Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 237: Draconic Dungeon Chaos

The Draconic Abyss was one of Seoul’s three great Dungeons.

The second was “The Hells”, a demon-filled series of catacombs that looked like something straight out of Doom, and the third was called “Thalassophobia” because that was what you got after fighting your way through a series of caverns containing anything and everything that made the deep sea so terrifying.

But most people would still agree that the home of Dragons was easily the most dangerous of the bunch.

A Boss that was a [Raid Bosses] in terms of size and offensive power, only lacking the unnatural durability that let the real thing fight off armies.

Traps that could explode with the fury of a draconic breath weapon, using literally any kind of element.

And, well, Dragons.

The entrance was pretty normal, though. A couple of D-Rankers stood guard, their only job being to hand out warnings about the monsters within and report back to the guild if something went wrong, they weren’t expected to do more than that.

On the way over here, Isaac had tucked in his shirt, fully exposing the S-Rank badge at his belt.

“What are the official requirements to get one of those badges?” Amy asked, “By international standards, I’m classified as an S-Ranker, but they only hand out those badges here.”

“Knock the investigator’s socks off. If you do that literally, make sure it looks like an accident.” Isaac told her, earning a small laugh “Seriously though, just cast your strongest attack spell that you can cast off the cuff on the first target, create your shield while you’re doing that, and trigger the attack spell that you have to block, teleport to the other end of the room to show you can do that as well. All the while, be charging one of your big attack spells and throw that at the target to prove you can multitask.

“The ceiling will come down, but that’s just for dramatic effect, there are real protections on the outside of the room so the building doesn’t collapse, along with wards that make sure the rubble doesn’t fall on anyone.”

“Wait, they built the training room so it can be wrecked?” Amy asked incredulously.

Isaac shrugged “The Hunter’s Guild, Ranks, Adventurer chic, all of that is straight out Korean popular culture. As are scenes where the overpowered protagonist accidentally destroys the testing room. Why wouldn’t they build it like that?”

Amy just snorted and cast her pre-battle spell array. Basic protection cantrips, an enchantment on her clothes that reduced air resistance to virtually nill, a spell that rolled her hair up in a bun to keep it out of her face, and the bun would remain intact even should it be hit by an artillery shell. A few more spells to keep flames off her, a pre-cast, short-range teleportation spell that she could trigger once to dodge an attack before she had to recast it, and so on.

The guards looked at them with bored impressions, one of them briefly glanced down at Isaac’s badge. A [Skill] flashed in the man’s eyes and suddenly, he jerked into a pose that was probably meant to look professional but only served to highlight how he’d been slouching before.

“Isaac Thoma and Amelia Shaw for the Draconic Abyss Dungeon, I booked it ahead of time, it’ll be just the two of us.” Isaac introduced them.

“As an S-Ranker, it’s your prerogative to enter this Dungeon with fewer than the legally mandated number of individuals, do you acknowledge that you are making use of this privilege and not adhering to regular safety standards?” the guard rattled off and Isaac replied with a simple “Yes” before getting waved in.

This Dungeon was officially rated for a party of a minimum of seven A-Rankers, and ones with specialized combat builds to boot. Sure, there were people who’d reached high Ranks without specializing in combat, and that was damn impressive, but in this place, just being able to hold your own wouldn’t cut it.

As for S-Ranker-only Dungeons, they didn’t exist, Dungeons that powerful were destroyed the instant they looked like they might reach that point. They’d be too dangerous by then, and even a nation with seventeen S-Rankers like South Korea couldn’t clear it regularly enough to prevent Dungeon breaks.

Isaac dismissed his regular clothing, swapping it out with his current armor set. He kept switching it out as he got his hands on new sets, or Stagmer came up with something new, but he was hoping to eventually get something that could last him for longer.

His current outfit was mostly made from dragon scales, interwoven with heavily enchanted metal wires, all attached to a spider silk undershirt. Durable, form-fitting, reduced air resistance, flexible, everything he needed. It was a good set, but it was a little too … generic.

