Return Of Aegis

This time, they decided to explore to the West. To the East was the Wolf Lord, which there were stuck at. They could continue to hunt on the fringes, but they would not be able to proceed. Unless, the Wolf Lord left on it's own, it would not be a feasible hunting zone.

So heading West, the brothers walked off towards the fields, the bushes here weren't as thick and high as the forest area, there were stretches of flat land as far as the eye can see, with minimal cover.

In the horizon, they could see a few mountains. As the had to wait a slight bit less than 10 hours more before the guild formed, they decided to leave exploration of the mountains for another time.

Wandering around, they hadn't yet met any creatures, just the sounds of birds in the wind. The scenery was wonderful, the developers had spent a lot of time, ensuring every tree, every blade of grass was well designed.

Even the clouds weren't static, if was really a sight to behold. It was little wonder why, more and more people prefer to live in a virtual world, rather than live in a polluted world.

[Warning! Entering instance field! Players unable to exit until fully cleared instance field.]

Suddenly a warning flashed across their sights, this was something new, they had never experienced something like this before.

The scenery had not changed, they were still in a field, only difference was, they were at the entrance of a village. The village gates will still burning, screams of terror could still be heard in the distance.

The smell of burning flesh permeated through the air, almost causing the both of them to throw up.

ZeRen nimbly climbed the closest building, to get a better view from above. ZeLin continued on foot through the streets.

A sudden hissing surprised ZeLin on his right, out dashed a green scaled lizard armed with a short dagger and a buckler. The lizard was roughly as tall as a 5-6 year old child, because ZeLin was Dwarf race, their heights were similar.

In response to the sudden attack, ZeLin swung his hammer at the charging creature.

- 2,000

[Ding! Lizardman Scout killed! 0 EXP gained.]

Upon hearing ZeLin's shout, ZeRen looked over the edge of the building he was at, before he could located his brother, a system message popped up.

[Ding! Lizardman Scout killed! 150 EXP gained.]

"Thanks for the free EXP brother!" said ZeRen via the party chat window.

Grumbling upon receiving his brother's message, ZeLin proceeded to harvest the lizardman.

Lizardman Scout's Dagger (Common)

Description: Low grade lizard weapon. Can be melted down to 1/10 an iron ingot.

Lizardman Scout's Buckler (Common)

Description: Low grade lizard weapon. Can be melted down. Can be melted down to 1/10 an iron ingot.

Lizardman Leather vest - Broken (Common)

Description: Provides no defense, serves to only protect the modesty of the user.

The 3 items harvested were all trash, unexpectedly poor loot for a humanoid creature, but it was better than nothing.

They didn't meet anymore scouts along the way, neither did they meet anything alive. The thing that made ZeRen wary was that there were no bodies. If something had come and annihilated the residents of this village, there should be corpses littering the streets.

Besides the stench of burnt flesh and blood splashed across the walls and streets, there were no bodies. Whats more, he had been feeling a chill course through his spine for awhile now. But try as he might, he could not find the source of the chill.

ZeLin had checked the houses they passed, at least those that still looked safe to venture in. From the photographs he saw, he gathered that the village once housed humans. He informed his brother of his findings, that way should they encounter humans, they would at least not kill them on site.

Slowly they reached to the other end of the village, an exit here lead to the hills behind the village. As they could not turn back, they could only go forward.

As the climbed the slippery slopes, the ground they were treading had become a dark shade of red. The screams had also gotten a lot louder as the ascended the hill.

Wasn't long till they came upon a clearing on the hill, they kept to the trees, hiding the best they could in the shadows. ZeRen was better suited for this, he was in the branches high above.

As he had a better view of the clearing, seeing what he saw, he almost cried out in shock. Ahead were piles of bodies, hung by their ankles, their blood flowing into troughs, severed heads rolled in a pile.

The lizardmen were very cruel, bodies showed that they did not discriminate, young and old, all were slaughtered in the same way. Heads chopped off, then hung upside down, their blood flowing into troughs, which passed the blood through ducts to another location.

ZeRen motioned ZeLin to follow him, they skirted the ducts, and came to a cave. The stench of iron was hard on their noses, ZeLin recognized the smell of blood, old and fresh.

ZeRen tried using {Observe} but came up empty, it was just a cave. Throwing caution to the wind, ZeLin took strides into the cave, ZeRen followed behind, both weapons drawn.

The cave wasn't small, they estimated the height to be as high as a 3-storey house, the screaming had stopped, but now replaced with hisses and drums.

The further they went in, the louder the hisses and drums. ZeLin relied on the sounds and the wind to navigate, he brought them up to a ledge, from the ledge, they could see many lizardmen below.

Some were kneeling below what seemed to be an altar, on the altar was a jade like pensive. The lizardmen took turns carrying buckets of blood then pouring it into the pensive. From their perch above, they noticed that the pensive wasn't filling up at all, despite all the buckets of blood poured in.

