The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 258: The Sword in the Stone

Mina woke up three hours later to see that Lily was sitting by her side, silently guarding her. She could smell the distinct scent of fresh blood on her. She must have killed more than one enemy while she was asleep!

“Thank you…” Mina said with difficulty, making Lily notice that she was awake then quickly help her sit up.

“It’s my duty, you would have done the same!” Lily said, “What happened? How did you end up like this?” she asked as she checked Mina’s injuries. She was mostly healed, but her arm was still severed. Amputated parts can’t be regrown by healing pills. Lily believed that her young master would definitely find a way though!

“It is those bastards….” Mina cursed and then began to tell lily what happened to her.

Yesterday, when she entered the dungeon. She appeared on a lower floor than this one. It was hell there with minimal lights and very strong silver skeletons everywhere. She fought her way and escaped until she reached a stairway that led her to this floor.

Reaching the garden, she immediately encountered a group of players who were seemingly waiting near the stairway. They acted very nice, but being guided by both Hilda and Victor, she didn’t trust them. She just feigned being a noob and managed to get some information from them about this place!

According to them, this dungeon was very large, going more than 7 levels! They were now on the fifth floor, and no party ever succeeded in reaching the 8th floor where they were presuming the boss’s chamber was located. The seventh floor was very hard as no light sources worked there at all! And players could only see a couple of feet around them.

So naturally, players who entered this dungeon had no place to go, and they got stuck here and kept accumulating like mice in a forgotten trap! They were waiting and biding their time until enough powerful players entered the dungeon and formed a team to confront the boss!

Apparently, this was not only the safest floor, but it was also the only place that had food and water, so the players who had been locked inside this dungeon for more than a year, had all survived here.

They have split into different groups, some of which began to resort to cannibalism.

According to those bastards, they were the good guys… Mina could easily tell that they were lying! Mina could easily tell from the way they were looking at her. She didn’t expose their evil thoughts though but played along acting as a first-time dungeon raider asking about many stupid things to lower those guys' guard.

By then, she had long noticed how they used a formation to close any escape routes she had.

The only reason she didn't attack or escape at that time was that she felt that they were heading in the direction her sister Mana was in.

After awakening their skill, the yin-yang sword, and training it, The twins gained the ability to feel each other's location.

Thinking about what to do, Mina decided to risk it. She could always escape using one of the talismans Victor gave her!

The more she walked with them the more she became certain that they had her sister! Especially when one of them asked her if she had a twin sister. She answered with a no, but he was not convinced.

Knowing that she would most likely get imprisoned, she quickly hid her storage ring in her mouth and replaced it with a normal one on her finger.

She was right! As soon as they stepped inside the camp and the wooden gates were closed, Those guys showed their true faces! They used the edges of their swords to help Mina strip her clothes, after that they took her possessions before throwing her in a cage where ten girls were imprisoned. Mana was there in addition to one other girls from her class.

The rest of the girls were rogue players who found themselves in deep shit after rushing into this 'F-ranked' dungeon before the big forces 'monopolized it'!

They were imprisoned here and they have been through hell many times after being captured then raped.

According to them, they were the lucky ones in their groups. their captors would kill the men and eat them. As for the women they would keep them as a ‘strategic reserve’ and for entertainment!

Thankfully, Mana and her classmate were fine. Although they had some very bad luck and got rendered unconscious and then imprisoned as soon as they entered the dungeon. The men didn’t really touch them yet… Not all the way… They seemed to have fed them some strange fruit though, it caused them to become very weak!

Apparently, they were waiting for their big boss who went on a raid to the floor two days ago. He wanted to get a rare flower that bloomed on the seventh floor. And the men didn’t dare to touch the ‘goods’ in his absence.

Knowing that they must act fast, Mina quickly took out a stack of clothes, vanishing talismans, and some weapons from her ring and gave them to the girls who waited until most of the men went to drink and eat then began to escape.

They quickly used their weapons to cut holes in the makeshift cage and sneak out. Their plan was going perfectly until they reached the gate, where to their terrible luck, the boss who had just returned was unloading his trophies!

He was standing there with his giant body and grand bastard sword overseeing his men as they unloaded the goods from their backs. They didn't have storage rings.

The girls tried to sneak past them, but that man quickly noticed them and screamed for his men and activated some weird skill that burnt all their talismans! The vanishing talisman had no effect against him, as he had some skill that allowed him to smell his enemies! That’s why he was one of the few who could go raid in the darkness!

Having no other choice the twins screamed to the girls, telling them to escape in different directions then used an explosion talisman to create chaos as the men quickly followed them.

Mina, who ran alone, had the worst luck. The boss had chosen her as his pursuit target!

That man had some very high level as he easily outpaced her and then, cutting her road off began attacking her.

She tried to fight back, but she was quickly overpowered and disarmed. That man was a monster!

Having no other choice, she decided to risk it all. First, she had to approach that man.

Taking another sword from her ring, she quickly attacked again, waited for him to parry then locked her weapon to his.

Using her sword as a guard. She used the momentum of that guy's strike to slide down to the ground and kick the man’s crotch. This bastard had a really large body, and she was using it to her advantage.

