Anton returned to the previous room, where he selected the door to the right that led him to the large prison. He then selected the door to the left. He wondered if the room he would choose would always lead to a dead end, and he had to return to the previous room to reselect the next one. He would know for sure once he arrived at a room where he would need to select a door again, and if he did and it led to a dead end, regardless of which one he chose, that meant that this dungeon floor set the floor up this way.

As expected, the door to the right led to a very long hallway. Anton commanded his five Spirit Wolves to explore every inch of the way to trigger the traps. He did the same with the Ravens so that when he passed by, he would not be damaged by any traps, even if they were placed high above.

Anton knew that if his summons were sentient, they might have protested at the abusive way he was using them. 

Thankfully, Anton’s Diablo II system allowed him to activate two Paladin auras at the same time. One was from his mercenary, and the other was the one that he personally used. Unfortunately, he could only use the Meditation Aura from the mercenary, and it came from the runeword weapon Insight that he gave to his mercenary from Lut Gholein. Because of that, he would activate his Cleansing Aura to heal his summons who were damaged by the traps while he remained supported by the Meditation Aura.

When the ravens reached the next room, he saw through their eyes the two doors again. Because of the size of the doors, which were fitting for a giant, Anton could even call them gates instead of doors.

Anton randomly selected a door, and it led to a large room. The chamber looked like a museum display room. There were paintings on the walls, and they were good-looking enough that Anton was tempted to steal them so he could display them in the mansion that his family would purchase in the future. He then thought if he could even take something like them outside the dungeon. He would try once this battle ended.

Between the paintings, there were statues of knights, and there were twelve in total. The main decoration seemed to be the statue of a knight as well, but this one was riding a horse. The statues were huge, twice the size of a human, and Anton had a feeling that the dungeon monster he would have to deal with in this room was the knight statues.

When Anton fully entered the room, as expected, the statues came to life. The statues then arranged themselves in some sort of a formation, facing him with the one riding the horse at the back.

Anton summoned all of his Druid summons, including the Clay Golem, the Valkyrie, and the Shadow Master. He also activated the Fanaticism aura to make sure that all of his summons were at their peak. He then flew down and placed himself at the back of his minions, imitating the horse-riding knight. He did this because he saw the boss monster had a bow and arrow strapped to its back, and Anton was sure that he persisted in flying about, he statues with bows would target him.

Not that he was afraid of the monsters’ attacks, but why make himself a target when he could deal with the monsters at the back of his minions? The moment the statues saw that he was ready, the knights started running towards Anton and his summons. 

To be honest, if his Necromancer’s skeleton summons didn’t require corpses to be summoned, he would have specialized his Necromancer’s spells in the summoning skill tree. Right now, his Necromancer’s spells were geared toward curses, but he hardly used them since all of them were area of effect spells, and he didn’t want his summons to be affected by his curses.

Anton knew that he should be making an effort to use all of his skills, so before the statues and his minions met, he cast all the curses he thought would apply to the situation towards the enemies, which were the Lower Resist, Decrepify, Life Tap, Iron Maiden, Weaken, and Amplify Damage. 

He then commanded his Valkyrie and Shadow Master to focus their attacks on the horse-riding statues. Anton was surprised at the amount of damage that his minions inflicted on the monsters. He felt like a fool for neglecting his Necromancer’s curses.

Anton then saw the boss knight casting some sort of spell and noticed that the damage that the other statues received began healing. He was glad that the healing powers of the boss knights were not as fast as the damage that his summons were inflicting, but he made an effort to destroy the horse-riding knight as soon as possible.

When his summons were receiving severe wounds, Anton would then switch to the Cleansing aura to heal them, then he would switch back to the Fanaticism Aura. He couldn’t cast curses again because he didn’t want his summons to be cursed as well, but to be honest, he didn’t even know if his summons would be affected by his curses because, if he was being technical about it, his summons were his skills. He would have to test it out later after the battle.

Anton cast Lightning, Ice Blast, and Hydra towards the horse-riding boss. He couldn’t cast any area of effect spells because his Valkyrie and his Shadow Master were fighting a melee battle with the knight.

When he finally heard a crack, Anton knew that victory was near. Soon, the boss knight statue crumbled. After that, Anton, his Valkyrie, and his Shadow Master assisted the other summons in killing off the rest of the knight statues.

The fight was extremely long compared to the battles that he had in the mid-level dungeon and the 30th floor of the Corridor of Amuneta. The statues’ fighting prowess was incredible. Their movement was incredibly smooth, like living beings instead of statues, and they were skilled warriors. If not for the hardiness of his summons, Anton’s healing abilities, and the aura that allowed the summons to inflict powerful damage, the advantage would have been to the statues.  But then again, all of his summons’ capabilities stemmed from Anton’s own skills, and his skills were powerful due to his system.

Anton then stored all the mana stones that came out of the dungeon monsters and the items that came out of the chests that appeared where the horse-riding statues were placed earlier, before it came alive. After that, he searched for a way to move forward, and as expected, there were none. That meant that his supposition was correct that the dungeon had already set it up in a way that the first door he chose would lead to a dead end.

Before he returned to the previous room to select the second door, Anton first tested if he could take away some of the painting. He could, but once they were removed from the walls, the paintings crumbled into dust.

The next thing Anton tested was to check if his summons would be affected by his curses. He summoned all of the wolves and started casting the Necromancer’s curses at them.

Anton was extremely delighted when he found out that his summons was not affected by the curses at all. He felt foolish for not testing it before.