The hobgoblins were all at least seven feet tall, with broad chests and long canines. They looked fearsome, but the Players had experienced far worse in the Tower. This was the first time Bon had seen monsters organize themselves into a formation. Their intelligence was much higher than the monsters he had fought earlier.

“Identify.”

Target cannot be identified

It looked like the Identify skill was useless outside the Tower. He had suspected as much.

There were twenty five hobgoblins in all, mustered into a five by five square. They marched forward slowly and silently. Bon ran forward to meet them, with Phil close behind.

“Let’s not leave anything to chance,” he heard one of the hobgoblins shout. That hobgoblin was wearing armor with purple stripes painted on the breastplate. He must have been the leader of this squad. “Form the crescent.”

Bon did not wait for them to finish getting into formation. He threw out his chain, and the weighted end hit the commander’s head which exploded in a burst of blood and gore.

“Charge,” shouted another one. Bon had been hoping that the loss of their leader would dismay them, but this squad of hobgoblins seemed to follow a strict hierarchy. They charged at him without hesitation.

He had to make sure that they didn’t encircle him, or Phil would be in trouble. This wasn’t a game in the Tower any longer. Death would be final. He threw out his sickle, which burst into flame, slicing the necks of two hobgoblins on the right. He could have used an Area of Effect skill to wipe them out instantly, but both Phil and he needed to experience real battle.

“Stay to the right of me,” he said to Phil, “And fend them off as best as you can.”

“Okay.” Phil didn’t look worried at all. Bon hoped that he wasn’t treating this too lightly. Phil ran forward and drove his spear into the chest of his enemy. It met a layer of resistance. He immediately pulled it out and backed away. These monsters had HP shields just like them, so it would be a while before Phil managed to critically wound one.

After seeing that Phil was alright, Bon concentrated on the monsters in the middle. His chain shot out, hitting a hobgoblin on its chest and throwing it back thirty feet, back into the portal. He was confident that it would not come out again.

Just at that moment, a crowd of Players ran towards them on the battlefield. Reinforcements! He dashed forward with his sickle and sliced apart two hobgoblins that were running towards Phil. The rest of the Players now engaged in combat. Mages shot their single target spells. Area of Effect spells wouldn’t be as effective now that the hobgoblins were spread out. The few Summoners among them, sent their tame monsters to the front line, blocking the hobgoblins’ advance. Close combat Players manned the gaps, making use of any opportunity to strike. Archers and Gunslingers kept firing, raising a cacophony of sound.

Bon jumped onto the shoulders of a golem that had been summoned by someone nearby. He launched his chain at the hobgoblins’ heads from above, causing a splatter of green to blossom wherever he set his sight. The hobgoblins then started retreating back into the portal. He saw Bojana, Toby and Errel fighting a few stragglers.

“Withdraw,” shouted a Player. It was Jim. Bon landed softly on the ground as the golem on which he was standing was unsummoned and disappeared suddenly.

The Players cheered as the last two remaining hobgoblins retreated into the portal. Bon found Phil and then met up with the rest of his friends.

“We did it,” Toby said excitedly.

“Not yet,” said Bon. “We still have to go in there and close it for good,” he pointed at the portal.

“Are you crazy?” Jim had been close by and heard them talking. “It’s way too dangerous,” he said. “We don’t know if the portal will suddenly disappear while we’re in there. We don’t know how many of those things are inside. We don’t know anything.”

Now that Jim was managing a guild he wasn’t as laid back as before. It must have been hard on him.

“I’m going in,” said Bon. “Who wants to come with me?”

“I’m with you,” said Phil. Toby, Bojana and Errel came forward along with Phil.

Jim shook his head and walked away. “Crazy,” Bon heard him mutter.

Bon walked into the portal first. It wasn’t as smooth a ride as it had been in the Tower. It would have been quite disorienting for most people. It took a few minutes. While traveling through the portal, he was surrounded by a tunnel made up of many lights. The colors of the lights were ever changing, and shooting about like lightning. They were surrounded by a backdrop of blue. He could also hear a rumble that resembled thunder every now and then.

He finally appeared in a large cavern, where a squad of approximately a hundred hobgoblins was lying in wait. He shot a comet at them, limiting its range of effect so that only the squad was hit. A few hobgoblins at the periphery managed to survive, but he quickly killed them off with his sickle. He wanted his friends to have a smooth landing.

