Chapter 304 Death Match and Quagmire

Amid the swirling mist, the thick, yellowish-green toxic miasma trembled at a sharp, terrifying hiss. Black, viscous slurry splattered as a massive force surged from the depths of the quagmire.

What had just been an unremarkable pile of packed mud and dead branches had transformed into a hideous insectoid beast reeking of death and ominous energy.

The monster gave the immediate impression of a twisted, unnatural amalgamation.

It resembled a massive, deformed deep-sea lobster, or perhaps a mutated aquatic spider.

Its entire body was encased in a hard, yellowish-brown segmented chitinous shell. The texture was rough and matte, densely covered in tiny scratches, etched lines, and the occasional tumor-like protrusion, exuding a cold, damp, and unsettlingly slimy chill straight from the earth's depths.

Its head shared these insectoid traits but was noticeably darker, as if forcibly welded on from another corpse. A pair of distinctly black-and-white, dead-cold eyes brimmed with chaos and cruelty. Its mouthparts consisted of multiple long, tough tentacles coated in slime that writhed and tangled together, enough to give anyone goosebumps.

Its most prominent feature, however, was the pair of massive, asymmetrical pincers growing from either side of its upper body.

These pincers were extremely overdeveloped. Their structure mirrored a lobster's or scorpion's, but the proportions were so exaggerated that they looked distorted and deformed from afar.

As for their destructive potential... the terrifying, crisp crack of the pincers snapping shut against thin air was enough to prove their power.

This bizarre lobster-like monster launched its attack from the rear of the party.

This left Margaret, who had been trailing at the back, standing right in front of it.

Because of this, she was the first to smell the thick stench of blood and rot radiating from the monster.

Her mind raced, desperately searching her memories for relevant information to identify the creature and formulate a countermeasure based on its physical traits.

But before she could, her muscle memory and survival instincts took over. Margaret subconsciously launched herself to the side, dodging the massive pincer that smashed straight down toward her head.

With a flick of her wrist, her longsword scraped against the monster's carapace. A teeth-aching screech erupted, and blinding sparks flashed along the edge of the blade, yet it only managed to leave a few faint white scratches in vain.

She landed awkwardly.

As the golden braid bound behind her head swayed, it caught a few splatters of thick, muddy water.

Only then did her mind finally complete its search, unearthing the monster's identity from the depths of her memory.

It was...

"An Armored Lurker!?"

That name had absolutely no business appearing in the Misty Forest.

In truth, even the veteran Adventurers passing through the taverns rarely mentioned this monster.

For one, its natural habitat was usually the Underdark, or the deep ocean.

It rarely appeared anywhere else.

Furthermore, it was exceedingly rare and boasted terrifying individual strength.

Most of the time, Adventurers who encountered one died to those massive, iron-crushing pincers before they ever had a chance to bring the intel back.

The color suddenly drained from Margaret's heroic, wheat-toned face.

An Armored Lurker had a Challenge Rating of "4".

This meant it would take a properly balanced party of four lv4 Class Holders—in peak condition and fully supplied—to defeat it without casualties.

But as for the current Oathkeeper Blackwood party, she, Thordin, and Goldensand might meet the criteria, while the mage Joshua was only a lv1 Class Holder.

While his unique status as a Spellcaster gave him powerful utility beyond typical Class Holders, in a high-intensity battle like this, he was undeniably the team's weak link.

"Fuck," Margaret cursed under her breath, her eyes tightly locked on the Armored Lurker ahead, gripping her sword hilt so hard her knuckles faintly paled.

While she was deep in thought, a gruff roar suddenly erupted from the other side.

"Razg (Dwarven for 'bastard'), look over here!"

Facing the enemy's sudden ambush, Thordin, the party's frontline dwarf Warrior, stepped forward without a hint of hesitation.

Bellowing, he slammed the Faceted Hammer in his right hand against the iron shield on his left arm.

"Clang..."

The invisible soundwave stirred up tangible ripples within the toxic miasma.

Imbued with some special power, it caused the Armored Lurker—which had just missed its strike and was preparing to chase Margaret—to suddenly freeze.

It then turned around and let out a piercing hiss at the dwarf.

Its aggro had successfully shifted.

Whoosh—Boom!!!

