Corrupted blood lord

As the sandstorm swallowed everything around them, shouts came from every direction, muffled by the roaring wind. Their shields scraped against dust and sand particles, slowly grinding them down. Men stumbled blindly, trying to hold the formation while sand whipped against their faces like shards of glass, cutting up their skin.

Then the ground rose between them.

Walls of jagged stone erupted throughout the chamber, cutting through the expedition and splitting them into smaller groups.

"Watch out!" Cassian shouted.

Before anyone could react, ruby spikes burst from inside the newly formed enclosures, shooting out of the ground like crimson spears. One guard screamed as a spike pierced through his shield and shoulder. Another barely avoided being impaled as Milo dragged him backward.

Derrick cursed and grew larger.

Stone wrapped over his body in thicker layers, forming a heavier golem shell around him. He slammed into one of the walls shoulder-first, breaking through it with a thunderous crack.

Cassian moved at the same time as well.

His sword flashed with light mana, carving clean arcs through the stone barriers before they could fully seal the groups apart.

"Wind mages, clear the sandstorm and restore visibility!" Cassian ordered, his voice cutting through the howling sandstorm. "Vanguards, form a shield wall around the mages and healers! Knights with me! Derrick, protect the group! Black Hounds, hold the line!"

He lifted his sword and released a blinding light, bright as a beacon in the storm.

His orders gave them something to hold on to.

Wind mages raised their hands and forced streams of air outward, carving temporary tunnels through the sandstorm. The vanguard gathered around the mages and healers, shields raised in a broken circle. Anyone with a useful attribute helped hold the sand back, while the mages tried hurling spells toward the cave.

But most of their attacks never reached it.

Each spell was met by a perfectly timed spike of orichalcum that shot from the ground, intercepting the magic before it could come anywhere close.

The beast still did not reveal itself.

It simply bombarded them from afar.

Rock spikes tore through the storm. The ground softened into sand and swallowed their legs. Ruby shards erupted from every direction. The variety of attacks slowly increased, one by one, as if the creature was toying with them, testing how long these humans could last.

At first, the vanguard suffered the most.

A shieldman was crushed beneath falling stone.

A spearman was impaled by spikes shooting up from the ground.

Then the deaths began to pile up.

And once the front line started to crack, the rest of the expedition suffered too.

An archer was blasted by a wall of sand and dragged screaming into the storm, only for the ground to split open and swallow him whole. A healer was skewered by a ruby spike before she could reach the wounded. A mage screamed as a boulder smashed through the shield wall and erased half his body.

Derrick saw it all.

And his grin was long gone.

"Damn it..."

He gathered even more earth mana, thickening the golem skin around him until he looked less like a man and more like a walking siege weapon.

Then he lowered his shoulder and charged into the storm with a war cry.

"Derrick!" Pete shouted.

But he was already among the howling storm and could not hear him anymore.

He barreled forward, smashing through stone spikes and half-formed walls, forcing his way toward the pressure at the center of the storm. He did not know exactly what the beast was. Some kind of ancient guardian, maybe. A dungeon-born monster. Something close to a dragon.

Then he broke through the sand.

And saw it.

An earth dragon.

Its body was a mismatch of black, brown, and gray scales, arranged in strange, natural patterns like layers of mountain stone. Ruby eyes burned in its skull, cold and ancient. Its neck was long, its tail thick enough to sweep through a building, and its body was slim for its size, yet still enormous.

It was at least eight meters tall, and its presence was overwhelming.

Derrick felt it in his bones that he was outmatched.

But he still charged and rushed forward. With a roar, he jumped at its face and swung the boulders he had for arms at its head like a gorilla.

The dragon just looked down at him and scoffed at his attempt of an attack.

The sound was like stone grinding against stone, but it was unmistakably a scoff. Even its lizard-like facial features somehow formed an annoyed look.

Then it simply lifted one of its massive paws and swatted him aside like a fly.

The force was so strong that Derrick vanished from his spot.

