Chapter LXXXIX - The Devil (part 1)

At the other side of the dungeon, the fight was getting uncontrolled.

"Cane!"

Fran shouted as the three headed hell hound ran towards Cane. 

Cane was too busy preparing for a heavy attack, he didn't notice the large dog coming towards him. When he turned his gaze up, the hound was already showing all of its teeth from all three heads.

The hellhound sensed the powerful movement of magic energy coming from Cane, and it probably felt concerned. The dungeon boss ends up ignoring Fran and immediately goes after Cane at high speed, despite the fact that Cane was on the other side of the room. Fran was too far away, and no one else is near.

SLING!!!

The hellhound lost both of its back legs. The left head turned to see what happened, and Fran was already rushing towards it.

She casted a ranged lightning slash using her sword, but to do this technique, it costs her quite a lot of magic energy. She dashed forward immediately after casting it, closing the gap between the two until there's only a few meters of distance.

Fran leaped upwards and dropped her sword enchanted with lightning on the hound's right head.

"ROAAARRR!!!"

The right head immediately got discharged by a million volt of lightning and it exploded. It only took a while until the flames of regeneration were lit, and the head was slowly regenerating. 

But by the time it was regrown, it was already too late.

"Cane!! It's now or never!"

Fran barked at Cane, who is already holding a very powerful ball of light in his palms. 

Cane reopened his eyes, glimmering with light magic. His whole body became cladded in bright white light and the light ball in his hand turned much larger.

"Hoaa!!"

Cane shouts as he fires the ball of light towards the tri-headed hellhound. All three of the hound's heads can only watch as the giant ball of light twice the size of their body eats away their entire existence.

VWOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!

The ball exploded into a bright brilliant atomic bomb, disintegrating everything that goes inside it. The explosion was powerful, and the heat was also unthinkable. Fran ran away from the explosion as fast as she could, while everyone else was covering their eyes from the blinding light.

When the light disappeared, the ground and the ceiling disintegrated into air. 

And, so did the hellhound.

"W-We... We did it..."

Cane said as he fell to his knees. His head is bleeding from the hell hound's kick that knocks him all the way across the room, and his body is tired from the lack of energy.

That light explosion took all the energy from his body. He couldn't move that much now.

Fran came approaching him slowly, but she is also quite tired.

Once she arrived, she dropped down right next to Cane, facing the ceiling. 

"Say... at least now, you can... get a girlfriend..."

Her words were cut off by trying to breath, but Cane is no different.

"Y-Yeah... Well... I might as well be dead until then..."

Cane dropped his body to the floor, and lost consciousness immediately. Fran can see the others came running at them from the tail of her eyes.

"Heh... Looks like mission success..."

.

At the other side of the cave, the other squad was able to come up with a method to go down the bottomless pit. 

Jrake and the other earth magicians who were with him decided to make a super long staircase that goes all the way down.

The creation of a single step doesn't really take much, but to go all the way down is... both time and energy consuming.

They finally arrived down there after five hours. Fran and the others had already killed the boss, and now Valey, Brod, Barett, and Rath the hunter have joined them.

Since it took a long time to reach the bottom, everyone became very anxious. Neither Hod nor Rize is replying to the calls on the communication crystal, which means something must have happened.

Jrake and the other earth magicians were doing their best to go as fast as they can. And after five hours of non stop staircase creation, they finally arrived on the bottom. 

They found a very deep water pond at the bottom of the pit, and they are quite regretting not falling straight down. Then again, falling that far high into water will simply crush your body.

The rescue team, consisting of Jrake, Barett, Valey, Cony, and Rath searched the room for any survivors while the rest returned to the top. They can see hundreds of footprints that seemed to belong to the hell hounds, which gets them very worried.

When they found a footprint much larger than the others, they became even more worried.

The size of the giant footprint was as large as Jrake's body. Seeing this giant footprint here, alongside the other smaller ones, simply made the others agree that whatever is the owner of this footprint is nothing weak or to cough at.

Rize and Hod were in trouble…

Judging from the footprints of these hell hounds, they must be chasing Hod and Rize towards a certain direction. They followed the really long trail, being very careful not to get jumped by any hellhounds.

To their surprise, they did not get jumped by anything.

Instead, they arrived at a path with a heavy stench of blood in it.

"Ugh. This place... reeks."

Even Cony muttered, which makes everyone very worried. She was known to be the one who holds well against blood and carnage, but right now even she is feeling disgusted.

Everyone else is also doing their best to withstand this stench by either breathing from the mouth or by not breathing at all. Even after one covers their nose from the smell, it is still not enough.

They continued their path towards the deeper cave in hesitation, worrying of what they would find.

They are very worried after seeing how many footprints there are along this path. They are even more worried when they find another large footprint. 

But, they continued searching.

Until… they arrived.