Dungeon Raider System
Chapter 674 - 674: Priceless treasure

When the nasty nameless creature was finally defeated it left behind nothing but the scorched earth beneath and Uriel was distraught when he realized the pristine flux orb that captivated him had also disappeared.

"El diablo!" As soon as she appeared from Uriel's shadow, Nika exclaimed in her native tongue like anytime she got flustered or scared. Her pale face along with the fact that the flux orb was missing made Uriel think the creature escaped and he quickly turned on his heels expecting to see it reforming itself or something of the sorts.

Luckily to Uriel, such was not the case as what he found behind him was Medusa greeting him with a hug and the reason Nika was altered was because Uriel's eyes had yet to turn back into its usual color.

"How did you kill that thing?" Medusa asked after breaking the hug.

"I did it with some help." Uriel replied as he stored the cursed book back inside his museum. Somehow, he knew there would be new mummies inside his trait without the need to even enter his trait.

"Where does it hurt?" Luna sniffed Uriel from every possible angle, climbing him like a mountain and taking the chance to poke him to confirm if he was wounded.

"Huh?" Uriel found himself completely out of words when he realized he wasn't injured in any way as he didn't receive any damage from the creature he just faced. Not just that, although the Red thread of fate was unable to steal any life essence from the nameless since it couldn't damage it, Uriel's ankle had recovered on its own. "I'm not hurt... I'm not even tired, just a bit short on flux."

"Interesting." Luna muttered as she finished her checkup.

"What is it?" Medusa asked, yet Nika cut off their conversation.

"Are we going to ignore the fact that his eyes were black just a moment ago? He looked like the devil!" She stuttered.

"That's nonsense, it's just a side effect from the book of the dead." Uriel dismissed Nika's worries with a wave of his hand.

"It's not like your trait looks innocent either. You control shadows, remember?" Medusa added as she pondered about how weird it was that after all the things they've gone through, Nika's silliness still managed to surprise her.

"Has anyone seen Soulfire?" Uriel asked as he looked around.

"Do you miss your best friend so much?" Medusa teased, yet all Uriel did in response was grumble.

"She's fine, by the way." Nika proceeded to inform Uriel on what happened after they retreated revealing that his suspicion that no one would bother or risk coming to help had been only half true.

The government, the army and most private corporations didn't show up, but the moment they heard the explosion one small company made their move despite not knowing the circumstances. With the founding members of the Dungeon Raiders gone, it fell upon Miss Dragonfang's shoulders to lead the company and she commanded her loyal friend Phlox to steer the ship directly into the source of the commotion.

"Knowing you guys, it was more than obvious that you were involved in whatever happened here." Miss Dragonfang said right after whistling in surprise at the massive hole in the lost city of San Antonio caused by the creature.

"It wasn't us, it was the witches." Uriel replied.

"Yeah, right, you're blaming the witches now. What comes next, the fairies?" Miss Dragonfang joked and instead of the usual nagging for making jokes at inappropriate times she was met with silence. "What is it?" She asked.

"I don't know, this feels weird. The monster is dead, but I'm unscathed." He replied with a straight face.

"Are you troubled because it was too easy?" Medusa couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"No, of course not. This was anything but easy." Uriel shook his head.

"Did you want to get hurt? I could arrange that." Medusa chuckled.

"It's not that either, I can't explain it." Uriel let out and Luna butted in.

"Maybe I can, maybe your problem is that although that creature was ugly, it acted like a child who couldn't get what it wanted. In a sense, it was innocent. Maybe the reason people in the ancient times didn't kill that thing wasn't because it was impossible, but that it wasn't necessary." Uriel was ready to disregard Luna's comment, but it actually made sense.

As horrid as that creature was and as evil as it may have seemed to humans, killing it didn't bring any joy to Uriel and he did it just to survive. Not just that, he also didn't get any direct rewards for killing it as the reward he received was just what Atsa left behind. If not for for the society meddling in a place they shouldn't have, that creature could have lived forever.

To Uriel, it was the same as going out of his way to trespass into a wild animal's den and kill it without even harvesting its meat. If he at least had gotten hurt he would have felt the creature needed to be put down, but that wasn't the case and something about killing it made him feel dirty inside.

"Boss, we have a problem." Informed Phlox after the scout team returned from a short expedition inside the crater left by the explosion, though she didn't need to explain because by that point it had become obvious when a powerful earthquake shook the city and some of the already aged buildings crumbled down.

The floating islands inside the dungeon had lost all power and touched ground causing the powerful earthquake, yet the problem Phlox referred to was that now that the artificial sky in the second world wasn't working anymore all the cryptids that had remained trapped inside the dungeon were now free to exit the dungeon.

Those who could fly did so with ease, while the rest slowly ventured outside poking their disgusting heads and foul limbs shyly as they breathed in the freshness of the outside's flux energy for the first time.

"This can't be..." Uriel's face paled and for a second everyone thought he was suffering from internal hemorrhage or maybe a stroke. "the city of Cibola disappeared!" With all the gold lost forever into nothingness Uriel spiraled down as he felt his very sanity grow thinner.

He ran directly inside the crater uncaring of the many cryptids going the opposite way and then climbed down the air stair deployed by their company's engineers which was connected to a pulley that helped his descent faster. It worked similarly to the ones helicopters used in the past, though this one was made with alloy wire which meant it resisted much more weight.

After all the trouble he went through in the dungeon, all the risk they took and more importantly, after seeing the golden city with his own eyes, there was no place in Uriel's mind for the thought of walking empty handed.

The air inside the dungeon felt different from the times before. There was no wind, no fresh breeze either and the smells that reached his nose were distant, but more importantly, he didn't get the usual feeling of crossing a membrane when he entered the dungeon.

"This is now just a cave." Uriel muttered in the vast darkness of a dusty black hole in the ground that used to be a dungeon and he was more than taken aback when a voice actually answered him.

"You did well, you brought what's mine back with you as promised." As the voice spoke Uriel recognized it as father of horror's and he quickly covered himself with a glistening coat of flux to prevent the pain caused any interaction with that creature caused.

"It's you again... for a second I thought you were the thing trapped in here." Uriel replied as he produced the tribal headdress and left it in the ground in front of him. A windless dark breezed through Uriel's lantern turning it off on the spot and when Uriel managed to turn it back on the headdress was already gone. "How did you know I had it?"

Much to Uriel's frustration, he received no answer from the creature in the dark, though he soon changed his opinion when he looked around and found an old looking vase painted with a strip of blue.

"This is Anasazi!" He exclaimed, his voice fading in the emptyness. "Maybe this wasn't such a loss after all."

Although it seemed as though the city of Cibola had disappeared, what actually happened was that all the gold had turned back into regular stone. It happened to the vases, the plates, the dishes, everything but the precious gems embedded in some of the items Uriel found while looking around in the debris.

They were few and actually not as valuable since contrary to gold which had an use for electronics and high end gadgets and weapons, gemstones were nothing but decoration. But just knowing that the city didn't disappear into thin air gave him hopes that he could at least get something out of it.