Free Web NovelChapter 37: The elites
The subterranean layout of The Crypts of the Forgotten was a sprawling, chaotic web of intersecting stone corridors, and within thirty minutes of entry, it had turned into a literal filter for the weak.
While the F-rank dungeon was structurally designed for baseline first-year squads, the oppressive darkness, the freezing damp air, and the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh were doing a massive number on the students’ psychological stamina. Panic was a highly contagious disease in a closed space, and many teams were completely falling apart before they even encountered a high-tier mob.
In the western tunnels of the upper floor, a squad of four noble-born cadets was currently screaming their lungs out.
"Mages, cast a barrier! Cast something, damn it!" the squad’s vanguard yelled, his hands trembling violently as he held a standard steel shortsword.
Three decaying Ghouls were crawling rapidly along the walls toward them, their elongated claws clicking against the damp stone, their faceless heads unhinging to leak thick, black saliva. They weren’t high-level threats, but the sheer horror-movie aesthetics of the monsters were completely paralyzing the backline.
One of the female mages tried to chant a basic fire spell, but her voice cracked under the pressure. The mana circuit in her wand fizzled out, spitting nothing but a pathetic spark of orange smoke.
A Ghoul seized the opening. It launched itself off the wall, diving straight through the messy formation with its jagged claws extended. The terrifying sight made the vanguard lose his footing entirely. He tripped over his own scabbard, falling flat on his back into the stagnant water.
The Ghoul landed squarely on his chest, its jaw unhinging to bite directly into his throat.
FLASH.
Before the razor-sharp teeth could tear through his flesh, the silver band on the cadet’s right wrist violently flared with a blinding, cold light. A translucent blue kinetic barrier instantly erupted around his body, absorbing the Ghoul’s kinetic impact and throwing the monster backward into the wall.
A split second later, the spatial rune engraved on the bracelet fully activated. A miniature localized vortex swallowed the screaming vanguard, teleporting him entirely out of the dungeon and straight back to the safety of Matron Beatrice’s trauma ward.
The silver bracelet clattered onto the wet stone floor, completely drained of its magical circuits, cracked and useless.
"Vanguard is down! The bracelet triggered!" the remaining mage shrieked, completely abandoning her position. She turned on her heel and started sprinting back toward the entrance, her two remaining teammates following right behind her in a panicked scramble.
Scenes like this were playing out in every minor sector of the crypts. Panic triggers, clumsy footwork, and missed spells were causing dozens of expensive Recall Bracelets to pop off like firecrackers. To a casual observer, it was a total disaster.
But in the deep eastern sector of the dungeon, the atmosphere was a completely different world.
There was no screaming here. No desperate scrambles. Only the rhythmic, cold, and calculated slaughter of the undead.
This was the sector claimed by the academy’s elite faction—the primary protagonist party.
CLANG.
A sound like a rolling thunderclap rattled the stone walls of a massive, vaulted burial chamber.
Cedric Ashford stood at the absolute front of the formation, his massive six-foot-four frame looking like an immovable wall of iron. He was bracing a colossal steel tower shield against his left arm, his boots dug deeply into the dirt floor. A pack of five armored Skeleton Warriors had charged him simultaneously, their rusted broadswords crashing against his shield.
Cedric didn’t even budge. His physical Strength stat was a towering monolith. He let out a loud, booming laugh that echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
"Is that all you bony bastards have got?!" Cedric roared.
He swung his massive right arm, bringing a heavy, two-handed steel warhammer down in a brutal horizontal arc. The sheer kinetic energy behind the swing was monstrous. The hammer head smashed directly into the ribs of the leading three skeletons.
CRUNCH.
The ancient, blackened bones didn’t just break; they completely pulverized into fine white powder under the force of the impact. Their necrotic cores shattered instantly, and the headless, ribless legs of the monsters collapsed limply into the dirt.
"Clear the path, Cedric!" a sharp, clear voice ordered from behind him.
Alicia Valentine glided past the side of his massive tower shield like a streak of silver-red light. Her perfect, rigid posture remained flawless even while sprinting across the uneven, wet stone floor. Her fiery red hair was tied back in a tight, aerodynamic ponytail, and her green eyes were narrowed in absolute, icy focus.
Three Ghouls lunged at her simultaneously from her left flank, their foul-smelling claws reaching for her limbs.
Alicia didn’t even blink. She executed a perfect, textbook standard display of the Valentine family’s specialized Vanguard Knight Arts. She pivoted sharply on her back foot, her body tilting at an exact forty-five-degree angle to slip perfectly between the first two claws.
Her broadsword left its scabbard in a blinding flash of silver.
Slash. Squelch.