His golem shell took the hit, but even that cracked as he was blasted across the chamber and smashed into the ground several hundred meters away. The stone ground shattered on impact. Dust and sand swallowed his body.

Knocked unconscious, he did not get back up.

The others did not know what had happened.

The others still did not know what had happened, as the storm was obscuring their vision.

And the beast was still attacking.

—

Meanwhile, Cassian and a small group of knights moved along the edge of the chamber.

Each of them wore a shining necklace beneath their armor, the gems glowing with a faint blue light. The dragon’s gaze never turned toward them, its perception blocked, sliding past them as if they were nothing more than stone and dust.

They reached the inside of the cave safely while the expedition fought for its life outside.

Inside, the air was hotter than anywhere else in the dungeon.

It was also quiet.

Some kind of warding had been placed here, preventing the chaos outside from reaching them. The screams, explosions, and roaring sandstorm all faded the moment they crossed the threshold.

The cave walls, like everywhere else, were covered in veins. But here, they were a mixture of ruby and orichalcum, pulsing faintly with mana. They all spread through the stone like living roots before gathering toward the center of the chamber.

And there, half-buried in a nest of black and golden ore, rested an egg.

It was larger than a barrel, oval in shape and impossibly heavy-looking. Its shell seemed to be made of layered stone plates, dark brown and gray scales covering most of its surface. Between those plates ran the same ruby veins that stretched throughout the dungeon, glowing softly like a heartbeat beneath the shell.

Every few seconds, the egg pulsed.

And whenever it did, the ground beneath Cassian’s boots trembled in response.

This whole dungeon had been built for the egg, it seemed.

And that egg was of unfathomable value.

Cassian’s eyes gleamed in wonder.

"There you are..."

For a moment, even he grew greedy and imagined what it would be like to take it away from his lord and get rich himself.

Then his expression hardened again, deciding against a death wish.

"All right. Let’s leave. We got what we came here for."

The knights moved quickly.

They unfurled a thick enchanted tarp, wrapped it around the egg, and lifted it together with care.

Outside, the men and women were still dying, but it did not concern Cassian, as he did not even look back.

With the egg secured, he and his knights slipped deeper through the side passage, abandoning the rest of the expedition to the dragon.

—

At the base camp outside, a guard fell to his knees.

His eyes were wide open, filled with despair, as blood spilled from the open line across his throat.

Standing above him, Teclos slashed his sword forcefully to the side, expelling the blood from its blade in a sharp arc.

"That should be the last of them," he said.

Falcon looked over the camp and nodded.

The place was a bloodbath. Guards lay between the wagons, beside the horses, and near the supply crates. Some had died with their weapons still half-drawn as they noticed the disturbance too late. Others had not even known death was right behind them and died without ever knowing what hit them.

No alarm had been sounded throughout the entire attack, and no one escaped the bloodbath.

"Let’s head inside now," Falcon said.

Dusk was slowly settling over the camp as they left the corpses behind and entered the dungeon.

The moment they stepped inside, Teclos spread his senses through the shadows.

He easily felt the dead monsters and where the expedition had carved a path through them. There were still plenty of monsters left, but with Teclos’s senses, no surprises were waiting for them.

They walked through the dungeon without encountering much of a problem, and the monsters that did attack them were swiftly cut down.

Then he felt something else.

A small group moving through the dungeon from battle to battle, carving the monsters up just like he and Falcon did. Calm, organized, and unhurried.

His eyes narrowed.

"Huh... either they left our guys to die or they killed them," Teclos said quietly.

Falcon looked at him in question. "What are you talking about?"

"Some fairly strong knights are pushing through the dungeon. They are a small group, and they are carrying something on one of the knights’ backs... They are alone."

For a moment, rage started to build up, hot and violent, stirring in Teclos’s chest.

A nasty memory flashed through his mind, as it reminded him of someone.

Axel.

The feeling of being abandoned while death closed in around him.

His fingers tightened around his sword, and darkness suddenly started covering his eyes.

