The amordophon continued its momentum, slaughtering its way through a blockade of beasts as it finally reached the forest which hid Dylan’s core. The beast had taken down thousands of mana worth of monsters and plants, but with its ridiculous summoning cost, Dylan had to at least complete the task, otherwise all of his sacrifices up until now would have been in vain after-all. If Dylan truly did not want to complete the quest, he would’ve just had to drive or lure the beast outside and go about his merry day.

Though it was possible for the beast to make an even bigger rampage on the outside compared to the wolves, and in this case, it was completely likely that the traces it would leave behind would be even more evident due to the fact that it quite literally spawned within his dungeon rather than outside.

Well, regardless of this, there’s only a few hours left of the last day heh, In the end, I may have to use my guardians, but we’ll also gain a new beast. Maybe I should name it..?! Suddenly getting the idea in his head, Dylan suddenly shot to attention. It would be quite valuable to make one or both of the amordophons into guardians; he could reinforce their strength until he had enough mana to buy them, and they would be able to protect his core while he was biding his time.

Dylan’s vision moved over to Kuraura, Grotho, and the newly re-summoned Charlatan. All of them had been reinforced over the days that the amordophon had entered the dungeon, but Charlatan still had the upper hand due to his versatility. Charlatan now had thunder glands within him, as well as the fire glands he had been upgraded to have. Due to the nature of the guardians, Dylan was able to re-summon them at their peak point, meaning that his guardians continuously grew stronger. For instance, if one of his guardians trained and got physically stronger since the last time they were summoned, then the next time they were summoned, they would retain the physical strength they had trained for. At the same time, however, they became a lot more expensive with each increase in strength. Currently, Kuraura, Grotho, and Charlatan were all at a new high in their power; although their ranks remained the same, Kuraura and Grotho were infinitesimally close to the (C-) rank, while Charlatan’s power had solidified his position in his rank. The three guardian goblins looked up as they recognized Dylan’s presence, and they kneeled before Dylan.

“My Lord, we know of the threat.” Kuraura hastily said. “We will mobilize to deal with the threat. I hope you like our new training.” Both Charlatan and Grotho nodded their agreement, Grotho giving off an excited gaze while Charlatan stared fanatically at Dylan’s ghostly figure.

Dylan perked up upon hearing Kuraura’s words. He sent an order for them to move out as soon as they were prepared, and also warned them of the amordophon’s strange runic ability; the glowing orb of light which lit up like the sun. Thinking back at it, the rune on its body had resembled several figures kneeling before a large orb. Could the figures on that rune actually be collapsed on the ground instead of prostrating? Thinking about his creatures twitching on the floor after that burst of light which even he had been stunned by, Dylan was willing to believe that this was more likely. Maybe the design of their runes can tell me about their power… Dylan filed this thought away for when the reward amordophon would appear. There was always time for experimentation later. For now, survival was the most important.

Grotho couldn’t stop his face from stretching into a huge smile. Riding on the back of an iron-spine wolf, gripping its fur as it slunk through the woods, he looked around at all of his allies. Groups of goblins trotted along the ground or rode on evolved wolves behind them as they made their way towards their enemy. The one they needed to defeat in the name of their Lord.

Grotho’s smile stretched impossibly further as he imagined the beautiful battle that would come; although his strength was nowhere near enough to defeat the opponent, he had his brothers with him, and his Lord at his back. Grotho wasn’t the type to shy away from a strong opponent, as he respected the strong. In fact, a challenge on this level excited him, and he wanted to test out his new powers. Against the fire-throwing wolf man, Grotho had pitifully died without putting up much of a fight, and he couldn’t fight the humans which had entered the dungeon, so now he would give it his all with his brothers. Although one might think that his unyielding and battle-freak nature may cause him to have rebellious thoughts in regard to his Lord, Grotho himself would have to disagree: his Lord was completely worthy of his devotion and respect. A being powerful enough to force him to kneel with a single word could only be but a god…right? Grotho’s Lord was an existence which he would never be able to confront in his lifetimes. Ever. Thinking this, Grotho let loose a loud laugh towards the ceiling, prompting Kuraura and Charlatan to glance over.

“Grotho, the Lord told us not to make much noise. We need to be careful when dealing with that thing.” Kuraura growled, irritated at Grotho’s lack of concern; although he felt the same elation coursing through his veins, he wasn’t about to risk disobeying the commands of his Lord. Charlatan, on the other hand, let out a chittering laugh before turning back to face the front. As the three named guardians, they also needed to put up an example for the rest of their group, so they would be the ones leading the attack this time. Their goal was to stall and hopefully trap the beast with minimal losses of their forces.

After several minutes of travel through the forest, they heard the sounds. The roar of the beast, and the shrieks of some of their Lord’s monsters; the giant spiders which had followed them down to this floor. Hearing the fight going on, Grotho roared his challenge, and the goblins following also screeched out their challenges. An echoing roar called back, and several trees were smashed through as a massive shape charged towards them.

Startled, Kuraura shouted: “Get out of the way!” as he leapt off the back of his wolf, landing among the low branches of a nearby tree. Charlatan steered his wolf to the side, and the other goblins followed suit, clearing out to the sides as the amordophon came crashing through the trees. Only Grotho remained charging straight ahead at the amordophon on his iron-spine wolf.

