Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Gelgar and his army descended one floor after another and after three whole days, they reached the ninth floor of the dungeon.

The ninth floor was a vast marshland more than fifteen kilometres in area. The entire floor was lighted up by enormous phosphorescence crystals embedded on the ceiling. Huge swamps and large swaths of trees wreathed the area all around the floor.

By now the look on Gelgar's face was quite agitated as he looked at the new floor that he arrived at. His eyes concealed a trace of uncertainty that was never there before until he started descending one floor after another. An uneasy foreboding plagued him for quite a while.

The grand monster army that he spawned using all of his DP and whose numbers were initially more than five hundred now had measly hundred or so who survived the ordeals till now. Each and every floor was laden with deadly traps and monsters that took out quite a lot of them. Plus the more they descended, the wider the floors became.

It was not only him but even his two subordinate's faces were clouded. After descending so many floors their bodies were haggard and exhausted, traces of intense battle and blood could be seen on their bodies.

They watched the vast marshland silently, nobody knows what they were thinking. The morale of the monsters army was all-time low and their weariness and fatigue were on full display. They didn't know how deep the dungeon went nor did they know how many more traps were lying in wait for them.

Snapping out of their daze, Mike and Berd quickly started giving commands and were ready to start the exploration once again when Gelgar spoke out. "I can sense multiple presences hidden in this floor. Don't let your guard down, I believe this should be the last floor and after passing through this we'll get to see the despairing face of that lowborn demon."

He snickered and added, "I do not believe that he has any more DP left to create another floor or spawn any monsters."

The enemy they were fighting was only a lowborn Demon Baron. No matter how much DP he had stocked up, there was no way for the dungeon to go any deeper. Gelgar was himself a dungeon master and was aware of how much DP one needed to create additional floors not to mention the cost goes up the wider the floor was. Even his dungeon which was similarly [E] rank, only had five floors. However, unlike the dungeon they were in now, the floors in his dungeon weren't as big.

After hearing Gelgar, a strange light started flickering in the lusterless eyes of Mike and Berd as renewed vigor and power started coursing through their bodies again. The more they thought about it the more it made sense after all to create all these floors of that size, an enormous amount of DP must have been used. Not to mention to spawn all those monsters to defend the dungeon also ate up quite a lot of DP.

Thinking till here, they increasingly started to believe that this was the final floor. After all, it was a newly emerged dungeon and the dungeon master was none other than a Demon Baron. They were so convinced by Gelgar that even if anybody right now told them that they haven't even descended half of the floors inside the dungeon, they wouldn't believe them. It wasn't that they were being negligent or underestimating their enemy, it was because they were aware of how much DP a low-rank dungeon could generate was why they felt that their conjecture was right. It was by no means their fault, the blame lied solely on Simon for being the odd one and breaking all the common sense.

Little did they know that Simon had a huge amount of DP that was still increasing at this very moment saved up. If he wanted to, he could create a few more floors and still have enough to go on for a while. That was how much of a DP he had generated and if Gelgar and his subordinates knew that most of the DP available to him came from them, they would have gone crazy and vomited blood by now.

During these three days, a large chunk of DP that the dungeon had generated, was due to Gelgar and his monster army that had died inside his dungeon.

With fires of hope being lit inside Mike and Berd, they started issuing out commands in a frenzy. Hordes of monsters started charging towards the marshlands with increased fervour and ferocity. Looking at the scene, a surreptitious smile crept upon Gelgar's face as he said in a voice that only he could hear "No matter what you guys are just expendables, I can just spawn you back after I kill that bastard and win the dungeon war".

His face distorted as he laughed in an uncouth manner thinking about the real reward he would get after winning the dungeon war. The real motive behind him starting all of this.

While he was caught up in his delusion, the monsters started charging towards the swamp and spread all over. Their march soon got cut as their feet got fixated on the swamp and the more they struggled to get themselves free the more they got caught up in it. The traps that were set all around the marsh were quicksand and anyone that got caught in it will be dragged inside the more they resisted.

However, the quicksand was less of their worries as the real danger lied within.