Chapter 69: Level 30 Giant Variant?

Before they reached the second chamber Eren saw the total number of chambers on this last floor.

Three.

Finally some good news!

But the vibrations in the walls had gotten strong enough that even Mel could feel them now. She kept touching the root walls, then pulling her hand back like the surface was too warm.

“Stop touching things.”

“Sorry. It feels weird.” Her face didn’t look very sorry to him.

She’d been showing that rebellious side of hers more and more as they interacted in the dungeon. She wasn’t that talkative with him when Emily was around but alone things got intimate really fast.

When they reached the second chamber Eren noticed it wasn’t just bigger but also filled with the same plant monsters.

The ceiling stretched up into complete darkness like the first room but the ground here was covered in a thick layer of moss that glowed faintly on its own. The color wasn’t white or yellow but green.

In the dead center of the room sat a crystal the size of an elephant’s head. It pulsed with white-blue light that made everything in the room look like it was underwater.

Dozens of Thornwalkers surrounded the crystal in every direction. Eren tried to count but gave up after seventy because more kept appearing in the darker edges where the light couldn’t reach.

[More.] Fury’s ears were flat. [Some are behind the crystal. I can smell them.]

But the truly strange thing was what floated behind the massive crystal. There was a second tiny crystal. It was no bigger than his fist and deep red instead of the giant crystal’s blue-white glow. It hovered a meter above the ground and spun slowly like some anti-gravity trick was holding it up.

Every creature was facing the big crystal. Some had arm-branches pressed into the ground around it. Others touched each other in chains that connected back to the main crystal like roots feeding a tree.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Eren grabbed Mel by the shoulders and pulled the girl back against himself. Then he tapped both wolves’ tails with his foot to make them notice. As Mel squirmed between his arms, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, “We need to go back and make a plan. If you make a sound, I’ll increase your training ten times over once we get back to the village.”

The joking threat didn’t work at all. She started making weird little noises in his arms and kept trying to turn around.

What was the problem now?

But a few seconds later, when Mel turned toward him with a bright red face and pink-tinted eyes like she was about to throw herself into his arms, he understood immediately.

Shit. It was the physical contact.

Even if he had somehow reduced the effect of his Charisma stat by ninety percent, that was probably only for long-range influence. Keeping Mel that close for so long and speaking right into her ear had been a mistake.

Holding the girl tightly as she hovered on the edge of fainting, Eren returned to the first chamber with the wolves following behind them.

He finally let go and Mel dropped herself on the floor of the first chamber.

Mel lay down on the ground like she’d done thousands of push-ups and then collapsed on her chest with no strength left to move. She looked at him badly and let out a sigh. “Don’t touch me when I’m not mentally prepared. Come from the front first if you’re going to touch me.”

Eren had expected the girl to say, “Don’t touch me at all.”

But he was probably still shirtless, his body had become ridiculous and he still couldn’t fully suppress his Charisma. No wonder it was messing with her head and body this much.

The words of a young elf beautiful enough that, if Emily didn’t exist, he would have already tried every possible way to get her sent a light shiver down his back.

Don’t think about stuff like this.. Also, Emily is going to kill me.

Eren didn’t want to comment or drag the topic out.

“What do you guys think? I think I should go in first and clear the place in general. They probably can’t do anything to me.” He turned to the wolves and tried for a few seconds not to look at the young elf lying on the floor in very light clothes. The longer he stayed away from Emily, the worse things were going to get and he wanted to get out of here.

[Wouldn’t they trap you with branches again?] Rury still hadn’t forgotten the moment her feet got caught.

Eren’s physical stats had reached such an absurd point after the last few levels that he was almost sure even a weapon from Earth wouldn’t do much to him anymore. But if too many thick branches wrapped around his body, losing his mobility was still possible.

“I’ll be extra careful not to get caught. They aren’t that fast anyway and the speed they use their limbs is even slower. The only real problem is the blind spots and the thorns they throw.” This time Mel nodded. One of those thorns had almost hit her in the head and despite all her focus, she hadn’t been able to defend herself.

Fury ignored his sister’s excited nodding and focused on Eren instead. [Wouldn’t it work if we attack the crystal too when you draw their attention?]

“Yeah, it would. Hey Mel. Here’s the exact plan. Once you fully recover, we’ll go back inside, but I’ll handle the main attack. You three only hit the giant crystal if you get a chance. Something like that is probably the dungeon core.”

“Can’t I fight too?”

“If something happens to you, I don’t know what I’d even say to your brother. Just stay next to Rury and Fury and don’t fight unless it’s necessary.”

She didn’t look happy at all after hearing that. Mel’s face was still pink, and she made a weird sound through her nose before tossing her shoulder-length hair and turning her head to the side.

At least, she tried to.

But because she was doing it from that position on the ground, all her hair just fell over her face and made her look ridiculous.

Eren turned around and fixed his eyes on the passage between the two chambers.

The creatures inside were completely the same as the ones in the first room.

He calculated where they were and from which point he could clear them the fastest. For someone who normally didn’t like thinking too much and avoided concentration-heavy games like chess, he had drawn up a very detailed movement plan in his head.

He even went one step further and mapped out the suspicious spots in the room he could jump onto, climb across and absolutely shouldn’t touch. He also ran through a few times how he could properly use his Scimitars in both hands.

Eren turned around and fixed his eyes on the passage between the two chambers.

He muttered “I can go in alone and clear a path. You three hit that big crystal the moment I pull enough of them away from it.” Eren looked at the wolves who were already getting ready for the idea.

[And the small red one?] Fury pressed against his leg.

