The corpse of the dead monk just sat there. It would have looked serene if not for the fact that it was headless. They froze, looked at it, then at each other.

  “Meditations… or death ritual?” Darrow asked, staring at the eerie sight when the dead figure didn't move.

  “Both maybe,” Damian said, his brows creasing.

  The air was filled with dust and some sort of incense, and cobwebs glimmered faintly in the red light.

  Darrow poked the corpse with his dagger, then quickly jumped back.

  “Relax, it's not moving,” Damian said, his eyes shifting to the corners of the room, but nothing stirred. There was nothing there.

  Darrow put away his daggers and placed his hands on his hips. Damian just rolled his eyes.

  “Keep your eyes open,” he said, and he didn’t bother searching for his sword.

  “Relax, we just survived a bunch of ghouls... and their fangs and claws,” Darrow said, his last words coming in a whisper. After all, if everything in here was dead, then they had nothing to worry about, or so he hoped.

  He poked his head out of the room and saw a hallway spread out before him, looking right, then left.

  Then they slipped into the hallway.

  “Do you think they were actually trying to kill us?”

  “Of course they were,” Damian said, narrowing his eyes at the faint reddish light coming from the cracks that appeared on the floor and walls of the hallway.

  “Hey, I’m just asking. That way, if I drive my dagger into someone, at least I can't feel bad about it.”

  The adventurers and lord Rraan's party hadn't been obvious, but by their actions, Damian knew they wanted them dead. They were just lucky that the dungeon started acting weird, and they had levelled up just before that. Otherwise, it would have felt like being bitten by a two-headed roach.

  Damian just ignored him and kept walking. His eyes took in the murals that lined the wall, but these were not zombies depicted in the images. They were humanoid figures caught in different poses.

  There were monks praying and others practising. One of the images showed some other world—it showed the figures with their bald heads and robes fighting another figure with a face stretched by corruption.

  Darrow narrowed his eyes, and a wind blew across his face. Even inside, there was a sort of wind that made the reddish ash drift.

  There were footsteps that echoed unnaturally loudly through the building, and they froze.

  A door creaked open as they passed, and Darrow yelled and screamed as he stepped back from what looked like a zombie. No—servant zombie—that shuffled out of the room.

  Darrow lounged forward and stabbed it fast through its eyes.

  The zombie collapsed to the ground.

  “Too easy,” Damian said as he withdrew his sword.

  Two more shuffled out of the room and lunged at the brothers.

  They were ready. Damian swung right, then wide, cutting one down, and Darrow moved left, severing the other’s spine.

  There was silence again. The brothers looked at each other, waited for a moment to see if there would be any surprises, and pressed forward cautiously.

  At a side chamber, they paused. Broken chests littered the floor, and coins were scattered along the ground.

  Darrow paused, grabbed hold of Damian’s hand, and looked him straight in the eye like a man ready to give the speech of his life.

  “Loot... We found loot,” he said.

  “You can’t be sure it’s safe. It may be cursed,” Damian warned, but Darrow just grabbed a handful of silver and threw it into his belt satchel.

  Damian just shook his head, but went forward and started helping. They uncovered a jewelled cap, which Damian put in his pack, then a scale and even a shield.

  It was probably an old relic of the monastery. The drakes would probably pay a lot for it in an auction.

  “That will fetch a lot of coin,” Darrow said and whistled low.

  They walked through the hallway into another room, and that’s when they found it.

  There was a glass case in fairly good order—no, the room was entirely empty but for the case on the pedestal.

  “Now that is loot,” Damian said, sheathing his sword and moving his hands forward.

  Darrow frowned, however. All he could see was a page. A piece of parchment. The page had glowing glyphs and words moving across its surface.

  He examined the case, but as soon as his fingers touched it, the glass shattered. They both froze. If the trap was going to go off, this would be the time. But nothing happened.

  “Magical paper?” Darrow asked, looking sceptical.

  Damian just grinned and grabbed the paper, handing it to Darrow to put in his satchel.

  “Is this thing even worth anything?”

  “More than whatever junk you picked up.”

  “Please...,” Darrow said, rolling up the page before putting it away. He was the rogue. He knew value when he saw it. This wasn't it, yet he simply rolled his eyes.

  They pressed deeper into the monastery, and more of the servant zombies stumbled into their path. They dispatched them, and these ones had much smaller mana crystals in their chests.

  Darrow collected a few of them, only those that would fit in his satchel anyway. The backpack on Damian’s shoulders was half filled with crystals and the other half with treasure they came across.

  “This is getting heavy, you know,” Damian said, shifting the pack on his back.

  “You know we can’t leave this all behind,” Darrow said, his hands filled with all sorts of expensive-looking jars as he came closer.

