WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 191: Weird Dungeon
Chapter 191: Weird Dungeon
Ben’s body tensed, his sense heightened. He could hear it, the scrape of boots over stone.
Shadows emerged from the rocks ahead, armored warrior with Gravenhold sigil. Six… no, eight of them. “Ambush!” Kaela barked, already raising her weapon.
But Ben was faster. In one fluid motion, his dagger flashed into his hand, than he disappeared.
In the next moment he was already behind the first Gravenhold soldier, his dagger sliding across the man’s throat with deadly accuracy. Before the body hit the ground, Ben had already spun low, sweeping another soldier off balance and driving the blade up under his chin.
By the time the third turned to react, Ben had already hurled his dagger in a spinning arc. It buried itself in the man’s eye with a wet crunch. Ben caught the falling weapon from the second corpse and hurled it into the fourth attacker’s chest like a javelin.
Chaos erupted as the rest join the fight. A fifth soldier tried to flank him, Ben sidestepped, grabbed the man’s wrist, and drove his elbow into his jaw. Bone cracked. The soldier collapsed.
The sixth never made it close. Ben retrieved his dagger in one smooth motion and flicked it outward. The blade curved through the air and found the man’s neck.
The last two hesitated, But Ben didn’t. He stepped forward, and vanished.
When he reappeared, they were already falling. One with a sliced tendon. The other with a collapsed throat.
Silence followed. A few Nephirid still held weapons ready, waiting for more. Ben stood in the center of the wreckage, his face filled with frown.
Kaela exhaled, blinking hard. “…You were strong. No wonder you can beat Kharvek.”
Another veteran whistled low. “By the primordial flame… remind me never to draw steel on you.”
Even Tharn gave a nod of real respect. “Fast hands, quiet feet. You know what you doing.”
But Ben still feel worried as he glanced at the bodies. “Do you often get ambushed like this when you hunt outside?”
Tharn shook his head. “Sometime, but they just come to harass us not like real fight.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. “I see.” But deep inside he feel something is weird, the gravenhold soldier he fought should be stronger than this. This one don’t even have any relic on them.
He raised a hand, motioning for silence. Then the ground exploded.
A thunderclap of sound split the air as hidden charges burst along the ridge. Rubble flew. Dust blinded them.
From the cliffs above, more Gravenhold soldiers dropped like wolves, weapons raised, shouting curses.
“MORE is coming!” Tharn bellowed, already drawing his curved axe.
More enemies come out, outnumbering the expedition nearly two to one.
Kaela met them head-on, cutting down the first soldier that landed with a scream. Another Nephirid slammed his shield into a foe mid-fall, hurling him into the canyon wall with a sickening crunch.
Ben moved like a shadow through the chaos. Prioritizing those with relics. Wherever his dagger flashed, a body dropped.
Tharn roared beside him, carving a path through armored soldiers like a juggernaut, taking wounds and dishing worse.
Veterans fell into formation instinctively, backs to each other, defending angles, cooperating with each other like they’re one unit.
Younger Nephirid fought just as fiercely. One of them, a girl with a rusted halberd, cleaved two soldiers with a cry that cracked like thunder.
Relic sparked from the enemy lines. A blast tore into a stone pillar beside Ben, forcing him to dive and roll beneath flying shrapnel.
“Left flank!” Kaela shouted. “They’re trying to box us in!”
Ben spun, spotted the pincer forming, and didn’t hesitate. He blinked forward, dagger raised, and gutted him before he can use the relic again. The formation collapsed in panic.
Another Nephirid caught a blade to the side and went down. Tharn roared in fury and swung his axe in a wide arc, splitting the attacker from shoulder to hip.
More enemies kept coming, but now the Nephirid had blood in their mouths.
The Gravenhold ambushers came from all sides, out of rocky crevices, behind ridge boulders, even hidden under old burial tarps. They’d planned this well. Numbers were on their side.
But they hadn’t planned for Ben. His dagger move like thunder. The first six fell so fast it looked rehearsed.
Blood sprayed across blackened stone.
Kaela fought like wildfire, blades in both hands, moving through the enemy like a storm of flashing steel. She leapt onto a boulder, kicked off, and drove both weapons into a soldier’s neck from above.
“You want blood?” she shouted. “Come take mine!”
Another soldier come at Ben from behind. Ben spun, caught the blade with the crook of his elbow, and drove his head into the man’s nose. Blood exploded. A kick finished the job.
“Don’t let them surround us!” Tharn barked, planting his spear again. “Hold formation!”
One Nephirid fell, but the line didn’t break. Another stepped in without hesitation.
A dozen more fell. Till finally, it was over. The last Gravenhold man stumbled, bloodied and alone, backing away with eyes wide.
Ben didn’t speak, He just vanished. And reappeared behind the man. A clean slice to the spine ended it.
Ben stood, surveying the field. Thirty-three Nephirid. Still standing. No dead. Just some light wound. ‘They’re not veteran for nothing.’
“That all of them?” Kaela asked.
“For now,” Ben said. “But I’m sure more will come later.”
The group that come may overwhelm them in number, but only few of them use relic, and it’s different type than the last one they use. Ben feel they’re nothing more than canon fodder.
The Expedition moved forward, more careful than before. The landscape changed around them, jagged stones like broken teeth, twisted white trees that grew without light.
“This is it the pace, it is close.” Tharn said excitement.
They found it in the hollow of a canyon, where the ground dipped and fractured into an open mouth like a large skeleton, mostly buried, covered in cracked black roots and rune-marked rubble.
