86. A pile of corpses

Somewhere else, deep inside a dungeon, one could see the light shining on someone sitting on a mountain of corpses. Beneath, the man laid corpses of hundreds of mutants and monsters alike.

It was a bloody scene, and body parts were lying everywhere as the blood slowly flowed up to the person at the top of the mountain full of corpses. Some of these monsters seemed to still be alive and were struggling slightly. But with each passing minute, their struggles seemed to diminish until even they ceased all their movements.

A big pool of blood filled the cold floor of the dungeon, and in its reflection, one saw the man up there twitching while the beautiful moonlight shimmered in the pool of blood.

His armor made of bone was broken in many places, and his body was filled with holes. An ax was still clutched by the left hand, which was bent at an unnatural angle. His left joint was broken, and one could see his splintered bones healing rapidly.

Beneath the mountain of corpses, a soldier kneeled before asking quietly: "How long before we can move on?"

But the only answer he got was silence. After the pool of blood on the floor dried, Gab replied, "Soon," as he slowly rose.

Two jaguars that were either white or black were busy eating some corpse flesh next to him. By now, these two grew as big as house cats, even if they were at most as strong as one of the weakest members of the members that followed Gab. Their master Gab spoiled these two a lot and fed them any mana crystal that wasn't of use for the mages here.

Slowly Gab walked down the mountain in tattered clothes, as his bone armor slowly fell down with each step he took. His body was covered with scars and decorated with blood-red runes glowing whenever he absorbed blood.

The thin young, and naive men from before entering the dungeon were nowhere to be seen. However, he was replaced by a more mature and well-defined man.

At the bottom, a soldier handed him a messy coat.

'Better than nothing, I guess.'

After leaving, two wounded warriors got their chance to devour the rest of the mountain. But unlike Gab, their wounds were milder by a lot. Luke's armor was almost completely broken, and the rest of his remaining armor was filled with cracks. Bone shards fell from him with every step he took.

Evie, on the other hand, had bloody flesh wounds everywhere. One of them was a big bloody hole in her abdomen, and one saw her intestines there. Fortunately, she didn't seem to bleed from any of her flesh wounds.

"How many died?" asked Gab as he watched many of his soldiers getting treatments for their wounds.

"Around twenty people. But the number of people carrying serious injuries is a lot higher. Also, we are running short on stuff such as alcohol. From now on, we must be more careful since we can't apply alcohol to every minor wound. This situation only gets worse since these mutants harbor aggressive bacteria on their claws and teeth," the soldier muttered to him.

Seeing how Gab silently walked next to him without even uttering any word, the latter quietly admitted: "It is quite unlikely that we will ever conquer the dungeon."

Gab nodded in agreement.

After fighting the horrors that awaited them on the second floor, even the most naive soldier knew that they were unlikely to conquer the dungeon and that this was just wishful thinking. But most of them continued anyway because of the promise of a better future. Everyone knew by now that they were above average.

If they were to enter the military, they would be accepted without having to do any physical tests. But most of them still choose to remain, and the reason is quite simple. Anyone who will leave the dungeon with the princess will even have a better future. They may even get a chance to join the royal army or, if they are lucky, become one of her retainers.

As the two continued, they moved past a few wounded soldiers.

Seeing the festering wounds of his comrades caused by the bites of mutants, Gab's heart ached. Some lost their arms, others their legs, just because they were running out of alcohol. But not everyone ended badly.

Most of them came out stronger than they were before entering the dungeon. Everyone still alive was an experienced soldier at this point.

The dungeon offered them opportunities they could only dream of. Who didn't dream of becoming a mage or healing a chronic illness they once had?

But one must be worthy of such a gift, which motivated most people here. Everyone knew that their worth stopped relying on bronze coins and was now measured in gold and mana stones.

Slowly Gab closed his eyes, recalling the fights on the second dungeon.

The mutants they killed ranged in the tens of hundreds. Instead of these mutants being bipedal human creatures, they now resembled animals, such as tigers and other creatures that were unfamiliar to them.

But one thing was clear, such creatures were harder to subdue and kill compared to bipedal mutants. Their crossbows became worthless since they didn't do any damage unless one hit the eyes of such creatures.

Most crossbow users were forced to switch to other weapons. Resulting in them having the highest mortality rate of all group members on the second floor.

Also, the influx of inexperienced mages didn't make it easier for the group as a whole and forced them to fight harder. By now, most mages had the hang of their abilities. But one shouldn't expect anything more than them throwing a few fireballs occasionally.

The number of humans on the second floor they met was scarce. Most of them left the tower or climbed to the third floor with killing as few monsters as possible. The rest of the people they met on the second floor decided to join them since it was now a fight of attrition against the mutants.

Thankfully there were no end bosses like on the first floor. But unfortunately, they ran into far stronger monsters than the end boss from the first floor regularly, causing many causalities.

By now, Gab had developed an understanding on how to use his new ability, which got an upgrade. Unlike before, he was now able to manipulate the shape and the physical state of the blood, creating big spikes and poles that could be easily thrown at the enemy while fighting.

Meanwhile, his specialty was throwing blood spears equipped with hooks and detonating them inside the opponent's body. If the monster was very tanky, he let the spear get absorbed fully before detonating the blood after getting pumped through the circulatory system near the heart.

Through this method, the damage inflicted to the monster grew up to ten fonds.

But that attack had its own drawbacks. It costs a lot of energy and blood to create a single blood spear, and one should use the blood on the floor for such a thing instead of one's own.