With Diane's attempt at 'infiltration' thwarted, we returned to my method. Because of their starving status, the dragons here were even weaker than the ones that we had just fought outside. At the same time, we had no need to worry about a giant shark monster coming along due to the smell of blood.

A moment later, a barrage of spears shot forward, skewering the sea dragons and turning the water within the dungeon a cloudy red. Their bodies were riddled with holes, slowly floating to the surface.

As before, Diane shot out, looting each and every monster while I trudged my way through the water, feeling its resistance with every movement. One thing that I had noticed, if only faintly, was that my Ki Shadow applied to the spears I made with my enchantment, likely because they were created from martial skills. Whenever the spears shot out, there was a faint, yellow shadow just behind them.

Again, I had no way to accurately determine how much damage this shadow did, but at least I was able to confirm that it was working. If it weren't for that last patch, killing so many monsters near level one hundred might have been enough to directly evolve it back into a clone. I thought to myself, shaking my head and passing between the rising pillars.

As I did, I noticed that the countdown for my active scroll was almost up, and immediately triggered the next one. If this whole dungeon could be cleared just by using that enchantment, then perhaps we wouldn't need so many scrolls in the first place.

While I was walking, Diane swam ahead of me, her eyes roaming over the floor and various pillars. How do you suppose we move to the next area? I asked through a private message, and she glanced back towards me.

There wasn't a reliable map for the Sea Dragon's Palace in the office. From what I read online, the only clues are to continue walking forward, and don't step beyond the pillars. When she saw my confused look, Diane summoned an animated shadow, and directed it to swim past the wall of interspersed pillars.

Not long after it passed between two of the pillars, a dragon's roar shook the water. A massive head rose from the floor, instantly snapping its jaws around her shadow, and then retreated just as quickly. According to a paper I found, this is the Sea God, who was supposedly sealed beneath the palace. Anyone that leaves the protected area will immediately be devoured, no matter how fast they are. Even worse, the Sea God consumes the corpse, meaning retrieving your dropped loot is impossible.

My eyes widened as I watched the dust settle back on the ocean floor. So, this dungeon has that kind of mechanic? I asked, to which Diane nodded her head. In that case, I guess we'll just keep going forward…

I could have used my Glancing Steps-X to accelerate my steps, darting ahead to the next area. However, this was a good opportunity for me to practice moving my body under the Dragon Form transformation in difficult environments. That made it a great way to gain experience for the skill.

Thus, while Diane swam forward with utter ease, I continued my walk. Every step caused dust to rise from the floor, creating a slowly falling cloud behind me. How is the experience for your Dragon Form? I asked Diane, seeing how easily she had adapted to the new form.

Diane glanced off to the side, checking her level. I'm at about level twelve now. But I don't want to evolve it until I've mastered Dragon Pulse, too. This will be my best chance to lay the foundation for a powerful skill later on. Although transforming into a dragon isn't innately a very 'ninja' thing, I'm hoping that I can combine the two skills with Living Shade, giving me a shadow dragon transformation.

I nodded my head at that, understanding her logic. As for myself, I didn't have a suitable skill to use as the foundation for such a fusion. Well, I had a lot of skills that could make truly amazing dragon types if they fused. However, they had all already evolved to some degree, so they were unsuited for a fusion with two basic skills.

As I thought about that, I noticed Diane passing through an invisible barrier, her body disappearing amidst a series of faint ripples. Widening my eyes, I hurried to catch up to her, assuming that she had passed into the next area of the dungeon. What confused me was that we hadn't seen a single treasure chest throughout the entire walk.

Beyond the barrier, I found Diane pressed up against one side of a pillar, concealing her presence. Seeing this, I looked further in, and saw that there were far fewer monsters in this region than the last. However, it was easy to tell why Diane had been concerned enough to immediately hide herself.

While there were fewer monsters, numbering only ten in total, each and every one of them was a Sea Dragon Prince. Even if it was a starving miniboss, a boss was nothing to laugh at, let alone ten of them. Though, now I was starting to understand the larger truth about this dungeon.

There were no other monsters in the dungeon to serve as food without resorting to cannibalism. If they moved beyond the set boundary of the dungeon, the giant mouth would immediately eat them. So, some of the monsters fled the dungeon to search for food. As for the prince that was guarding the dungeon's entrance, it may very well have been waiting for weakened members of its own kind to come out so that it could have an easy meal.

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After all, there weren't enough monsters in the vicinity to sustain both the prince and all of the other sea dragons that we killed outside. Realizing this, I walked over towards Diane, pulling her into my stealth field.

