Crystals

Adventurers throwing themselves inside of ancient ruins, inside a cave, a decrepit castle or willingly entering a dungeon was a common occurence, the great majority of them were after constant profit and even though the risk of death was a clear liability to getting money, they kept going even if they had already managed to amass money, adventuring was addictive to them, they simply couldn't let go of it.

The adventurers of higher levels tended to stop their mindless adventuring and turn into figures for people to look up to but their thirst for adventuring wouldn't disappear upon first appearing, it would lurk in the depth, in the back of their minds, waiting for an opportunity to show up.

It was difficult for adventurers of the upper crust however, they needed a real challenge for their thirst to be unleashed again, such challenges usually showed up in certain ways, a roya demand or a demand from anyone influential, a war that would demand the assistance of the adventurers or an innocuous quest that couldn't be completed for unknown reasons.

That last one was currently taking place in an adventurer guild, multiple parties of adventurers had gone missing while trying to recover crystals from a newly discovered cave, the original quest was given by a researcher that wanted a bit of these crystals after he had heard of it from an unknown source, that could sound fishy but just about every quest was shady.

The first high level adventurers that were lured in by the challenge had also disappeared, causing the interest in the quest to skyrocket, it wasn't about the crystals anymore but about the great challenge that could be found within that cave.

As such, the next party of adventurers got ready to enter that cave with the belief that they could be defeated by what hid inside of that cave, despite this grim prospect, they entered happily, ignoring the crystals they ran into and delved deeper into the cave, unlike what many could have been expecting, the cave wasn't vary deep, simply a bit larger than your run of the mill hole in a wall.

The adventurers started thinking that the thing that had caused their interest to swell to high proportions had simply went away but after a careful exploration of the cave they found an enormous room, they seemed like dwarves next to the large crystals that filled this room.

The crystals of this places were of the typical blue color, most likely indicating that they were just your usual magic crystal with probably a small thing different about them, at the end of the room, something was moving.

Dark crystals emmiting a purplish light, were sprouting out of its body, looking as if they were piercing through its skin to get outside, the monster in question had no face to speak of, was tall and thin, its skin was a palish grey, its very human looking hands were covered in flat cystals, looking as if it had gauntlets for punching on its hands.

The monster stood up and faced the group, its aura sent chills running through their spines, they hadn't come here for nothing.

Looking closely at the ground and walls, it seemed like multiple battles had taken place here, traces of magic spells and strikes were left all around and yet the monster itself bore no scars or wounds.

The monster clenched its fists as a mouth cut itself open on its head, revealing crystals for teeth as well as making the monster let out a mad, barbaric howl, the crystals on its body seemed to glow with power and some even seemed to grow a bit.

With a loud stomp, the monster suddenly traversed most of the room, its howl had yet to finish echoing in the cave that it was already about to clash with the adventurers tank, the monster crashed against the large pavise shield, sending the tank sliding across the rocky ground.

On the iron shield, two imprints of the monster's feet were left and the arms holding the shield trembled as the shock of the impact travelled through the tanks body.

The teams assassin was quick to take the monster's attention by slashing her dagger through the monster's heel, the cut wasn't deep and it even closed off immediately without drawing any blood whatsoever but at least the monster had turned its attention to her instead of the others.

She was agile enough to avoid its barrage of punches but its relentlessness made her think that it was an undead, its never took any pause or even slowed down a bit, in fact, with no mouth currently on its face, it seemed like it didn't even breath.

She was put her back against a wall rapidly but her dodging were still fast enough as she rolled against the wall and avoided the punches that broke through the stone walls with ease.

The monster was struck by a lightning spell but it barely reacted, the electricity didn't travel through its body, as if it wasn't constituted of any water at all and the impact of the spell itself felt weaker than it should have been, it wasn't that the spell had been completely defended against, something had weakened it.

The most likely suspect being the crystals growing on its body, swiping its hand at the group, waves of pure mana were sent at them, dispelling them was easy enough for the experienced mage as it wasn't an elaborate spell at all but were it to do something like that at close range, he wouldn't be able to dispel it completely.

The group fought against the powerful monster for a while longer but they had to come to the conclusion that it was too strong for them, none of the hits they scored on it mattered, even the most powerful one that sent it flying left barely any scratches, scratches which would be immediately healed and its defenses against magic meant that spells needed to be of tremendous power to hope to damage it.

Such spells were costly as well as difficult to cast and inside of a cave, casting them wasn't even to talk about or was it?

As they all came to the conclusion that they should abandon this fight, the mage prepared to cast an explosive spell, not at the monster but at the ceiling.

The group made sure to strike it hard enough to send it to the back of the room, where it wouldn't be able to avoid it, as the spell was unleashed, the mage felt a bit lightheaded and his vision doubled for a moment but once the spell struck, such feelings were forgotten as they all escaped the room, the ceiling came crashing down.

Burying the room as well as the monster with debris, the group made sure to leave no tracks of themselves and went back to the city to report on this monster, as it was most certainly, not dead.