“Ignore it for now. Big one first.”

Rury’s tail was doing the slow controlled wag that meant she was holding herself back. [Can I eat the crystal?]

“No.” Both Eren and Fury said it at the same time with synchronized Beastin.

..

Eren walked into the second chamber with both scimitars drawn. He picked the densest cluster on the left side and sprinted straight at them.

The first Thornwalker didn’t even turn before his scimitar split its center mass. The root knot cracked apart and the creature collapsed. His left blade caught the second one on the way through and green sap exploded across the moss.

[You gained 100% energy of Verdant Hollow Thornwalker Level 22]

[You gained 100% energy of Verdant Hollow Thornwalker Level 22]

The third and fourth came at him together with slow steps.

One from the front and one reaching for his legs with vine arms from below.

Eren jumped…But it wasn’t a normal jump but something his body did on pure instinct.

He cleared both of them by two meters, flipped once in the air because his momentum carried him that way and came down on a fifth Thornwalker blade-first.

Did I just do a backflip in combat?

He definitely did. And it felt natural in a way that scared him a little. His body at forty-plus stats wasn’t just strong or fast anymore. It was doing things he’d only seen in martial arts movies where they used wires and editing tricks.

But this wasn’t a movie. This was real and his muscles remembered the rotation perfectly.

Seven Thornwalkers turned away from the crystal and started moving toward him. Then twelve. Then twenty. The vine carpet on the floor rippled as the room itself tried to slow him down but his speed was too much for the moss to grab.

Eren cut through the monsters in wide arcs that sprayed green sap across the glowing moss. Not always he could kill them with this approach but when he was serious, his every hit aimed for the damn center! Every kill move was clean because he had learned from the first chamber exactly where to strike.

He had killed more than twenty in under a minute or so.

The Thornwalkers started adapting. Three of them linked their vine arms together and created a wall of thorns that blocked his path. Another group circled behind him while the floor vines grabbed at his ankles with more force than before.

They’re coordinating. But these stupid things aren’t supposed to have this much brain power.

He wondered if the crystal told them what to do but he couldn’t learn the truth of that.

He ripped his feet free and jumped again. This time higher than four meters into the air where nothing could reach him. At the peak of his jump he threw both scimitars downward into two separate Thornwalkers like javelins. Both blades hit center mass and both creatures dropped.

He landed between the dead ones, pulled the scimitars free and kept moving. He also stopped to try looking cool. Mel wasn’t even looking at him. She was focused on the crystal.

“NOW!” He shouted toward the tunnel entrance.

Rury shot past Mel like a brown golden streak and her Beast Claw tore through three Thornwalkers that had turned to intercept her. Fury came in low and fast on the opposite side heading straight for the crystal.

Mel ran behind the wolves with her dagger ready. She looked a little bit terrified but her legs kept moving. That was her only job. Keep close to the wolves and don’t die.

But things stopped being simple very fast.

A shape pulled itself out of the ground between the crystal and the wolves. It wasn’t a Thornwalker but something four meters tall made of twisted vine ropes with no legs and four long whip-arms ending in thorn clusters the size of his fingers.

[Verdant Hollow Root Sentinel – Giant Variant Level 30 *Elite Boss]

How the hell is this dungeon recommended for Levels 8 to 20, huh Evon? Give me a damn explanation!

The Sentinel’s whip-arm came down on Fury. He dodged left but the second arm cracked the ground next to him hard enough to send moss and stone flying. Fury yelped and scrambled back.

Rury hit the Sentinel’s base with her claws but the root mass was too thick. Her Beast Claw left glowing trails but barely cut the first layer.

[This one is tough!] She sounded more excited than concerned and started attacking the enemy from different angles.

She was having too much fun in this dungeon.

Eren carved through the Thornwalkers between them. Six more fell in thirty seconds!

He felt like a big giant warrior with scimitars in his hands.

He reached the Sentinel and drove both scimitars into its center. The blades sank deep and hit something hard inside the tangle. Inside was a knot-heart bigger than any Thornwalker core he’d seen so far

The Sentinel didn’t scream with a mouth but with a vibration that shook the entire area around itself. It wasn’t dead yet.

Its four whip-arms came at him simultaneously but Eren was faster. He pulled one scimitar again and slashed the closest arm clean off while keeping the other blade buried in its core.

The severed arm started regrowing but slower than the tiny Thornwalkers. Surprisingly, its regeneration was way slower than he expected.

Bigger core and body means slower regen, huh. Good to know.

He twisted the buried blade and the Sentinel shuddered. Rury hit the other side at the same moment with her crimson Beast Claw punching through roots to reach the core from behind.

The Sentinel collapsed with a wet crunch that sprayed green sap across everything within five meters.

It was disgusting but also satisfying. Eren ignored the system notification and shouted.

“HIT THE CRYSTAL!”

Mel sprinted past the dead Sentinel’s remains and drove her dagger into the massive blue-white crystal. “Edge Enhance!” The silver aura on her blade bit into the crystal’s surface and a tiny crack spread from the point of impact.

Rury and Fury slammed into the crystal from the opposite sides. Then Mel stabbed again and again with her enhanced dagger while screaming curses she did definitely learned at the village meeting!

Eren cleared normal mobs with his only scimitar while the others attacked the crystal. He didn’t know where did the other one was.

Probably under wet spray left behind by the giant sentinel.

And finally after a minute, the damn crystal shattered.

[Verdant Hollow Dungeon – Original Core destroyed]

[WARNING: Remaining creatures will not despawn. Elevated aggression detected]

That’s the opposite of what I wanted to happen.

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