Monarch Chapter 61

Chapter 61

Rayne had seen a lot of strange things since finding himself in this world. But dungeon plants with the hobby of latching onto one’s face easily took the top spot.

He raised his shield just in time as a patch of moss jumped from the walls, aiming for his throat. A moss creeper. One of the most annoying monsters in this dungeon.

It dropped to the ground the next second, and Rayne crushed it with his boot before raising his head and taking a look around.

The dungeon felt alive in the worst possible way.

Massive roots burst through cracked stone floors, twisting upward into thick trunks that scraped the ceiling. Pale green light seeped through glowing moss clinging to the walls, casting the tunnel in a sickly, humid haze. The air was heavy with the smell of sap, rot, and crushed leaves.

Every breath felt sticky in Rayne’s lungs. And the plants were moving.

The creatures swarmed out of the undergrowth in jerky, unnatural motions—humanoid shapes made of knotted vines and bark, their bodies stitched together from creepers and thorny stems. Bulbous seed pods pulsed where their heads should have been, splitting open to reveal tooth-lined maws dripping with viscous green sap.

Vine crawlers.

He and his party had fought swarms of them since entering the dungeon. But this time, they were up against dozens of them.

Kesh fought one next to him, Nate and John grouped together to take on a dozen on the far side, while Bran and Heins stayed in the back, the former firing arrows and the latter protecting his head from falling moss creepers.

“Cut every single one of them down!” Rayne barked.

He stepped forward and slashed low, his blade hacking clean through a crawler’s vine-like legs. It collapsed with a wet snap, thrashing and swinging its long, winding arms. Rayne took a step back, and just then an arrow punched into its head, sap splattering across the stone.

“Don’t let them pile up!” Bran said from the back. “More of them are coming.”

As if on cue, more poured in from between the roots—thin ones, fast ones, crawling on all fours like oversized plant-spiders. The crawlers came in all shapes and sizes.

They skittered across the ground, thorned tendrils clawing at boots and greaves, trying to latch on.

Kesh shouted as something wrapped around his ankle.

Rayne pivoted and hacked downward, severing the vine before it could tighten. “Keep moving! You know what would happen if they take hold. We need to finish them fast.”

But despite his words, he knew there were just too many of them.

Bran fired arrows point-blank at the skittering crawlers, but more of them kept appearing. And the taller, more humanoid ones slowly moved toward the centre of their party.

Rayne gritted his teeth, held his shield closer, decided he needed to lower the numbers himself, and charged straight into the group of vine crawlers.

A vine lashed at Rayne, the monster’s pod-mouth yawning wide. He bashed it aside with his shield, felt thorns scrape across metal, then drove his sword straight through its core. Warm sap splashed over his gauntlet, hissing faintly as the creature went limp.

Another immediately drove its vines into his back. Pain lanced through him, but Rayne turned, kicking at it.

As the monster stumbled back, he twisted his sword into its body and bashed the vines away with his shield. More crawlers jumped at him, but Bran’s arrows gave him enough time to finish one, then lunge at another.

At the moment, Rayne dearly wished for magic like Casper’s. Flames would have made a large difference in this dungeon. But for now, his blade’s edge needed to do the job.

Fortunately, the crawlers were slow. Their vines hit hard, but they stayed stuck in one place. Rayne simply needed to avoid their maws and cut off their heads. It was easier said than done, but Rayne had become an expert at cutting things by now.

He jumped sideways as a vine crashed onto the stone floor, tackled the crawler to the wall, then stabbed it through the pod-mouth.

He immediately turned, grabbing a set of vines coming at him, and swung his blade down. The monster screeched, revealing its maw—and an arrow lodged deep in it the next second.

Rayne finished it off with a cut across its shoulders.

Notifications buzzed in his mind as he finally felt the numbers lessen and began to relax. But just then, Kesh screamed from the back.

“Fuck!” Kesh yelled.

Rayne turned just in time to see it.

One of the larger moss creepers had leapt at Kesh, wrapping its vines around his face and neck. Even the helmet he wore strained under the creature’s assault.

Kesh screamed, staggering blindly. “Get it off—get it off!”

The creature clung like a living mask, thorny roots digging in as its face split open inches from Kesh’s eyes.

Rayne didn’t hesitate.

He sprinted forward and grabbed the writhing mass with both hands. Thorns bit into his fingers, ripping skin and tearing out a few strands of his hair as the plant resisted, screeching in a high, shrill hiss.

