At the end of the corridor was a spacious stone chamber, nearly twenty meters in length and width, with several thick stone pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling.
Scattered across the ground were the blood-stained remains of equipment: a flattened iron helmet, a longsword snapped in two, and several bloodied leather armor plates.
In the center of the chamber, a humanoid creature crouched, gnawing on something, occasionally making a grating, ear-piercing sound.
Hearing footsteps, it slowly turned its head.
The light in Flora's hand suddenly flared, illuminating the surroundings as bright as day and fully exposing the creature's true form before them.
Standing nearly four meters tall, its grayish-white skin looked incredibly hard, resembling an exoskeleton wrapping around its body. Its head and torso were almost fused together with no distinct neck, and its face featured only a crooked, massive maw and two asymmetrical, small eyes.
Most striking of all were its arms; below the elbows, they were entirely skeletal structures, with the tips of its five fingers ending in half-meter-long, serrated bone blades.
“A Bone-Cleaving Giant Blade Demon... How did something like that sneak into the dungeon?”
The Bone-Cleaving Giant Blade Demon's head snapped toward the trio, its crooked maw opening to let out a low growl.
Loviki had already drawn her rapier, a silvery-white blazing light flaring to life along the blade.
Flora's gaze drifted from the Blade Demon to the ground. The clean, straight cuts on the shattered equipment looked as though they had been sliced through in a single stroke by a razor-sharp blade. Turning to Chen Mian, she asked, “Should I handle it?”
“No need, leave it to Loviki.” Standing to the side, Chen Mian watched Loviki's figure and added, “This will be a good training opportunity for her.”
“Understood!”
The Blade Demon slowly stood up, appearing even more massive than when it was crouching. The tips of its bone blades nearly reached the ground, scraping lightly against the stone floor.
Loviki made the first move. Her blade trailed a silvery-white arc as she lunged straight for the Blade Demon's abdomen, where the skin looked thinner than elsewhere.
The Blade Demon reacted far quicker than she expected, sweeping its right arm to slash diagonally with its bone blade, accompanied by a fierce, whistling wind.
Loviki forced her body to twist mid-air, tapping the tip of her rapier against the side of the bone blade to bounce away, sliding back half a step as she landed.
Where the Blade Demon's bone blade struck, the stone tiles shattered and debris flew everywhere. The cross-section of the gash was as smooth as if sliced by a razor.
Having missed its mark, it immediately swung its left arm at Loviki. The bone blade carved a silver-gray arc through the air, even faster than the first strike, carrying the sharp crack of a sonic boom.
Loviki instantly lowered her center of gravity, her body nearly brushing the ground as she slid right beneath the arc. Seizing the opening, her rapier's tip pierced the Blade Demon's calf, leaving a wound burning with silvery-white fire. The wound charred instantly, the burn slowly spreading outward.
The Blade Demon let out a low growl, looking down at her with growing irritation.
Bending her knees, Loviki surged forward, closing the distance once more. Her sword light trailed a long, fiery streak as she moved at high speed.
The Blade Demon flailed its bone blades at Loviki. Every missed swing hacked deep gashes into the walls and ground. The floor shattered under the force of the battle, sending stone chips flying as the entire chamber trembled slightly.
The flames on the Blade Demon's leg continued to spread, gradually engulfing its entire lower leg.
Its roars echoed through the chamber, growing more frantic and louder, yet its attacks consistently failed to keep up with Loviki's pace.
After several rounds of fierce attacks, its movements slowed slightly.
Loviki kicked off hard with her right foot, flipping mid-air as she aimed the tip of her rapier straight at its heart. The silvery-white blazing light condensed intensely at this moment, and her speed surged once more. Trailing silvery-white flames, the rapier plunged into the Blade Demon's chest, skewering clean through to the other side.
The Blade Demon's movements froze completely.
When its massive body crashed to the ground, it kicked up a cloud of dust and debris. The tips of its bone blades scraped two shallow marks on the floor before it went entirely still.
The blazing light flared up intensely.
Silence returned to the stone chamber, save for the faint crackling of the burning fire.
Loviki panted slightly as the silvery-white blazing light gradually receded from her blade. She smoothed her hair and pulled her hood back up.
She turned her head to look at Chen Mian, her face still flushed with the heat and glow of battle. “Well? Have I improved?”
Leaning against a stone pillar, Chen Mian smiled. “A great deal of improvement. You're not just blindly attacking like you used to.”
If it had been the Loviki from before, she would have still been able to defeat this Platinum Rank magical beast, but certainly not this quickly.
Hearing this, Loviki's lips curled up in a grin she couldn't suppress. She casually sheathed her rapier back at her waist. “Of course. I'm a genius, after all.”
“What should we do with these bodies?” Loviki asked, looking at the adventurers who had been killed by the Bone-Cleaving Giant Blade Demon.
“Cremate them, lest they become food for other magical beasts.”
“Oh, okay.”
The three stepped out of the stone chamber, continuing along the route marked on the map toward the location Keyins had indicated.
“Why would something like that be in a dungeon? Once outside the borders of the Demon King's Castle, a creature with such a fatal flaw would find it very difficult to survive... Someone must be feeding it demonic energy to keep it alive,” Loviki said with a frown.
She had read about this species in books. Though physically powerful, they possessed no intelligence and would perish if they went too long without absorbing demonic energy. Because of this, even the demon race only classified the Bone-Cleaving Giant Blade Demon as a magical beast, rather than one of their own.
“Yes, someone brought it in intentionally. It has an enslavement mark on it. Furthermore, except for the adventurer who was just killed, most of the belongings on the other dead adventurers have been taken,” Chen Mian said calmly, looking at the map. “Deliberately causing accidental deaths in dungeons to plunder resources is a common tactic of criminal organizations. They must have targeted the adventurers here.”
Even with Keyins's map, it took the three of them quite a bit of effort to reach that room. They encountered many magical beasts along the way, though they didn't run into any more Platinum Rank ones like the Bone-Cleaving Giant Blade Demon. Most were handled by Loviki.
Along the way, Flora gathered some edible mushrooms to use as ingredients for dinner.
Loviki didn't mind the detours, though. She genuinely enjoyed exploring dungeons and was equally interested in defeating the magical beasts within them.
The entrance to the stone chamber marked with the crystal was far more concealed than they had imagined. When they arrived at the destination, they saw nothing but a solid wall.
If the parchment map in their hands hadn't been so precise, the three would have likely wandered the labyrinthine corridors of the third floor for a very long time without ever finding the entrance.
Chen Mian reached out and pushed the stone wall in front of him. It felt slightly cool to the touch, and its surface looked identical to the surrounding rock walls, with even the textures matching perfectly.
When Chen Mian's fingertip lightly brushed over a certain spot, a hair-thin, pale-blue light pattern emerged on the stone wall.
The pattern extended all the way down, sinking into the ground.
A moment later, the heavy stone door slowly slid open to both sides.
Rate on N.U.