The blade, heavily coated in a sharp, vibrating aura of wind mana, tore through the thick, rotting hide of the Ghouls as if it were wet paper. In one fluid, rhythmic stroke, she cleanly decapitated two of the monsters and severed the lunging arm of the third.
She spun on her heel, her movements possessing the disciplined elegance of a royal ballroom dance, and drove the tip of her broadsword straight through the third Ghoul’s chest cavity, piercing its dark core with absolute pinpoint precision.
She pulled the steel out with a sharp flick of her wrist, a spray of black, foul blood hitting the floorboards, completely missing her dark grey uniform jacket.
"Sloppy spacing, Leon," Alicia noted coldly, not even looking back as she assumed a perfect defensive stance. "You’re lagging three inches behind the vanguard line."
"Ah, my bad, my bad!" Leon Braveheart laughed awkwardly, jogging up to fill the gap.
The golden-haired protagonist was radiating his classic, easygoing aura, looking completely unbothered by the horror-movie environment around them. He drew his brilliant, dual-handed broadsword. The steel of his weapon didn’t reflect the sickly yellow light of the dungeon torches; it was actively radiating a soft, pulsing warmth of high-tier Holy mana.
A massive Ghoul-Hound—a skinless, mutated undead wolf easily the size of a black bear—burst out from a collapsed crypt alcove, its jaws wide open to reveal three rows of jagged, black teeth. It leaped through the air, aiming straight for Leon’s throat. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Leon didn’t step back. He didn’t drop into a defensive brace. He simply smiled, his blue eyes glinting with immense, overwhelming protagonist privilege.
He swung his broadsword upward in a direct vertical line.
"Holy Slash!" Leon shouted.
A massive, crescent-shaped wave of brilliant, blinding golden light erupted from his blade. The holy energy completely illuminated the dark cathedral room, cutting through the ambient dark magic like a hot knife through butter. The wave of light slammed dead center into the lunging Ghoul-Hound.
The monster didn’t even have time to let out a whimper. The holy mana instantly dissolved its necrotic flesh, burning the corruption away until the beast turned completely into a cloud of harmless white ash mid-air. The wave of light continued forward, smashing into the stone wall fifty yards away and leaving a deep, glowing scar in the masonry.
"Wow, Leon! Your holy affinity is getting crazier every day!" Cedric bellowed, thumping his chest.
From the rear of the formation, a soft, highly melodic, yet deeply annoyed sigh cut through the celebration.
Elara Vance-Aurelia stood near the entrance of the chamber, her delicate fingers lightly holding a beautifully carved, silver-detailed elven longbow. Her silver hair was perfectly immaculate, not a single strand out of place, and her tailored, short academy skirt fully displayed her smooth, pale thighs. She was looking at the charred remains of the undead with absolute, unadulterated disgust.
"Must you boys shout the name of every single skill you utilize?" Elara sneered, her pointed ears twitching in irritation. "It is incredibly unrefined. And the smell of burnt hair you just generated is completely repulsive. It is sticking to my clothes."
"Come on, Princess, it keeps the morale up!" Leon grinned, scratching the back of his neck.
"My morale would be significantly higher if you simply killed things quietly," Elara countered smoothly.
She raised her silver bow, not even looking at the far corner of the room. Her dynamic vision didn’t require her to hyper-focus. Her high perception caught a crawling skeleton trying to sneak out from a pile of rubble sixty yards away.
She drew the bowstring. A sharp, freezing current of ice mana pooled at the tip of her arrow.
Thwip.
The arrow tore through the air, leaving a fine trail of glittering frost behind it. It struck the skeleton dead center in its spine. The ice mana instantly exploded upon impact, completely freezing the entire monster solid within a second.
Cedric walked over and casually tapped the frozen skeleton with the flat of his warhammer, shattering the frozen bones into a thousand tiny shards of harmless ice.
"See? Quiet," Elara noted, lowering her bow with her nose held high in the air. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Alicia walked to the center of the cleared chamber, her green eyes scanning the stone arches. "Enough chatter. This was the final wave of the outer ring. The map indicates the central chamber of our sector is right behind these double doors."
She pointed her broadsword toward a pair of massive, iron-reinforced oak doors at the back of the cathedral room. The wood was rotten, wrapped in heavy, rusted iron chains that looked ancient.
"We are well ahead of schedule," Alicia stated, her strict, commanding voice returning. "The other squads are likely still struggling with the outer corridors. If we clear the sector boss now, we secure the top grade."
Leon slung his holy broadsword over his shoulder, his confident smile widening. "Then let’s go finish this. Lead the way, Alicia."
The four elite students walked toward the heavy iron doors, moving with absolute confidence, entirely unaware that their perfect, textbook dungeon raid was about to collide head-first with a nightmare.