The massive pincer, wrapped in its yellowish-brown chitinous shell, crashed down, tearing a blank void through the yellowish-green toxic miasma.

There was no dodging—or rather, absolutely no ability to dodge.

Thordin barely had time to raise his iron shield above his head before the pincer smashed down a second later.

The dwarf's short frame vanished from everyone's sight almost instantly, driven completely into the depths of the quagmire like a nail hammered into a wooden board.

Thordin's combat technique was incredibly effective. Even though he had been smashed entirely into the ground—leaving only his shield embedded at the bottom of the mud like a screw nut—the Armored Lurker continued to pound away in a frenzy.

Naturally, his teammates weren't going to just stand by and watch.

Shadows flickered.

A phantom-like figure suddenly leaped into the air, the lean silhouette landing lightly on the Armored Lurker's back.

A dagger wreathed in pitch-black shadow energy struck down like a wasp's stinger, thrusting precisely into the gap between the carapace plates on the back of the monster's neck.

Corrosion. Explosion.

A cloud of black mist formed from pure shadow energy erupted from the dagger's blade, turning the surrounding shell pitch-black as the corrosion spread at a visible rate.

Unfortunately, the Armored Lurker's body was simply too massive. Such a clean strike might have been fatal against the woodland brown bear they fought earlier.

But against the monster before them, it only barely broke its defense, piercing the thick protective layer of chitin without reaching the vitals underneath.

A second later, the massive pincer swept the Rogue, Goldensand, off the Armored Lurker's back.

Hum—

The high-frequency shriek of energy whined through the air.

Three fist-sized, ochre-red orbs of light trailed their tails, wobbling through the mist as they smashed toward the monster's body.

1st Circle Evocation: Magic Missile.

Its force energy's special ability to bypass defenses, combined with its relatively low learning cost and casting difficulty, made it one of the most common and practical foundational spells among Spellcasters.

Joshua deliberately aimed at the wound Goldensand had just created, hoping to exploit the gap corroded by the shadow energy and funnel the Magic Missiles inside one by one to inflict real damage.

Unfortunately, his mental control was still lacking. Out of the three missiles, only one slipped into the wound; the other two slammed against the nearby carapace, leaving behind two sunken dents.

"Screech!"

A piercing, agonized hiss rang across the battlefield.

Striking the critical weak point at the back of its neck, that single small Magic Missile forced the Armored Lurker to straighten its body, half-rearing up as it wildly flailed its two pincers.

Regrettably, that was all it did.

Joshua wasn't some high-level Spellcaster with masterful mental control. If he could have accurately chained all three Magic Missiles onto the exact same spot, it might have dealt substantial damage to the Armored Lurker.

But right now, it only caused pain and a brief moment of stiffness.

That was enough.

The few rounds her teammates had stalled finally allowed Margaret, the party captain and a [Swordsman], to finish her charge.

Having practiced it tens of thousands of times to attain Mastery, her Class's innate combat technique, [Charged Slash], erupted in an instant.

Highly condensed sword light bloomed sharply along the edge of her blade, transforming into an exceedingly thin, long, and brilliant arc that flashed fleetingly through the air.

"Slice."

Rearing upright, the Armored Lurker's massive body stiffened for a split second.

Brownish-green insectoid blood sprayed out.

A small section of its tail and half of a hind pincer-leg were cleanly severed.

Without a doubt, even for a monster of this caliber, this was a severe wound capable of tipping the scales of victory.

But Margaret, having just unleashed that strike, showed no joy or relief on her face; instead, she looked even more grim and grave.

[Charged Slash] was already the most powerful and lethal combat technique in her arsenal.

In past encounters with enemies, relying on Thordin and the others to run interference, her fully charged slashes had essentially been unstoppable.

Every time she struck, it signaled the end of the battle.

Just now, she naturally held the same expectation.

Even if it couldn't kill the creature on the spot, she had hoped to inflict a wound severe enough to drastically cripple its combat effectiveness.

But the Armored Lurker's defensive capabilities exceeded Margaret's expectations.

The sword light, which should have cleaved through the carapace to split it in two, ground down to nothing after penetrating merely a few inches.

And severing a small piece of tail and half a leg... would only act as kindling to utterly ignite the ferocious beast's fury.

