Duskbound

Velik had originally been planning on waiting until Yugon was cleansed of the monster infesting him, but when Sildra had informed him that it might take as much as an hour to kill the creature, and then another hour or two for Yugon to recover enough to really answer questions, he'd changed his mind.

Giller was more than powerful enough to keep Yugon contained with her metal controlling skill, especially with the man already beaten down. Velik left them behind without too much worry and returned to the mine, where he once again descended to the bottom of that shaft. This time, he stopped to fish Yugon's halberd out of the pile of rubbish and haul it back up to the top. It only took a few minutes, and he wanted to have it on hand for the hunter to use later.

[You have helped slay an agent of corruption (level 46).]

The system notification came in about forty minutes after Velik left the camp, which just proved to him that he'd made the right call. Every minute he delayed was another chance for the rest of the corrupted team to realize one of their number was missing. If they figured out they were under attack and got organized, Velik's job was going to be a lot harder.

Two more, at least. Three would be better. That would give us a numbers advantage.

He was half an hour into exploring the mines when he found a monster. At first, he was a bit surprised to see it, but when he stopped to consider that he was in a dungeon, he had to admit it made sense.

It looked sort of like a bat, except the size of his chest and with a wing span as long as he was tall. Instead of fur, it had segmented chitin covering its body, and its face was missing a normal bat's conspicuously pig-like nose. A sharp, pointed beak jutted out instead.

The monster was clinging to the ceiling at the mouth of the tunnel Velik was in, no more than a hundred feet away. It was facing him but didn't appear to have noticed him yet. [Apex Hunter] wasn't at all threatened by it, which told him that he could easily close the distance and skewer the thing before it could react.

The issue was that he didn't think it was alone. The tunnel opened up into some sort of natural cavern behind it, the perfect place for a dungeon to put a large champion elite, and Velik was concerned about what he might awaken if and when he set foot in there. While he doubted it would be threatening to him, the dungeon itself wasn't really his opponent. The corrupted hunters were the real danger.

The smart move was to find another way forward, but Velik figured he'd mapped out most of the level already. The mine was almost entirely made of a main shaft that had branching side tunnels. Nothing looped around or connected to anything else, not really. He was on the main line right now, past the spot Yugon had been guarding, and he didn't think there was any other way to go deeper.

And it's not like I've got unlimited time to look, either. I hope whatever's in there is easy to kill.

He called on [True Form] to assume his wolf shape, even though the tunnel was a bit small. There'd be plenty of room at the end, and right now, he wanted the incredible boost to his physical that would speed him along.

When the skill finished its work, Velik burst forward. He cleared the space in the blink of an eye, too fast for low-level monsters like the bat to even realize he was there before they died. Velik tore through it, his teeth crunching its armor and his paws tramping it after he spit it back out.

[You have entered the domain of a champion elite: Akarin the Night Lord.]

Figured.

A thousand more bats roosted in the cavern, none of them visible until Velik passed out of the tunnel and got his first good look up. They hung from the ceiling, some larger than the one he'd killed and some small enough to be normal bats. Any one of them could be the champion, but Velik expected that monster would stand out from the crowd when it finally revealed itself.

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The whole colony took immediate and hostile notice of his presence, and within moments, he was being swarmed by dozens of bats. They flew by, slashing at him with system-enhanced wings, and failed to cut through his thick hide. Some attacked his face, but they quickly learned to steer clear of his snapping teeth. Velik wasn't making quick progress in thinning their numbers, but he was practically invulnerable to their weak attacks.

More dangerous by far was the sound of their wings flapping and their bodies blocking his vision. When the truly dangerous attack finally did come, Velik was worried he wouldn't notice until it was too late to avoid it. Fortunately, he could do something about that.

[Dread Lance] burst out of his mouth, disintegrating a few dozen of the monsters in front of him and sending out arcing tendrils of energy that killed even more outside the initial blast radius. In terms of absolute numbers, it probably wasn't worth the expenditure, but it cleared out a space for him to finally get a look around, which was why he saw a huge, man-sized form swooping down on him.

The monster, probably the champion since it seemed to be something shaped like a person but with bat wings, recoiled from the sudden burst of light Velik's skill let out, but it recovered quickly enough and resumed its dive. Where its feet should have been were wide, grasping claws spread wide to rake across Velik's face.

Instead, his mouth clamped down on the monster's leg and his neck muscles flexed to tear it out of the air. Velik slammed the monster into the ground, then swung his head in a sharp snap to flop his victim around a bit. Its chitinous armor cracked with each impact, and within moments, the champion was lying on the ground, broken and dead.

[You have slain Akarin the Night Lord (champion elite, level 31.]

Easy enough. Now if I can get rid of the rest of these bats, I—

Velik leaped sideways, crashing through a cloud of bat-monsters that weren't quick enough to get out of his way. No less than three arrows slammed into the stone where he'd been standing, one of which pierced the dead champion. The fourth and final arrow lodged itself in Velik's hind quarters right above his right leg, drawing blood.

"Damn, you're a fast one," came a voice from the far end of the cavern. "Don't know what you are, but I'm impressed."

With the champion dead, its minions had gone wild. Some of them remained in the cavern, swooping around in crazy patterns, crashing into each other or the walls. Most of them, however, flooded out the tunnels, which meant that within moments, the air was clear enough for Velik to get a good look at who'd attacked him.

It was a man, five foot tall at most, holding a bow taller than he was. He was slender, with narrow shoulders and thin arms. If not for his face, Velik would have thought he was looking at a child of ten or twelve years. He wasn't fooled, though; that man had put four arrows in the air in less than a second, and he'd put enough force behind them to drive them into solid rock.

Revick.

The hunter had some history with Torwin, from what Phun had told Velik. They'd competed with each other for years and were regarded as equally skilled. They'd even risen up to gold at the same time, but Torwin had started to slow down as he'd gotten older, and Revick hadn't.

This fight was probably about as close to fighting the old [Ranger] as Velik was ever going to get, something he wasn't at all eager to try his hand at. Still, he would have been confident in his chance at winning if that were the extent of things. He was maybe ten or twelve levels lower, but he had a unique class and had his stats bumped up from [True Form]. Those were good odds.

"Big wolf," a second voice said. "How'd that get down here?"

A woman walked out of the tunnel behind Revick and stopped next to him. Unlike the archer, she was close to seven feet tall and probably three hundred pounds of pure muscle. An axe that had to weigh a hundred pounds by itself was casually slung over one shoulder, and the confident sneer she gave Velik had him suppressing an involuntary shiver.

Two-on-one was not what I was looking for.

"No idea, but if it's here, that probably means Vestuf is dead."

Velik cocked his head to the side. Who's Vestuf? Do they mean Yugon?

"What a pain in the ass," the woman said. "Alright, let's kill it. At least the pelt will make for a nice cloak."

"You should have seen it take down the bat," Revick told her. "It's not going to go quietly."

"Please," the woman snorted. The axe came down with a swish, and she set herself into position. "Watch and learn."

What was her name again? Phun definitely told me. Agora? That sounds right. Well, close enough.

The woman threw herself forward in a leap that easily cleared the hundred feet between them, and Velik twisted to the side to avoid her slashing chop.