Chapter 101: The Sea Tomb of Wicked Light (4)

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Jelos was roaring with delight up in the sky as the reinforced elite was blasted into pieces, falling toward the water’s surface. Below, Zhao Tianhe was tangled in combat with two ordinary wraiths. Thanks to his exceptional perception, those two foes couldn’t land a single blow on him.

Splash!

A glob of blue slime smashed one of the wraiths deep underwater. Zhao Tianhe grinned, thinking this monster's luck must be an E rank. He swiftly turned and sliced the other wraith cleanly in two.

However, the next moment, Zhao Tianhe realized who really had luck E.

Because when that ordinary wraith resurfaced, it had transformed into an elite wraith!

"Damn!" Zhao Tianhe cursed, quickly stepping back.

These elite wraiths had all manner of strange and unpredictable moves, making them nearly impossible to guard against. The best strategy was to retreat. The situation was chaotic, and there were too many monsters nearby. If surrounded, he couldn't hold out long.

But the slime dripping from above was excessive, and many ordinary wraiths deliberately caught it, causing more than a dozen elite wraiths to emerge at once!

"Jelos, you bastard!" Zhao Tianhe shouted angrily.

"What the hell! This guy can even do that?!" Jelos was baffled. It was rare to see a monster type that could strengthen others after death.

This was actually a form of unusual self-destruction.

Just as Zhao Tianhe was about to be overwhelmed by three elite wraiths, a black figure suddenly appeared.

Black Dai stepped in front of Zhao Tianhe just in time!

“I’m leaving now.” Before Zhao Tianhe could even thank her, Black Dai abruptly said this and then unleashed a fierce burst of magical power!

It had to be said, Black Dai’s magical burst, although equal in power to her original form, Artoria, was far more imposing.

Artoria’s magical burst felt like a slight distortion of the surrounding air, but Black Dai’s was far more spectacular.

Her jet-black armor radiated with streaks of dark red light, as if she had grown larger. The black holy sword in her hand irregularly swelled, resembling a giant black lightsaber!

But this was only an afterimage, because at the moment of the magical burst, the water surface beneath Black Dai’s feet sank several meters over tens of square meters, and she reappeared on the water a hundred meters away from Zhao Tianhe.

Boom!

The next instant, Zhao Tianhe was engulfed by a violently rising wave.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!...

Countless explosions echoed across the water surface. Black Dai’s figure flickered as if there were a dozen of her appearing simultaneously!

Accompanying the explosions were flying fragments of ordinary and elite wraiths, their deaths resembling bomb blasts rather than melee strikes.

From Jelos’s aerial perspective, the water was bombarded like by a fleet of bombers—truly spectacular.

‘To produce such an attack with brute force… probably only Elder Slaughter can do that. Few B-rank heroes can unleash such explosive power,’ Jelos thought. He knew Artoria’s abilities well, otherwise, he wouldn’t have agreed to upgrade weaklings like Zhao Tianhe to a B-rank dungeon.

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Zhao Tianhe sat on the swaying water surface, feeling like he was on a waterbed. He wiped his face, glanced at his status panel, and immediately understood why Black Dai had done that.

Her summoning time had arrived.

‘Using up the remaining magic power?’ Zhao Tianhe watched as Black Dai stopped killing and stood still on the water.

Having spent all her magic, her armor had vanished, replaced by a black dress quite different from the one she wore in the dance hall. This dress looked more formal and conservative, closer to an evening gown.

Unlike her original’s very modest long gown, which barely revealed anything, this dress had a strap-style upper part exposing a bit of cleavage. The chest and abdomen featured a cutout section, revealing part of her pale stomach.

Overall, it was somewhat alluring but not overly provocative.

Water splashed all over her excessively pale face, and her wet clothing clung slightly, outlining some pleasing curves.

“Well then, do your best.” Black Dai looked at Zhao Tianhe with the same serious expression and then disappeared.

“That was dangerous just now. By the way, I don’t know if it’s just me…” Jelos landed on the water and looked at Zhao Tianhe drying his clothes. “Why do I always feel like the bizarre monsters we run into are especially numerous with you? Well, you got a nice drop—too bad it’s a war hammer and you can’t use it. I’ve saved up a bunch of good gear lately; when suitable boss equipment appears on the market, I’ll swap some for you. Your outfit is too shabby.”

Jelos had high standards; basically, only boss gear caught his eye. He thought upgrading Zhao Tianhe with common equipment was useless and wouldn’t improve him much, so he didn’t bother.

“Maybe because I’m the protagonist,” Zhao Tianhe smiled, patted the warm clothes, and continued toward their planned destination while summoning Artoria.

