And (N)one Shall Remain

“That helps confirm a few things, at least,” noted Esperanza after she finally dispelled the disembodied soul and returned it to her [Soul Storage]. If she ever had need of it in the future she could always manifest it once more anyway, and just to be safe she kept the souls apart from the demon souls she regularly used to fuel her skills.

 

“What shall we do now, Exalted One?” asked Belug’ur-ani from where she stood by the side. The veteran warrior was long used to Esperanza’s manifestation of souls, and had even struck up a friendship by chatting with Adan-Zil on the times when he was manifested by her skill. Naturally, she had nothing against Esperanza using said abilities to interrogate their foes.

 

People, especially those of a high rank, might be trained in various methods to ignore torture and other crude interrogation methods. However, most of these methods relied on the person still being amongst the living, often with either some sort of hope to keep them going or some drive like loyalty or patriotism to see them through the suffering.

 

Being a disembodied soul was something nobody prepared for, as everyone had logically thought death to be the end. Nobody prepared against interrogation that was done after death, with various methods and tricks that no living person could have even thought of. Even amongst the teachings from the temple the soul was often considered part of the domain of the gods, so most would be wary of messing with the subject.

 

Similar beliefs were present amongst the demons, likely instilled by their gods who did not wish for their followers to poke around in the realm of the soul in case they might notice the glaring problems that were developing there. In the end, however, this method backfired on them as it also instilled the belief that anything capable of messing around with the soul must be something divinely ordained.

 

Needless to say, the frightened disembodied souls that Esperanza interrogated for information likely thought the same way, given how quick they were to crack. It was one thing to risk death in the name of king and country. Loyalists and patriots did that all the time. On the other hand, to risk their eternal soul when they were already in the hands of – what they thought – a divinely ordained being that could do whatever it wanted to them was something that crossed the bottom line of all but the most fanatically devout of people.

 

It was also why Esperanza had not bothered with the fourth tier souls she collected and instead chose the cowardly and noisy third tier priest.

 

“We continue to the center of this dungeon and clean up whatever we find there,” said Esperanza to Ani’s query after some thought. “We’re already going to cross through this dungeon anyway, no reason we shouldn’t take the chance to grab ourselves a few levels too while we can. It’s already getting harder for most of the [Progenies of Yore] to gain levels these days, so we should cherish every opportunity we can get.”

 

“I understand, Exalted One. Shall we depart immediately or will we rest first before we continue on?” questioned the older warrior after she gave Esperanza a nod of agreement.

 

“Rest first. We just had a fight, and whatever is in the center of the dungeon is clearly strong enough that they considered a team of thirty to be needed to deal with it. We might have dealt with these priests and temple guards with relative ease, but that is no reason to be arrogant,” noted Esperanza. “Overconfidence is never a good thing, especially for the kids.”

 

“As you will.”

 

The group rested that night some distance away from where the fighting took place. They mostly took their distance because they worried that the scent of blood and entrails would attract predators from the forest. It was not like such predators pose an actual threat to them, but they remained nuisances even so, and nobody liked being disturbed while they rested.

 

Fortunately throwing the worst of the mess and the bloody corpses into the forest seemed to have achieved the desired effect and kept most of the ravenous creatures away from the resting group. Their rest was mostly uneventful, with only a couple creatures wandering in their direction which were soundlessly dealt with by those who were standing guard.

 

The group woke up at dawn the next day and had a quick breakfast before they continued their trek towards the center of the forest. To their surprise, the forest actually thinned out as they approached the center, whereas normally the center of a forest would be where the vegetation was the densest. It was something that surprised them until they ran into some of the creatures that inhabit the central area.

 

For the most part, the creatures that inhabited the central region of the dungeon were still the same ape-lizard hybrid things they had to deal with throughout the dungeon, except for two differences. One was that the creatures in the central region had horns growing out of their heads and could channel magic through those horns.

 

The other major difference was that the lizard-apes in the central region were easily twice to thrice as large as the ones they had to deal with so far, which was probably why only sturdy, large trees managed to survive in that area. The smaller trees likely broke and died under their mass long ago, which naturally only left the larger and sturdier ones behind.

 

Despite their massive size, the lizard-apes moved with great speed and agility amongst the trees, often only visible as blurs when they leapt from one tree to another at breakneck velocities. It had not taken the group long to realize that the creatures were all around them, and even the route they had taken had been covered by several of the beasts.

