After several re-runs of this dungeon, we could not manage to find a single hint that may help us reach our objective and officially clear it.

Nonetheless, we stumbled upon two already cleared setups, but they did not follow a pattern and we found ourselves only going through different floors for the sake of nothing.

We lost count of the time that passed while we were here. Maybe several days or even a few weeks. What we were certain of is that the plan was too flawed to accept from the beginning.

Some participants were fed up with this and wanted to just clear the next setup and get out of here. We even voted several times during the previous re-runs that ended up in favor of those who wanted to continue.

Provisions were getting scarce, and it took us a lot longer to rest than before. We were clearly out of shape. At this rate, it might take us another two or three re-runs before we would be out of commission.

***

This time, we were on the final floor of a three floors setup. It was a previously cleared area, so we knew what to do.

The main goal of this area was to catch a fleeing monkey while defeating the attacking monsters before it reached a designated location.

The area was a big tropical forest in a plain field, surrounded by hills from the outside. The only obstacles were the trees and the upcoming monsters.

We divided the whole squad into three groups. One group consisted of the quickest awakeners who would follow the monkey and catch it. The second group would defeat the monsters, and the third would scout the area and look for any potential hints.

I was part of the catch team, alongside Akavic and Lucas. We decided to go in three groups of two. One group would follow from behind and the two others from the sides.

The search group consisted of 14 awakeners. They were divided into two groups. One group would check the outer hill area, while the other would check the forest area.

The defense team consisted of the other 17 awakeners. They were tasked with protecting us from the attacking monsters.

The monkey was surprisingly agile. Every attempt to close the distance between us and catch him was met with acrobatic moves that would mess with our balance on top of the trees and end up falling or tripping, and at the same time, countless big monsters kept jumping at us.

Different monsters were protecting the fleeing monkey. We encountered apes with iron spikes on their arms, armed gorillas with shotguns in their arms and backs, apes using drills that can dig from the underground, winged monkeys holding close-range weapons, and shape-shifting monkeys who can blend with the environment and ambush their targets.

The protection team did a good job at defending us against all the upcoming attacks and helped us concentrate on our mission.

From time to time, I used my air slash attack to cut branches of several trees ahead to force the monkey to change the route, while Akavic intercepted him, but the agility of the little rascal made him quick to react to every little change.

The others who followed from the sides tried several tactics of their own. They tried ambushing him by using a pincer formation, but the mischievous monkey made holes inside the trees to easily run away. They tried blocking his path but he kept dodging everything they threw at him. He was very clever and good at this game.

It was hard catching him inside the forest, so we waited until he got out of it to go for the real catch.

***

The exit of the forest was a plain area with hills. The monkey needed to reach a certain hut at the back of the farthest hill, and that was where the boss of this area spawned.

The condition of his spawning, that we knew, was to catch the monkey before he reached that area, so our only chance was during the long cliff run.

One of the groups who followed from the sides went ahead to block the route inside the cliffs. They took Josephus, who was with the defense team, with them to ambush the coming monkey.

We kept following him from the back while maintaining our distance until he got out from the forest, which was our sign to speed up our pursuit.

When the little runt saw us closing the distance, he used his ace move and dug underground. He disappeared from our sight. Nonetheless, we kept moving towards the hills because we knew that he would appear right there.

After reaching the hill area, there were no signs of the monkey nor our teammates.

“They should be stationed around here,” I told Akavic.

“Normally yes, this is where we decided to put the traps and ambush the monkey.” Replied Akavic.

We kept looking around the area, and suddenly we saw a shadow figure on top of a hill.

We moved a little bit to have a clear look at the figure. He was wearing a black cloak that hid everything, and he was holding something in his hands.

Akavic used enhanced mana vision to look at what he was holding, and a grim expression appeared on his face.

“What did you see?” I asked.

“He’s holding the dead body of the monkey we were following.” Akavic regained his calm senses.

“What do you mean? He killed it?”

“The head is broken in half and he has a big hole on his chest.”

