Dungeon Diver: Stealing a Monster's Power

Chapter 95

We make our way down toward the final mountain.

Maria continues to lead the way, freezing the forest solid while Bruce happily smashes the fragile Ice sculptures to bits. It's a waste of energy in my opinion, but they both seem to be enjoying themselves.

Abby, Nessa, and I take the rear. Abby speaks up.

"Ya know, I really didn't expect to see you here. It feels like just yesterday I forced you through those E-Class Dungeons."

She lets out a laugh, I roll my eyes.

"Hey! I've been training really hard since then. I was equally as surprised to see you here!"

She looks up at me for a few seconds, then smiles.

"You look really different Jay. A lot... older."

".... Thanks."

Abby blushes and hits me on the shoulder.

"It wasn't a compliment! I-I'm just stating the obvious.."

Nessa grins and turns to me.

"Oh yeah? So Abby was your trainer?"

"Uh- Yeah. Something like that. It's more like she was trying to get me killed back then."

I smirk thinking back to the few dungeons we raided together, then look over to Abby. We both let out a laugh... but I was being serious... She was basically trying to kill me back then.

30 minutes of Ice smashing and old "training" stories later, we make it to the base of the third mountain. Maria turns gleaming with a smile ear to ear pointing upwards.

"Almost there!"

I look up, then nod firmly.

"Lead the way. Everyone stay sharp."

I use enemy detection and scan the final mountain. It's covered in moving targets. No matter what path upward we take, we will eventually run into danger, especially near the peak.

No more than 10 minutes into our trek upward the loud screech of another Griffin appears. With a look back for confirmation, Maria takes care of the monster in one fell swoop. The same magical display of ice fragments showered down on us as we continue upwards.

Over the next 30 minutes, another 2 creatures attack. Maria takes care of them with ease as well. I speak up as we approach the mountain's top.

"Careful up ahead. We have company, and a lot of it."

My enemy detection skill is showing over a dozen enemies all clumped together about 100m in front of us. One of them is way too high-leveled to be a monster, so my guess is these are all hunters.

Maria replies with a thumbs up but doesn't slow her pace.

"Got it!"

We continue through the ice-ridden dense forest until the distinct sound of human voices comes through the tree line. Maria stops freezing the wilderness and we all draw our weapons approaching with caution.

As soon as I make my way through the heavily wooded clearing, I see four groups of hunters all standing in an orderly line at the center of a small grass-covered clearing.

To my left, the trees part wide open to look down on the other two mountains in the distance. To my right, there's a light grey twisting portal with a test supervisor watching hunters enter one by one. He speaks up as we approach.

"Get in line! Or don't, I couldn't care less. Fight to the death if you really want. The only rule is, you all have to fight the boss solo. This room resets every 30 seconds for a new challenger to fight it. Multiple people may technically be fighting at once, but they'll be in alternate boss rooms. Of course, you'll all be fighting the same boss, just in different copied boss room pocket dimensions."