Supreme Magus

Lith left before the Wyalon family was done with their breakfast, leaving Iriel no time for small talk. He took off, taking the quickest route to the Broken Spine, the discontinuous mountain range where the dungeon was located.

Lith flew at an optimal altitude, which allowed him to safely scout the area around him with Life Vision and identify underground monsters' nests. He had to make sure the creatures weren't preparing a big attack, otherwise he might have been forced to retreat during the raid to protect the city.

For a Ranger the number of slain creatures was but a secondary achievement, the real source of merits was the survival rate of those they are tasked to protect. Monsters needed only days to become fully grown, while a single artisan needed decades to be trained.

'Another good thing about Kamila, is that ever since we got together you've stopped pushing me toward every girl we meet.' Lith inwardly grinned.

'Well, that doesn't mean I don't feel bad for Iriel. For once you could help someone without getting laid as your hidden agenda.' Solus rebukes.

'Yeah, right. Going from princess of nowhere to a big city would be a death sentence to her unless someone takes care of her. I can already picture how any sane woman would react if I brought home an 18 year old girl.'

Solus couldn't retort anymore. Even if Solus could read Lith's thoughts, in Kamila's shoes she would still kick his ass.

The area was clear of any life form, monster or otherwise. Like the Baron had reported to Lith, animals and magical beasts had left the area. Those who had failed to notice their presence because of hibernation, were all dead.

Once Lith reached the Broken Spine, he didn't head directly towards the known entrances, but scouted the area to determine how smart and powerful his opponents were.

'I don't like this.' Solus thought. 'My mana sense detects a series of powerful arrays both above and below the ground. Not only have I never seen most of them, but they also form an elaborate framework.

'Monsters aren't supposed to be able to craft something so complicated, let alone in such a limited time frame.'

Lith nodded as he read the floating runes, trying to make a sense out of them.

After moving all the Warden books in their possession inside Soluspedia, they were able to identify at least the function of the unknown arrays.

'Their design is very old.' Lith pondered. 'None of them are designed to be offensive or defensive. I can see cloaking, containment, and even amplifying arrays.

'The kind which are used for a secret lab, not a fortress. I can't short circuit them and get rid of the monsters in one fell swoop, they are all the permanent kind. To do that I'd need to tamper with the mana crystals fueling them, but they are likely to be scattered all over the Broken Spine.

'Judging by the size of these arrays, the dungeon extends throughout the whole area. I don't think that even a Balor could perform such monumental work.'

'Do you want to call for backup?' Solus asked.

'And lose my loot?' Lith sneered. 'If this really is the secret lab of an ancient mage, finders keepers. At least as long as I'm the only one who knows it.'

Thanks to his exploration, he found several entry points to the dungeon, most of which were unguarded. Lith noticed that while the edges of the caves were rough and so was the surface of the corridors leading inside, the tunnels were smooth and flawless.

'To dig through so many meters of rock with their bare hands must have taken them months!' Solus was horrified noticing the claw marks and bloodstains along the exits.

'The most likely hypothesis is that they must have been imprisoned here for a long time and they only recently managed to escape.

'Then why are they still holed up in here?' Lith thought. 'More importantly, what the heck did they eat until they escaped? Both an orc shaman and a Balor could easily dig their way out. Why did neither of them take care of the exits?'

There were far more questions than answers, but Lith's loot sense was tingling. An orc shaman meant another huge mana crystal, while a Balor refusing to leave could only mean that the creature was after something precious.

Balors were smart enough to collect magical items to compensate for their innate shortcomings, but like all monsters, they had no dimensional items. They couldn't easily transport something fragile or huge, whereas Lith had no such problem.

Lith kept his greed in check as Solus's words about the Abominations echoed in his head. He found a guarded entrance and unleashed a pack of undead wolves on the unfortunate goblins on duty.

They screamed and died like common goblins, without showing any sign of mutation or special abilities. Lith remained hidden in the shadows as his minions feasted on the corpses.

'If those goblins are like the wargs, the Abomination inside of them should react to their deaths and call for reinforcements.' Lith thought, but even after several minutes, no one appeared.

During that time, he studied the goblins' clothes and equipment. They were well dressed, wearing cotton shirts, leather pants and shoes. The most intriguing thing was the coat of arms on their clothes, representing a black tower set ablaze with a golden crown on top of it.

Even their weapons, lances and bucklers, were made of good quality metal. Their master had even had them customized to a goblin's proportions.

Once Lith was certain that no enemy was coming his way, he sent the undead pack inside as a diversion while he entered from one of the unguarded entrances. The corridor went deep underground, leading to what was definitely not a dungeon, but rather a home.

Monsters had no use for doors, magical lights or tags to identify each room. There were even signs at every crossroad, pointing toward different zones.

'If only I could read this gibberish!' Lith inwardly griped after following one of them at random and finding the biggest glass workshop he had ever seen. There were vials, beakers, and many components for alchemical apparatus of every shape and size.

His anger faded after noticing they were all of the highest grade and storing some of them inside his pocket dimension.

Suddenly, the link between Lith and his minions disappeared. What worried him was that they didn't die fighting, someone had slaughtered them all in just a couple of seconds.

'Undead are hard to kill and monsters are dumb. Could they have been so unlucky to meet the shaman? If so, he could have drained the darkness element from them for an easy kill.' The explanation worked, yet it wasn't enough to put Lith's paranoia at ease.

He moved toward the direction from which he had last sensed the undead wolves, checking every door on his way. Unluckily, most of them were locked and even more unluckily, not by a simple lock.

Lith had no time to crack them open one by one, not with so many enemies roaming around nor with Life Vision telling him that there was nothing inside that had a strong magical aura.