The unknown figure tossed the body away and moved his hand as if he was punching something.

A few moments later, an earth wall came from the ground and was immediately destroyed.

“Guys run away. He is too much for you. Go bring help, I’ll hold him here.” Josephus came out from a hole he made in the ground, all bloodied and missing an arm.

“No, we will fight together and defeat him,” I shouted.

“He’s no match for all of us. He already killed the two who were with me.” He replied with grief.

Akavic and I were shocked when we heard the news.

I unconsciously started pouring mana into my sword, but Akavic held my hand and pulled me away from the battlefield.

As soon as we turned around and wanted to run, we saw an explosion from inside the forest.

***

Fifteen minutes ago in the northern part of the forest area:

“Damn, why was I chosen to be part of the search team? I want to shoot monsters to death.” Cursed John.

“You’ve been saying the same thing since we started, just keep quiet and help me a little bit.” Replied Kirin.

“Tch, you’re more than enough for this. You’re the scout here.”

On each part of the forest area, the awakeners of the second group of the search team were divided to meticulously look for any hint or information that might help in the mission.

“Hey, John, come here for a second. There is something odd about this part of the tree.” Motioned Kirin.

John approached Kirin and looked at the designated spot. “Is that blood?” Touching the spots with his fingers.

“Yes, it seems to be fresh blood.” Affirmed Kirin.

“But this place is far away from the pursuit route.” A puzzled look appeared on his face.

“Yeah, this is definitely odd.”

“Look, there’s a trail of blood on the ground.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I think we should follow it. I will send a message to the others now.”

John started following the trail while Kirin tried to communicate with the other members.

“This is weird, they are not replying. They should be around us. Well, let’s go and see if we find anything.”

A few minutes later, the two awakeners found a body inside a pool of blood.

“What the hell is this?” Questioned John with a surprised look.

“That’s a shotgun gorilla. What is it doing here?”

They moved closer to examine the body, and suddenly a swift attack hit Kirin on the back. His head slammed against a tree and fell lifeless.

John took out his gun and shot the flying creature, but no bullets hit its target.

The flying monster descended on the branch of a tree where the moonlight showed its body features.

The grotesque creature had an odd, elongated shape that resembled that of a big bat, but it had a grey body of a grown-up man. Its wings were slim and full of holes; they looked like some pieces of fabric all teared up.

“Human, you managed to graze me. You are quite capable. Hehe.” Spoke to the unknown creature.

“A monster is speaking? What the hell is going on?” John pointed his finger at the monster.

“I think you’ve never seen a monster speaking before. Poor human. My name is Gargant, I’m a Gargoyle.” He started laughing.

“I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this before, and on top of that, it’s speaking with me, did I become crazy after spending so much time with vermin?”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, but I’m feeling bad about quickly killing you like this. How about we play a little game?”

“I don’t need your pity. I’ll know what you’re hiding after I finish you off.” He pulled out his gun and started shooting.

“Well, too bad for you.” The monster opened its slim wings and flew away from the gunshots.

The shots were strong enough to blow away all the trees that they hit. Unfortunately, they could not hit their target.

The monster kept dodging all of John’s attacks, and in one swoop, he kicked him in the side with his clawed leg and threw him next to the dead body of Kirin.

“You’re quite sturdy, I like this. Hehe.” Smiled the gargoyle.

John barely stood up; blood came from his mouth and his legs were shaking. “What was that hit? Is he stronger than I am? I refuse to accept it.”

Suddenly, John heard the bushes moving and turned his sight away from the flying creature.

A skeleton monster appeared, holding in one hand a sword, and the head of an awakener on the other.

“Is that Roberta from the house of Chuckles? She was a fellow noble and a strong warrior. How could she have died?”

“Hey Gargant, I killed three of these weaklings. How much did you kill?”

“Hehe, I killed five. At this rate, I’m going to win our bet.”

“Damn you, I’ll definitely catch up to you and win this. In the meantime, I’m going to take the head of that little runt there.”