As the were too far above, they could not see a pure white scaled creature swimming in the blood, absorbing the blood as it swam around. The more blood it absorbed, subtle changes begun occurring to the scales of the creature.

If they could see, the creature looked nothing like the lizardmen, it resembled a blind white python. It's tongue flickered out from time to time, no visible eyes could be seen. It's pure white diamond shaped scales were slowly taking on a red tinge.

The lizardmen were mostly different shades of green, from lime green to moss green. The common aspect among all lizardmen was that the stood on their hind legs, unless when moving. The largest among them was just a head taller and twice as wide as the others.

ZeLin assumed that the bigger one was an elite monster, the one that could be the dungeon boss was probably the shaman like lizard chanting next to the pensive.

As they were too far away, they scanned the walls of the cave, looking for another ledge to perch on. Locating one a little bit further down from where they were, ZeRen jumped off and landed 10/10 on the second ledge.

ZeLin shaking his head, retreated and went to look for another path. With his limited Dex, there was no way he would be able to aim for the ledge below.

ZeRen below, was now close enough to use {Observe}. Looking at the large lizardman, he saw it was an elite lizardman.

| Lizard Captain (Level 15) - Elite |

| HP: 2,000 / 2,000 |

| MP: 500 / 500 |

| Spear Strike - Deals 200% Damage to target, can't be blocked |

| Thick Scales - Negates 10% Damage Received |

Next he took a look at the shaman like lizard next to the altar, he s.u.c.k.e.d in a cold breath! Immediately he took a screenshot and sent a copy to his brother.

| Lizard High Priest (Level 30) - Field Boss |

| HP: 15,000 / 15,000 |

| MP: 100,000 / 100,000 |

| Fireball - Summons 5 Fireballs, each dealing 5,000 magic damage |

| Ice Spike - Summons an ice spike below target, deals slowing damage up to 10% of target's HP |

| Gravity Strike - Uses the force of gravity to crush target area, deals 50% of target's HP |

| Description: Uses blood magic to increase its own. Not very quick witted. |

ZeLin didn't so much as gasp when he read the stats, instead he was focused on the description of the Field Boss. One it used blood magic to boost itself, two, it was slow witted. Meaning it was dumb, and thus it would be easy for them to weaken it enough. Remembering the layout of the cave he saw from above, he moved to the nearest duct, with a swing of his hammer, the broke the duct and the blood flow inwards stopped.

ZeLin told ZeRen to inspect again, sure enough, he heard ZeRen's sigh of relief. ZeRen sent over another photo of the stats and it was slightly lower. So ZeLin was right in his idea that cutting off the blood meant weakening the high priest.

| Lizard High Priest (Level 30) - Field Boss |

| HP: 13,000 / 13,000 |

| MP: 80,000 / 80,000 |

| Fireball - Summons 5 Fireballs, each dealing 3,000 magic damage |

| Ice Spike - Summons an ice spike below target, deals slowing damage up to 8% of target's HP |

| Gravity Strike - Uses the force of gravity to crush target area, deals 40% of target's HP |

| Description: Uses blood magic to increase its own. Not very quick witted. |

Without further ado, ZeLin got to work blocking off the blood ducts, he either caused cave-ins or he filled the ducts with soil.

It wasn't until there was only one duct left, did the lizard priest notice something was wrong. It shrieked out orders, the other lizardmen then got up from their kneeling positions to go see what was wrong with the blood ducts.

ZeLin moved away from the ducts and went back to the highest ledge, he dug in, in case some lizardmen caught his trail.

ZeRen on the other hand, had his skill {Spiral Shot} at the ready, as soon as he got a clear shot, he would snipe the high priest, he also set himself up for a follow up {Precise Shot}.

Although the priest was still level 30, it's hp had fallen to 2,000 points, it's attacks were still high, but nothing he could not manage to avoid, especially since he had the advantage of a sneak attack.

As soon as the Lizard Captain moved away, ZeRen got his chance, letting loose the {Spiral Shot}, he immediately followed up with a {Precise Shot}.

- 1,710

- 1,425

[Ding! Field Boss - Lizard high Priest has been killed. 9,000 EXP gained.]

[Ding! Field Boss - Lizard high Priest has been killed. 0 EXP gained.]

"Sigh, all that exp and I don't even get a bit, despite my efforts." g.r.o.a.n.e.d ZeLin.

As the field boss crashed to the ground, the other lizards abandoned ship. Not even the captain remained, it too turned tail and left.

ZeLin climbed his way down while ZeRen just scaled the wall, they met up in front of the field boss to pick the loots. They fought the field boss without even confirming on a plan, just by seeing ZeLin's actions, ZeRen understood what he was to do. It was as though they could read each other's minds. That was the benefit of siblings playing similar games together for many years.