Limitless Path

"What the actual fuck?" Beth exclaimed after reading the description, causing Blood to inspect it as well, Beth able to tell she was Identifying it based on the fact her eyes glowed faintly for a second.

"What the fuck?" Blood exclaimed after reading the description.

"I know, right?" Beth said, still staring at the cube in her right hand.

"So, what are you upgrading?" Blood asked.

"First, you have just as much right to this," Beth started in a stern tone. "Second, I legitimately think we need an outside opinion before burning something like this. I'll store it and ask Baelvyr about it before we do anything with it."

"If you say so," Blood replied with a shrug, watching as the cube disappeared from Beth's hand.

"I do say so," Beth said. "And if it's better for you, you can use it."

"The orange color is legendary rarity, right?" Blood asked as they walked toward the exit that had appeared now that the dungeon was clear.

"Yep, that's the fourth grade of rarity, or fifth, if you consider the common items that don't have any bonuses or even special descriptions as grade one, which there is some debate about," Beth explained as they stepped through the portal.

Emerging from said portal, they found themselves in the room with the dungeon entrance, which wasn't always a guarantee with dungeons. They moved down the tunnel as Beth continued speaking with Blood for another minute, emerging to find it was the middle of the night. Snow fell from the sky in gentle swirls, carried by a very light wind and having thoroughly coated the ground at this point. The two were unbothered by the cold, and Beth scanned the surroundings as they moved forward, finding the area filled to the brim with lizardmen. With a tired sigh, she indicated the surrounding area and they got to work.

Having gained another twenty-plus levels in the dungeon, they were able to tear through the lizardmen on the outside much easier. Even so, it was still the work of many, many hours of continuous fighting before they were able to put a very good dent in the numbers. That would really help with curtailing the area, not that the dungeon was intentionally trying to flood the world with excess lizardmen, but it was simply a byproduct of the mana overflowing from the dungeon with it not being cleared fast enough.

Beth called for a short rest after they had cleared a decent area of any presence of lizardmen, the two meditating for a couple hours to get back into top shape. They couldn't rest for long, however, as they were back down the tunnel and into the room with the portal entrance next. Since they were the only ones there and challenging the dungeon, they didn't have to make any selections about which instance they were entering or make any selections about party composition or any such thing; as long as the two walked in very close together, they would be put in the same instance of the dungeon and have that instance assigned to only them.

That was exactly what they did, Beth stepping through the portal with Blood right on her heels only to find themselves back on the exact same ledge as a number of weeks ago. This time, it was entirely unnecessary for Blood to scout, so they set forth to slaughter immediately, beginning to kill their way through the city from the first moment they were in the instance and fully cognizant. It would be the work of many days again, but the early parts of the clear would be somewhat faster with them starting another twenty-three levels up over where they had been for their first clear.

Six days of fighting had them ready to enter the armory building this time, rather faster than they had managed last time, and it only took them half a day to clear the entire building, not including the secret tunnel. That still took them a couple hours, as they killed the first two beasts, still of the Oath Breaker variety, before they had to rest for a while to recuperate. Moving down the tunnel, they encountered the second set right where they expected them, killing them after a tough but predictable battle. Resting again got them ready for the hardest enemy in the entire dungeon, the sub-boss that slept on the arena floor, which was exactly as they had remembered it.

While they had gained a handful of levels since last challenging this boss, they hadn't really gained all that much power. A few points more in a few stats and Beth's Lightning Resistance reaching Silver-rank didn't really make them much more capable of dealing damage, though having a good idea of how the boss acted and fought was a big advantage. That, and Blood understanding she would have to go all-out to dish out any damage to the lumbering brute, leading to her wasting very little of her time or resources. Beth also understood that dodging its attacks and hammering the same place on either its head or neck was what was going to work the best for them, concentrating on the beast's neck as its weakest point.

Their more focused battle plan didn't make any difference to the boss, as it behaved just as lazily and stupidly until, again, it was sufficiently damaged that it started taking the fight seriously. It activated its frenzy skill, which Beth still thought was pretty stupid overpowered considering it didn't seem to have any time limit or reset the beast was forced to endure, just letting it move much faster and hit a bit harder ad infinitum. She endured the strikes, just dodging everything the boss threw at her while Blood lined up a devastating strike, taking advantage of the area Beth had weakened to rip the beast's neck to thin, bloody ribbons.

That stopped the giant lizardman in its tracks, the beast staggering a bit as it tried to decide whether to focus on Blood or continue futilely whaling away at Beth. It only had a small moment to consider its options, an eyeblink really, before Beth's fist crashed into the side of its head, twisting it around and further damaging its neck. She didn't stop there, however, as the creature's neck now met with the edge of her blade, the strike empowered by a massively overcharged Monstrous Blow, Beth feeling the muscles in her arms and chest shred from the overexertion.

That overexertion was well worth it, however, as her blade cleaved through what remained of the beast's neck, including its thick spine, with alacrity. Even with the power behind her strike, she could feel some resistance, knowing that it was just about time to do something about her sword. That was another reason she had been using mainly her fists for this dungeon, as the blade simply didn't have the kind of mana density, runes, or secondary effects to the point where it could keep up at level two-hundred-plus battles.

It was still plenty sufficient to separate this boss's head from its body, a head which Blood made sure wasn't having any more thoughts, not with a shredded brain. Beth sighed as she cleaned her blade and made it disappear back into her necklace, thinking that there was always something coming up. Fortunately, the rest of their gear was still up to snuff and would be for a while, so she really only had to worry about a new sword, not that that would be particularly easy. Nor cheap.

