Dungeon of Niflheim

421 Chapter 421: Losing a ronso

Frost’s hands froze in place when he heard Findlay mention that a ronso was lost in battle. That was the first C-rank monster to die among his forces, a serious blow- the ice revenant was just in a state of depleted energy and would be back in the fight after another couple days of rest, so it didn’t count.

“That’s not good. How did he die?” Frost asked with a pronounced frown. The ronsos were quite important to him given his direct involvement in their species establishment. Losing one of them struck a cord in his heart, filling him with a sense of loss and anger.

Findlay let out a sigh before explaining what happened. He knew his master would feel dejected at hearing the loss of one of the ronsos, so he explained in detail.

“This wave contained quite a mixture of different reptiles, drakes, lizards, snakes and even crocodiles. A lot of avenues to cover thus our upper ranks were spread quite thin. The drakes and crocodiles were both hard hitters with tough defences, refusing to go down even with extensive injuries. Whereas the snakes and lizards utilised their impressive speed and agility to make up for the drakes and crocodile’s short comings. They also had venomous variants that dealt a significant blow to our forces.” Findlay frowned and took a breath before continuing.

“Seeing the danger Khuno, Kiba and myself all took to the battlefield alongside 14 ronsos and several other C-ranks. Unfortunately none of us were on our A-game given the exhaustion from the previous waves plus leading the reptiles were 5 C-ranks each in a heavy state of frenzy. 3 of them, a drake, a lizard and a snake were all within the range of entry level C-rank whereas the last two were mid rank, a crocodile monster known as the demon spiked zilla. A fierce creature weighing several tons, chock full of armoured scales and devasting teeth. Its physical traits even outclassed those of the mid ranked drakes you defeated previously master.” Frost had just about finished making the tea, but his eyes opened up wide in surprise when Findlay described the demon spike zilla.

The drakes were by far the most physically gifted species he’d ever laid eyes on, but Findlay was saying that a creature with the same ranking surpassed even them. His surprise quickly changed to shock.

‘How on Nova were our losses so low if that was the case?’

“Thankfully however it was a purely physical entity with no magic capabilities and no breath attack....it just took a lot of damage to finally bring it down.” Findlay covered his right shoulder. The demon spiked zilla managed to dislocate it with a fierce swipe of its tail sending him flying across the field and through a bunch of trees. A rude awakening but one that alerted everyone else of the creatures physical capabilities. Findlay however felt the frustration once again from his limitations, his strength had stagnated. He was truly struggling against his recent opponents, something that was set to only grow worse.

“What of the last C-rank?” Frost asked as he carried over the two cups of tea.

.....

“It was a massive snake known as a baltic anaconda, over 12 metres long and with a girth of over 4 metres. This thing was an absolute monster, it practically played around when faced against me and Kiba. Knocking us down with a swift flourish or easily dodging our strikes with its insane flexibility.” Findlay shivered as he remembered the look in the snake’s eyes. It looked at him as though he was simply prey, a gaze full of mocking.

“It managed to instantly devour an ice dwarf. Stretching its jaw to an unimaginable size it swallowed him whole, like he was nothing but a snack. We couldn’t even react in time to stop it, powerless to watch as the lump that was our comrade gradually descended down the beast’s gullet. Getting crushed by its powerful internal constricting muscles. Within 20 seconds the lump had been reduced to the size of an artic horned rabbit.....that was when things really went downhill.” Findlay was visibly shaking at this point; his hands were clenched into tight fists and his teeth were grinding against one another.

Frost took the seat opposite his general and passed him his tea before placing a hand on his shoulder, pacifying him and asking him to continue.

Frost himself was no longer in quite a joyous mood, he felt regret in choosing to abandon his duties in managing the dungeon for intimacy with Maya but at the same time he recognised that despite the horrible situation the dungeon was still standing. Findlay was here before him with many minor injuries but nothing too major and the losses suffered weren’t that bad considering.

