Chapter 46: Not running away

As soon as he said that, everyone who was not fighting a larger golem rushed ahead. They unleashed every attack that they had on the small golems before they could finish their charge, and Leon moved behind, his shadow spreading out fast and consuming everything that remained of the smaller golems until he had gotten everything inside of it.

He turned around and faced the direction of the core. That was the only way that they could stop this, so he ran there and, without a single thought or hesitation, leaped in.

"Leon!"

"Leon!"

His party screamed out his name in fear, but he was already inside the hole.

Leon landed on the ground that surrounded the core. He saw the core pulse in a slow rhythm. A few seconds later, the core lashed out. A massive tendril filled with energy came his way.

"Shadow!"

"On it." Shadow created a dome that took the attack. The core unleashed a barrage of attacks one after the other, but none of them was capable of touching Leon. When it was done, Leon finally dropped the dome and stared right at it.

"Destroying you would be an absolute waste of resources that could be channeled into something else."

He placed his hand on the ground, and Shadow spread out. It went under the core and was wide enough to ensure that the core would sink in once. He swallowed the core entirely and stored it inside his shadow space.

The moment the core was gone from this dimension, the remaining golems collapsed to the ground as rubble. Leon climbed out of the hole and saw everyone standing, still on guard and worried that the next attack would come soon enough.

An expedition that had sent out over thirty people in total was now left with about twenty.

Leon walked to his party. He saw that everyone was fine, so he heaved a sigh of relief.

"You stopped it, boss," Roger said.

"Call me Leon, and yeah, I managed to stop it. The core was what was causing all of this. The golems were connected to it," Leon explained.

"This dungeon seems far too dangerous for the hunters here," Sophia pointed out.

"Yes, if you, Ben, an A-ranked hunter, struggled against the first monsters that we saw, doesn’t that mean this is higher than A-ranked?" Lily said.

"Higher than A-ranked?" Riker asked in fear. She gripped her staff and looked around. "Doesn’t that mean it is S-ranked?"

She looked at Leon. Leon gave a soft nod. "That seems to be the most plausible explanation," he said, not wanting to let them know that he had known all along.

’I did not expect an S-ranked gate to be this scary. In a few minutes, I have seen more people die than I even know. I’m barely keeping myself from cracking.’

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "We should leave this gate and report what had happened to us," he said, but at that very moment, they heard the sound of footsteps, slow and dragging, coming from the direction that they had come from.

It was one of them. Someone had run away during the fight and was now walking back to them. His entire body was shaking badly, and his breathing was haggard. The fear that formed in his eyes was unlike anything they had ever seen before.

He was terrified.

"There is no gate back," he managed to say before coughing blood onto the floor and collapsing to his knees. Tears poured out even more.

"We are doomed."

A massive shadow appeared behind him as he spoke. A Minotaur, but it was nothing like the one that Leon had fought. It stood at a staggering eight feet tall, with a body packed with muscle and dense bone, and in its hand was a battle axe.

It looked down at the puny human as everyone stared in a state of shock. Then it raised its axe into the air and huffed smoke from its nose.

"Shadow, move!" Leon said, and Shadow ripped through the floor to try and save the dude before the axe hit, but he was half a second too late as the axe came down and decapitated the man right there in front of everyone.

Leon froze. He found it hard to do anything or even swallow, and he was not alone. What had they dragged themselves into? Was this the terrifying nature of the S-ranked gates?

"Run, we have to run!" one man screamed and turned. He ran away as fast as he could, and others began to follow desperately.

Each of these people here had been fitted with the best gear possible due to the investment from the likes of Leon and others. They were meant to be good enough to at least brave any gate, but now they were all running in utter fear.

Sophia grabbed Leon as she saw him standing there and pulled him with all her might. He snapped out of it and started running alongside them.

The Minotaur watched them run and then opened its mouth. It pulled its head back as far as it could go, and then it hurled its head forward, sending a massive stream of flames rushing out towards them.

Shadow formed a wall between them and the flames. The flames slammed into the wall and fought to get through, but they could not.

When the flames died and Shadow removed the wall, the Minotaur gave chase immediately, not wanting to let its prey get away.

While running away, Leon was locked in his mind.

’Is this how I’ll act? I have the resources in every way, shape, and form. I should be capable of standing up for myself, yet here I am, running from a monster.

Tch, I can’t have the system and still be a coward. I refuse to be that way.’

"Keep running ahead!" He yelled at his party and stomped his foot hard on the ground. He spun around and summoned the spear again. In that same motion, Shadow wrapped around Leon completely, turning him into a fully black figure as his hands hurled the spear with all his might.