After the cohort had recovered, Drake took the lead, guiding them down the Wall of the Dead and to the ground below.
There were no enemies there, allowing them safe passage down with little to no one getting hurt, apart from the sharp rocks from the climb or for those who had preferably leapt down the height, their legs becoming a little sore.
However, the average awakened body should have been able to heal soreness in a couple of minutes.
Travelling farther through the trail, they only seemed to encounter a goblin at times, which was easy pickings for the cohort.
At most, Drake would let the long-ranged attackers kill the goblins from afar, not wanting to cause any ruckus that would bring about the uprising of an ambush.
He made sure to tread carefully as the new head of the cohort.
Despite that, there were some scuffles between him and Charles, which he managed to maneuver over by summoning Kyvern to use as leverage against him.
Drake knew fully well that if there was a physical confrontation between him and Charles, he would lose, thanks to how weak he was, being a necromancer.
Apart from that, he momentarily sent Luna forward to scout ahead of them.
He had no idea how she did it, but anytime he spoke those words to her, she would instantly disappear the moment he blinked, and the moment he did so again a few seconds later, she would be back.
He had no idea what kind of talent she possessed. Even trying to guess, he had two options—speed or teleportation?
None could be correct, since he would sense her speeding away and back, and she couldn't do that without making noise. Teleportation fit the bill the most, but that still didn't explain how she managed to know about his and Gary's conversation.
For now, no matter how much Drake wanted to guess her ability, his information on the matter said otherwise.
And there was Gary—ever so disturbing and annoying with how desperate he was to catch Drake's attention as a friend.
To Drake, the only reason he had kept him alive was because of his ability:
Pocket Dimension—which allowed its user to store anything he touched into a dimension that was endless… or so he thought.
Luna yawned, stretching her hands out of frustration. "What do you think the boss would be like?"
The curiosity was clear from her tone.
This question struck both Gary and Drake into deep thoughts.
Gary had no idea what to say, but imagined in his head the scariest embodiment of destruction.
While Drake recalled how his world's monsters were, and after short pondering, he replied,
"Surely not as crappy as the other things we've fought up till now—"
Boom!!!
The entire tunnel seemed to rattle under their feet as though rocking from left to right, agitating the cohort to come to a brief stop.
"What was that?" a member said.
"Shit, that doesn't sound good," another added.
Drake kept his calm, a sense of foreboding clouding his gut. "Get ready."
He spoke, bursting into a sprint—fast, but not too fast to raise too much alarm in the cohort as they followed from behind.
This sound...
It was nothing new to Drake Drakon. It was the sound of battle—the cry of destruction and the sign of a fierce struggle occurring.
'Since it's an elemental dungeon, the boss must be an elemental—'
Drake's legs stopped instinctively, forcing him to a halt, his mouth opening slightly in awe at what he saw.
Behind him, the sounds of countless other footsteps coming to a stop could be heard as they too could not believe what their eyes were seeing.
Before Drake's eyes was a battlefield—filled with ice, spikes, spirals, walls, pillars... all signs of a raging battle that had gone on for a long while.
At the edges of the large arched tunnel were the awakened that had entered the dungeon, most of them injured and covered in their own blood.
Even the S-Ranks and Originals were at the sidelines, struggling to recover.
Looking at the damage done, he instinctively searched for Tessa with his eyes—with hope. Hope not to see her hurt. And she wasn't, luckily.
"What the hell happened here?" Gary didn't wait to say, walking forward and stopping right beside Drake.
The battlefield was too dense to see what was currently happening, as it was more than ten times larger than the normal cave at this point, and the surroundings were encased with explosions and thick smoke.
"For now, you all should watch and wait. I'll head down first," Drake gave his command, and immediately he began racing into the abyss of ice and smoke.
What he was doing was dangerous—considerably stupid—to run directly at the unknown without having an idea of what had injured far stronger awakened than he.
Was he insane?!
Entering into the thick dark smoke, he constantly reminded himself to get ready for the worst. Grasping the hilt of his sword, he narrowed his eyes, kept his hearing keen, and also placed his attention on his body's warning.
And he immediately heard it—there, in the presence of dark smoke, hot steam, and cold air, something was close to him. And from how it moved, he could tell it wasn't human.
But how could he be sure?
This was merely a gut feeling—could he really trust that and just exert his energy into attacking what his gut perceived?
Drake had no idea but chose to trust the feeling for now. Dropping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he pulled out the blade and lunged forward with all his might, ready to inflict a fatal attack on his opponent.
Luckily, he burst out of the thick dark smoke screen, and finally, the environment came into light.
He was in the heart of the battle—the ground scarred through the countless attacks it had withstood. Around the main battlefield were S-Ranked candidates, including Tessa, all exhausted from the battle and managing to keep themselves standing as they faced...
Drake's gaze finally fell on the strange being before him—a woman-like creature, having long silver hair, no clothing on, and her body resembling that of a human skeleton. Her eyes were blue in colour, her nails resembling claws, and her stance hunched...
It was the boss monster.
{D-Rank Boss — Mutated Banshee Detected}
{Quest: Kill the Banshee}
There was certainly no time to read the notification in this heated battlefield.
Especially as Drake instantly realized why the battle had been so intense.
As he got about five feet away from the Banshee, the ground beneath his feet exploded, and far faster than he could react, three spikes made out of ice burst out—all aimed at his chest.
Drake gritted his teeth and snarled at his own demise. "Shit!"