60 (60) Lloyd Irrigance

The Bosses stared at the young, blonde, short-haired man. Although he looked young, they could sense an overwhelming presence of death surrounding him. What's more was that the man was in complete control of the deathly aura.

The man paid no attention to the Bosses, he was casually looking around the room as if it were a museum. His eyes lingered on the countless crystals at the back of the room, and then on the numerous crystalline rocks that protruded out of the ground.

These large crystals were mainly aesthetics, however they all looked similar to how Barren would when he was in the crystal form. This also acted as a camouflage when players first walked in; the majority of them weren't able to use Analysis to determine which one was Barren.

the blond man frowned when he discovered that the large crystals were merely decorations, moreover he couldn't steal the crystals at the back of the room due to the mysterious laws of the Dungeon.

Everything in the room counted as scenery for the players, and the mysterious laws restricted them from taking any non-loot items out of the dungeon. If anything became damaged during the battle, it would eventually fix itself; even if the player burnt a piece of paper and swallowed the ashes, the paper would still reappear and the player would feel emptiness in their stomach.

He then finally turned to the three Bosses, but only felt threatened by the colourful, crystal Golem. By sensing the level suppression, he estimated that the Golem might only be a few levels higher than him, but sometimes Bosses could conceal some of their aura to decieve their opponents.

Likewise, Barren could also feel the pressure from the young man, if he appeared any differently, Barren might feel confident that he could defeat the man. But the man wasn't wearing any visible armour, nor did he hold any weapon or staff.

This discarded any thoughts of him being a swordsman or any similar attacking classes, and since it was obvious that this lone man was confident in his abilities, and had defeated the two Golems outside with ease, it was impossible that he was a priest or cleric.

This left the Mage class and its two main pathways; the road to a Wizard, or to become a Summoner or Necromancer.

The latter pathway was more likely as most Wizards would use a staff or a wand to focus their energy and spells, as well as amplifying and storing the elemental mana they could possess.

Summoners and Necromancers were powerful classes, they progressed from the Base Class Mage, advanced as a Warlock at level 25, and then advanced again at level 50, similar to a Dragon Knight.

Although full of similarities, the two Classes were still quite different. A Summoner would form a contract with Beasts from the Summoning Plane, they could help their 'pets' grow and improve, and a bond would form. As the Summoner grew stronger, they could contract more and more Beasts.

A Necromancer on the other hand, could raise undead monsters from the ground with the accumulated deathly, dark energy. Different monsters could be summoned in different places, but the number of summons would be equivalent to the amount of dark energy the Necromancer could control. They could summon an immensely powerful creature, or many weaker monsters depending on what they wanted.

The strength on these two classes mainly came from the ability to summon beasts or monsters, however their had been examples of close-combat mages that could work in sync with their summoned pets.

But underestimating the Summoner or Necromancer themselves was a huge mistake, although they had much less variety of skills that the Wizard line had, their spells were much more powerful.

Summoners could inherit certain skills from their contracted Beast, whilst Necromancers could control the dark energy themselves. Furthermore, they would retain any skills that were learnt, or could be learnt by a Warlock.

Barren doubted that the other two Bosses would even last a few minutes if they fought one of these classes alone. Kraton would find it hard to reach the young man once he summoned his monsters, even if he could defeat Summoned, the man might still be able to summon more.

Meanwhile, Lysine may find it difficult to defeat hordes of enemies at once, if he completely surronded himself with monsters, then she would have no way to penetrate through the defence.

But if they worked together, the two would not have to fight purely on the defensive; Kraton could clear out any swarms of monsters with his AoE strikes, and could also challenge single foes with his destructive fists, while Lysine could find opportunites to pressure the man.

But this did not necessarily mean they were not doomed to be defeated. At their current level, they still stood no chance against a foe like this.

Even Barren knew that beating a Summoner or a Necromancer by himself would be an extremely tough battle. The probablilty of him winning would only be 40% if the young man could summon numerous strong Beasts or Monsters.

"My lil' brother lost to you? Pathetic." The man sneered, he held a deep disliking to to his sibling; not only did he try and claim the limelight of the Family, he had also lost everything the Family owned!

"You're brother? Who are you?" Although he already knew which family the man came from, it was still polite to ask, right?

"Heh, I'm the second son of the Irrigance Family, of direct blood. I am Lloyd Irrigance, and I will be the successor of the Family thanks to this Dungeon."

Although Lloyd spoke with arrogant confidence, there was still a sliver of uneasy doubt in his mind. In his whole family, he was not actually considered a genius. His young look was a deception from drinking hundreds of potions in his lifetime. He was narcissistic and couldn't tolerate the thought of looking older.

He had chosen the pathway to a Necromancer due to the additional trait of aging slightly slower, therefore in reality he was only average in strength. He had made up for that by drinking even more potions and rare herbs to increase his control with the dark energy. Out of all his siblings, he spent the most money, which was why the Family was even more unwilling to put him in charge.

