YM778.TV Chapter 397: Dungeon Hunters
Nicole didn\'t answer right away. Originally, she just wanted to head deeper inside the Dungeon using the shortest route.
However, after seeing the corpses of the Adventurers near the entrance of the Seventh Floor, she didn\'t want to ignore any unexpected variables that could potentially stab her in the back.
With this in mind, she deemed that it would be best to eliminate the current threat first to prevent future troubles from happening.
"Let\'s go and check it," Nicole replied after deep consideration.
Ethan and Samantha both nodded their heads because they were also very curious to see which groups were fighting each other.
Even Lady Johanna was quite curious as well, so she was glad that Nicole chose to investigate rather than ignore the fighting that was happening in the Dungeon.
Several minutes later, they arrived at a spacious cavern, and there, they saw three groups of people fighting against each other.
To their surprise, one of the groups of people who were fighting was Luca and his two bodyguards.
They were fighting against two groups of people, which for some reason Ethan believed were the notorious Dungeon Hunters, who hunted Adventurers instead of Monsters inside the Weeping Dungeon.
When Luca saw Nicole and her group, he immediately shouted in their direction.
"Careful, they are Dungeon Hunters!" Luca exclaimed.
The reason why he did this was not really to alert Nicole that the ones they were fighting against were Dungeon Hunters.
He knew that Nicole already guessed the identities of the people attacking him.
So, why did he do that?
Simple.
It was to distract the Dungeon Hunters and make them divide their attention between him and the new group of people who had just arrived at the scene.
Just as Luca expected, one of the two groups shifted their attention towards Nicole\'s group and immediately attacked them without saying a word.
Samantha immediately erected a barrier of light to protect herself from the group of six people, who had three Swordsmen, two Wizards, and a Rogue.
Nicole summoned her round shield and immediately unleashed a barrage of Ice Shards from point-blank range, forcing the enemy\'s front liners to evade.
Ethan, on the other hand, pointed his Sea God\'s Trident toward the two Wizards and unleashed dozens of Water Snakes, with the intention of incapacitating them.
"Careful, it looks like we have a Wizard and two Witches in this group," one of the Wizards, whose spell was blocked by Samantha\'s barrier, shouted.
The other Wizard summoned a Wall of Earth to block the Water Snakes that Ethan had summoned to attack them.
"Can you deal with the two Wizards?" Nicole asked through telepathy using their Guardian Rings.
"I can," Ethan replied. "Can you handle those four fighters?"
"They\'re not Mages, so I can handle them myself."
"Good. I\'ll flood this place with water. You handle the rest."
Ethan then pointed his wand at the ground in front of him and cast a spell.
"Aqua Fluctus!"
This was the same spell that he had used when he fought against Nicole, causing a surge of water to burst forth in front of him like a wave.
The two Wizards didn\'t know what Ethan was doing, but they decided to pay extra careful attention to his actions and once again created a wall of earth that blocked them from any potential threats coming from the Wizard.
Nicole smirked, and just like she did in her duel with Ethan, she stabbed her Rapier in the ground, freezing the water completely.
This sudden change caught the three Swordsmen and the rogue by surprise. However, just as they were about to run away, they found their feet stuck firmly in thick ice, preventing them from moving.
Before they could even do anything, Nicole had already closed the distance between them and pierced the throat of one of the swordsmen with her rapier.
She didn\'t dare to aim and stab at her opponent\'s chests, knowing that they were wearing light-metal armor.
Because of this, she aimed at their exposed necks and chose to make them bleed to death instead.
With one of the swordsmen bleeding to death, the other three panicked and desperately forced themselves to break free from the ice.
However, before they could succeed in this endeavor, Nicole stomped her foot on the frozen ground, creating ice spikes that pierced the bodies of her opponents in the back.
A grunt escaped their lips as the Ice Spikes pierced through a part of their armor and embedded themselves a few inches deep in their flesh.
Not even pausing to take a break, Nicole made quick work of her crippled enemies, stabbing their necks and heads with her rapier, ending the battle.
While this was happening, Ethan had closed the distance and engaged the two Wizards in close combat.
Lilith, who was inside his shadow, used her ability to manipulate shadows to bind the enemy\'s shadow, preventing them from running away.
"Aqua Hastae!"
Ethan summoned four Water Spears, which revolved around his body before shooting straight at the two Wizards at the same time.
The two were forced to defend themselves, with one erecting a Wall of Earth and the other summoning Flame Spears to negate Ethan\'s attacks.
However, they made a mistake this time.
Ethan controlled the four water spears to go over the Earth Wall and evade the Fire Spear, accurately stabbing his enemies, who were caught completely by surprise.
He purposely didn\'t control his Water Snakes earlier to purposefully make his opponents think that he was unable to manipulate them individually.
This was the cause of their demise. In a battle between Wizards, a simple mistake could lead to the other\'s demise.
Just like Nicole, Ethan had no qualms about killing people who were trying to kill him.
He had long shed his naive mentality of trying to talk peacefully with people whose profession was to kill others in order to steal their belongings just because they could.
As if to make sure that the two Wizards were indeed dead, Ethan summoned two more water spears and stabbed them into his opponents\' chests, where their hearts were located.
Luca, who noticed Ethan\'s action, frowned, but he didn\'t say anything.
Seeing that their comrades had died, the other group of people tried to flee.
However, Nicole and Luca had no intention of letting them leave with their lives.
Both of them might be competitors, but they weren\'t there to kill each other.
Since neither of them liked to have hidden variables that could potentially threaten their expedition, it would be best to eliminate them as soon as possible.
With the two groups working together, the two groups of Dungeon Hunters finally died.
It never crossed their mind that, by killing these two groups of people, they had saved the lives of countless others who dove into Dungeons in the hope that they would be able to live better lives by selling the items that they gained by risking their lives.