Eventually, he wanted to get a set that was built perfectly to his requirements, everything attached to the exact right place. Everything he needed, positioned so he could grab it with a minimum of effort, extra armor in places that did not need to be as flexible with his specific fighting style, and so on.

But that was a massive effort, too much for a piece of armor that would only last a few months.

Amy, meanwhile, had been wearing her comabat outfit from the start. It looked like a wizard’s robe that had been designed by someone with a mind for the realities of combat. Everything was in the right place, armor over the torso and the hood, which could be flipped up to protect the head.

There were also twin bracers on top of the cloth, each with a prepared shield spell that could be triggered in case of emergency.

“Ready?” Isaac asked, getting a nod in return. He grinned slightly and headed in along the rocky passage. It reminded him of an old-fashioned mine shaft, though it was big enough for people to actually walk through without hitting their heads on the ceiling.

After a couple hundred meters of a gentle downward slope, the path opened into a cavern filled with small, embering coals, casting a deep orange glow throughout the cavern.

And standing in between those coals were the first mobs of the Dungeon. Bipedal, scaled, massive claws that could tear through modern tank armor like tissue paper tipping each finger, heavy tails resting on the ground behind the creatures. The Dragonoids would have been terrifying enough based on their natural weapons alone, but these fuckers were well-equipped. Swords, spears, shields, or heavy gauntlets protected the off-hand, and a few of the lither ones were wielding rapiers or a pair of daggers.

On the way down here, they’d made a plan. It basically boiled down to “Isaac attacks with swords, Amy attacks at range”, but nothing more was needed here. The real strategizing would happen in the moment to moment, anyway.

Isaac exploded into motion, Balmung in his hand, and skewered the closest Dragonoid before it ever had the chance to react, then tore his blade to the side, leaving the creature with a hole in its side, severed spine, and practically bisected.

It was still intact enough to breathe fire as it fell, missing by a full meter. Isaac stuck out his hand and caught the stream, absorbing the flame.

Divine Fire has absorbed Dragonoid Flame (Dungeon altered).

So nothing special. Nothing he’d had before, but that was to be expected. Dungeons initially had access to the same monsters found on the summoning tables based on their type, with new ones becoming available based on materials fed to them. But then, they could begin to alter them, creating new variations unique to that specific Dungeon.

This flame hadn’t been a winner, but there could easily be invaluable ones out there.

The nearest creature parried Isaac’s blade as he swung for its head, but a second copy of his sword materialized in his other hand, skewered the monster, and promptly transformed into a Zweihänder, the extra length driving it through the Dragonoid behind his original target.

Of course, this left the sword thoroughly stuck, so he dismissed it as he went after his next target. Then that one began to unleash its breath attack, so he avoided it while the attack built. He’d absorbed so many different draconic flames that he was all but immune to them.

Over twenty creatures were coming from his left, but before they could do more than take a couple of threatening steps towards him, the floor between them exploded in a shower of ice, razor-sharp icicles capable of piercing even these thing’s scales covering both the floor and ceiling, ready to tear through feet and cut open faces as the monsters ran through them.

A few decided to clear the way with their breath weapons, others decided to go after Amy. Neither strategy worked particularly well. Isaac danced through the flames to absorb them, then cut them down with his blade elongated into his Zweihänder once he’d copied their fire. And the ones going for Amy were cut down in seconds, well-placed [Magic Missiles] to the eyes and/or throat taking them down easily.

This whole damn room was no challenge, but that was how Dungeons worked. The first few rooms, possibly even the first few floors were meant to waste the invaders’ energy, potentially even make them use up their cooldown [Skills].

But only an idiot was going to go into a Dungeon where they’d have to waste those kinds of resources in the opening stages.

Behind Isaac, another explosion rang out as Amy bought herself some breathing room, followed by a flurry of rock shards flying past him. Their trajectory had been highlighted in the party ahead of time, ensuring he could easily avoid them.