When Artoria appeared, her nose twitched and her signature hair strand quivered, as if sensing something.

“You summoned Alter?” Artoria quietly asked, walking up to Zhao Tianhe.

“Uh? Yeah…” Zhao Tianhe nodded.

This was a bit strange because Alter was just Artoria’s ‘bad temper’ state, not another person.

At least, not yet—the two natures had not completely separated.

“Time allocation for combat is like this,” Zhao Tianhe explained briefly.

“For time’s sake… Hmm, indeed, for the third floor, it’s better for someone reasonable like me to cooperate with Ailei,” Artoria nodded, seemingly trying to convince herself.

‘Is this self-disgust?’ Zhao Tianhe watched Artoria and felt like laughing.

But Artoria’s worries didn’t linger; the second-floor battle was intense.

The reinforced elites leading each group were incredibly strong, almost beyond the ‘elite’ category—more like mini-bosses. This was one of the difficulties that began appearing in B-rank dungeons.

Sometimes these reinforced elites would even evolve into true bosses, causing multiple bosses to spawn in a dungeon. This was different from bosses appearing simultaneously during a spawn event. If, by chance, the third floor also spawned multiple bosses, it would be either a windfall or a disaster.

Forty minutes later, at the entrance to the third floor, located beneath the lake on the second floor, everyone began casting protective magic on themselves before entering.

There would be no boss spawn on the third floor today, but the environment was even harsher.

Passing through a green light barrier, they entered a terrifying water area crowded with countless green tadpoles and visibility of less than ten meters.

Several mages immediately began casting various continuous-area damage spells to clear a path, wiping out all the tadpoles and barely expanding visibility to fifty meters.

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Countless ordinary wraiths were instantly killed by AoE magic; only a few elite wraiths survived the magical damage, either fleeing or attacking the group.

The third floor was truly a sea of death. The density of evil light here was so high that if leaked, it would be a world-ending disaster.

Reducing the evil light concentration was the core task of each dungeon expedition. It was hard labor—though this area was smaller than the second and third floors, it still covered twenty square kilometers. Being an aquatic zone, it required three-dimensional cleanup, making the difficulty obvious.

Frustratingly, killing these little tadpoles yielded no experience points.

Even with three level-five mages and two level-six mages, they had to continuously consume mana potions and alternate resting.

After all, the third floor also had elites and even reinforced elites!

Here, the mages’ burden grew heavier, highlighting the importance of melee fighters.

The red-haired youth, Hack, bared his chest and endured the poisonous bite of a giant reinforced elite resembling a massive python. At the same time, he grabbed the creature’s neck and relentlessly pummeled it. The giant serpent’s body tightly coiled around him.

This reinforced elite, with water elemental traits, secreted copious toxins from its fangs. Blue-black veins spread around the wounds but stopped and even showed signs of healing within ten seconds.

Hack’s adaptive resistance had produced antibodies, greatly reducing toxin damage.

With a surge of muscle power, he snapped the fangs lodged in his neck and back, causing the giant serpent to convulse in pain, squeezing Hack’s body so that his joints cracked.

Artoria seized the opportunity to unleash a magical burst, cutting the serpent’s body off and rescuing Hack.

The serpent’s severed body ignored the light damage on the wounds and forcibly reconnected. But a blazing spear pierced its skull and exploded it!

Ailei was summoned as well.

“Impressive. These two are probably upper-mid B-rank strength? One of them alone can hold the front of half a squad. If they grow stronger, they’ll be terrifying,” said the resting elven mage, Bree, to Jelos. “Han and I have been grinding here for five years to earn promotion to A-rank. You guys can do it in about six months.”

“Of course. We must do what needs to be done,” Jelos replied with a smile, not one for pleasantries.

“Hope we’ll still be one team then. Like Han and me, I prefer to be with strong kids,” Bree smiled, patting Jelos’s head.

Jelos was momentarily stunned but didn’t feel uncomfortable, after all…

Bree was actually his great-great-aunt’s full sister!

‘Ugh, I don’t want to be on a team with this person. It feels a bit gross…’ Jelos scowled and began casting spells.

Though Zhao Tianhe played a minor role in the third-floor battle—he didn’t cast spells to clear the water but only boosted melee fighters’ status and protections—his presence under Artoria and Ailei’s performance appeared mysterious.

Jelos found Zhao Tianhe’s true strength hard to admit, so he only said he specialized in curse magic.

Thus, the others saw Zhao Tianhe as outwardly friendly but inwardly proud, unwilling to exert himself in minor skirmishes.

Yet Zhao Tianhe was a man who had single-handedly cleared an artificial dungeon close to B-rank. There was no way he had such limited power.