Nyxfall 7: The Veilbreakers-Chapter 60: The Grimhorn Den 4

The Vurkrash finally died, unlocking the lock on two wooden doors on two sides of the circular boss room. The ugly bear mini-boss dropped quite a few items, most of them unknown materials and common–uncommon equipment. There was one rare weapon though, level 21 at that.

Vurkrash Dark Claws. It was a knuckle claw. Kai was surprised to see the Nexus Kin town dungeon dropping an item exclusive to Stonebinder classes. The AI could not be that advanced that each dungeon’s drops were adjusted to the classes of the team who tackled it. That was something new — last Nyxfall did not have that feature. This would make the dungeon-hogging guilds’ job much more difficult.

Kai gave the claws to Bella instantly. Weapons and equipment were worth nothing if they were not used when needed. Kai was using the random uncommon sword he had picked up from the Beast Hollow dungeon.

They healed up, rested for a while, and then moved on. Kai knew the way forward was the door opposite to the one they had come from — the side door was a dead end filled with waves after waves of monsters coming. Such areas had their own advantages when one wanted to farm materials; right now, however, they wanted to try and finish the dungeon if possible.

Opening the door, another large underground cave started — much more roots of bone here, and some of them were even glowing weirdly.

The monsters here had completely changed from the earlier ones. The first charge was of Mutated Horn Creepers — insectoid, dog-sized abominations with black carapaces, curved horns on their heads, and spiny legs. Their eyes glowed dim green, and their tails dripped poison.

They had annoying attacks like Poison Sting, a ranged toxic dart that applies a stacking damage over time. And they clung to cave ceilings, leaping down on unsuspecting players. The most annoying, however, could be called their messed-up ability of exploding on death, releasing a poison cloud.

Kai had to use his bow at full focus here. When they leaped out of dark corners, even he was surprised and barely had seconds before shooting two arrows consecutively to finish them off. Bella, Zayden, Prince, Mimi — all close-range players — were very anxious about getting blown up, losing over 40 to 70 HP in one go. Their carapaces were tough, and only attacking their small heads or limbs was effective.

Mimi came very close to death, and Sherry would have completely died if she wasn’t standing beside Kai, who quickly changed to his sword and dealt with the Horn Creeper that jumped out of nowhere. More than the monsters, the hidden holes and dark shadowy roots giving them places to hide made them so annoying to deal with.

Kai did his best to give warnings whenever he noticed even a sliver of movement, but sometimes that just wasn’t enough. Even worse — soon after, another monster was added in along with the Horn Creepers. Grimhorn Stalkers; larger, sleeker wolf-beasts with shadowy fur, curved horns, and blade-like claws. Their eyes glowed blue, and their movements were eerily silent. They went a step ahead of the creepers and literally teleported behind a player for a backstab strike. Their attacks were also stacking-type, applying a high-damage bleed with each attack.

Here they lost Jor and Mimi. The path was too wide and monsters just too many; before they were finished with one wave, another was already behind them. With constant heals, fighting, and even running in certain areas, finally, they reached the next mini-boss’s door. Here they had to quickly enter, otherwise the monsters they ran from would catch up to them, and it would have been a massacre.

Barely anyone had HP over 40% when they saw the second mini-boss standing in the middle of another similar yet slightly different boss area. This one only had one door on the opposite side. The name of the second mini-boss showed above her head as, Shadra the Spirit-Twister.

A lanky, wolf-like beast with exposed rib bones and glowing runes etched into its bones. Its face was masked by a skull, and its limbs were unnaturally long and agile.

Even before giving them a second, she started chanting in an alien language. Immediately a large, dark purple magic circle covered the land. Kai and everyone were in the middle of it while Shadra was at the edge of it.

Kai shouted, "Run!" and they made a dash to the side, out of the magic circle — there were no posts about her, Kai had just seen an image.

He had no idea what the magic circle did. But soon they found out — their legs felt like they were making their way through high snow, their breaths were catching up, and the stamina bar was being lowered at an alarming rate. Kai quickly shot an arrow outside the circle and held everyone to use Godstep. But the place they came out to also suddenly vibrated, and sharp bone spikes started coming out of the ground, impaling Sherry and Zayden, killing them instantly with their low health. Prince was also grazed by it slightly, but she had more HP, so somehow she survived with 5 HP.

Kai’s skill was on cooldown. Once again, they made a wild run for it, reaching for the side — from the starting 90 degrees of the Shadra, now they had arrived at 180 degrees. However, the mini-boss just looked at them and laughed from her sly wolfish mouth, finishing her chanting.

Without even realizing it, Kai and everyone had reached the exact place she was chanting her spell towards. A pitch-black magic circle was lit up under their feet, and seconds later, with an alarming sound, all of their bodies started blinking with a purple color. It was growing darker each time. When the timer finished — even though Kai used his Godstep again and moved away from the black circle — all of them at once exploded in a big explosion, shattering into millions of red particles all at once.

Kai was once again back in the revival zone, and a few seconds later, he reappeared near the inn he had spent the night in before and had his chests along with Darksmile. Everyone was already there — Mimi, Prince, Bella, Zayden, and even the couple, Sherry and Jor.

"All died? What in the hell happened?" asked Zayden.

"That thing used skill after skill.." Prince muttered.

"Well.. It’s a ten-player dungeon for a reason," Kai said and walked inside the inn to store the items he had filled his inventory with, the others doing the same while talking about the insane chase and assault of the unforgiving boss they had just been through.

When Kai came out, Zayden asked excitedly, "We need better weapons, some skill or item for the poison thing.. then we can go back again."

Kai smiled, seeing the guy’s enthusiastic face. "Go sleep, it’s 5 AM. We have school tomorrow.. Ten-player dungeons can only be entered once a day."

"Ahh!" Zayden froze, his eyes slowly going to the real-world time displayed at the top of their interface. Bella and Mimi chuckled from the side.

"We have jobs to do too.." Jor said awkwardly. Sherry looked away from him, as if avoiding the cruel reality. Jor grabbed her shoulder though, not letting her go, doing his partner duty. Once again, everyone started laughing.

"We will need a strategy to do this though.." Bella said at last.

Kai nodded. "I just wanted to check it out. We need to run Beast Hollow a few more times to get as much equipment as possible, prepare some things, probably grab some good players so we at least have ten people for a ten-player dungeon.. Today is Saturday. If you guys can do the whole Sunday, we can be the first — and probably only — people for now to finish this dungeon."

"We have no plans for this Sunday.." Sherry said, and Jor nodded.

"I am free.." Bella said.

"Me too.." Zayden was not that far behind.

Almost everyone agreed to do the whole Sunday and finish the dungeon at all costs. Promising to do just that, everyone logged off. Kai did some light stretches, drank half a bottle of water, and fell asleep for a few hours before he would have to wake up for school.

Once again, riding in Mimi’s car, watching the fancy houses come and go, Kai listened to Mimi talking about her friend who had received the game and was doing the beginning village thing in the Nexus Kin path.

All he had were new players. Some of them were pretty good. He had not expected his mother to do so well when he asked her to play, but it was a pleasant surprise. Still, just like Obsidian and Red Wolf, all guilds would soon get more and more active. With traveling becoming easier, the big-name guilds would come to all major areas to make names for themselves. He had to compete against them with no resources to speak of.

He could not do a big guild right now with the level of influence he had. He would have to go with quality over quantity and get a strong team that could dominate the dungeons and become a name that people could not forget — even here and in nearby Nexus Kin towns.