Strange Phenomenon In The Dungeon II

"Hmmph." Riddled with pain, Raiden struggled to sit down after Seth and Keith were out of sight.

His mind was loose as different thoughts coursed through it without restrictions. He could've died a moment ago for a kid he barely knew.

While he would gladly give his life for Seth, he barely even knew Seth.

Seth also barely knew him but even at that, he had helped Raiden out significantly.

Raiden would do anything to repay that debt even going as far as giving his life even though Seth wouldn't want such a thing.

'When we return, I'm going to have a session with him where we just bond and get to know each other better. Maybe Taro too. Seems like a good kid.' Raiden put his thoughts to an end as he rose to his feet with muffled grunts.

He tore the teleportation scroll in his hand as a magic circle appeared around him and he became covered in a white light whose purpose was to take him to his location. The place marked on the scroll.

His destination was the forest's entrance where he would find Taro as when the light disappeared, Raiden was gone with it and so was the torn scroll.

♠♠♠♠♠

Deep in one of the dungeons in the mountain range, a fight was ongoing.

This dungeon was a cave as the fight progressed even deeper into the cave. Both parties had started close to the entrance but as it went on, they went deeper.

Seth kept pushing Keith deeper into the cave to prevent any chance of an escape as he still wasn't aware of his mana that was constantly leaking from his core.

When they got over fifty meters deep into the cave, the mana leaking out doubled.

"The hell is this?" Seth asked but no one present could give him an answer. He had noticed the man leaking out of his core and if he did nothing about it, it would greatly affect his battle prowess.

The problem was… nothing he did seemed to work. The moment he noticed it, Seth tried completely sealing his core but that wasn't possible due to the ensuing battle. if he sealed his core in the middle of this fight, he would be as good as dead.

Even though his victory was halfway secured, evident from all the bruises on Keith's body, Seth would greatly lose without an ounce of his mana to use.

That option became void.

Seth couldn't simply let mana leave for an unknown location so he tried stopping it.

He would seal the channel through which it left his boy but a second later, mana started leaking out from another channel.

After repeating this process there times, he gave up. 'I'll just have to end this before I run out of mana.' Seth decided and his attacks grew even stronger.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!!

Keith attacked Seth's spells one after another while Seth cast spells two at a time and even three at times to put lots of stress on his opponent.

Multicasting wasn't uncommon in the world of magic as almost everyone could at least cast two spells simultaneously but it majorly depended on control.

Casting two spells was easy but controlling them both was another thing.

A mage could summon a fireball and water ball but launching them together might become a tough task for him.

So many mages spent their time honing their control over their spells.

At the moment, Seth was conjuring three to four different spells and launching two simultaneously at Keith and sometimes, even three. His control was scary as was visible on Keith's body.

Not all attacks could be evaded or destroyed so quite a few had made their way to him and if Keith was asked, all he would say was that the attacks weren't nice to receive.

Not like Seth would listen to his complaints either way. Keith hadn't listened to Taro's complaints or Raiden's so why listen to his?

The mana leakage from Seth's core got higher and Seth became curious. There was something here that would continue to suck his mana and curiosity made him want to know what it was. Not many things could draw the attention of the Prince of Dragons but this thing, whatever it was not only attracted him, it also stole from him. It kept stealing his mana even while Seth was conscious of it.

He wanted to know what it was and so he did just that.

Seth's attacks grew even wilder as they pushed Keith deeper into the cave, both of them heading into the unknown.

The leakage spiked up drastically until even Keith could feel it.

'Something is up with him. I can feel his core emptying abnormally faster even though the level of spells he's casting remains the same.'

'Is he trying to cast a surprise spell?' Keith asked himself, his eyes moving around to locate any abnormal gathering of mana in the vicinity while his brain worked to both defend against Seth's attack and come up with theories on what was going on with the rapid decline in Seth's mana level.

Amplifying his sight with mana so he could 'see' mana particles, he saw a line of mana flowing out of Seth and heading deeper into the cave.

'I see. There's something in here that's eating up his mana reserves. Kinda works to my advantage.'

'This kid's a beast that shouldn't be left alive. No matter what happens, I need to make sure he stays dead here or else he'll become a huge threat to the entire Vedorg Kingdom.' Keith concluded as he drew more mana from his core to battle with Seth who only continued to lose more mana the deeper they went.

Even though Seth was conscious of this, he didn't seem to care as his only thought was to finish Keith before his core went dry.

The tunnel that had simply gone deeper into the mountain started to slope downward as if digging deeper into the floor.

"Tch! Is it just me or are you growing rebellious?" Seth asked in a tone that suggested he was scolding a junior.

"Did you perhaps notice the situation I'm in? That's the only plausible reason for your refusal to go down. You're hoping to strike when I get…"

The mana leakage tripled, halting Seth's words from his mouth. "...weaker?"

The previous leak had reduced Seth till his mana level was at the peak of Class Six but he still held the upper hand against Keith who was already weakened.

Now, the current drainage had brought him down another class as he held mana reserves at Class Five.

"Precisely! I've been waiting for a moment like this." Closing in on Seth, Keith smiled wickedly and the next second, his sword filled with magic power slammed down on Seth who pulled out his sword to block him.

The force accelerated Seth's fall, pushing him to the bottom of the sloping tunnel.

Boom!

His body slammed into the ground creating a web of cracks. This new situation turned the table around for each of them.