“[Switch]!” Amy warned via the party chat and suddenly, the Dragonoids closing in on her were facing a grinning Isaac, face illuminated by the flames that of their breath weapons as they flowed over him. On the far side of the cavern, several more magical blasts made the ground shake, leaving the monsters facing Isaac as the only living ones left in the chamber. They didn’t last long.

The floor began to glow cherry-red around the coals, and the air suddenly heated up to the point where it felt like they were sitting in an industrial furnace.

There would be no resting here.

The path to the main area was short, barely fifty meters long, and they couldn’t rest there either, the heat chased them. Well, Isaac could have ignored it, but Amy would have had to waste mana to keep it off her, so they headed out rather than staying put.

“Holy shit!” Amy blurted out as they left the corridor, emerging onto a ten square meter platform situated over an empty, black, void.

“Yep.” Isaac nodded. He’d told her everything he knew about this Dungeon before they’d gone in, of course, but actually seeing this bottomless abyss that gave the Dungeon its name was a whole other thing.

In reality, the “void” was just a particularly deep pit, around two kilometers from top to bottom, but there were several annoying magical effects in place.

The first of these caused light diffusion comparable to being deep underwater, with an additional effect further muddying things at around five hundred meters distance, to the point where it was literally impossible to see any further, no matter where your [Perception] was. Furthermore, it muffled sound to the point where narrowing down the specific location of anything within the murk was downright impossible.

A sensory [Aura] could pierce the veil, but you’d still have to hit an enemy with it to see said creature, and this place was so large that the chance of landing a hit was nigh impossible.

And then there was the wonky gravity. A vastly increased draw for anything that wasn’t a dragon, making most methods of flight insanely expensive, while the dragons themselves might as well have been on the moon, capable of incredible feats of aerial acrobatics.

Which meant that the delvers were stuck taking the admittedly wide set of stairs that wrapped around the central column, all the while fully exposed to the flying, fire-breathing, lizards that could come from anywhere, anytime, in any number. Only on the ground would the fog lift and the monsters be properly combattable.

“Isn’t a big void like this a huge sinkhole risk?” Amy asked.

“It would be if they hadn’t reinforced the walls to a ludicrous degree,” Isaac said “There are also [Geomancers] and highly capable [Structural Engineers] on standby in case they have to destroy this Dungeon. They want to hold on because this place is the perfect farming ground for several valuable materials, but the guild learned its lesson about where they put Dungeons for aerial creatures.”

Amy winced “I pity the person behind this place.”

Isaac nodded.

And then, the descent began. Isaac kept several thin shells of [Aura] projected out into the void, not thick enough to get a whole lot of detail on anything that passed through it, but when something did head towards them, he’d know well before he saw it.

Amy, meanwhile, had several pre-cast [Magic Missiles] hovering over her hand, each infused with several powerful additional spells. Venom, something that caused temporary blindness if it struck anywhere near the face, and more. Much more.

The first hundred meters down were quiet. Too quiet.

“Do you think the Dungeon knows that holding back the monsters makes people more scared than just sending monsters after them?” Amy asked via the party, not wanting to give this place ideas.

“Probably,” Isaac admitted.

“Ore,” he pointed out a moment later, gesturing at the column.

While Amy watched his back, he used Balmung and gratuitous use of [Sundering Strike] to weaken the surrounding rock to extract it.

The Dungeon provided several incredibly useful materials, just randomly attached to the column, but extracting them wasn’t easy, and you were very vulnerable during that process.

So of course that was the moment the first monster showed its face. It was a regular old dragon, two wings, four tails, and a maw that could unleash a powerful elemental blast. This particular version spat acid. It was also barely ten meters long, a baby by most standards.

A single enhanced [Magic Missile] slammed into its face and it began to lurch drunkenly through the air. It had contained a variation on the curse that Isaac had bought from the cursemonger, specifically, the one that randomly changed the gravity of the affected. Coupled with its blindness, the beast’s flight became completely erratic and it slammed into the column below them.

Then, the dragon’s entire extended family made an appearance.