The Apostles spent no time preparing to the best they could. Lee brought out some gauntlets that he wore, Park brought out some daggers that did not reflect anything.
Bak and Soo-Yun brought out staff of their own. Bak's staff was a long, straight stick with a giant, circular crystal at the end. Soo-Yun's staff was an unusually cut gem that seemed to be clutched from some tendrils that grow out of a long crooked stick.
Kim Min-Soo was the only one that did not bring anything except for a mask that she seemed to have in her inventory.
When asked why she didn't take out anything, she said that she already had. If she was in danger, only then would her protection show its face.
Ning walked forward while the rest of them felt worried about doing so. The water was poison, the air was poison, and there was a freaking dragon waiting for them at the end of the journey.
That was simply walking onto the jaws of death itself.
Ning looked back at the people that weren't moving at all. "Don't be afraid now. You have your items, don't you? we need to keep moving," he said.
"But… the poison," Park said.
Ning shrugged. "Don't ask me. You're the ones who didn't plan ahead and are now poisoned," he said. "Don't you people have some healers in your guild?"
"We do… but this is not a place we can just bring them. With our own safety at risk, it would be reckless of us to bring anyone else," Soo-Yun said softly.
"And none of you have healing spells?" Ning asked.
"I do, but it's not of a very high grade. It can only heal minor wounds," Soo-Yun said.
"Sigh, just keep moving. I will heal you if you get too wounded or poisoned," Ning said and started walking. With no other choice, the rest of them started following him as well.
After just a minute of walking, another beast arrived. Although, Ning couldn't tell if he should call it a beast or not.
What appeared was a rotting tree with vines around it swinging like arms. Was this a plant or an animal? Or was that distinction itself useless when dealing with things that were not normal?
"You guys want to try fighting that?" Ning asked.
"What is this thing?" Bak asked.
"Uhh… it's a Swamp tree monster. No proper names as there are way too many variations of it to give them all names. It's just a tree that has gained some consciousness and can move thanks to mana," he said.
"What can it do?" Kim asked.
"Are the Apostles really that useless that they want the answers to everything?" Ning asked. He wanted to see what they could all do, so he wasn't going to answer everything.
"Fine, let me go at it," Park said. He prepared for a second before moving. He blitzed his way through the swamp, arriving next to the beast. There was a dagger in his hand which he used to cut the beast.
Ning saw that Park's body was enforced with mana to make sure that his body didn't break under his own speed.
The dagger attacks left some marks on the monster and while they weren't powerful, soon enough the number of attacks stacked up to an incredible amount, and the monster fell to the ground.
Ning moved his hands and quickly healed Park who was once again getting poisoned by the poison fog.
"Thanks," he said while being a little out of breath. "I didn't expect this to take so much out of me."
"Yeah, it takes quite a bit out of you. Especially since you were breathing in the poison fog," Ning said.
"Shit, I don't know how we would be able to handle such a dungeon if you didn't come," Park said. "Thanks to you being here, at least I'm not useless."
"Alright, grab that mana stone and we can start moving," Ning said.
After a while, they met another beast. This time, it was a giant snake that seemed to have dragon scales too.
This time around, Lee decided to fight. He needed to get back his honor as well as his own sense of self-worth. If he continued feeling useless, he would never actually be able to be useful.
The snake was strong, but Lee still managed to defeat it. If it were just physical strength, Lee would have certainly lost, but thanks to him being able to use mana to bypass some of the snake's defense, he won.
However, even if he did win, it became a little hard for the group just to dig out the mana core from the snake as the snake's skin was quite tough.
Bak used some sort of magic to create an illusory sword that cut the snake multiple times, finally getting access to the mana core inside.
Next up, they came across a smaller beast. A far smaller beast.
There was a blue beast in front of them, sitting in the poisoned water. It was about the size of a young crocodile or maybe the size of a komodo dragon.
It was mostly blue except for some reddish tips. Its body seemed to be soft, as if slime, and had nothing to it that would make one think that it was related to a dragon.
However, the moment they even got closer, the beast moved. Its mouth opened and fired a massive amount of water toward the group.
Everyone panicked for a moment, thinking that the water was poisonous, but it was not. Still, the force at which water was being blasted at them was quite strong.
Bak created a barrier around all 6 of them, protecting even Ning from the blast of water. He simply waited for the water fountain to be over, which surprisingly went on for nearly 5 minutes.
Only after the blast was over, were they able to see the tired beast in front of them that seemed to have given its everything to attack them.
Now, the blue Axolotl was vulnerable, and would easily die to Bak.
