Dungeon Raider System
Chapter 705 - 705: Death Valley Dungeon Part 3

"It closed on its own!" Ashanti cried when she noticed a rock curtain falling down right after the last of them stepped inside the dungeon.

"It's just rock, I can break it apart with a kick," Scoundrel said before taking impulse, but Alice grabbed him by the back of his neck stoppnig him right before he did it. "why did you stop me?" He asked in annoyance.

"Because you were about to break your leg." Alice shook her head.

"We're trapped!" Ashanti cried some more.

"There's a couple more fallen cryptids over there. It means the teaching assistant passed before us. If we hurry up we might even catch him." Alice said, her beautiful eyes looking not only forward but into the future too.

The group moved around the vast open area in front of them afraid and thrilled in equal measure. They had no means to know how strong the cryptids Uriel had just taken down were, but if he was able to kill them on his own they assumed they could at least do the same by working in a team.

Following the trail of corpses was easy and their varied states of 'vanishing' told them they were getting closer to Uriel. Cryptids would disappear into thin air after being slain, but that process wasn't instantaneous which gave them an idea of how close to Uriel they were getting.

"I'm starting to feel bad for this suckers," Scoundrel chuckled at the sight of the remains of a white creature made of bone. "It was beaten so bad there isn't a single bone without cracks in it."

"Just keep walking, I don't like the feeling of this place." Alice hugged herself, though she wished she could hold Scoundrel's hand instead.

The deeper they ventured inside the dungeon, the less crytpid corpses they found and the stronger they seemed. They went from small rock like creatures without even limbs to fully fledged aberrations made of salt, silex or other inert materials.

"Do you think they're fast?" Ashanti asked.

"Guess we'll find out soon." Alice replied as she pointed at a specific direction where ten seconds in the future a rock golem would suddenly appear from the ground.

Ashanti knew Alice's trait and readied her weapon while Scoundrel activated his invisibility skill. Alice took a defensive position next to Ashanti just like when they trained against Uriel, since Ashanti was the team's most vulnerable member. By the the rock golem finally appeared it was greeted by a barrage of bullets and a powerful hit from behind.

"I did it!" Scoundrel cheered.

"It was me, you moron. I have the firearm." Ashanti declared after confirming with her own eyes that her weapon caused a lot of damage.

"Whatever, we'll share the money from the flux orb anyway." Scoundrel chuckled, knowing for sure it was actually him who killed the cryptid.

"There's a problem, we don't have any tools with us. That means we'll have to wait for the flux orb to fall naturally." Alice said. Waiting for a few minutes wasn't a problem and despite it being a beast level cryptid it was still worth the while.

Unfortunately to them, there was a reason why Uriel would sometimes forsake some of the flux orbs after defeating cryptids despite him being so greedy as to count pennies when buying groceries. By the time they figured out that cryptids were being drawn towards them it was too late and they were surrounded by all sides by creatures similar to the one they just defeated.

Alice giving a ten second warning did little to help them and since they waited for the cryptid to vanish, the trail of corpses Uriel left behind had gone cold. Even if they wanted to run away they wouldn't where to.

"We can do this!" Scoundrel took a step forward and activated his trait once more. He managed to pass the first line of cryptids undetected and attack the ones at the rear from behind. Ashanti opened fire with a trained aim and she dispatched a full row of cryptids before running out of ammunition.

Alice wanted to refrain herself from going on the offensive since she knew Ashanti couldn't fight well in melee, but even though the cryptids were weak they still posed a threat in numbers and they couldn't afford to wait even the short period it took Ashanti to reload her pistol.

"I'll thin their numbers and come back, okay?" Alice said to which Ashanti replied with a slight nod while she waited for the cooldown of her reload skill.

Thanks to her trait, Alice was able to take beast level cryptids on her own without receiving so much as a scratch. They were slow and their movements predictable, even more so for someone who could see the future.

Things seemed to be going well for the trio, but things soon changed when Scoundrel shrieked in pain at the distance. "Watch where you're shooting at!"

"Sorry, I didn't see you!" Ashanti apologized, but the same would repeat a couple more times since Scoundrel was invisible. The bullets came off from Ashanti's trait were charged to the brim with her own flux energy which is why they were capable of really hurting Scoundrel despite his ascended rank.

"Scoundrel is behind them, just try not to miss and he'll be fine." Alice turned to speak to Ashanti, not realizing one of the creatures had jumped directly towards her from behind causing a tremor on the ground beneath and a cloud of dust to appear.

"Alice!" Ashanti cried in a shrill voice.

"I'm fine... I think I dodged it." Alice replied after heaving a relieved sigh.

"No, you didn't," An unseen voice came from below the cryptid and Scoundrel's pitiful face was soon revealed when his invisibility skill was cancelled. He was crushed under the weight of a living stone right after pushing Alice to save her from suffering that fate.

"If I knew you wouldn't notice me grabbing your ass, I would have done it sooner." He said with a chuckle that caused him to spit blood due to his internal injuries.

Without any meddling words Alice plunged forward at the same time Ashanti opened fire at the cryptid, though she only managed to hit Alice in the back. In a panic, Ashanti continued to fire a few more times thinking that it didn't matter if she wounded her friend. It was worth it if that kept the cryptid from dealing the finishing blow.

"Stop!" Uriel came out of nowhere and rushed in to kill the cryptid with nothing but a high kick that sent the living stone flying in the air despite its mass. But even then Ashanti didn't stop firing until her weapon was empty.

"Teaching assistant, I knew you would come for us." Scoundrel let out in a thin voice, gasping for air despite the cryptid being gone.

"It's okay, everything will be fine now." Uriel gave him a smile as he grabbed Scoundrel's hand and placed it over his bullet ridden chest.

"What should I do?" Alice asked as she looked into the future, but what she saw left her in utter despair. "No! Don't do it, please!"

"You need to talk to him." Uriel looked her in the eye, a slight glint of blue illuminating his cheekbones.

"What is it? Am I going to die?" Scoundrel asked, fear instilled in his wide pupils.

"No, it's just like the teaching assistant said. Everything will be fine." She leaned in to kiss Scoundrel's forehead at the same time Uriel slid the red thread of fate by his throat, delivering a swift and painless death enshrouded in the warmth of a goodbye kiss.