Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Tulnas threw one of his short swords forward as he bolted ahead!

It flew quickly, whizzing through the air with its silver sheen showing from the limited light that came from the flare that Ginie held!

The blade was received by a large lizard whose keen eyes saw the blade clearly, swiping its claws to knock it away, sparks flying from the short clash!

By the time the short sword which had been knocked away lodged into the ground, Tulnas was already hurtling a meter from the dark lizard in mid-air, his other short sword raised in his right hand!

The lizard quickly stood on its hind legs, responding to the attack with its own - the launch of its dark green tongue that oozed of potent venom!

It intended to kill Tulnas before his blade landed!

For this, it used the added boost to its strength from the purple eye on its forehead to enhance its speed!

Unexpectedly, Tulnas lightly flickered his short sword up an inch away from his palm, which puzzled the large lizard, but then... it understood why in the next moment!

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Three extremely accurate and powerful kicks slammed into the two sections of the side its abdomen in addition to the side of its face, crunches being heard as the swift kicks were delivered, shockwaves blowing from the other side of the lizard!

It had been too focused on Tulnas' weapon.

A stream of golden-brown sand darted in one extremely quick motion, cutting off the lizard's tongue which was millimetres away from Tulnas!

The Guild leader stepped on the lizard's shoulder, reached for the blade he had flicked slightly in the air and jammed it into the wincing lizard's head!

Several green tongues with a viscous liquid covering them shot towards Tulnas from different angles but the Guild leader avoided them with swift steps and darted around, grabbing his fallen short sword and delivering bloody injustice!

The flares from his swords reflecting the light were seen in the darkness as he dispatched eight more of these lizards without breaking a sweat.

The corpses of nearly thirty of these purple-eyed creatures lay on the ground in the confined and dirty space, dripping of blood.

'None of them has been as strong as that Mr Fish so far,' Tulnas said as he looked around, which lead him to speculate. 'Again, I get the feeling that this is no more than an tease in the guise of an actual powerful defence system.'

On their way here, Tulnas and the group had seen a variety of creatures with the purple eye; bats, large butterflies, boars, wolves among others.

The strange thing was, some of them were already dead with no signs of them engaging in combat with the others, or starving or anything.

Their bodies seemed strained, as if they had merely been struggling to survive.

This lead him to believe that someone may have just been testing how compatible different creatures were with this Primus energy and some were, while others weren't.

'Intriguing...'

"Let's move on," Tulnas said to the group that followed behind him.

Gertreld and Ginie showed expressions of awe and amazement at Tulnas' movements.

His Class Branching had been getting him great results.

His speed and power rivalled some top level Form Users!

Skullius who had also been watching looked jealous of the Guild leader.

'I'm still not that proficient in combat. I still have to rely on my more powerful skills to cover my weaknesses...' he thought.

After training with Oliviana, he had learned a skill that encompassed many aspects of hand to hand combat.

[Basic Combat Arts].

He had levelled it up to level 5 but it was not enough for him to exhibit even a sliver of the amount of power and skill that Tulnas was demonstrating.

The group continued forward with Tulnas using his blades to easily dispatch most of the creatures they faced quickly.

Most of them had blue cores while the rest had bright white ones.

As he saw this continuous trend of white and blue without the next colour in sight, he aired a question to Tulnas who had finished wiping out another small wave of the creatures.

His interactions with the other ladies had to be limited after all.

"Is it that hard to get a purple core?" he asked.

"Hmm?" Tulnas turned to Skullius. "Oh, yes. It's quite difficult to simply cross that gulf. Most individuals remain at the brightest blue core, failing to achieve the next level because of the difficulty."

Skullius nodded as he digested this.

"Then again, the blue core has several stages to explore so people just deal with that. You could say its more tolerable than handling some of the Tasks we have to deal with on the path to Stages. For instance, mercenaries in Inhone City prefer to go down the route of focusing on their classes and cores instead of following through with Tasks, myself included. I'm still at the Advancement Stage after so long with a troublesome Task."

What Tulnas said made sense.

Skullius could understand why that was.

Though, for him, the Tasks hadn't been as hard for level 1 to level 9 probably because most hadn't been specific to him until just recently.

Tulnas suddenly stopped as he felt something off.

"Guild master!" Natalika said with a concerned tone.

"I know."

SSSHHHHH!

Massive amounts of golden-brown sand rushed to cover Tulnas and the group who were already in a ring of standard sand protection.

BOOOM!

Two magic formations exploded with a purple glow below and above the group creating a noisy and turbulent reverberation that seemed to shake the entire underground!

Flames roared with a vicious coil as if to eat even space itself, the heat they produced instantly devouring the hard earth and melting it!

Rubble fell from above while the ground kept crumbling and sizzling in the aftermath, the confined way which kept going in both directions being resized!

The moment when the dust and fumes cleared, a large monster appeared in place of the group of six.

It was a very large bear.

Its entire body was made of golden brown sand with tiny, innumerable spots of blue.

Its build was like that of a polar bear with a large snout and a tint of black decorating its lips and outlining around its eyes which had a deep red glow to their pupils.

It sat upright with its arms wrapping around the space in what looked like a gentle hug, smoke and bits of glowing orange visible around its sandy body.

After it thought the threat was cleared, the bear moved its arms away, revealing the group of six who were safe from the explosion.

Tulnas looked up at the large bear with an appreciative smile.

"Thanks Big Bradd," he said as he patted the bears thick arm.

Ginie looked at the bear with twinkling eyes. She had missed seeing the big guy.

"Un, un! Bradd! Remember me?!" she said as she leapt up and down.

The large bear, in its sitting position opened its arms wide prompting for the girl to give it a hug, which she did happily, almost sinking into the sturdy sand of its large belly.

"..."

"This is a little too carefree considering we almost got blown to bits," Skullius said softly.

"It's fine," Natalika said as she turned her head this way and that, focusing her ears to different spots. "There's signs of activity a little less than half a mile ahead. Though I suspect there'll be more of these traps."

"It's nothing that Bradd can't handle. Right, Bradd?" Tulnas said as he sheathed his short swords.

The giant bear nodded with a solemn expression.

"Can we ride him?" Ginie turned to Tulnas and asked with puppy eyes.

"No. If we weren't deep into enemy territory, it would be fine but we need Bradd for protection. It's hard for him to protect us if we're riding him."

Ginie nodded, though a flicker of disappointment could be seen in her eyes. She quickly collected herself though as she knew this wasn't the time be a brat.

The long walk continued with Tulnas making sure to pay attention to the marked distance that Natalika had spoken about.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Over the course of their cautious tread, they encountered numerous magic formations, set with explosive flames that were meant to completely destroy any traces of them appearing from the left and right, above and below or multiple on all sides.

Through it all, Big Bradd protected the group while shrugging of the sand that got too burnt from its body.

For Skullius, it was pretty good to be protected like this for once, instead of always having to defend himself.

Furthermore, he didn't need to worry about Tulnas turning into mush because of it!

How blissful life could be!

The seven finally reached the end of the passageway that spread out into a large dark spot where some activity could be vaguely seen from the distance.

Before even Tulnas could full take in the sight, he heard a loud voice echoing through the cavernous space.

"There comes the extravagant and valiant heroes of senile gods, coming to reap the evil that hinders their divine Direction and spoils their rich lands," the voice said.

"What would a common villain such as I know, hmm? Riddle me this, young ones? Is this excursion worth risking your extravagant and youthful lives?"