The dungeon didn’t actually need him overseeing everything, something that was both a good feeling as well as a lonely one.

“Thank you master.” Findlay took the cup and sipped its contents before carrying on.

“The sight of the ice dwarf being devoured filled a lot of the lower D-ranks into a state of panic. Their reactions dulled and the strength behind their attacks weakened resulting in many of them perishing.” Findlay wasn’t kidding when he said the majority of their lower D-ranks perished, Frost would need to spend a fair chunk to replace them all.

“The silver lining to this however meant that the ronsos and other C-rank monsters had less to defend, they could instead direct their energy into attacking thus we ended up in a pseudo stalemate with each side clearing out their weaker counterparts.”

“Near the end of the battle the C-rank lizard and entry level C-rank snake -slightly smaller but of the same species as the baltic anaconda- perished under the combined efforts of Khuno and the majority of the ronsos leaving the devil spiked zilla, frost drake and the bigger and nastier baltic anaconda. Clearly a good sign of our pending victory, moral sky rocketed, and the remaining D-ranks seemed to be reinvigorated.” Findlay paused and took a calming sip of tea before continuing.

“The remaining baltic anaconda then made its move. I don’t know if it was angered by the loss of the other anaconda or if it had just gotten enraged at the fact that its prey had dared to fight back but the redness in its eyes amplified, and it began to attack in earnest and far with better precision. It reared itself upwards and hissed loudly, knocking its surrounding attackers into a temporary daze but it didn’t attack right away instead this was an order. A moment later weaker snake monsters that specialised in poison reacted. They stop what they were doing and heeded the anaconda’s orders. They moved swiftly towards three of the ronsos attacking the anaconda in mass, utilizing their temporary dazed state to swarm them and bite down on their flesh, pumping them full of their special toxin.”

Frost frowned he could understand where this was going. The result of losing a ronso or even a couple ronsos was to be expected but the scarier thing was the anaconda’s ability to command the other monsters with such precision. This was a sign that the upper ranked monsters that were attacking the dungeon were not completely under the influence of the frenzied state, a far more dangerous adversary. A mindless beast was easy to deal with but one that could think, plan, and more importantly be patient was a much different enemy.

“The venomous snakes were swiftly killed by the ronsos once they regained their faculties but unfortunately the poison was already inside their bodies. The snakes suicide attack had worked, sacrificing many lower ranked entities to harm or even kill a few higher ranked ones, a useful strategy. The ronsos gradually found their bodies failing them as the battle progressed, they lost strength, their visions darkened, and they were wracked with pain. Our other forces did their best to pick up the slack, but we were already struggling. The demon spiked zilla was still raring for battle as was the frost drake and many upper D-rank monsters, there was nothing we could do. Inevitably one of the ronsos succumbed to the poison, he collapsed to his knees unable to stand.....the baltic anaconda wasted no time, striking at that exact moment. It opened up its jaw wide and swallowed the ronsos whole just like with the ice dwarf.” Findlay snapped his fingers describing how fast the situation went down.

Frost felt an eery chill down his spine, a frightening way to go.

“However....” Findlay looked directly into Frost’s eyes, his gaze filling with pride as well as frustration.

“Unlike the ice dwarf the ronso, your ronso didn’t go down without a fight. He knew that this was the end of his life, so he decided to go out with a bang.” Findlay slammed his cup of tea against the coffee table.

“In his last moments, as his body was consumed by the anaconda and inevitably crushed by its constricting muscles he filled his entire body with cold flames. Ones at a much higher level than what he could do normally. He expended his life force to summon high mortal grade cold flames and burned himself along with the baltic anaconda in a silvery blaze of freezing fire...his brave act brought the beast to the gates of hell. He showed it that ronsos weren’t prey and that attempting to feast on them would result in death.” Findlay remembered that at that moment he could swear he could hear the ronso laughing as he and the anaconda burned together in the sliver flames.