Chapter 66 - Hell mode again (1/2)

With Shadow leading them through the dungeon in the new fashion, they easily mowed through the wolves. When they came near the caverns where the wargs slept he didn't have the team slow down and silently take down the wolves. Nor did they have Tetsujin use choke to restrain the warg as they did with in the previous run.

Shadow directly went into the room and with the use of cheap shot and garrote managed to restrain the warg easily. The remaining just followed into the room and began to shower their attacks on the warg. Even the blackrock wargs which had taken some precautions and planning before, were no trouble to Shadow after he used the garrote.

In this way they moved through the dungeon with a decent speed. They reached the end of the dungeon to the large enclosure where the worgen was located under 40 minutes. If this was the elite instance of the dungeon, they were sure that their team would have made the fastest clear of the dungeon beating the system record time.

Before the enclosure, they all stopped to take a small period of rest and eat some bread, water and meat before they continued. Merlin already had some warg meat patties ready which temporarily boosted they strength attribute along with filling up a decent amount of mana and health. They sat down to enjoy these refreshments before the final boss.

”This run was ridiculous!” exclaimed Tang unable to hold it any longer. ”With brother Shadow's new weapon, we definitely would have gotten the fastest clear in elite mode. It is sad that we can't see that happen. You should have come with us for the elite instance again, we would have already had the first clear.”

”You seem to forget that he didn't have the new weapon when we cleared the elite mode for the second time. He probably would have lost the chance to gain the weapon if he did,” said Merlin trying to calm down the excited girl

”Yes, but he is invincible with that garrote weapon,” continued Tang. She already knew that Shadow was an expert fighter in real-life. The way he used garrote to take down wargs cemented that thought in her mind and even elevated his image to a that of a near godly expert. Merlin and Tetsujin have already realized this and began making jokes about it and were chuckling.

”No, I am not. I can't use it against many monsters. It wouldn't work on the armored warg. Moreover, I also need to continuously hold the garrote with my hand and my movement is restrained during this time. There is nothing without flaws,” said Shadow stopping her before she continues to accidentally embarrass him unintentionally.

”I am glad that we have managed to clear these, but it wasn't as good a haul as I expected from hell mode. We hardly got any good resources from the dungeon,” said Quiet Fire changing the topic. ”I guess all the good stuff must be concentrated in there.”

Though they were quite fast and efficient in clearing the dungeon till this point, they didn't have much gains resource wise. They opened a couple of treasure chests, but the contents weren't very great. Many teams have attempted the hell mode by now and unlike the elite instance where they were the first to explore, the treasure chests if any were surely opened by the ones who attempted before them.

But none of the teams managed to finish the hell mode. It was clear that there was some kind of strong deterring agent somewhere. They didn't observe much difference up till now, except for a change in the level. So, it definitely would be something that changed at the end of the dungeon.

With that thought, Shadow halted the team near the entrance as he went into stealth to check the large enclosure at the end of the tunnel. At the first glance, he couldn't notice anything new. It was the same old worgen with an armored warg and two other wargs.

They all just have a higher level than in the elite mode of the dungeon. He was almost convinced that it was all, when he noticed two cinder wolves behind the altar. With their smaller size compared to wars and the red light of the altar camouflaging them he almost failed to notice them.

[Cinder Blackrock Wolves] (Common monsters)

Level: 7;

HP: 2500/2500;

He immediately realized why the previous teams failed to finish the hell mode. It was due to these new monsters. Cinder wolves had an ash color but glowed with a scarlet hue just like the name suggested. They had fire and smoke rising out of them continuously.

They also dealt fire elemental damage to any player or monster that came into contact with them. This made all forms of physical attacks to cause self-harm to the player. Even tanking these monsters was harder than the normal wolves as they continuously dealt fire damage by even being in contact with the players.

These monsters could also use small bursts of fire to propel themselves or push others away. Luckily these monsters seemed to have lower level unlike the actual cinder wolves which were level 15. Else they wouldn't have had any hopes of taking them down.

These would definitely make the dungeon a lot harder than the elite instance. He went back to the team to explain to them. Though he didn't tell the name, cinder wolves as it would raise suspicion, he told them that there were level 7 fire elemental wolves which could cause fire damage and have very high speed.

Though the team was a strong one for a team at this stage of the game, it wasn't capable of handling four monsters at a time. Assuming the two wargs being kept in control by tetsujin and himself, two more monsters would be attacking them. Moreover, with four monsters closely related to wolves they would definitely attack in a pack employing wolf-pack tactics.

Neither Tetsujin or Shadow can control the wolves because they would be in physical contact with them dealing large amounts of damage. Also, fire and thunder elemental damage tend to cause sensation of pain causing them to lose control.

But the worst part was that fire damage would usually lead to loss of durability of weapons and equipment. Blade weapons can have their durability easily recovered by whetstones by sharpening a dull blade, but that didn't extend to equipment. Moreover, the durability loss would tend to be high due to everyone in the team being at a lower level than the wolves with the exception of him.

Shadow calmly explained all the disadvantages they had. Fire damage causing the weapons to lose durability was a common thing in many games. Merlin and Tetsujin were also concerned about having to fight four monsters instead of two.