Looks like we've got a problem. I messaged her. My enchantment was good against weaker armies, but ten powerful units like this would just shrug it off. Are you going to use the gun?

We had already seen how the gun had managed to instantly kill the fully fed prince outside, let alone these starving ones. Furthermore, she should have just about enough shots to deal with them all.

However, Diane shook her head, rapidly typing her response. Firearms don't work so well underwater. Your enchantment earlier was one thing, because it was propelled by the power of the skill the entire way. However, a bullet fired underwater will quickly lose its power.

Even with the enchantment you put on my second pistol, I'd need to be within five meters to pull off a lethal shot. If I wanted to use the silenced pistol, even standing right on their head might not be enough.

My eyes widened at that information, having not expected anything like that. Then again, whether it was fighting underwater or firearms, both were completely foreign to me until now. So, do you have any other ideas? I asked, and Diane hesitated.

I've got one, but it's a bad one. She began. Did you notice how there weren't any chests in the first region?

When I nodded my head, she continued. Every region of the dungeon should have at least one chest. The fact that we didn't see one doesn't mean that there wasn't one. It means that there was a secret path we didn't find.

I arched my brow at that news. A secret path? I've been periodically using Detective Analysis, and I didn't see any special mechanisms.

No, you definitely did. Diane hesitated, looking up. You just didn't pay attention to them. The only features we have to use as a guide are these pillars. However, stepping outside of their range means immediately being killed.

But what if… what if there was a hidden path between two pillars? And the only way to find the chest is to discover which pillars hold the path? Saying that, she began to analyze each pillar. The problem is determining which ones. If we guess wrong, the Sea God will instantly kill us. However, I'm not sure we can take on ten minibosses at the same time.

As much as I hated to admit it, Diane had a point. We killed the earlier one easily, but without that weapon, it would be hard to determine the outcome. I had already seen how intelligent dragon bosses could get in the Ember Flight dungeon, where it found me despite my stealth. And, from what I could tell of the prince outside, it had been smart enough to try to calculate the respawn time of my clone after killing it, not realizing that it was just a clone.

That showed a deeper level of awareness than you would find in most bosses. Enough that these minibosses would definitely work together if one of them suddenly went missing or died.

Thinking about that, an idea occurred to me, and I looked at Diane with a grin. You said that you still have all the materials that I gave you before, right?i

She blinked, nodding her head. Yeah?

Do you have any meat that hasn't been reserved by the auction house?

Diane's eyes widened briefly, seeming to understand my idea. Just the parts you gave me for my own experiments. You want to lure them into a trap? Should we poison the meat, too?

However, I shook my head. Why would we do that? We've got ten eager pathfinders here, willing to help us look for the hidden path, as long as they are provided with food.

Diane jolted at that idea, before lowering her head in thought. I could see the gears turning in her head, internally debating the feasibility of the idea, but she wasn't typing anything to me. After a while, she nodded, looking up at me. Alright. I'll trade you the meat. I don't know how you plan to get it past the pillars safely, though.

I already thought of that. I grinned, clenching my fists as the trade window appeared. Granted, I wasn't sure if the idea would work, but it would be amusing if it did.

After obtaining the meat, I walked closer to the dragons, until I was standing just below their massive forms. First, I created a projected barrier around myself, and removed a large portion of meat, more than four meters long. I didn't want the smell of the meat to permeate the water before I was ready.

Next, I began beating the meat with my hands, focusing. My eyes were locked on a large rock over a hundred meters away, past the nearest pair of pillars. I was trying to channel my Glancing Steps-X skill into my hands, applying the skill to the meat to teleport it away.

At first, there was no reaction. The meat shook slightly as I slapped it again and again. Every now and then, I had to stop to activate another scroll, but I kept working. As for Diane, she was no longer within my stealth field, so she couldn't see what I was doing. Whenever she messaged me to ask, I just told her that I was still getting ready.

Finally, more than fifteen minutes later, the large chunk of meat vanished from in front of me, appearing near the rock that I had been focused on. Almost immediately, the ten princes turned their heads to look in that direction. Even I could see the desperation in their features at the giant slab of meat, but there was also caution.

Eventually, one of them couldn't take it anymore. Their hunger won over, and they swam out between the pillars towards the meat as quickly as they could.

Just as the dragon's mouth landed on the meat, gleefully swallowing it, a much larger mouth rose up from the ground below, even larger than the one I saw earlier. With one bite, the entire miniboss vanished. Well, it's not that path!

Now, it was just a question of how desperate the other nine were for food. Would they risk their lives, even knowing that such a terrifying monster was likely waiting for them? A starving beast could often completely disregard its own wellbeing for food, so it was possible.

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