Recalling these thoughts angered him, instead of wasting any more time, he chose to start attacking. Several tendrils of darkness grew out of his palms, being a Necromancer he stayed back, keeping a distance between him and the Bosses.

Since Lloyd had initiated the battle, the three Bosses sprung into action. Barren attacked first, he knew not to underestimate the foe so he started strong.

With a sudden glow, the ground trembled and several large crystals jutted out in a line, heading right towards the man.

Lloyd quickly smashed the dark tendrils into the ground, propelling him up and away from the line of rocks. What he didn't expect was for a large crystal to strike from behind, coming out near the top of the wall.

The crystal smashed into his back, sending him forward towards the Bosses. Before he could reach the ground, he saw Kraton charging forward, his fist glinting and tearing the air around it.

Lloyd's battle-hardened instincts warned him of the punch, he slashed his wrist, and the dark tendrils followed like a whip.

With a loud collision, the dark whips slashed against Kraton's fist. The fist had been powered up with two skills: Harden and Power Boost, yet it had deflected aside with ease.

Lloyd also felt shocked, this power was well beyond what a normal level 31 Boss could achieve, the rebound from the collision had travelled through the dark whips and into his arm, he cursed himself for making such a mistake.

If he had prepared for the rebound, he could have changed the physical attributes of the dark energy into being intangible, negating the force from the rebound. If Kraton were the same level as he was, that one mistake could have cost him an arm.

While Lloyd was still airborne, he caught sight of Lysine. Her Lamia body glowed faintly with a warm, pink light, entrancing him for a second. Countless untamed thoughts ran wild in his head, and blood spurted out of his nose.

He quickly realised he was still falling and tried to snap out of the trance, but he was too late. As he landed, his posture was sprawled awkwardly. He had attempted to land on his feet, but it did more harm than landing on his back.

Lloyd's ankle had twisted, and possibly broken, but he stood up with the help of the dark energy twisting around his leg.

He spat out blood and wiped his bloody nose, since he suppressed the two Bosses by more than ten levels, any skill or attack including the charm skill only had a 30% effectiveness, allowing him to snap out of the trance quicker, even though certain thoughts were still running wild across his mind.

The injuries he took were superficial, even the solid strike from the crystal on his back hardly did any damage to him, but injuries would still hold him back.

Lloyd wasted no more time as he prepared his next attack. His eyes turned dark - pitch black, and his outstretched palm omitted the dark energy, covering to entire region in front of him.

The Bosses did not stay idle, Kraton tried to push past the dark energy, but it was like a thick gooey miasma, slowing his movements down. The deeper in he went, the thicker and more concentrated the dark energy seemed.

All at once, the dark glow and energy disappeared, Kraton tripped over at the sudden change. However, getting back up felt hard; with the energy gone, it was replaced by a heavy, terrifying pressure.

Fissures formed on the ground like cracks did on glass, as the cracks grew a horrible sound wailed out from the depths.

A hand rose out, half rotten flesh and half white bone, it pulled out its owner from the cracks along the floor, leaving imprints on the ground. Soon, many other rotting limbs clambered out from the cracks.

The monsters that appeared stood in ugly positions, some were twisted or hunched over, whilst others looked like a corpse which had been bloated or stretched.

Most of these undead creatures had human similarities, but a few were warped into beings of nightmares: extra limbs, a split skull or an arm which ended in a hook.

From a scale of summoning from swarms to an ultimate being, the young man had performed a summon nearer the former, but each monster still held a frightening power of a level 30 monster.

Groans filled the chamber, and the echoes reverberated as a disorderly chorus of lamenting tones and screeching voices.

"Flesh-stripped Zombies..." Lysine murmered under her breath. After recieving the skill Poison Veil, and growing venomous glands, Lysine had researched the strengths and weaknesses of her venom. The undead were obviously one of the creatures who held a high immunity towards these toxins, especially those without flesh.

The Flesh-stripped Zombies only had flesh on their bodies for more defence, certain spells would have to break the flesh away before the bones if the caster was not accurate.

And since the flesh on the Zombies were disjointed, and basically not part of them, most toxins would not affect them at all. These Zombies were closer to Skeletons than actual Zombies!

However, these undead creatures had flaw; if their bones were shattered then they would not be able to reattach the broken bones. The best case scenario would be to disable the monsters without killing them so they would not be dismissed naturally.

Forcing the summoned monster to be dismissed whilst it still held killing intent would cause internal pain to the Necromancer, whilst their natural death would only cause a smaller amount of pain, this was another large difference between Summoners and Necromancers.

Alas, this plan would not work with the Flesh-stripped Zombies as no matter their state, they could always self-destruct, flinging sharp debris everywhere and also being dismissed naturally.

Kraton, who had just got back up, had found himself staring into the hollow void of countless eye sockets. His skin shivered as he felt an aura almost as strong as his emanating from the undead monsters.

"Attack!" Lloyd commanded the sea of undead, they abruptly dashed and leaped towards the monsters, climbing over Kraton and drowning him in a wave of rotten flesh.