Phil appeared a few seconds later, followed by the rest. Bon scanned the dungeon with his Mana Sense augmented with qi, mentally creating a map of the entire layout, along with the positions of the monsters. There were only hobgoblins in this dungeon. He summoned ten rock golems to guard his party on all sides.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“What’s with the golems?” Toby asked.

“They are our shields,” Bon patted one of the golems. “The hobgoblins are all gathered in groups. We won’t be able to train if they come at us en masse.”

“We aren’t here to train,” said Phil. “We’re here to close the dungeon.”

“Why don’t we do both?” he asked.

“For one, like Jim said, the portal might close behind us and trap us in this dungeon forever.”

“It won’t,” said Errel. “The portal is being constantly replenished by mana. The mana density in here is very high.”

“You heard the man,” Bon said. “Let’s train. The Tower tried to mimic these monsters’ behaviors, but it wasn’t able to pull it off perfectly. We need to get used to fighting the real monsters.”

The dungeon was made up of many tunnels and caverns. In some places the tunnels were too narrow and the golems had to walk in single file.

They soon had their first encounter with hobgoblins within a cavern in the dungeon. Bon allowed two hobgoblins to get past the golems after the party had gotten into formation. He took Siobhan’s place in the party. He diminished the power of his magic spells so that they would be close to Siobhan’s level of casting and damage. Bojana killed the first monster, eviscerating it with one of her skills. Toby killed the second one in a mad whirlwind of metal. They had all improved greatly. Bon allowed a few more monsters to enter through the boundary of golems. As they grew used to the rhythm of battle, he let in more and more monsters.

Finally, he opened the golem shield wall entirely, allowing his party to deal with the long ranged monsters—the hobgoblin archers and mages. These were tricky to deal with. Errel was constantly healing his party, while they used all their control skills on the mages, picking them off before starting on the archers. They took about half an hour to finish the entire battle.

“Let’s rest,” said Phil.

“Not yet,” Bon said. “We will fight one more squad before taking a fifteen minute break.” He had stashed some canned food and water in his Inventory a long time ago. They wouldn’t starve even if they stayed here for a while.

After their eighth battle, Phil sat on the ground.

“I’ve had enough,” he said.

“Fine,” said Bon. “Let’s take an hour’s break and have some food. We’ll head on to the Boss after that.” Even though the Tower had strengthened their bodies, they weren’t tough enough yet. The mental and physical fatigue of fighting eight battles, plus the one outside, had really taken its toll on them.

Bon used his golems to roam through the dungeon, slaughtering any hobgoblin that came their way. Within an hour, the dungeon was clear of all monsters except for the ones in the Boss room. There was something in the Boss room that shone like a beacon of light to his Mana Sense. Could it be the Boss? If it was really as powerful as his Mana Sense indicated, then he would have to fight this battle alone.

The Boss room was not at the center of the dungeon, as it had been in Munich. Instead, it was at the far end of the dungeon. They walked through the dark tunnels of the dungeon and finally found a large metal door. It looked out of place in this dungeon made up of rock. The images of two serpents adorned the door, one painted red and the other black. Their heads were intertwined.

Bon stopped Phil when he was about to try to push the door open.

“Let me go in first,” he said. “I’ll call you if it’s okay to come in.”

Bon opened the door and walked in. The cavern within was enormous. There was a yellow crystalline pillar in the center, with blue light shooting through it. Within the pillar, at the bottom, was a blue crystalline egg. That must have been the dungeon core. There were at least five hundred hobgoblins in the cavern, and a massive hobgoblin chief in charge. He was a few feet taller than the others.

Bon used his Mana Sense and found that the heavy mana signature was coming from the dungeon core. The hobgoblin chief was actually quite weak. There wasn’t anything to worry about. With his golem army, they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by numbers either.

The hobgoblins had noticed him opening the door. Bon quickly sent his golems inside.

“Come in,” he said to his party. “Stay about twenty feet behind the front line of golems.

The first wave of monsters came at them. As he had done before, Bon commanded his golems to allow five hobgoblins through. He helped his friends kill them. The golem shield wall held fast. His golems were too strong and sturdy for the hobgoblins to kill. The numbers of monsters he let in for his team to kill slowly increased. Their efficiency in killing monsters was skyrocketing. The hobgoblin chief had finally begun to act, after seeing many of his minions struck down. He charged at a golem, and the golem had to take a step back. Bon summoned three more golems to play with the chief, and then ignored him.