Immediately, the three guardians took action, Grotho used the charging momentum of his wolf to leap off, swinging a heavy stone club over his head onto the amordophon’s skull. Kuraura leapt from above, wielding daggers which had been absorbed and re-summoned from Ali’s corpse, and Charlatan jabbed his rusted spear towards the ribs of the amordophon. In an instant, all three of their attacks collided.

As a result, Grotho’s arms was quite literally torn off from the impact, as the beast barely slowed with its charge. His body was knocked deep into the underbrush, where he was ordered by his Lord to retreat. Charlatan’s spear stabbed lightly into its side yet was torn out along the way, and Kuraura’s daggers carved several lines into the beast’s back before he was aggressively tossed off. The amordophon charged straight into the group of goblins, tearing goblins off of their mounts with its teeth as its hooves trampled the rest under its feet. The attacks of the goblins simply couldn’t harm it, even with their number advantage.

“Warriors, retreat! Shamans, prepare! Berserkers, beasts, forward! Scouts, attack!” Charlatan’s chittering howl carried over the battlefield as he took the role of general, and the goblins in question made their moves. The warrior and normal goblins fell back as waves of stones were pelted at the amordophon from scout goblins with their slings. Berserkers and beast goblins began to distract and restrain the beast with all of their effort while wolves attacked its flank. Shamans raised their spirit stone staffs and the spirits within began to cast magic, pelting the amordophon with layers of dirt, stone, leaves and wood which began to slowly surround the beast. Kuraura paused for a moment before lifting his right finger and pointing at the amordophon. The two spirit stone horns growing from his head began to glow as the earth and nature spirits within them called up their own magic. The surrounding trees twisted, and larger stones began to entangle the amordophon, which had been ensnared up to its neck while it was blindsided by the rocks of the scout goblins and the distractions and attacks of the berserker and beast goblins. The earth and plants solidified themselves around the amordophon, creating a cocoon around its limbs, leaving only its head visible.

The beast roared in frustration as it thrashed about, with each shake of its body producing large cracks on the earth surrounding it. The shamans seemed to pale as their mana ran out, and they quickly retreated on the backs of the wind wolves which carried them. Grotho came back with his gruesome wound completely healed due to Dylan’s [Mana Healing], carrying a large stone. Both warrior and normal goblins began to appear from the underbrush, carrying heavy stones. They began to pile up the stones around the amordophon’s cage, careful to avoid its thrashing head. After the stones were put into place, Kuraura waved his hand, and another layer of dirt and plants sealed the beast, filling the space in between each stone to further confine it. In the end, the amordophon’s head was left jutting out from a huge pile of stone, dirt, and wood with no way to free itself. The beast roared in frustration, and its eyes full of hate stared at every goblin it could see. Its frustration was further increased when several spider’s worth of web nets fell onto it, slightly trapping its head. Stone-clawed spiders landed around the goblins, and Kuraura and Charlatan glanced at them before turning back to their target. Grotho, on the other hand, sat down bored; he had been expecting a better fight, and wasn’t expecting the beast to be trapped that easily, even with such a large number of goblins. Deep down, he was also disappointed that he was blown away so easily from the impact with the beast; though that couldn’t be blamed due to their differences in strength. In fact, he had gotten lucky with having only one arm torn off.

Even Dylan was surprised at how simple it was to trap the amordophon after surrounding it. In fact, the goblins working together under the leadership of Charlatan, Kuraura and Grotho had less casualties than he had expected. Still, the numbers weren’t that low, as 11 goblins, 8 goblin warriors, 13 goblin berserkers, 2 goblin scouts, 10 dire wolves, 10 iron spine wolves, and 3 wind wolves had been killed in the confrontation, with many more gruesomely injured. The ones who had perished would be absorbed by the Dungeon, and the rest would be healed back up with [Mana Healing], so the losses weren’t severe.

Why it didn’t use its rune again is the real question. Dylan pondered to himself as he observed the struggling beast. After he acquired the other amordophon, he might have to run some experiments on them to further flesh out their capabilities. Overall, he was quite happy with the result. Checking the time left on the quest log, he ordered all of the goblins to resume their guard on the beast and not to let up, and actually further increase the defenses retraining the beast just in case it broke out. Afterall, there was still about an hour left until the mission was completed.

While keeping a mild eye on the amordophon, Dylan finally decided to release Maynard, Calphas, and Aron from the forest cave they had been stuck in for some time due to the humans entering and the Amordophon quest. Over the last week they had begun to get more comfortable within the Dungeon-building a small campground inside the breeding cave they stayed in, and hunting monsters to gain experience there. Occasionally they even made small talk with Dylan; well, mainly with Maynard being his loud and belligerent self. Both Calphas and Aron weren’t talkers apparently, but Dylan wanted to get closer to all of them to find out more about the outside world and other creatures they may have spotted on the outside, as well as to understand them a bit better and possibly get them to trust him further. Thinking about the things he still had to do to grow further and solidify the second floor’s population, Dylan sighed before reaching out to Maynard and the group to give them their freedom.