“This is entirely ridiculous,” Kara said to the rest of the party as they came across the third room that Rox had cleared on his own. “I thought I was used to him leaving the realm of common sense, but no matter how many times I see it, this is completely preposterous.”

In front of her and the rest of the silent party laid the remains of what appeared to be a wyvern. Not just any wyvern, however. A purple-scaled wyvern, a breed that had gone extinct over a millennia ago. They were the most dangerous of their kin and were hunted out of existence by armies, mercenaries, and adventurers. This was due to the extreme danger they posed once they started showing signs of evolving into full dragons. They were the only magical creature that was able to control the highly dangerous and versatile gravity magic. At the end of the hunting, the final wyvern was powerful enough to crush entire villages with its prowess. All leaders at the time shuddered at the idea of such a thing becoming a dragon. It would have gained intelligence equal, if not greater, than the mortal races and would then begin using gravity in other ways to fight, rather than just crushing people.

“You're telling me that Rox killed this thing? I thought the Chalcite in the second room was surprising. The doppelganger in the third room was insane, but this! This shouldn't have been possible! This creature doesn't even exist on the outside anymore, how could he possibly have known how to fight against something with no experience in it?!” Sheeron said, gradually becoming more flustered. The latter part of his statement showing his ignorance of who Rox really was. “On top of that, we've been running to catch up since we decided to. Only stopping to observe the sheer stupidity of what that man has been capable of, yet he's still staying ahead while killing these beasts. How is it possible that such a person was merely a captain of the guards?”

“Worry about it later, we need to keep going,” Kara said, wanting to divert the conversation somewhere else. Even she was doubting her eyes and she already knew that he wasn't one of the mortal races. “Besides, the other two have already left. If we don't hurry, we'll be left behind by them too.”

Feera and Toley had already gotten over their shock, seemingly more accepting of it than Sheeron and Kara due to their personalities, and moved on.

Sheeron released a deep sigh and spoke under his breath, “This is my life now.” He then began to run alongside Kara.

- - - -

It was not until the seventh room that they finally caught up with Rox. By this point, everyone had grown too tired of being surprised by his ridiculous pace and were just grateful to have caught up, no longer having to run from room to room. Seeing the powerful monsters he had killed had worn them down and they simply wanted to rest.

Rox stood in the middle of the seventh room of the dungeon with his sword drawn, dripping with a green blood-like substance. It seemed like he had just finished another fight, so they all entered and walked towards him, mentally exhausted.

“I swear that if this is all an elaborate ruse to tell us you were the final boss monster all along, I'll kill you,” Sheeron said after they had made it to the halfway point towards him.

Rox snapped his body towards the party as if he were about to jump forward and attack, however, as if realizing something he instead called out to them, “No! Don't come any closer, it isn't dead yet!”

Immediately after his words, the creature took its chance and went in for a powerful strike. It was targeting the party, rather than Rox. The attacker was entirely transparent and only Kara, with her eyesight ability, was able to see the faint blur coming in to attack Toley. She quickly created a shield of powerful rotating water to divert the attack just in time.

A giant, green scythe appendage stabbed towards Toley as the shield appeared from thin air. The water shield caught the limb in the current and threw the creature over their heads and onto the ground on the other side of them. The creature's transparency flickered a few times before entirely disabling while it stood back up. In front of the party now stood a giant praying chameleon mantis, another extinct creature that was feared in its time for being able to cleave through entire groups of people with enhanced shields. What was once known as the “Grim reaping insect” now stood as an opponent to the party. It bled a green substance and the exoskeleton was a mix of vibrant pink and green hues. The eyes were pure white with a single black dot in each one.

“Can't you just fight a normal thing for once in your life?!” Kara called in Rox's direction while taking a battle stance along with the rest of the party.

“Is this how you always are?!” Feera pitched in.

“Preaching to the choir, believe me.” He responded, exasperated.

Before anything else could be said, the mantis tried to cut their legs out from under them with a sweeping attack. Now that everyone was ready though, they all easily jumped over the attack as Rox quickly covered the distance from the middle of the room. He arrived by the time the attack ended and took advantage of the mantis' recovery from the attack. He then leaped towards it and removed the limb from the creature with a swing of his sword.