“Hey he is my prey, don’t touch him.” He launched a loud sound wave attack that was slashed by the skeleton.

John took this chance to shoot a charged mana gunshot at the ground between the two talking monsters and fled. “What the hell is going on here? They were talking about their kill counts. Eight deaths so far. This is crazy. What the hell is wrong with this raid?”

As he was running away, the skeleton appeared from the dust and dashed towards the fleeing warrior. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

The skeleton swung his sword directly at the neck of John, but he was blocked by a big claymore.

“Who do you think you’re protecting?” Shouted John.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Replied Zinouseus.

“You shouldn’t be here, go help the others, I’m fine by myself.”

“Sorry, but we are all under attack from unknown enemies. We were all ambushed by them and split up. I defeated some of them and heard some gunshots from this direction, so I came to help.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“It’s not time to argue, if you can stand up, help me defeat them. My claymore cracked from only one hit. That skeleton is strong.”

“Oh, another prey appeared, this is interesting.” Laughed the flying monster from above the trees.

Suddenly, an explosion happened from the direction Zinouseus came from. They all turned to see the tremendous burst of flames that engulfed the trees behind them.

“Hehe, it seems he made his move.” Smiled Gargant.

“Yeah, he has finally arrived.” Affirmed the skeleton.

***

After the explosion happened, I managed to flee with Akavic while carrying Josephus on my back.

Akavic used what seemed to be a secret technique to pull Josephus to us and we fled right away.

Twenty minutes later, we managed to shake off our pursuer. We hid behind some fallen rocks near a cliff.

“It seems he’s no longer following us.”

“Yeah, we managed to shake him off. He was kind of persistent at the beginning, but at some point, I lost sight of him.”

“I just don’t know what’s happening anymore. The monkey was killed. Two of our teammates were killed, and there is an unknown creature strong enough to toy with us like this.”

“Have you ever heard of any instances where weird things happened inside a dungeon?”

“Apart from the Mythological Dungeons, this is the first time I witness something like this. Some of my teammates died in the past, but we were not this powerless.”

“Well, I witnessed something like this before. When I was young, a dungeon outbreak happened near my town, and a lot of lives were lost, including my parents. I had a bad feeling since the beginning of this raid, but I shrugged it off. I had a similar feeling to how I felt during that incident.”

“Sorry for your losses. I don’t think this is similar to a dungeon outbreak. I read about it before, but I have a feeling that it’s something different.”

“Yeah, it could be. From the beginning, everything was off. We do not know much about the device that the General Guild members found nor any information about how dungeons work. We were playing with fire… Well, reflection comes later, let’s try to survive this first.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We need to find our other teammates and tend to Josephus’s wounds before it’s too late.”

“By the way, what was that skill that you used earlier when the explosion happened?”

“I’m keeping it a secret, but since you saw me using it, there’s no need to keep it hidden. I can use magnetic spells. For the time being, I can only pull myself or something else towards me, and it costs too much mana.”

“That’s quite the rare magic you got there. Magnetic is one of the rarest magic elements that a warrior can learn, alongside gravity, light, and darkness.” I stood up and put the unconscious Josephus on my back. “Let’s go look for the others.”

We kept moving towards the forest for a few minutes, and then Josephus regained his consciousness. “Where am I?” He asked.

“Oh, you’re awake. We managed to shake off our attacker and we are looking now for our other teammates. I don’t quite understand how you lost consciousness there, but I’m glad that you weren’t killed there.”

“Damn, that guy is too much for all of us. I saw it with my own eyes. His powers are something out of this world. If he is a monster, he could be at least high A-rank or even S.”

“Try to preserve your strength for the moment, we will meet the others and find out what’s happening.”

Suddenly we received a message from one of the scouts.

“This is Ken. Anyone hearing my message please come help us. We are in dire need of warriors. We are at the east side border of the forest. I repeat we need help ASAP.”

“Our teammates might be in danger, let’s go check. He said they need warriors, so a healer or two might be there. Let’s hurry.”