Chapter 322: Ritual Sacrifice (1/2)

”What we do, papa?” said Tia.

Li put her down, and she fidgeted for a few seconds, adjusting her bare, scaled feet on the molten rock and magma bubbling around them. She got used to the temperatures soon enough, which was expected of her. Aside from a few dragon types, most dragons possessed an innate resistance to flame.

The living armor Li cast had infused with her dress, preventing it from just scorching up in the air, and she pranced about, dipping her toes inside a particularly deep divot of lava.

”Wow. Fire water!” said Tia.

”It's called lava. When rock gets hot enough and melts, it turns into that,” said Li.

”Lava,” said Tia, rolling the word around in her head and committing it to memory.

Li gave her a faint smile as he focused on what to do. He was completely cut off from the rest of the party. Even Zagan who possessed a telepathic link with him. This meant that in this dungeon, Li was likely in a completely different layer than the others, and he had no idea of his orientation, whether he was higher or lower.

One thing though, he knew well: he had to get to the bottom of the dungeon to figure out what was happening. There was an entity here transporting units, and likely, it was a boss type unit, though whether it was the dungeon of the entire boss or just one layer was up in the air.

Regardless, Li would find this entity if he traveled to the end of this layer or one of the layers beneath it. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.

Looks like he was going to be clearing this dungeon, then.

Almost as if to challenge Li's decision, he felt presences invade his general vicinity. Unlike when he was in the forest, he could not accurately pinpoint every single presence, but he had sharp enough eyes to see flickers of flame dotting around the environment, across spires of rock and cliff faces.

All high vantage points looking down on Li.

The flickers of flame formed into the shape of giants. This time, giants with great bows of solidified flame in their hands. All of those bows were aimed at Li, arrows of fire almost three meters long nocked and ready to be loosed.

These giants, Li noted with narrowed eyes, could not be saved. Bright red tentacles sprouted from their chests, wriggling and writhing as they massed around  their bodies as signs of deeply embedded corruption.

They were too far gone.

Tia saw this and leaped in front of Li, her wooden shield poised in front of her. ”We alone, but I protect papa!” she exclaimed, her green and black eyes intensely bright.

”Don't worry, Tia,” said Li. ”We are not alone. With me, there is never such a thing as 'alone'.”

This type of environment was the absolute worst for Li in terms of compatibility. He had various negative statuses affecting him such as constant burn damage, curse damage, and a negative modifier to all his druidic spells, for this hellscape of flame was the antithesis of his forestborne power.

Yet, a dungeon of this level was still pitiful against Li. He knelt down and slammed his hand against the molten ground beneath him.

”[Earth Shattering],” said Li, casting an A-ranked spell.

A seismic shockwave surged out from Li's palm, rippling across the molten lake and sloughing up massive waves of lava. Any solid rock it encountered, it shattered, and the earth trembled and quaked as the shockwave traveled far, completely destroying the bases of the pillars the fire giant archers rested upon.

The archers lost their balance and fell far to the ground beneath them, and Li fully intended to just finish them off with physical blows, granting Tia the experience to fight some of them.

However, Li again noted with surprise that the giants, as they fell, acted in synchronized unity, dematerializing their bows and instead creating daggers in their hands. The daggers stabbed into their necks.

Li however, was ready this time. He casted his eldritch Druidry. Waves of black and green erupted from his hand as he pointed downwards, casting [Root of Vulthoom]. The deep purple, spiked root filled with red eyes manifested from his hand and drove into the shattered, molten ground, flowering further thorns and roots inside.

”To me, Tia,” said Li as he grabbed her close to his side.

It was obvious that these fire giants had sacrificed themselves again for some kind of dungeon-related ritual against Li, probably to teleport him somewhere else. However, with the [Root of Vulthoom], Li could remain rooted to this space, for the root affixed things on a spatial and temporal level.