Beth rested while Blood again skinned the boss and delved through its guts for its core, finding a plain old tier three core. Not that tier three cores weren't rather valuable in their own right, but defeating such a powerful being to get nothing but standard rewards always was a bit annoying. They took some more time to rest once Blood was done before clearing out the rest of the arena complex, Beth having them take a bit of extra time just to double-check there wasn't anything special there this time around either.

When they were done with the arena, they started clearing out the city center, using up three or so days just to give themselves some breathing room. Afterwards, they spent more than half a day clearing the city hall out before taking a brief pause, resting just enough to be topped up for the last fight. The boss was basically exactly the same as the first time they had finished the dungeon, which was no surprise since that was how most dungeons worked. It was also no surprise that they kicked its ass in just the same way as the first time, though Beth was a little disappointed that it didn't stagger through its throne and create a spectacle like the first time.

The fight finished with what little remained of its head embedded in a wall and Blood covetously eyeing the beast's body. Beth ignored her companion as the wolf began skinning and chopping apart what remained of the boss, every part of it of considerable value. The lupine woman only really extracted more than the scales and part of the hide from the bosses, as just the two of them alone meant a huge amount of meat, bones, fangs, claws, and tendons. Extracting all that from the weaker "standard" lizardmen would fill up Blood's necklace in a few hours and simply wasn't worth it, so she only took some scales from everything else, of which she had an enormous pile at this point. Beth was waiting for the dungeon's final calculation to roll through in the meantime.

First Hall of the Red Lizard King completed. Calculating rewards.

Calculating…

Relict City cleared in under fifty natural days. Bonus points awarded.

Relict City boss defeated at a ten level gap. Bonus points awarded.

Hidden Sub-Boss defeated. Bonus points awarded.

Calculating…

Final score calculated at an B. Disbursing awards.

The rewards this time appeared on only two plinths, though Beth wasn't entirely surprised based on their lower grade. The two objects would likely still be pretty good, even with them having reached level two hundred twenty before killing the final boss. That and the fact they weren't doing a first clear this time were the primary contributors to their score being a bit lower, though she thought their greatly increased speed might have been a bigger factor. Apparently, ten days wasn't anything special in the tally, so there were no called-out bonus points for doing it in half their previous time.

The first item was a gem about the size of Beth's fist carved into a many sided shape, something like a dodecahedron or similar, though Beth wasn't entirely familiar with the exact shape. Every single face of the light yellow gem, resembling topaz in color and luster, was carved with a group of runes, forming a greater rune from the skilled clustering of many simple runes. All of those runes were linked to a set of central runes, carved within the heart of the gem itself through some method that totally escaped Beth's understanding. She used her improved eyeballs to get a look at what exactly she was holding.

Artefact of Second Atonement

{This artefact removes a single curse from a person or object. It will be consumed in the act.}

Beth shrugged and sent a copy of the item description to Blood to let her know what it was, the wolf still occupied with skinning, before tossing the artefact in her necklace and picking up the second item. This item was a bottle with a light blue liquid within, glimmering just faintly as Beth held it up and peered at it closely. She wasn't going to glean anything more from just staring at a bottle of liquid, so she Identified it.

Potion of the Calm Mind

{This potion clears the user's mind, countering the effect of mind-altering abilities and skills. It will also briefly increase the user's mana regeneration rate to a great degree.}

Beth shrugged, tossing the potion in her necklace and making a note that she had it. It would be useful for pretty much anybody, not just a caster like Soph, and she could see a potion like that coming in handy in all kinds of situations. Blood had finished tearing the boss apart, though that was a bit unfair, as she was becoming fairly good at dissecting a corpse without damaging it nor causing too much of a mess. Beth gave her head a quick jerk, indicating the portal out, and the lupine woman followed her out of the dungeon.

Emerging into the dungeon entrance chamber, Beth saw it was the same as it had been every time before. They headed down the tunnel and out into a clear but quite cold winter day, the sky a peerless blue and the air crisp and clean. Unfortunately, Beth grumbled to herself, they didn't really have time to enjoy it, considering they had to do quite a few more clears in the next handful of weeks to get the dungeon back under control.

There were less lizardmen in the area around the dungeon, though it still took them a few hours to clear everything out. Beth insisted they rest for a little while after killing a few hundred lizardmen, wanting them to relax for a moment and be in top form for the next run. While they were doing that, she had a few calls to make, and took care of that before meditating, reaching out to Tazeen first.

"Ms. Beth," came his immediate response.

"We've cleared the dungeon, Tazeen. A couple times, as a matter of fact. What do you figure on us needing to get it back to a manageable amount?" she asked.

"It depends on many factors, but I have further information on this particular dungeon from Navere, so I can be somewhat more precise. How fast, may I ask, are you currently able to clear this dungeon?" he asked in response.

"We just did a second clear at around ten days, give or take a couple hours," Beth answered.

"You will be able to handle the request at that speed, but it will take you several months. If you can reduce your clear time fairly significantly, you could get the mana to a more manageable level within a few weeks," he explained.

"I think we can get our clear time down by at least two days, if not more. I'll check in with you in a while if we're having trouble," she said.

"Well then, I look forward to seeing the two of you in a few weeks," Tazeen replied before disconnecting.

"We've got to speed up," Beth said to Blood then, the two of them sitting outside the tunnel in the late afternoon, backs against the wall around the tunnel entrance as the light faded.

"Problem?" Blood responded.

"Just that it'll take forever if we're taking ten or more days to clear the dungeon," Beth replied. "If we can cut it down by even one day, let alone a few, we'll be in a much better place."

"We can do it. Easy," Blood grunted back confidently before resuming her meditations.