Child of Destiny

Chapter 2031: Commission (Part 6): Lost in the Dungeon

...

Swoosh!

Bang!

Chaotic Luck fell flat on the ground right after being swallowed by the dungeon gate that he had fallen into.

”Ouch! That hurts!” he rolled on the ground for quite a while, trying to relieve the pain throughout his body.

Fortunately, he did not suffer any serious fall damage from it.

It took him quite a while before the pain disappeared. He then swiftly stood up right after recovering and swiftly summoned a few of his blazing skeletons, ordering them to form a defensive formation.

He had just fallen into a dungeon, so all the other summoned creatures that he had earlier in the outside world were forcefully recalled.

He did not know what kind of dungeon he was in, so it was only natural to be prepared for any sudden ambush that might come out of nowhere.

Although his response was a bit too late.

Fortunately, no one took advantage of his situation earlier, which was only natural since he just entered the dungeon.

The problem was that he did not know why the dungeon did not ask him what kind of difficulty it was before he entered. It might be because he was too shocked and occupied with the sudden turn of events, which made him accidentally press his ’choice’ during his fall.

Right now, he did not even know what kind of monsters were waiting for him inside, or if he could even survive this dungeon by himself.

Even if the necromancer class was dubbed as a one-man army due to the legion of undead creatures that they had under their command, soloing a dungeon was still a great challenge.

Moreover, he was currently within the Awakened Continent, which meant that the difficulty of this dungeon was way above the ones that he cleared in the Aurora Continent.

The monsters alone in the Awakened Continent were much more powerful compared to those in the previous continent, which Chaotic Luck had already experienced.

He was not like Shin and the others, who could solo a Chieftain Rank Monster in this continent, but he could at least fight an Elite or even Super Elites, given his current abilities.

Despite his powerful Legion of Chaotic Sun, challenging a Chieftain Rank Monster was still way above his current limit.

Even with the help of his unique version of Death Knight, the Hell Pilgrim, he was still unable to fully defeat such a monster. Taking a draw was the only thing that he could do at most.

Only monstrous individuals like Shin and the others would dare to do such a crazy thing as defeating those powerful monsters.

”Let’s just hope that it is one of those conditional dungeons that can be cleared through doing some quests or meeting some special conditions,” he mumbled while summoning a few more blazing skeletons and further arranging their formation.

He also sent some of them out to scout ahead, making sure that he would not encounter any monsters way ahead of his league.

He was quite worried that the difficulty of this dungeon and the monsters within it were too powerful for him to overcome. After all, even if dying within the dungeon did not cause any serious penalty like being banned from playing the game for a day or so, he would still lose some experience points during the process.

Given how difficult it was to grind experience points at their current level, dying even once and losing a level would greatly hurt their progress.

His level was still decently high compared to the leading players of the group, but losing a level would deal a great blow to him.

He was currently Level 177, which was way ahead of the pack of most of the players. But it was pretty average when compared to the rest of the Empyrean Talons.

Forget about the Monster Trio and Demonic Duo, since they were abnormal people. The rest of the team was either already in Level 180 or above.

Despite all his luck, he was third to the last among all the members, right above Samael and Huahua.

”Let’s do this!” he encouraged himself before daring to advance.

He prepared himself for whatever challenges were waiting for him ahead. He was in full focus, seemingly entering the so-called ’Zone’ of most people.

Unfortunately, he suddenly became confused the more he advanced.

”What the heck!? What is happening!?” he mumbled while knitting his brow.

He had been walking around for at least an hour, yet he had not encountered any monsters. Even the scouts that he had sent out were unable to find any clear signs of enemies despite covering a huge area during their reconnaissance.

Given the series of battle marks throughout the path that they had taken, and the broken weapons they found scattered everywhere, they were supposed to encounter at least a couple of monsters along the way.

However, despite advancing and covering a lot of distance, they still had yet to find any enemies that were supposed to be guarding, or at least randomly roaming, throughout the dungeon.

”Why are there no monsters around? Is this really a special dungeon? A condition dungeon?” he mumbled while furrowing his brows.

”Let’s continue and see what is waiting ahead. Let’s just hope that it is not a powerful monster or something,” he said, further encouraging himself.

He advanced alongside his legion, fully prepared to fight anyone they would encounter.

Unfortunately, despite walking for almost a day (In-game Time), they had yet to bump into any hostile entities, much less engage in battle.

”Strange, why is there no one here?” he mumbled, finding that this situation was quite peculiar.

He opened his friend list and tried to contact the other members of the Empyrean Talons, intending to consult them about his current situation.

But he later realized that he could not contact any of them. He could at least browse the online forums and other online platforms, but he was unable to post anything due to certain restrictions.

”A sealed and isolated space? Now, this is troublesome,” he mumbled before looking for a few topics in the online forums that had a similar situation to the one he was in.

Unfortunately, he could not find any reliable information that he could use as a reference.

”I guess I have to wait until I log out to contact the others-...” he said before suddenly freezing because he realized something.

”Ah! I forgot that I don’t have their numbers in the real world! I am only contacting them through our in-game information!” he smacked his palm on his forehead, realizing this.

”I guess I can only continue this way,” he looked ahead before continuing.

He walked for another while and discovered that there were truly no monsters within this peculiar dungeon.

He initially thought that it was some sort of trial dungeon that tested the players’ aptitude, but he did not receive any system prompt informing him of the clear conditions.

He thought that it might be a hidden condition or something, but he had already scaled most of the players within the dungeon, yet he still had not found any clues.

...

Looking at the virtual map that he drew, he got the rough picture of the dungeon. He also realized that he was actually going in circles the entire time.

After mapping out the path that he had taken alongside his blazing skeletons, he found that he seemed to be trapped in a circular maze, further increasing his suspicion that this was a conditional dungeon.

”According to this map, the third path is the only place that I have yet to explore,” he mumbled while looking at the five-way forked path before him.

Each of these roads seemed to be pointing toward a different destination, but he just found out that the four other paths were only leading to this same path.

”I have spent three days (real-world time) exploring the four other paths, but aside from a few rare minerals that I have gotten along the way, I have found nothing else.”

”If this path will still end up here, then I guess I will be trapped here forever,” he sighed before adding. ”However, given the settings of the game, that should be impossible.”

He had tried sending a few blazing skeletons to scout ahead, but he lost his connection with them after reaching a certain distance before being forcefully unsummoned.

Despite the crazy range of control that he had, he still failed to reach the ’end’ of each path, which was supposedly where he was currently standing.

This was the reason why he failed to realize that he was going in circles earlier. He just thought that the places he went through were just identical.

He only found out the truth after leaving a mark along the way, which made him realize what was truly happening.

”Let’s do this,” after resting, Chaotic Luck continued his ’exploration’, hoping that he would finally find the end of this maze.

...

”Finally! After days of ’struggle’, I finally find the exit!” Chaotic Luck cheered.

He was currently standing at a broken gate, which seemed to be leading to the deeper parts of the dungeon.

He ignored the details and the patterns engraved on the fallen gates due to his excitement. He just crossed it without a thought, hoping that he would finally leave this forsaken place.

However, he would not expect what was waiting for him up ahead.

......