  “Drop it. you know we can’t take everything,” Damian sighed.

  “I know,” Darrow started, then froze. His ears twitched, and their [Shared Fear] sensed something dangerous.

  Dust fell from the roofing, and the walls trembled slightly.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Meanwhile, out of the seventeen people who had entered the dungeon, only ten of them were left.

  Rraan wiped the blood off his axe. He looked around at the remaining adventurers, and he still didn’t know what had caused this. No... he thought he knew, but that couldn't be possible, and it didn't make any sense. He narrowed his eyes and steeled his bruised body. The magic in the dungeon had spiked, and the longer he waited around, the higher the likelihood that he wouldn't make it out.

  “We should keep moving,” the lionin said.

  “You’re right,” Karl said, looking around the main hall they had stumbled into.

  “We can’t win,” Ulivia said, her hands on her head, her hair a mess, and her eyes moving wildly.

  “How many are still alive?” Karl asked.

  “There are only ten of us left,” Rraan said, his eyes landing on one of the three remaining lionins, then going back down to examine his weapon.

  “Are we still going to fight?” she asked, looking up, her eyes wide in disbelief.

  “We have to,” Karl said.

  “If we don’t, we all die,” Rraan said.

  A couple of servant zombies walked toward them. They shambled out from the side corridors, and the survivors looked up.

  The tired adventurers looked up, their faces twisted into grimaces, and they quickly charged. Their blades flashed once, then twice, but these zombies were much weaker.

  An arrow struck one in the head, tearing a chunk off and causing blood to splatter across the cracked stone.

  They kept walking through a broken building and a few more of the servant zombies, but they were easily dispatched. A feeling of uncertainty came over the group when a lionin crushed a skull under his boot as he walked. This was too easy.

  They turned around a corner, and more zombies emerged. The sound the large number of them made gave the adventurers pause, and they sounded louder in mass.

  “They’re swarming!” the last remaining rogue yelled.

  “Enough of this,” Ulivia said. She stretched her hand out and threw a stream of fire at the swarm.

  The air grew hot, and the ash rose up, attracted to the heat. Her magic grew, the mana becoming chaotic, yet before she lost control, she let the fire spell go, causing searing flames to envelop the narrow space.

  The adventurers coughed and hacked, waving their hands in front of their faces.

  Rraan just snarled at the devastation and waved his axe in front of him.

  “Forward,” he said, without looking down at the burnt corpses or at the heavily breathing Ulivia.

  The ten pushed into the next corridor.

  They came across a narrow hallway, which they had to squeeze through in a single file, but that wasn't the worst part of this path. Worse were revenant zombies that tried to claw at them from the alcoves and slits in the walls.

  The rogue slit the throats of anything that got too close as they passed, and Karl slammed the doors shut behind them.

  The party would have sustained even more injuries, but luckily for the ten survivors, they had a healer—someone with a class specifically for healing, unlike Ulivia, whose mage class could do the same basic healing but to a lesser degree.

  Rraan didn’t slow down for anything, which meant whenever something got in his way, he quickly dispatched it.

  At least that was until they reached the end of the hall. Rraan slowed his step, and the others behind him also stopped.

  They stared at the wide doorway, then at the two ghoul knights looming there. These were the same ghouls that had killed most of them. They were covered in armour and had weapons.

  And behind them—behind that door—was something even worse, but it was also their only way out.

  “The boss chamber,” Karl said, tensing. He looked at the remaining adventurers, and the lionin clenched his jaw.

  This was it. The gamble. The survivors of these dungeons were probably going to level, and so the group moved as one. After all, they had to deal with the ghoul knights first.

  Stone cracked as Rraan and Karl each leapt forward and engaged a ghoul knight.

  Sparks flew, and skills were used, but this time they didn’t fight with the confidence they had earlier. They tore through the two guardians with cold efficiency.

  Even when one of them was impaled through the gut, he held the knight down for the others to finish it off.

  Or when one of the ghoul knights started moving too quickly, Ulivia froze it with ice magic, only for the others to cut it down. Rraan finishes it off by cleaving it in two.

  Silence settled among them briefly. They knew what came next was much, much harder.

  Those who were injured were quickly healed, and by the looks of it, if they didn’t do this now, the monster anchoring the dungeon would get a lot stronger.

  “The boss chamber,” Ulivia said, putting a hand to her bleeding shoulder.

  She looked up at the large door as she somewhat forgot the blood dropping onto the stone.

  “This is it, then,” Karl said, his breathing somewhat settled.

  Ulivia watched Rraan from the back as the lionin approached the last door. His mane was filled with ash, and loose strands flew everywhere, not like when he had come into the dungeon.

  There had been an anomaly in the dungeon, and if they survived this, Ulivia knew she would take some time to attend an elf opera, take a week off maybe. But for that to happen, she knew she had to survive the next fight.