The situation was about to spiral into its most perilous state.

The Oathkeeper Blackwood party had to prepare to suffer heavy casualties, or even lose a member, in this fight.

"Everyone, be careful!" Margaret shouted to her teammates.

From the corner of her eye, she swept a glance toward the motionless Thordin, entirely buried in the mud, before looking over at Goldensand as the Rogue shielded Joshua and retreated.

She clenched her jaw tight.

Her feet, initially prepared to fall back, pivoted sharply as she charged straight at the Armored Lurker.

The dwarf's aggro effect had faded, and he wouldn't be able to free himself from the quagmire anytime soon.

She was the only one left in the party capable of brawling with the Armored Lurker in close combat.

If she turned and ran—setting aside whether she could even escape—Joshua and Goldensand wouldn't be stupid enough to stay put. If that happened, Thordin would undoubtedly die.

Once it finished killing Thordin, whoever the Armored Lurker chose to pursue out of the remaining three would likely not survive either.

In that scenario, their painstakingly assembled party would be reduced to just two people, no different from disbanding entirely.

Margaret couldn't accept that.

'Three of us... We still have a Spellcaster in our party. We aren't completely out of options!'

Their brief exchanges had already proven that despite its Challenge Rating of 4, the Armored Lurker wasn't an invincible foe capable of completely crushing them.

They could still leave marks on it.

If they paid a steep enough price, even if they couldn't utterly defeat it, merely repelling it for a short time might just...

As Margaret thought this, her powerful, long legs had only just taken two steps toward the monster.

However, the situation on the battlefield suddenly took an unexpected turn.

After suffering the pain of its severed tail and leg, the Armored Lurker surprisingly didn't launch a fiercer counterattack against them.

Instead, after several shrill screeches, it wobbled and dove deep into the adjacent quagmire.

The mud churned, and within a few breaths, it completely vanished from their sight.

"This..." Margaret paused in shock.

She called out to her teammates not to lower their guard, worried that the monster was feigning a retreat to lure them into exposing a weakness while lying in ambush nearby.

They stood back-to-back, remaining on high alert in place for several minutes.

It wasn't until a thick, heavily muscled arm thrust out from the nearby mud and the sound of a gruff, coughing voice reached their ears that they finally relaxed.

"Cough, cough... Give me a hand, I can't get out by myself."

...

...

Meanwhile, deep underground.

Abi stared at the pitch-black quagmire ahead, which stretched endlessly into the cavern's abyssal darkness, a hint of confusion in his voice:

"Lord Saloyan, is this direction... correct?"

Saloyan didn't reply, nor was he angered by the weak human's questioning.

Because he knew perfectly well that it seemed... they had gone the wrong way again.

He was now even more convinced of his decision: the moment he returned, he was immediately sending the devil in charge of the intelligence network to the Blood War.

The complexity of this passage leading through the Underdark, starting from the Petrification Lizard Lair downward, had vastly exceeded his expectations.

He might be able to vaguely pinpoint their heading using the directional intel provided, but like a massive river branching into countless tributaries, the endless, bizarrely shaped crevices and caves of the Underdark—both big and small—had become the greatest enemy stalling their progress.

Over the past few days, let alone a murky, abyssal dead-end quagmire like the one before them, they had stumbled across plenty of dangerous monster lairs and towering, sheer subterranean cliffs.

During their most perilous moment, he had even discovered a tunnel showing suspected tracks of a "Behir".

It was only thanks to his secret protection; otherwise, given the strength of this bottom-tier adventurer he had possessed, they would have died in some unknown corner long ago.

"Yes, turn back. We'll find another way," a hoarse, magnetic male voice echoed within his skull.

Abi obediently nodded and turned around.

"Understood, Lord Saloyan."

Just as he was about to lift his right foot, he suddenly tripped over something. Losing his balance, he nearly fell.

He stumbled two steps before struggling to steady himself.

Looking down, he found a small, yellowish-brown fragment of carapace embedded deep in the mud beneath his feet.

It seemed to belong to some kind of insect?

Abi shook his head and didn't think much of it.

He was just about to continue toward the exit to find another path.

An abrupt "glug" sounded from the viscous quagmire behind him, faintly accompanied by the high-frequency screeching unique to insectoid creatures.