The creature let out a scream sounding like a series of high pitch screeching and clicking sounds in pain. The pure white eyes of the monster then turned red in rage and all the hues in its shell changed from pink and green to red and yellow. After the change it charged at them, abandoning all sense it had and simply relied on its raw power. This proved to be surprisingly effective.

It attacked Sheeron with a vertical slashing attack, luckily his axe was made of high-quality metal, so he was able to successfully block. The tip of the scythe-like appendage stuck into the ground behind him as if it were paper. The monster followed up with a kick to Sheeron's side while he was open, and he was sent sliding across the ground several meters.

Toley tried to attack the creature with his claw weapons by using the opening from the monster's attack, like Rox had, but couldn't cut through the tough exoskeleton. It simply stopped in place, leaving a small scratch where he connected and sent a jolt up his arm from the force of it. The mantis then kicked Toley across the ground, too. Being much lighter than his teacher, he was thrown clear across the room and crashed into Sheeron as he tried getting up. Sending them both sprawling onto the ground.

Feera took her steel and mythril daggers from their sheaths. In one fluent motion, she put her left foot forward while bringing her right hand behind her head, holding the steel dagger by the blade. A darkened shadow magic attached itself to the handle just before she threw it at the creature's head. The blade spun beautifully, leaving a darkened train behind while it was spinning in the air from the shadow magic, before finally sinking into one of the eyes of the mantis right on the black pupil area.

The mantis screeched again and directed its remaining eye at the dark-haired elf. She raised her dagger in response and winked at the creature, which then charged forward as it had earlier and tried another vertical strike on Feera the same as it had on Sheeron. Rather than attempting to block it with something as small as her dagger, she dodged by rolling to the side. However, like with Sheeron, she was met with a follow-up kick.

Unlike with Sheeron, though, she melted into the shadows and reappeared on the mantis' head holding the shadowed handle of the dagger she had thrown. Before the monster could react, she quickly stabbed into the neck of the beast and carved a circle around it, cleanly cutting the head of the monster off. She then leaped off of the corpse and landed on her feet where she had been standing before the teleportation. Everyone stayed on guard for a few more moments to make sure that it had died before sheathing their weapons and relaxing.

Rox fell to the ground, laying on his back and staring at the intricate ceiling of the dungeon room. “That makes seven rooms down, who knows how many to go.” He spoke dryly.

“Yeah, five of which you cleared entirely alone. I don't know how you ever managed to hide your power as captain of the guards.” Kara responded, sitting down on the ground next to him.

“I didn't hide my power back then. I'm fairly certain the history books all say that we were essentially at war, being strong was far more important back then than it is now. Constantly being on a battlefield will do that to you.” He spoke as if explaining something obvious. “Monsters were constantly trying to invade human territories. I remember having to lead my men into a fight against a hundred of those chameleon mantes at one point. A horrible bloody battle, for both sides.”

“That's all well and good,” Sheeron spoke up, “but these creatures keep getting stronger, at least from what we saw. What happens if we come across something too powerful for us to handle before we complete the dungeon? Let alone if we find that something before we even complete out objective.”

“Then you all run, Rox and I will stay.” Kara calmly stated.

Rox looked at Kara sternly, but she shook her head and he kept his mouth shut.

“You know we can't do that. With the exception of Toley, we're charged with protecting you. Sure, Feera could be sent away with your orders according to the contract, if you force her, but I can't. Remember, I'm contracted to your father to protect you, I can't leave when I know you're in this level of danger.” Sheeron complained, “Making you travel through a forest with your two guards, sure, I can get away with that, but if I leave you here I will be punished by the contract.”

“Fine, then you can also stay if the time comes. It won't though, I think we can all handle it.” Kara responded solemnly.

Feera and Toley both joined them looking exhausted, but Feera had the energy to chime in. “By the way, Rox. How in the hell did you manage to get through all those rooms without us catching up to you? We were running almost the whole time.” Her voice was clearly restrained, trying not to give in to the urge to shout her question.

“Oh, that's easy,” Rox said with a charming smile, “I swung my sword.”

There was a long pause as the entire party stared at him with dead eyes.

“I'm going to skin him,” Feera said.

“I'll hold him.” Sheeron followed up.

“Guys?” Rox asked, concerned.