  Rraan breathed. They could all hear him breathing. It was loud, resigned and steady all at the same time.

  “May this hunt end in victory. Blood for honor,” the large lionin lordling said.

  He breathed in once more, then shoved the door wide open. There was a loud crash as the doors hit the wall. A fog rolled out of the wide-open chamber.

  A large shadow loomed inside. It was larger than all of them—larger than even the lionin. The smell was one of decay and corruption, and the magic it gave off had their [Danger Sense] skills going off.

  The figure sat cross-legged in the centre of the wide-open room, its robes hanging in tatters and its magical body wrapped with undead muscles. In that moment, Ulivia fought the thought to step back.

  The undead lifted its head slowly, and there were empty sockets where its eyes should have been. It rose in one slow, deliberate motion like an old man who hadn't moved in a while, but to the warriors, it looked anything but weak. They saw how smoothly it moved. They saw through the deception.

  It stepped down, and the ground shook, and the vibration carried, causing the entire temple to shake as well.

  It looked at the intruders then. A guttural roar shook the chamber, the undead monk brandished his staff, and the magic hummed inside the weapon.

  Rraan wasn’t sure he could take this monster on, and it took him everything not to flinch back. Karl clenched his jaw, and the [Shield Warrior] tightened his grip on his shield and sword.

  “Kill it,” the lionin whispered." Kill it." he roared and pointed his axe at the undead.

  The adventurers all charged, their weapons raised. They took up a formation, and just as Rraan and Karl were about to reach and strike the undead, the monk slammed its staff down.

  The ground cracked beneath them, and a shockwave blew them back.

  Karl used one of his skills. His body grew heavy, and he didn’t budge. He put his shield out and sheltered himself from the force.

  The adventurers scattered, but they weren’t done. Flames burst from the back from Ulivia and another mage. Rraan dodged narrowly, and after the shockwave, he sprinted out from behind Karl’s tower shield.

  Rraan’s axe cut the revenant monk across its side, but the monk barely flinched. Instead, it brought around its staff and met the axe.

  That’s when the fight truly began.

  Karl swung his blade down when he got within reach, but he barely missed. The undead stepped an inch to the side and let the blade catch nothing.

  It swung a backhand out, and he barely managed to block it with his shield. The blow, thrown so casually, sent him sliding back, ash swirling behind him.

  Rraan swung his axe, and the monk parried the blow. A rogue appeared behind the undead monk, ready to sever its spine.

  The monk just reached back, grabbed the rogue’s hand, and threw him into the wall.

  It jumped and thrust its staff forward, and Rraan clenched his teeth as he parried the blow. When he managed that, he found his arms aching. He had been sent sliding back.

  The undead monk used a skill and leapt through the air, avoiding the blow from Karl, who was aiming at its back. It tilted its head, assessing.

  The lionin leopard archer loaded her arrow, used a [penetrating shot], and let loose. The undead monk caught it in one hand. It whirled its staff around and absorbed Ulivia’s fire magic into the weapon from the opposite end.

  The mage’s eyes widened.

  “The staff is an artifact,” she said, but a moment later, the undead was before her.

  It swung its staff at her, and Ulivia felt her arm, ribs, and elbow break as she was sent flying.

  “It’s attacking the mages and archers!” Karl roared, and together with Rraan, they turned.

  The lionin was the first to reach them, his great axe blocking the staff and protecting their healer.

  If a parry was bad enough, this was worse. Rraan felt the muscles in his arms tyre. He was sent flying back, crashing into a wall.

  “No!” Karl yelled and used a thrusting skill to close the distance.

  The monk just brushed the sword aside, its staff glowing with the magic it had absorbed, and its palm struck Karl in the chest.

  Karl went flying back as well from the impact, his bones creaking. He watched the monk move to attack again, but a fireball struck him in the back.

  Ulivia was on her feet, her hand outstretched, a glowing white light around her. Her wounds were slowly healing—and visibly so.

  If she was in any pain, she didn’t show it. She just used mage skills one after another: she froze its legs and threw lightning around.

  The healer turned to Rraan, and his wounds started healing. He felt his muscles mend, and he reached for his dwarven axe.

  Rraan roared, then charged. His claws raked the monk’s chest, and flesh tore, but it didn’t bleed.

  It grabbed his arm, its head tilting to the side. It lifted him up, then threw him to the ground, and the building shook, causing dust to rain down.

  The rogue appeared again, his daggers plunging deep into the undead revenant’s legs.

  The revenant monk reached down, grabbed the adventurer by the head, and squeezed.

  Everyone froze. Blood dripped from the undead’s hand. It let go, and the rogue dropped unmoving. The man was dead.