Massacre

"Gigigigiggigi" The ecstatic laughter laugh of the monster rang through-out the area. Once again, it started charging towards the party.

Screech! Loud screeching sound came whenever the claws and the shield made contact.

"This wil-"

"Gigigigigi" The monster seemed to be enjoying itself and also seemed to be enjoying interrupting Joans.

Joans started walking towards the monster, his face showed no emotion though the fuller party members would be doomed if they really believed his calm face held no anger underneath.

The monster once again prepared to charge towards the shield bearer Nill but was surprised when it noticed one of its prey coming towards it.

"The one thi_" "Gigigigi" The monster started charging towards Joans, with lots of its skills activated.

"YOU SHIT! DON'T INTERRUPTE ME!" Joans anger was written all over his face, he drew his large blade from its sheathe in response to the charging monster.

The charging monster was horrified at the bloodlust directed towards itself. It wanted to run away but due to so many of his charging skills being activated it couldn't and met the the large blade head-on, its horror knew no bounds.

The scene that followed was a horrifying sight. The blade cut through the monster, from the skull to the waist, the lungs, its bones, its guts, its intensities all were cut in half. The thick wide blade stopped at nothing to claim the life of its prey.

Looking at the mess on the ground, the fuller party were completely unfazed as if seeing such scene was a daily routine but they were not really the one to be surprised about, Helkep was also completely unfazed, he was looking at the corpse like it was nothing but a decoration piece.

In a sense of the way, Helkep's ignorance was more horrifying then the simple acceptance of the party.

It wasn't that a mutant was only so-so but because of the level gap that Joans was able to prevail. If that same mutant was the same level as Joans, it could have killed Joans without using a single skill.

"HA-HA! Man I already knew its end was near when it interrupted the almighty Joans." Nill burst out laughing as he seemed to be counting the seconds Joans could tolerate the monster. The rest of the party couldn't help but laugh out loud as well, excluding Helkep.

"YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME AS WELL?" Joans somewhat subdued anger burst out again.

"Ha-Ha!" The group laughed even louder, with Joans almost stabbing his blade in Nill.

After some time, the group started exploring the dungeon for more monster but to their surprise they couldn't see a single monster, anywhere.

"Something is off." Joans words expressed his confusion. "Yep! We definitely can't see that." Shila's sarcasm was evident in her tone.

"...We have been searching for monsters for more than 1 hour, yet we haven't even seen the shadow of one. It's like their is not a single one here other then the first mutant one." Joans ignored Shila's sarcasm and voiced his thoughts.

"Indeed, I think that mutant killed all the monsters on this floor. So, we should head to the next floor." Tina gave her thoughts on the matter.

"Killed all... even though I find that a bit hard to believe but... I really can't find another explanation." Selar finally graced his voice to Helkep.

"If even Selar can't think of anything, than I guess we should move to the next stage." Joans as the party leader made his decision and the party didn't have any objection.

The party made their way towards the portal, they had encountered on their search for monsters.

After some time the party finally arrived in the area where they found portal and begun searching for it. "Man, a forest type setting is so annoying, everything looks the same." Nill couldn't help but protest.

"Than why didn't you tell the dungeon your preference first?" Shila once again stepped forward to lighten the mood with her sarcasm.

Swish! Selar sensed something and looked back but found nothing, still feeling weird he asked Tina. "Tina search the surroundings" Tina immediately cast a spell and checked the surroundings finding nothing she shook her head.

"What happened Selar?" Joans asked knowing Selar had the most keen senses among them.

"I felt as if... there was something nearby." Selar's words immediately put the party on guard.

"Calm down! Since Tina couldn't find anything that means I was mistaken." Selar tried to ease the situation but the party was still a bit weary.

After a while the party found the portal and a transparent screen appeared in front of them.

«Ding! Would you like to proceed to the next floor?» Along with the message another screen appeared in front of them with the option yes and no.

Though the party wasn't appearing to click the yes option anytime soon as they were occupied with wiping their eyes, this time including Helkep.