“Hold still!” Rayne snarled.

He wrenched it free in one brutal pull, feeling skin burn as the barbs tore loose. Before it could reattach to anything else, Rayne slammed it into the ground and brought his sword down in a savage arc.

The blade split the moss creeper clean in half.

Sap exploded outward as the creature convulsed once, then went still.

Kesh dropped to one knee, ripping his helmet off and gasping. “I thought it was going to eat my face.”

Rayne wiped sap and blood from his cheek, breathing hard. “Yeah, you’d be too ugly to look at then.”

“Agreed,” Kesh said, taking out his waterskin.

Rayne took the opportunity to scan the area. Around them, the last of the plant-beasts twitched and collapsed, severed vines slowly going limp. Bran’s arrows took out the last few crawlers trying to flee, while Kesh and John stabbed at the walls for any moss creepers that might be hiding.

It was their hardest battle in the last three hours, and they had made it.

“Everyone well?” Rayne asked, his voice echoing slightly in the tunnel.

Nate chuckled weakly. “Barely.”

“I doubt any more are coming,” Bran said, already moving to collect his arrows. “We should be close to the boss chamber by how many of them were there.”

“Another fight?” Heins muttered, holding his new spear, which he had switched to from a sword. “I don’t think I have much energy left.”

“Energy? You just stay in the rear stabbing things. These plants are far scarier up close,” Nate said, kicking one of the corpses. “Jason would have been a huge help with his large axe.”

Rayne agreed. But sadly, Jason—and even Quinn—had been sent to different quests with their own squads. They had fought alongside both of them for a while, and their absence was clearly felt.

At least Axel hadn’t given them any dungeons beyond their ability to complete.

“We rest for ten minutes, then move on to see what lies ahead,” Rayne said, slowly getting used to giving commands. “Drink a sip of your potions if you have deep cuts. And tell me at once if you feel anything strange. These plants haven’t had poison so far, but we can’t take risks.”

Everyone nodded and sat down while Rayne checked his notifications. No level up, but he had gained two stat points in Agility. That was as good an outcome as he had hoped for, especially since he hadn’t gained any stat points earlier today.

Once he checked his status—which showed him at level 27 now after conquering two dungeons in the past week—he moved toward Bran and helped him collect his arrows.

Most of them were broken after hitting vines, but a few were still salvageable.

Bran had also bought a lot of arrows, so if the boss chamber really was next, they could enter it well prepared.

As they worked, Rayne looked at the veteran. He had recovered enough that his sorry state inside the cocoon felt like a distant dream.

“Any pointers?” he asked.

Bran paused, then looked at him. “You did well. There were more monsters than any of us predicted, but you moved to end the larger threats yourself, which is good for building respect in your party. Still, you could have had Kesh follow you for support. Don’t grow too used to fighting alone. It’s a good skill, but a soldier is more often than not with his party.”

Rayne slowly nodded. Over the last week, he had grown used to Bran advising him on what to do and what not to do as a party leader. He still hadn’t asked why the man had recommended his name, but he was grateful for the guidance.

And it had helped him a lot through the last two dungeons they had cleared.

Compared to the massive bug and undead dungeon, these were fairly simple. Only one level and no rooms.

A straight path to the boss chamber, with only mobs and traps to worry about—the latter handled by Bran.

As they picked up the last unbroken arrow, Rayne shifted closer to the man and decided there was no better time to ask. “Why did you recommend my name to Axel?”

“For the party leader position?”

“Yes,” Rayne said. “I’m happy you did, but I don’t understand why. You weren’t with us on the supply quest. You had no idea how I would lead a party.”

Bran smiled, dusting off his clothes before looking directly at him and scratching his greying beard. “Because of what happened in the dungeon back then.”

Rayne raised an eyebrow. “My decision to go look for the rest of the squad?”

He snorted. “No, that was a stupid decision. Shawn was right back then. When you have a variable like an apex monster in the dungeon, there’s no point moving forward. Knowing when to stop matters just as much as knowing when to push.”

Rayne frowned. He knew his decision had been reckless, but he hadn’t expected Bran to support Shawn like this.

“Don’t get me wrong,” the old man continued. “You saved me and the others. But you did so because you knew those people. There was an emotional connection. Objectively, Shawn was right. He acted like a leader should—choosing not to risk his party’s life when they could retreat and call for help. Whether the others would have survived until then is another matter.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you recommended me,” Rayne said. “Especially if you think my decision was stupid.”

