The Black Necromancer

Whoosh!

A cool breeze wafted by Leon's face as he stepped through the archway that led into Despair Dungeon. He had done some research on this place in the short time he had before coming here, and he knew that its layout was much different from the Dark Abyss Dungeon.

While the Dark Abyss Dungeon was made up of interconnected halls that wound around themselves in a complicated labyrinth, the Despair Dungeon was instead the type of Dungeon that used floors to separate difficulty levels. The higher the floor one was on, the stronger the monsters that one would encounter.

There were fifty floors in total within the Despair Dungeon, and the weakest monsters spawned on the first floor were Low B rank monsters.

The moment Leon stepped into the dungeon, it was almost as if he had stepped into another world entirely. A place not much different from the outside world in the Swamp of Despair spread outwards. A solid wall made by entangled vines stretched out on either side of the archway that he had just passed through.

Although the place resembled the swamp, it was not exactly the same. There were less vines and more solid earth, with the large bodies of water being a bit more sparse than outside.

As Leon was surveying the area, Gold suddenly let out a low growl. Leon looked over at him.

"Enemies are coming, Master." Gold explained, and indeed, just as he said, only a second later, the ground at the edge of the closest body of water began to move. Slowly, clumps of wet soil began to mound on top of each other, slowly forming a hulking three meter tall figure. Branches and short vines stuck out from the wet mud. This was a Bogman.

Several more Bogmen formed up behind and around the first one. They had no eyes, but that did not stop them from being able to locate Leon and the others. With silent groans, the Bogmen began to stomp in the direction of Leon's group.

"Ready up!" Leon called out and the summons took their positions.

The Bogmen were powerful, but not too agile. Each of their blows were strong and packed a punch, but as long as you could dodge them, then there would not be much danger facing them. The problem, however, was in their numbers. More and more of them rose from the edge of the lakes as their kin were being mowed down.

Eventually, Leon had enough and raised his hand. The mana in the air swirled and gathered together. In mere moments, a large, hot fireball had formed above the spawn point of the Bogmen. Leon could feel the higher concentration of mana there and knew that the monsters were originating from that point.

The fireball spiraled downwards and slammed into the ground, eating away at the soft soil that hid the spawn point of the Bogmen. The moment it came into contact with the foreign mana, the fireball detonated, causing a massive explosion and putting an end to the flow of Bogmen.

Although the flow of Bogmen had ceased, that was not all. The commotion from the battle had caused a lot of disturbances, and that had led to the attention of the surrounding monsters being drawn to them. Dozens more Bogmen came thundering their way, eager to draw blood.

"Alright, we need to hurry this up." Leon sighed and clapped his hands. He had wanted to take care of this with his elite summons, but that would take too much time. So he decided to released a few hundred summons to take care of the incoming monsters.

With hisses and roars, hundreds of black monsters flowed out of Leon's shadow.

.

.

"Ah, finally." Leon looked around with a satisfied smile. The last monster had been put down. "It seems this floor is dedicated to Bogmen." He noted to Nedra who stood behind him.

"They smell..." Nedra said with a strange expression on his face.

Leon simply shrugged and looked to the vine door that had stood on the other end of the large floor. The door was naturally an archway, and when he stepped through it, he was transported to the second floor.

Stepping onto the other side of the portal, Leon was greeted with a marshy environment. Tall grass that reached up covered the entire area, the solid ground that Leon could see was fairly limited. At once, he knew what sort of monsters would reside within this environment.

"Keep your eyes peeled." He warned his summons and released the crocodile summons he had gained outside the dungeon. At once, they dove into the water and began searching for any enemies.

There were a few floating logs in the water, but Leon could not trust them. He had seen many videos about crocodiles looking like floating logs in his past life to know better than to dismiss the logs.

Clenching his fist, Leon manipulated the water around the logs and froze them, turning them into ice spikes that pierces through the logs mercilessly. Pained groans burst out from one log and blood stained the surrounding water as the giant crocodile struggled for a moment before stilling, its heart having been pierced by the ice.

"I knew it." Leon spat and turned his head away. He had a suspicion that the logs might have been crocodiles in hiding, and he was right. He would need to put an eye out for any other logs in the future.

Aside from the crocodile that Leon killed, no other monster was killed for the next ten minutes. This floor was considerably wider and larger than the previous floor. The monsters were also much more spread out, so it would take a bit of time before they came across more monsters.

Splash!

Just after complaining in his mind, Leon suddenly received an alert from a group of three crocodiles. They had bumped into a lone Great Crocodile that was much larger than the norm, and also much stronger. It was Peak B rank!