Too bad, he was an experienced fighter, as he quickly moved aside dodging her dagger, but that gave her the chance to stick the exploding talisman she had already prepared on the back of his leg where he won’t be able to notice it! This was her plan from the beginning.

Too bad that she had to sacrifice her arm for that! She had to choose between it and her head! As that man was able to move his sword at an impossible angle and stick again before she could jump away.

Thankfully, she managed to ignore the pain as she rolled to the ground and activated the talisman just as that man moved his sword for a second strike.

The explosion sent them both flying, but she was not affected much as she was closer to the ground… She didn’t even look back as she quickly stood up and then ran using the dust as a cover. She was not stupid to think that the explosion was not enough to kill that man as she could see the armor he was wearing, but at the very least he would never walk again!

After she ran away for five minutes, she began feeling anemic and realized that she didn't have the ring that contained her healing pills! She was about to lose consciousness because of blood loss.

Having no other choice, She firmly wrapped her wound with her clothes and then hid after leaving some markings.

…

Lily nodded after hearing Mina’s story. What she did was correct. It was just that her luck was horrible.

“We should go and find Mana! She doesn’t have her ring as those men took it away after capturing her! She might be in danger…” Mina said.

“Can you feel her direction?” Lily asked.

“No… I can feel that she is alive but something is blocking me from locating her!” she explained, making Lily frown.

“Have you rested enough? Can you walk?” Lily asked.

“Yes,” Mina nodded, the healing pill that Lily gave her was a very high-grade one that Victor gave only one of to each girl… Naturally, Mina didn’t know that Lily had ten.

“Let’s go then!” Lily said.

…

Victor casually collected some twigs that were broken after the explosion as he waited in the secure area he prepared.

As he predicted, soon a few players one by one, reached the area next to the explosion. they wanted to see what happened here. Those Noobs didn't know that they should stay clear from areas of explosions!

Before those guys could explore around, two groups that each had 15 players approached, making the ones who came earlier quickly step aside. There was a hierarchy in this place!

They stood there and looked with greedy eyes at the ornate golden sword that was inserted into a rock… At first, they didn’t dare to approach it, but then a brave man carefully decided to pull it out after making a bet with his colleagues.

He failed causing some of his friends to jeer at him.

One by one, the top players tried to take it out to no avail. Even the other players who didn’t belong to the two groups got a chance to try and fail.

After all of them failed, no one left... Although they couldn’t take it and couldn’t even make it budge, they didn’t lose hope. Maybe someone would be able to pull it out eventually. This was clearly an S-ranked treasure after all.

How would they know that Victor was evil enough to disguise the large wooden door under their feet to look like bedrock? It was physically impossible for them to lift the sword while standing on the door that weighed a few tons.

“Sh*t this thing is stuck!” one of the men said as he looked at the other group who took out some digging tools… “We were here first! The boss will be here soon, so don’t even think of doing anything funny!”

“Fuck you and your boss!” A wild girl from the other group scolded as she pointed her shovel at the man. “Don’t even think that we fear him! This thing is ours!” She said then she struck the ‘rock’ under her feet with her shovel making it brake….

“Hahahaha… Stupid slut, don’t you know that most things in here are indestructible?”

“F*ck you! Wait until the rest of our men come here and we will see!” she barked back at him, feeling a little ashamed.

“What are you guys doing? What was that?” A wicked voice that suddenly sounded from the woods startled them. A third group suddenly appeared out of nowhere, making the other two flinch and step back as a pale middle-aged man slowly made his way toward the sword.

It was as if he was a living corpse. On the contrary, the four men around him although appear to be living, Victor knew that they were undead!

This was Victor’s target, a guy who surely knew what the hell was going on in this dungeon. Victor didn’t even need to use his appraisal as he knew this bastard.

This guy was one of the five nightmares of the Von Zwei family "The Undead King".

Victor didn’t expect or like encountering this monster so soon. However, now he realized what was happening in this dungeon. No wonder he was locking people in here!

This bastard must have known that its name was the skeleton dungeon, so he purposely lowered its grade and then used it as a honey trap to get the rogue player’s in here and then turn them into undead servants! As a necromancer, he should be able to control the skeletons here to some extent!

The skeleton’s inside would be disintegrated once the dungeon was conquered, but the players who turned undead would not! Victor was pretty sure that this bastard had already filled his necromancer pouch with corpses and skeletons!

He must have planned to conquer this dungeon and then leave with a new army! Or that's what he was supposed to do, but from the anxious look on his face, Victor realized that he was having some difficulty doing that.

He must have been stuck here for a few months now!

This probably meant that he was not able to wrestle control of the skeletons from their master. The dungeon’s boss, the Lich king, who was probably a greater necromancer than he expected.

Victor was not really sure, and he could only watch…

He was wondering if activating his trap would be enough to kill this man.

The one who killed this bastard in his past life was none other than Yulian, who always bragged about it. According to him, this man was very tricky as he had a lot of corpses in his pouch and those corpse warriors were players who could use their skills!

Victor casually looked at the four men around him and as he expected, they were corpse warriors!

That’s when he noticed in the back behind the necromancer and his men, three mud-covered girls in rags were being dragged in chains, one of them was a girl he knew… Mana! His Mana!