Re: Love & Magic

“Umm, this looks more dangerous than I thought,” Arai muttered as he entered the dungeon with Princess Nerissa and Zevien. The door behind them also disappeared after they entered inside.

Zevien nodded subtly after seeing the creepy passage with bloody thick vines on the ground and the walls. He took out his dagger and held it in his hand.

Princess Nerissa walked forward without hesitation as she also brought out a whip that gave off magic power.

‘Tarto, what is the magic power of this princess?’ Zevien asked as he followed behind her in the passage.

“2230 magic power,” Tarto answered, “you won’t win if you fight her because she also has access to a very powerful magic.”

‘I should have refused to come here.’

“Meow~! Don’t be a chicken. Life is all about absorbing various experiences.”

Zevien rolled his eyes but didn’t reply. He was more afraid of death than before because now, he was with Vernisia. If he died, he wouldn’t be able to stay with her, and that possibility scared him.

‘Whatever happens, I refuse to die,’ Zevien thought as he grit his teeth. He didn’t want to separate from her.

After walking for two minutes, they left the passage and arrived at a big cave with a slimy floor and blood vines on the ceiling, ground, and walls.

“I don’t see any monsters to kill,” Arai uttered with confusion, “isn’t that a bit strange since it’s a dungeon?”

“They are coming. Get ready!” Princess Nerissa spoke while licking her lips and cracking her whip.

*Creeeeeee!**Creeeeeee!**Creeeeeee!**Creeeeeee!*….

The ground started trembling, and they heard weird sounds.

“What is coming?” Zevien asked with narrowed eyes as he looked at the walls.

“The Xenodogs. Kill every Xenodogs; only then can we proceed ahead and kill the Xenowrath, the boss of this dungeon,” princess Nerissa said before suddenly, the walls exploded, revealing four new passages.

From the passages, dog-sized monsters with six legs and weird heads with two sharp sword-like horns arrived.

“I’ll handle two passages; you two handle the other two!” Princess Nerissa waved her hand to create a lightning net that blocked one passage. All Xenodogs who came through it were sliced while she waved her whips and released strange shockwaves that exploded the Xenodogs in another passage.

Zevien waved his hand and conjured two purple orbs simultaneously, as his mastery of the awakening spell had increased. Both purple orbs exploded at the entrance and killed a bunch of Xenodogs at once, but more were coming.

He internally cast Somatic Sadness and oozed out a despair aura that caused all Xenodogs around him to become depressed and confused as they couldn’t attack him properly. But he was killing them with his dagger and the purple orbs.

‘The despair aura is nice. I should use it more,’ Zevien thought as he saw that the impact of despair aura on low-intelligent creatures was very high.

Arai also killed Xenodogs in the 4th passage using his spear and the ghost spears conjured with his magic.

After thirty minutes of continuous fighting, the Xenodogs finally stopped coming.

Zevien was a bit tired since fighting this long consumed his stamina. Arai was dead tired, while princess Nerissa was also more tired than both of them combined. She looked at Zevien with a surprised expression and spoke, “you got good stamina.”

“Yeah,” Zevien nodded before looking at the four passages and asking, “there are four passages; which one should we go in?”

“4th passage. But we take a five-minute rest and recover our stamina before fighting the boss,” princess Nerissa said as she sat down on a rock.

“What is the deal with this dungeon? It doesn’t seem like you came here for the first time,” Zevien asked curiously.

“It’s my first time here, but the backyard of the castle can spawn a different dungeon entrance at the wall every month because of a magic item that we have,” princess Nerissa said with a smile, “however, this dungeon has spawned before, and we have its records, so I know that we have to go through the 4th passage to fight the boss and clear the dungeon.”

After resting for five minutes, everyone stood up. Zevien and Arai followed princess Nerissa’s lead into the 4th passage.

Two minutes later, they arrived at another cave, but…

Arai and Zevien involuntarily gulped after seeing the so-called Xenowrath.

It was a five meters tall creepy flower with bloody vines sticking to it everywhere. It had two big eyes like those of a snail’s as they protruded from the center of the flower. The weird creature, Xenowrath, sensed Zevien, Arai, and princess Nerissa quickly after they arrived here and attacked them by shooting thick, bloody vines.

“You are on your own now! Try to survive and also attack when you get the chance!” Princess Nerissa shouted as she jumped high to dodge the vine and waved her hand as she shot her whip towards Xenowrath’s eyes. The whip’s length got extended and wrapped around Xenowrath’s eyes and then shrunk, causing princess Nerissa to get pulled along with it.

Zevien also easily dodged as he didn’t hold back and unfurled his vampire wings to fly. Arai jumped to the side to dodge and conjured his spears to attack.

Princess Nerissa also started attacking after descending behind Xenowrath. She already destroyed one eye of Xenowrath.

Zevien also attacked the remaining eye of Xenowrath with his purple orbs and Nyxite Claws while dodging the blood vines’ attacks.

*Chriiiiiiiiiiiii!*

After both of its eyes were destroyed, Xenowrath released a strange sound, displaying its anger! A round blood sphere materialized on top of it before it started releasing sharp, long bloody needles everywhere.

Zevien stuck himself into the ceiling since the needles shot downward. Princess Nerissa frowned as her barrier was holding on, albeit barely. On the other hand, Arai was struggling.

Zevien saw Arai’s barrier on the verge of breaking and quickly used Somatic Sadness to create another barrier around him.

Since he was not getting attacked, he flew towards the flower, released Nyxite Claws towards the bloody sphere, and destroyed it.

Afterward, he quickly used the Hellblazer spell as a wave of darkness shot towards the flower’s core. He continued releasing Hellblazer as the Xenowrath cried in pain and anger.

“Good!” Princess Nerissa nodded as she started conjuring a big attack. Two magic circles appeared behind her before they merged and released a dark red lightning-crackling orb. The orb hit the flower’s lower body and tore it open before entering inside and exploding.

*BOOOM…*

After the Xenowrath died, it turned into motes and revealed three chests in its place.