 

It was an obvious encirclement as the creatures slowly tightened the noose on the intruders to their territories. In the distance, Esperanza barely caught glimpses of three even larger figures, creatures whose levels were in the seventies, likely the ‘bosses’ of the dungeon itself. Meanwhile most of the creatures that encircled them were already in their sixties as levels went, which were enough to give a decent challenge even to the [Progenies of Yore].

 

“Well, everyone, looks like the creatures found us before we can find them,” said Esperanza as she maintained a nonchalant tone. There was no reason to show worry or panic as it would only have detrimental effects in this case. “Fight at your utmost, everyone. Keep the infiltrators safe and take care of the smaller ones. I’ll hunt down their leaders myself with Dali and Gordy.”

 

“Understood, Exalted One,” replied Val-Kas’j with an eager and confident tone of voice. “We will keep our fellows safe and teach these creatures a lesson they will never forget.”

 

“Good, I’ll leave this place to you, then. See you in a bit,” said Esperanza as her figure changed from its human shape into a free-flowing amorphous form that leapt up and dashed between the trees with speed that was not inferior to the lizard-apes. Dali leapt and teleported around to catch up with her, while Gordy charged through the undergrowth below, leaving only wreckage and trampled bushes in her tracks.

 

“So, we finally got some worthwhile opponents to tangle with, eh? Those priests and temple guards didn’t really put up that much of a fight,” said Tiesya cheerfully from beside Val-Kas’j after Esperanza left. The Nevilosk hybrid girl held her paired blades in her hand and her eyes kept track of the creatures that were moving around in her field of sight. She entrusted her back to her allies as the group formed a tighter circular formation with the five infiltrators from Zikeal in the center.

 

“Take it seriously, Ties,” chided Mel-Ivas from nearby as she brought out her own shield and mace. The girl’s class was still one of the weakest when it came to direct combat out of all the [Progenies of Yore], as she was still a healer at her core, but she could hold her own well these days. “We do have some squishier people to look after this time, after all.”

 

“Honored Ones, please do not be so troubled on our behalf. We can fight and defend ourselves-” Murat tried to argue.

 

“No can do,” said Resitia as she cut the older man off mid-sentence. “The Exalted Messenger had given her command, and besides, I think we could use the added challenge anyway. More experience when we do things the hard way, so no reason not to when we can afford it,” she added. “If any of them got through us, then you can deal with them yourselves, though.”

 

“We’ll also be amongst you anyway, so they will have to cover for someone regardless,” said Ilavakida with a bit of a chuckle as she nocked an arrow on her bowstring. “Not all of us are suited to beat things up in melee, after all, like me and Dai here,” she added, gesturing to Dai’Vasy on the other side of the five infiltrators.

 

The two of them had also positioned themselves in the center as they were the group’s ranged support after all. There was no point for them to engage in melee unless it was a desperate situation, and their time and skills were best suited to providing cover from behind. The two kept an eye on the creatures that slowly tightened their encirclement all around them, but had yet to pounce.

 

It was not an unusual tactic employed by predators. They would encircle and cause their prey to run to and fro only to realize that there was no way out. Their prey would end up tired from all the running around and become easy targets after a while. The [Progenies of Yore] and the rest of the group had not run around, however, and instead waited calmly for the creatures to lose their patience.

 

While the creatures had not reacted to Esperanza’s rush towards their leaders, that probably stemmed from a certain amount of confidence, as the leaders of such packs were typically the strongest of them all. Besides, Esperanza had flared out her aura, which dissuaded the lizard-apes from either blocking her route or chasing after her.

 

Sure enough, the creatures lost their patience first, and three of their numbers – smaller, likely younger ones – rushed out from the trees towards the group’s formation. One of the three was met with an arrow that pierced through its head directly between the eyes and killed it on the spot, causing it to land as a corpse a few feet away from the group.

 

The second was met with a barrage of ice lances that turned it into a pincushion on the spot and it similarly fell dead, while the third managed to land safely, only for Ani herself to rush out and skewer it through the heart with the harpoon she used as a weapon. As Ani yanked her weapon out from the creature’s dead body, its ruined, yet still-beating heart was pulled out as well by the barb of her harpoon.

 

Most wild creatures would usually retreat out of self-preservation when they saw that their target was not easy prey but were instead dangerous and could fight back. Monsters inside dungeons lacked that instinct, however, and instead had a strong territorial one that drove them to attempt to kill whatever trespassed their land, no matter the strength disparity.

As a result, the onset of violence only resulted in the rest of the lizard-apes seeing red and their brethren’s deaths and further incensed them. Within moments, dozens of the large lizard-apes flung themselves off the trees towards the group’s formation. Some of them even hurled themselves with enough force that they would have landed directly on the group’s formation, which forced them to move at last.