Chapter 288: Vengeful Return

One attack flowed into the next without pause, a seamless chain of destruction that left no room for resistance.

“Whoa…” the group breathed almost in unison.

What unfolded before them was nothing short of overwhelming. Marcus and Pebble carved through the skeleton mobs like a storm given form, each swing landing with crushing force. At the same time, Goldie, Lyanna, and Camillo unleashed their own barrage of attacks from different angles, their damage numbers rising just as fiercely, keeping pace with Marcus in a way that felt almost unreal.

Within seconds, a single coordinated wave of attacks from Marcus and his summons erased everything within a three-meter radius. His strikes carried layered effects, stun, daze, knockback, even blindness, leaving the few survivors disoriented and helpless, unable to recover before the next blow came.

“Hundred Phantom Strike!”

With his agility pushed to its limits, Marcus moved like a blur. Two more flashes followed in rapid succession as he and Pebble pressed the assault, their weapons cutting through the air with ruthless precision.

The result was immediate.

A cascade of death rattles echoed through the hall. The mobs that had barely survived the first onslaught were struck again before they could even react, their health bars vanishing as if erased. In the blink of an eye, the area fell silent, wiped completely clean.

Most of the monsters never even realized what had killed them. Their attention had been fixed on the Sea Soul drawing their aggression, only to be torn apart from the flanks and rear by a storm of steel and magic. That was the cost of crossing paths with Marcus.

Clink. Clink.

Their weapons barely had time to rise before they fell. What remained of them scattered across the ground in the form of a few dropped items, the faint metallic sounds echoing against the stone floor.

“Bro, you’re insane!” Drunkard and Invincible Strong shouted together, unable to hold back.

These were Level 40 mobs, yet under Marcus’s lead, the rest of them hadn’t even needed to move. They simply stood back, watching their experience bars surge upward while the battlefield was handled entirely for them. The loot, of course, was an added bonus.

As Marcus advanced, Drunkard and Invincible Strong rushed forward behind him, quickly gathering everything that dropped. It was a familiar routine, one they had perfected across countless games, and Dominion was no different.

“Damn… Level 40 gear,” Drunkard muttered as he stuffed another piece into his inventory, his tone caught somewhere between admiration and annoyance. “We can’t even use this yet.”

Marcus barely acknowledged it. His focus was elsewhere, his thoughts already moving ahead of the fight.

’If that last strike had crit,’ he thought, eyes narrowing slightly, ’that entire pack would’ve disappeared in one rotation.’

As the Sea Soul and Pebble pulled in another wave of enemies, Marcus didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward again, this time aiming for a cleaner, faster finish.

“Kill.”

The word left his lips quietly, almost casually, but the intent behind it was absolute.

“Hundred Phantom Strike!”

-1,500! -3,000! -3,200!

A flash of yellow cut through the stream of damage numbers.

’There it is.’

The critical hit landed cleanly, and before the mobs could even stagger, his summons followed up with their own area attacks. The entire cluster collapsed instantly, their forms breaking apart as their essence fed directly into the group’s rapidly rising experience.

The main hall of the fourth level stretched far wider than it had seemed at first glance. The density of monsters, combined with their fast respawn rate, made it a perfect grinding ground. Marcus advanced steadily, clearing everything in his path with methodical precision, leaving nothing alive behind him.

Ding!

[Congratulations, Stonehaven, you have reached Level 31. HP +100, MP +50. You have 5 stat points to distribute.]

The notification came sooner than expected. Grinding higher-level mobs paid off exactly as he had anticipated.

Without hesitation, Marcus assigned three points to Strength and two to Constitution, reinforcing both his damage output and survivability.

Behind him, DragonBlade and the others were leveling at an even faster pace. They didn’t need to lift a finger. Simply staying within range was enough, and trying to join in would only risk disrupting the rhythm Marcus had established.

By the time they had cleared roughly two-thirds of the hall, the density of monsters noticeably increased. It was then that something familiar slipped into Marcus’s line of sight, a dark figure moving among the pale ranks of skeleton warriors.

“Bro, look,” Drunkard called out, with Invincible Strong already grinning beside him.

They had spotted it too.

Amid the sea of bone-white armor stood a single figure clad in blackened plate, a Skeleton Marshal. It held a longsword at its side, a faint, oppressive aura spreading outward from beneath its feet.

Their expressions shifted instantly, grins stretching wide, eyes narrowing with anticipation. They had been waiting for this encounter.

Marcus’s lips curved slightly, though there was no warmth in it. ’So you’re still here.’

A large part of the reason he had come down to the fourth level was for this very moment. The last time they had met, this Skeleton Marshal, along with its companion, had forced him into a retreat. Today, he intended to settle that debt.

Marcus was not someone who let things go.

“Where’s the pig?” he murmured.

His gaze moved past the layers of Skeleton Warriors and Vampire Zombies, scanning carefully until he found it.

’There.’

The Bone Boar crouched beside the Marshal, its body formed from jagged, interlocking bones that gleamed faintly under the dim light. Even at a glance, something about it felt wrong.

Marcus’s expression shifted.

’That’s… bigger.’

The creature was nearly twice the size it had been the last time he faced it. If it stood upright, it would easily dominate everything else in the hall. The tusks jutting from its jaw curved outward like blades, and the spikes running along its spine looked sharp enough to tear through armor.

“What the hell…” he muttered under his breath. Can this thing evolve?

It was the same Bone Boar, he was certain of it, yet the presence it gave off now was completely different. Before, it had been little more than an annoyance. Now, there was a weight to it, something dangerous that pressed subtly against his instincts.

Then the memory surfaced.

This Boar, along with the Marshal, had been summoned by the Dark Sorcerer in a last-ditch effort. Marcus’s heartbeat skipped slightly as the pieces fell into place.

’Don’t tell me… this thing actually grows stronger over time.’

The thought didn’t sit well with him.

The last time they fought, it had barely scratched him. So why did it feel like a genuine threat now?

He couldn’t answer that yet, and the distance between them placed the Boar outside the range of his Insight skill. Charging in blindly would be reckless.

Marcus slowed his advance, shifting his focus back to the surrounding mobs.

One pack at a time.

Against the old Bone Boar, he would have confidently ended it with a single Desperate Strike. But this version was an unknown variable, and he had no intention of underestimating it. Revenge meant nothing if he made a careless mistake.

“Boss, don’t forget, there are two of them,” Gloomy Arrow reminded him, pointing toward the Boar.

“I see it,” Marcus replied calmly, giving a slight nod.

He paused just long enough to address the group, his tone steady but firm.

“Everyone stays back. This Boar isn’t the same as before. Don’t get close until I’ve cleared the surrounding mobs and we’re ready to move in.”

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