"WOW! I sure have worked myself tired, I can't even see the leave the dungeon option." Shila couldn't help but comment on what she was seeing. Though hearing her words the whole party gulped their saliva.

"Ha-Ha! How funny, I can't either." Nill also started laughing. Slowly the whole party started laughing. Eventually Joans cursed "THE SHIT IS HAPPEING? WERE IS THE LEAVE OPTION?"

Finally the party calmed down a bit and started discussing the problem. "Ok, the problem is that their is no leave option. Which should definitely exist." Joans stated the anomaly. But Helkep decided to cut the whole conversation short with his guess. "This is the fourth path. The one from where no one comes out alive."

"...Mind elaborating?" Joans asked.

"This dungeon has three official path... and one un-official path. There are some times that a very skilled party heads insides and doesn't come back. The myth of the fourth path was made when a E-rank party, didn't come back. But the guild denied it saying the party must have died because of their negligence. But the hunters started saying that the dungeon had a fourth path. Now... Its what we reside in." Helkep told the myth, which isn't not one anymore, to the party.

"So to leave the dungeon, we must clear it?" Selar asked. "...Hopefully." Helkep wasn't very optimistic.

"We must clear it to know then, lets go." Joans decided to clear it first before thinking about leaving.

The party seeing the notification that one of them had clicked yes, sighed and clicked yes as well.

In the next stage, the party encountered yet again another mutant. It was a low-level one so the party didn't worry much, until they realized that there were no monsters on this stage either.

Feeling anxious, the party headed to the next stage. The same thing continued on in every stage.

---

On stage 49, which was an empty large hall, with a dark gloomy aura. The party were fighting against a mutant, yet again. But, this wasn't one which they could single handedly fight against.

The monster was something like a tree man, double the height of Joans, with its face covered in leaves, it legs were nothing but tree roots same for the arm, with the area around its waist to the neck, looking like a tree trunk.

The status that Tina could see was:

Name: None

Type: Mutant Ent

Rank: 1

Level: ???

Skills: Bind, Elastic Body, ???

Simply the fact that it was a rank 1 was enough for the party to be prepared for a life and death struggle.

And they were currently in this life and death struggle.

Their current condition was; Nill on the front with his shield, which wasn't his third backup shield which he used on the first floor.

Joans was damaging the monster. With his large blade but his physical attacks were not working against the monster much.

Selar was also simply damaging the monster as much as he could as his attack also weren't much use against it.

Behind them was Tina who was the main damage dealer with her fire magic.

Behind Tina was Shila who was constantly healing the three on the front.

On the last was Helkep who was...cheering the group.

"WHEN THE HELL IS THIS THING GONNA DIE!" Joans shouted as he used his blade to slash the monster.

The battle was going on for some time. If not for Shila's continuous support and Tina's damage, the group would have already accepted death.

The monster swung its root like arm towards Joans, Joans barely dodging the attack went for a counterattack. While the whip like arm turned around and smashed heavily on Joans back.

"Shit! Shila heal Joans." Selar reminded Shila.

"This can't go on for much longer, my mana is running short even the potions won't last long like this." Shila's said worriedly.

While talking, she did heal Joans. Getting up Joans thought of what to do. Even after racking his brain for ideas, he couldn't come up with anything.

After hesitating for a second Tina decided to speak up. "I-I learned a new skill recently. I-It might be able to take the monster down but it needs large amount of preparation time and after use I will be completely immobile for some time." She voiced her thoughts very hesitantly, knowing the risk were huge.

"We are already losing... if it means we might have a chance of winning...lets try it." Joans knew they were already on deaths door so he decided to take the last straw.

"I-I might fai-... I need a mana potion." Tina retracted her words looking at the hopeless condition they had gotten in.

In response Joans gave a chuckle and threw her a bottle, containing some kind of blue liquid.

"Hail the lord of fire, he who was taken over by the lord of the storms." As Tian kept reciting these words, unbelievable amount of mana gathered around her.

"SET FREE, THE LORD OF THE REVENGFUL FIRES." Her shout was heard, as a storm of fire begun forming on her hands.

The monster noticing the destructive power of the storm, decided to finish the one which looked more likely a threat.

