Chapter 11
Unfortunately for us, we ran into a group of Lizardmen on the way up. By the time the eight of us arrived at the top-floor passageway, thirty minutes had already passed, and we still hadn't caught up to the army members.
“Maybe they've already used their crystals to escape?”
Klein said jokingly, but none of us believed that they would have done that. As a result, we subconsciously sped up our footsteps as we walked down the long passage.
When we were about halfway down, a sound that confirmed our fears echoed off the walls. We all immediately stopped to listen.
“Ahhhh...”
The faded noise that we heard was, without a doubt, a scream.
But it didn't belong to a monster. We all looked at each other and started sprinting. Because of our high dexterity, Asuna and I ran faster than everyone else, and a gap quickly opened up between us and Klein's group. But this wasn't the time for us to care about that. We dashed like the wind through the shining blue corridor in the opposite direction than we had gone last time.
Soon, the great double doors came into sight. They were already open, and we could see the blue flames flickering inside and a huge shadow moving slowly within its depth. We also heard the intermittent sounds of screaming and clashing metal.
“No...!”
Asuna screamed with grief and accelerated her speed. I followed closely behind her. Our feet were barely touching the ground, as if we virtually flew through the air. I figured that we had already reached the limits of the system's support. Meanwhile, the pillars on either side of the passage flashed past us.
As we neared the door, Asuna and I quickly reduced our speed. Sparks flew off our boots, and we managed to stop just barely in front of the gateway.
“Hey! Are you guys alright!?”
I shouted and leaned my body forward for a better view.
The inside— looked like hell.
Bluish-white flames burned all across the floor. A huge figure stood in the center of all this, its body shining as if it was made out of metal. That was the blue demon: The Gleameyes.
As The Gleameyes flourished its enormous zanbato-like sword around, a huge flaming breath streaked out of its mountain goat head. The damage dealt to it hadn't even reached one-third of its HP. Across the room from it, there were a bunch of silhouettes, their sizes tiny compared to the demon. They were the army group, and their members were busy scrambling for their lives.
They no longer had any order to speak of. I checked the number of people and immediately noticed that two of them were missing. It would be good if they had escaped by using a teleport item, but—
Even as I thought this, one of them was hit by the side of the zanbato and sent flying. His HP had gone into the red danger zone. I don't know how it had happened, but the demon had managed to get in between the Army members and the exit, and as a result they couldn't even flee. I shouted at the player who had fallen.
“What are you doing!? Use your teleport item!”
The man looked my way. His face reflected the bluish color of the flames and was full of despair. He then shouted:
“It doesn't work...! T-The crystals aren't working!!”
“Wha...?”
I was speechless. Did that mean that this room was an «Anti-Crystal Area»? It was a rare trap that appeared in dungeons once in a while, but it had never appeared in a boss room till now.
