Chapter 869: It's Inside The Rocks
"How long have we been running?" Lisa asked, shooting another [Laser] at the Stone Charger to create another hole on its head.
There were at least thirty two other holes where her laser had struck and none of them had penetrated through the rock armour so far.
"I don't know about time but… We've run at least a dozen rounds already," I told her.
"And how many waves of monsters have we killed?"
"Well… A new wave appears each time we turn the corner so… About fifty waves of them so far? Not sure about the exact number though…"
"Umm… Then how long are we going to continue running for?"
"I thought things might change after we killed a set number of them…" I muttered and paused for a moment. "Hmm… I suppose I should just end this, shouldn't I?"
"Eh? How--"
I braced myself and threw Lisa into the air, my Infrid letting out a cry of surprise before Eins turned around and grabbed her out of the air to take my place.
I drew my Light Sword and willed my Shadow Sword to appear in my hand before imbuing both swords with mana.
The Stone Charger must have recognised me as a challenger as it let out a loud roar in response without slowing down its charge.
"Aster?! What are you doing?!"
"Killing the monster," I answered without looking back.
I tightened my grip on my swords and charged towards the giant monster that was big enough to crush me underneath its foot.
The monster lowered its head and the rocks on its head shifted to form a sharp horn aimed directly at me.
At the same time, the holes made by Lisa's [Laser] also smoothed over, completely erasing all our efforts so far.
I clucked my tongue at the sight but focused on the monster in front of me as I continued charging towards it.
As the horn was just a few steps away from skewering me, I leapt forward and parried it with my Light Sword to avoid it.
I spun past it and slashed my Shadow Sword at its side, the fire leaping from the blade and onto the surface of the monster's rock armour and started to burn it.
I gave it a few more slashes with my Shadow Sword to increase the size of the fire before I flew past him to land on my feet, completely avoiding the monster's charge.
Landing on my feet, I turned around to inspect the damage I had made.
I was expecting some kind of reaction from the monster but all I got was the Stone Charger skidding to a halt and turning back to roar at me, even though its head was literally on fire right now.
It managed to turn its body around and started charging at me once again, this time with a flaming head.
I held my ground this time and waited for it to reach me instead of charging at it.
As the monster got into range, I leapt up into the air and did a somersault before I landed on the monster's back, stabbing both my swords into the stone.
While my Light Sword easily pierced into the stone and stuck itself there, my Shadow Sword didn't have that easy of a time as it burned its way into the stone instead.
Despite all the damage I was doing to it, the monster showed no signs of pain at all. Was it just incapable of feeling pain?
The monster tried to stop itself again but this time it ran out of space to stop so it ended up slamming itself into the wall which almost dislodged me from its back.
I managed to hold on and stayed on its back as it turned back around to look down the passage that it just came from.
Oddly enough, it didn't seem to notice that I was on its back and was looking around as though trying to find me.
Does this monster just lack the capacity to feel any kind of tactile sensation at all?
In that case…
I used my Shadow Sword to maintain my grip on its back while I pulled out my Light Sword to start hacking away at the rocks, aiming to cut down the monster's size.
The fire from my Shadow Sword was also doing its work as it burned the rocks off its back as well as parts of its head.
The monster then looked up to set its sights on my party and snorted out a plume of smoke before it resumed its charge towards them.
Feeling a little irked that it wasn't even paying any attention to the damage I was doing to it, I pulled out my Shadow Sword to let myself slide downwards until I was close to its left foreleg.
I then stabbed my Shadow Sword into its side so that I could start slicing at its leg with my Light Sword, my aim being to lop off its leg and cripple it.
It took a few strikes but eventually there was a satisfyingly loud crash as the limb was successfully hacked off and the monster tripped from its sudden loss of limb.
Unfortunately for me, the monster had tipped over and was currently in the midst of falling over on my side.
I gritted my teeth and used the leverage I had on my Shadow Sword to flip myself up and onto its back, just in time to avoid getting crushed underneath the monster as it crashed onto the ground.
It continued to slide along the ground for a good few metres before it finally came to a stop a few feet from my party.
The Stone Charger made a sound that might have been a confused cry like it could not understand why it had fallen.
I then leapt over to its head and imbued even more mana into my Light Sword to enhance its effect until the blade was longer than the thickness of its neck.
I raised my sword above my head and took a moment to line up the blade with my target before bringing it down to slash at its neck.
The blade of light sliced through the stone easily, separating the head from its body and I quickly quenched the flames on the head just in case I accidentally burned Lisa with it.
As the head rolled away, I was preparing to sheath my blade when I realised that the monster had not stopped moving.
In fact, it was still trying to get back up to its feet like it didn't even know its head and leg were already gone.
Wait…
I tried inspecting its stats again.
[Name: Dungeon Stone Charger
Race: Monster
Stats:
250 Strength
100 Dexterity
400 Endurance
150 Magic
Magic Skills:
Geomancy (Tier 1)]
Huh… The stats for its strength and endurance went down…
I looked back at the decapitated 'head', only to find it slowly crumbling into smaller stones that seemed to make up the head.
Oh… I think I know what's going on here…
I imbued my Light Sword with mana again and started cutting up the monster into pieces, slicing off its other leg before I started working on its torso, slowly breaking the monster down as I worked my way towards the centre.
Soon enough, the monster seemed to panic as it realised what I was trying to do and tried to move part of the rocks around the bottom half of the body to try and reinforce its defenses.
Unfortunately for it, I simply just cut out any new rocks that were in the way without even slowing down.
When it realised that this wasn't working, it tried to use one of its remaining limbs to smash me but I simply cut off that limb as well before moving to cut off the other one too, leaving it with nothing.
It then tried to roll away but I slashed my Light Sword again to cut off the entire top of the monster.
When the top part of the rock slid off, a hole in the centre of the rock formation could be seen and nestled in that hole was a pink blob sitting inside.
I used [Screened] on it again.
[Name: Dungeon Stone Charger
Race: Monster
Stats:
10 Strength
100 Dexterity
10 Endurance
150 Magic
Magic Skills:
Geomancy (Tier 1)]
Hmph… So the pink blob was the real monster and it merely just gathered stone around itself to create a sort of armour that it uses to defeat its enemies.
It most likely also uses its Geomancy magic to enhance the sturdiness of the rocks which was why we had such a hard time breaking through.
No wonder it didn't feel anything when I was burning it with the flames since the rocks were, in actual fact, not the monster, but this little pink blob was.
The pink blob tried to slide away from me but I had no mercy for it and stabbed my Shadow Sword through its body, letting the dark flames consume it.
As the monster died, there was a soft rumble and a section of the wall on both my left and right slid open, revealing the stairs to ascend and descend the Dungeon respectively.
Well, seeing that we killed so many monsters already… I guess we could leave now?