“Because everyone followed you,” Bran replied simply. “They didn’t argue. They trusted you. That’s a sign of a good leader.”

With that, Bran patted Rayne’s shoulder and moved toward the far wall to eat some bread, leaving Rayne standing there, thinking.

Had he really been wrong?

He hadn’t reflected on it much since escaping the dungeon, but he knew he had nearly died because of his choice. If not for [Lesser Regeneration], he would have.

The more he thought about it, the more he realised it was something he needed to consider.

But not here in the dungeon.

Soon the rest period ended, and the others stood on their own. Rayne drank some water before they moved into formation, Bran taking point to scout for traps.

Boots crunched softly over roots and leaves. The stone floor was completely overtaken, vines and moss growing haphazardly everywhere. Yet the same moss lit their path.

They kept their eyes on the ceiling in case another moss creeper dropped, but nothing happened for the next half hour.

The tunnel narrowed gradually, roots thickening until they formed a knotted archway.

Then, abruptly, the passage ended.

Bran halted first, lifting a fist. “Dead end.”

Rayne stepped forward and scanned the area. The wall ahead was sheer stone, overgrown with vines and creeping ivy, but the ground dipped sharply at their feet.

In the centre, the floor dropped away into another chamber.

Cold air wafted up from below, carrying the faint scent of rot and old wood.

Kesh leaned forward, peering down. “Don’t see a monster down there.”

Nate snickered. “It obviously won’t be sitting in the centre. It’s probably on the side, waiting for the first idiot to descend, so it could have supper.”

Rayne nodded, looking at Bran. “What do you think?”

“I think you should go down fast. You are the quickest here, and could actually take a blow,” he replied. “We have mostly fought monsters around level ten to fifteen till now, and the boss is usually twice as strong as the mobs. Maybe a little more. You can keep it distracted while we jump down.”

“Okay,” said Rayne, even as Kesh looked as if he had just agreed to kill himself.

He knew it was dangerous, but he doubted anyone else would be a good fit to go down first. And like Bran said, he was the quickest.

They worked quickly after talking on a plan on taking down the monster.

Rope was secured around a thick root that jutted from the wall like a natural anchor.

Once he checked the rope’s strength, Rayne grabbed it and slowly descended down, making sure he didn’t land on the ground right away.

Instead, he hovered and looked around for the monster, but when his eyes actually landed on it, he froze, immediately sliding down on the rope and hitting the ground with a dull thud.

“Rayne, you okay? Did you see the beast?” Nate asked from above.

“Yes,” he replied. “Get down here. You need to see it.”

All of them lowered themselves down one by one, and as soon as they got down, they all froze like him, looking at what was sitting at the corner of the chamber.

A massive corpse.

One of a treant—or what remained of one. Its bark-like skin was split open, its trunk cleaved nearly in half. Jagged splinters radiated from the wound, sap long since dried and blackened. Thick roots lay severed around it like fallen limbs, and its branch-arms were hacked apart, scattered across the floor.

Nate whistled under his breath. “That thing is the boss?”

“Was,” Bran said quietly. He stepped and crouched beside the corpse, inspecting the damage. “Whatever did this was relentless. I believe the perpetrator kept striking the bark until it cleaved. Probably used a heavy sword.”

Rayne swallowed, eyes fixed on the treant corpse. He had read about them in the journal, and they weren’t easy monsters to bring down. And he couldn’t understand why it was dead in the first place.

“Do you think there was someone here before us?” Kesh asked, looking around the chamber.

“Probably,” said Rayne. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise. We should search the room. See what we can find.”

All of them nodded, and they got to inspect the massive chamber. Rayne’s eyes never left the treant even as he looked through the vines and growth on the walls.

It oddly reminded him of the bug dungeon, and how the dungeon rooms had been cleared.

But he had never found out who had done it. Was the same person or group went through this dungeon too? Why? What was the—

“There’s a door here!”

John’s voice made his thoughts pause, and everyone immediately turned back towards him. He stood near a curtain of ivy that he was cutting through, and behind it, Rayne could see a stone door.

Probably the one containing the dungeon core.

He had gone through two of them already, and they were simple rooms with cores sitting on a podium.

“Should we open and check?” John asked, looking at him.

Rayne nodded. “Yes, it probably only has the core, but we migh

t be able to find clues on what happened here.”

The man nodded and cut out a few more vines before putting his hand on the handle, then he pulled the door.

It opened with a creak, and none of them were prepared for what sat inside.