As it started charged towards Tina, Joans shouted. "STOP IT! Otherwise we are doomed." Joans didn't need to shout because everyone realized the problem they would be in, if they let the monster do as it pleased.

"Elemental Wall!" Nill used his strongest skill, his shield was covered by a colorful light. He stood in the monster's path, baring its charge head-on.

The monster charge was interrupted but nonetheless it tried again, again and again. Finding the human interruption annoying the monster decided to use one of its main attack.

Of course the monster didn't know the being it was fighting against was called a human.

Slowly without Nill realizing, the leaves that were on the monsters face started parting, after noticing it, Nill looked and saw an eye hidden underneath the leaves after that he was knocked unconscious.

Seeing Nill falling suddenly, Joans and Selar headed to intercept the monster.

Though with their physical attacks they could only hinder the monster path and not stop it completely, still the monster found the human interference very annoying.

As these humans didn't seem likely to stop anytime soon, it decided to finish them first.

Catching the monster's intention was the biggest delight Selar felt throughout the whole fight, even though his defence was only the second last in the group, the first place being taken by Shila.

The monster swung its whips like arms towards Selar and Joans. Selar dodged the attack more easily than Joans.

"Any nice ideas Selar?" Joans asked while dodging one of the attacks which nearly grazed his neck.

"No! Just try to buy as much time as possible." Selar said while rushing towards the monster for a hit.

Though that was a mistake on his part, as when he got close the monster waist which looked immovable like an actual trunk, opened and trapped Selar inside.

One of the monsters arm which was going for Joans retracted and came back to help the other arm beat up Selar.

Seeing his party member being beaten like this enraged Joans, shouting loudly, he started charging towards the monster. The fatigue seemed to have hit him too, if he was still calm he wouldn't have charged so blindly.

The monster noticing the human rushing towards itself, threw Selar with the mass of wood, which was its waist, which he was using to hold Selar. The throw wasn't merciful, Selar only stopped when he hit the wall, causing a large dent inside the wall.

"YOU!!!" Joans not caring if it worked or not unleashed a barrage of strikes. Lots of the roots of the monster broke apart. But slowly they started healing. The monster had no face, which could show its emotions, but the pride it felt didn't need any words to be described.

It used the same technique it used against Nill, Joans followed suit to fall down, accompanying his two friends.

At that time, Shila was healing Selar. Looking at Joans falling on the ground she didn't knew what to do anymore. She wondered if she should go and try to buy time as well. But she quickly rejected that idea knowing one strike would be enough for her.

'What should I do? At this rate we will... should I try to buy time? Why is Tina taking so much time and, and that shit, that shit was supposed to be a monster, why is he standing there like a doll. Doesn't he see we won't survive like this? Why, why did we take him along? If only there was someone at least somewhat more helpful, then, then we might have made it. What should I do?' As Shila's mind went into turmoil, the monster was standing in front of Tina.

Shila begged from the depths of her heart for a miracle. But her prayer was too late. The monster rolled its root like arm, with its target standing right in front.

Shila begged, tears started flowing from her eyes, she didn't care who, she just wanted someone to save them from this horror they had encountered.

She tried to run towards the monster, but she couldn't move, she was paralyzed due to fear. She couldn't do anything but beg for someone to stop it.

As the monster punched towards Tina, Shila shouted at the top of her lungs "SOMEONE PLEASE! STOP THAT MONSTER!!!" Her scream rang throughout the hall. Her words were sincere she didn't want to die here neither did she want to see her friends killed.

But if the world went as one wanted everyone would be the king. With no fear, shame, or even a heart to speak off.

Tina knew what was going on around her at first, she was terrified but she knew she could do nothing while chanting so she poured everything into trying to reduce the the chanting time of the spell.

The monster fist was about to strike Tina when it sensed something but nonetheless its fist didn't stop and made contact with its target.

Splash! Large amounts of blood poured out from Tina's mouth, with the caster disturbed while chanting, as per the law, the spell was disturbed.

Tina's eyes were wide open in immense pain and unwillingness,

Shila's scream rang out. "NO!!!!!!!!!"