiot who wasted his life insulting and arguing with anonymous brats on the internet.
My current life was here, with my own strength.
I locked my eyes on my imposing orc guardian.
"Hey, big boy!" I shouted with a defiant grin, pointing at the monstrosity blocking our path.
"Smash!"
"GRRRUAAAHH!!" Dorko roared in response.
The 5-star orc grinned, nodding with absolute warrior complicity. Then, he unleashed a thunderous roar that shook the dust from the catacombs and charged head-on at the great undead orc, making the dozens of common skeletons in his path explode and trampling them as he went.
GRRRUAAAGHH! Crunch-crunch-crunch!
The great zombie orc didn’t fall behind. It answered the challenge with a cavernous bellow and counterattacked, raising its gigantic sword.
Both colossal forces clashed in the middle of the corridor with a brutal clamor that unleashed a blast of wind and metallic dust around them—
BOOOOM! CLANG!
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