Falcon noticed the sudden bloodlust and killing intent, along with the sudden spike in aura.

"Kid!" he said, slapping his shoulder.

Teclos did not react, although the rage did halt.

"Anger won’t solve anything. You’ll just give our position away," Falcon said quietly. "We need to be silent if we want those bastards to pay."

Teclos breathed once through his nose and tried to clear his mind. More often than not, when his anger, apathy, or bloodlust spiked, he tended to lose himself in it lately.

After a second or two, he nodded with a clear mind again.

"I’m fine again... let’s go."

And they moved.

The cave was perfect for him. Dark, uneven stone to hide behind, cracks, corners, and shadows everywhere. His mana spread thinly around him, hiding his presence as he and Falcon started walking toward the distant group.

Soon, the voices from those knights reached them.

Cassian and six knights moved through the side passage, carrying something wrapped inside a thick enchanted tarp. Around each of their necks hung a faintly glowing necklace, silver-white and clean, pulsing softly with blue radiant mana.

"Lord Renwick will reward us well for this," one knight said.

"Reward us?" another laughed. "This is an earth dragon egg. This guarantees us promotions, titles, and maybe even land... basically whatever we ask for."

Cassian walked at the front, his expression stoic and calm.

"Careful with it. The egg is worth more than all of you combined."

One of the knights glanced back toward where they came from with a grimace. He was the youngest among them.

"What about the expedition?" he asked.

Cassian did not look back and answered him in a cold voice.

"They are doing exactly what they were brought here to do."

Another knight chuckled.

"Bait, then."

"Useful bait. By the time that lizard notices its egg is gone, we’ll be back in Lupos, hailed as heroes, and our lord will finally be granted a title of his own... not through a lousy marriage," Cassian said.

The others laughed quietly in anticipation of the reward.

In the shadows, Teclos’s face went cold.

He leaned close to Falcon and whispered everything he had heard.

Falcon’s expression did not change, but his hand moved to his blade.

"So Zamas was right," Falcon murmured.

"It’s worse than we thought," Teclos said. "The dungeon was never their goal. The egg was, and they somehow knew about it..."

Falcon looked ahead.

"Six knights and Cassian..."

"Seven targets," Teclos confirmed.

Falcon gave him a brief glance.

Then nodded. "We should be able to kill them."

They waited until the passage narrowed and for them to pass through.

When the last knight stepped beneath a low arch, Teclos moved.

Dark hands rose from the ground, clamping over the man’s mouth, wrists, and throat. Before he could make a sound, Teclos appeared behind him and drove his blade through the gap beneath his helmet.

At the same moment, Falcon’s wind blade cut across the second knight’s throat.

Two bodies dropped instantly, but their armor clanked against the stone, and the third knight turned toward the noise.

Before he fully turned around, Teclos’s shadows wrapped around his legs and dragged him sideways into the wall with a loud boom. Teclos broke all of the knight’s ribs, but before he could finish him, light exploded through the passage, illuminating them.

White-gold mana flooded the corridor.

Teclos’s shadows recoiled slightly, thinning beneath the brightness.

Cassian stood ahead, sword drawn, his pleasant smile gone.

"Who are you?" he said. "You aren’t part of the expedition."

Falcon and Teclos remained silent, both of them hooded.

The remaining knights spread out quickly, protecting the wrapped egg behind them.

Falcon clicked his tongue.

"That light is going to be annoying for you, kid."

"I know."

Teclos felt the shadows around him weaken, but they did not disappear.

He tightened his grip on his sword. This was a miscalculation on their part.

Cassian raised his blade, light gathering along its edge.

"So," he said calmly, "you aren’t going to answer me..."

Teclos’s eyes coated themselves with darkness, and he prepared for an attack.

Meanwhile, Falcon gathered wind around himself and prepared to slash at them.

"Renwick sent cowards, it seems," Teclos spat.

Cassian scowled, and the knights charged instantly, reacting to the provocation.