After hours of killing, his friends were covered in green blood. There were pieces of flesh stuck on their armor.

“This almost makes me want to puke,” Toby said as he looked at his companions, during a break.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Phil. “We could unequip and equip our armor again, but that isn’t a safe thing to do in the midst of battle. We should learn to live with the gore. We might not always have a chance to take breaks in between fights.” The Inventory had an auto-cleaning function, which was convenient. Legendary weapons didn’t get dull either, so they could fight on forever if they had the stamina for it.

“I feel sticky all over my body,” Bojana said with disgust. “I feel jealous of Errel and Bon. Wish I had chosen to be a ranged Player as well.”

“Try not to think about it,” Bon felt that they hadn’t toughened up enough. “Let’s finish this.” They killed the last batch of monsters. It was finally the Boss’ turn. Bon unsummoned his golems. The Boss was puzzled for a moment, but then laughed.

“You filthy humans,” the Boss roared. “I’ll turn you into pulp.”

Bon froze the chief for five seconds with a Freezing Touch, which was enough time for his friends to prepare themselves. Phil took the lead, dashing forward with his spear stretched out. Bojana became invisible and waited for an opening to unleash a burst of damage. Toby ran forward, his Zweihänder held behind him. He swung forward with such strength that the chief had to take a few steps back. That gave Bojana the perfect opening. They were doing pretty well. Bon fired off spell after spell as he imagined Siobhan would do. He had estimated what her mana pool was and acted accordingly. The hobgoblin chief soon fell. There was a gigantic gaping wound in its stomach, where Phil had given the final blow.

“Level up,” Phil said excitedly. “It’s great that we can still level up outside the Tower.”

“Wheeler said that it was because we’re absorbing life force when we kill anything,” said Bon. “The Tower has modified us to turn us into vampires of some sort. A part of the life force goes into the level up and the rest goes to the Tower to help with its operations.”

“Did he really say vampires?” Toby asked.

“No, but that’s what it seems like to me,” Bon answered. He walked to the crystalline pillar and broke the part that was holding the dungeon core. He took it out and studied it carefully. The dungeon disappeared around them, and they were back to the site of their first battle near the airport. He put the dungeon core in his Inventory for later examination and all of them unequipped their armor and weapons.

Nobody had noticed their reappearance. All eyes were on the empty space where the portal had been. Jim led a team to investigate.

“The portal is gone,” he announced. “We did it.”

“What does he mean ‘we?’” Bojana murmured.

“They did help a little,” Bon said.

“What do we do now? Hang around here?” Phil asked. “I’m really tired.”

“Let’s go then,” Bon said.

While they were walking away, a flood of journalists rushed in, heading towards Jim for an interview.

Jim rushed towards Bon, “You’re now part of Hunter’s Paradise,” he said and began walking towards the journalists.

“No thanks,” Bon shouted out. Jim couldn’t hear. The journalists had reached him and were besieging him with questions.

“Why did he say that?” Toby asked.

“He probably wants to take credit,” Phil snorted. “Some people are just—” he shook his head.

“Why is everyone close to Steve such an asshole?” Bojana asked angrily.

“Steve’s a good guy. Jim is too,” Bon sighed. “They’re just a little confused. Their circumstances have changed a lot, and they’re still getting used to the new situation. They don’t have their heads screwed on straight at the moment.”

“If you say so,” said Phil. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Should we tell them the truth?” asked Errel.

“I’m too tired,” said Phil. “The important thing is that the portal is closed. We’ll get our fifteen minutes of fame sooner or later, if that’s what you want. I don’t really care.”

“Right,” said Bon. “Let’s go.”

Back in his flat, after taking a nice and relaxing bath, Bon studied the dungeon core. It seemed to be crafted, not natural. There was a network of pathways inside, made up of mana stone. Bon used his Mana Sense to peek into the dungeon core and he saw strange rainbow patterns within a vortex of blue. It was constantly emitting different forms of energy. Mana was just one of them. This thing could create a dungeon and power a portal. What else could it do? Could it achieve inter-dimensional travel? Was that how the dungeons were appearing? Errel took a look at it, but was clueless as well. Ah, if only Wheeler were here. He had all the answers. Bon went to bed, hoping that a nap would give him some inspiration.