CHAPTER 118: VINTAGE SHOPPING MALL

As the taxi drove through the highway along with other cars, the bright lights from skyscrapers painted a picture on the window. Godfrey’s eyes were locked on his phone.

Even after reloading a couple of times, there was no real message about a green gate dungeon on his platform.

The ones people had put there, after searching them out, he discovered had already been cleared.

"Do I have to go back?" He bit his lower lip softly. After searching and searching, he leaned his head against the headrest, puffing out hot air from his mouth.

Suddenly, a ping from his phone brought his face back down. It was a message... from Isolde!

Godfrey looked at the driver. "Take me to the Vintage Shopping Mall."

***

Godfrey stepped down from the taxi, walking toward a huge mall turned dark. There was no sign of electricity from it, and a good number of armed policemen and Guild parties were around the sealed-off area.

His eyes locked on Isolde, who leaned against a truck, her arms crossed.

"Did your clairvoyance tell you I would leave the school?" Godfrey’s question made Isolde a bit startled as she turned to see him approaching.

"It did. Nyx has an obsession with you."

Isolde’s revelation made Godfrey uncomfortable. "I hope this obsession doesn’t reach the bathroom?"

Isolde chuckled. "Funny enough, I haven’t seen that yet."

"Yet?!"

"That’s it." Isolde pointed at the grand shopping mall that now looked like a hollow shell of its past.

Godfrey turned to the building. "Is that the green gate dungeon you’ve found?"

"It is. It swallowed everyone in the mall, about a hundred and something. A team of combatants and the authorities’ agents have gone in, led by two lord tiers, but they’re all dead," Isolde said solemnly.

"What?!"

Isolde glanced at Godfrey. "They don’t know it yet. They have hope, but this isn’t that kind of dungeon. There’s no place to hide in there. So... are you going to clear it with me?"

"I don’t plan on going back without a core," Godfrey replied.

Isolde raised her index finger. "Unfortunately for you, I have a rule, none of us will use our summons. But the core belongs to you."

Godfrey raised an eyebrow at her request but agreed to it. This was just a friendly rule; if the situation called for it, he would definitely call for his summons.

As both of them approached the mall, they received lots of glances, but no one stopped them.

When Isolde saw his puzzled expression, she spoke up. "I spoke with them before you came."

She said that as they both walked through the mall’s entrance and immediately found themselves in an odd place.

It was a space the size of a hall, but fogs were its walls, and the floor was like a chessboard. Standing two hundred feet away were armoured humanoid creatures.

They were lanky, with silver armoured pauldrons, rerebraces, couters, vambraces, gauntlets, but their thin blue chest and abdomen with tight abs were exposed.

From their waist down was also covered in silver armour, with a loincloth in-between their armoured legs and a longsword in their hands.

Their heads were round like a ball with one blue eye. All twenty of them were 7.0 high tiers.

"The mana levels from these pawns are quite high. Most lord tier dungeons have 5.5 and a max of 6.0 for minions," Godfrey said.

"I’ll handle them. You’re good at hand-to-hand combat..." Isolde said as she took steps forward. An ice spear manifested in her palm, with icy mist billowing off it. Isolde brandished the long spear.

"...Weapons are my forte."

The moment she said this, Isolde launched herself forward, piercing through the head of the first pawn as the others encircled her.

Pulling the spear out, she allowed the bottom to slam the second pawn backward before swinging the spear.

The integrity of her Item Materialization skill had risen so high that the ice spear was able to bend like it was made of steel, slicing half of the second pawn’s head off.

It reverted back, cutting halfway through the abdomen of the third pawn.

She stabbed the tip of the spear into the floor, and holding the shaft with one hand, lifted herself up and went around, kicking the pawns that launched themselves at her.

Her kicks were like a frosty kiss of death. Each kick sent a pawn flying, and from that spot, ice would burst out into ten-foot-long spikes!

After acting like a blade for a while, she flew up, leaving her spear, and fell right on it, forcing the spear to sink deeper into the floor. Isolde dipped to one side, and the spear tilted almost to a crescent shape before it rebounded, launching off the ground.

Isolde somersaulted several times with the spear before splitting through the last pawn from its head down.

The fog wall at the other end revealed a passage as she flipped her hair back. Twenty high tiers, killed gracefully.

Isolde’s spear skills were nothing short of deadly. Each move reaped a life, like some sort of spear reaper.

Godfrey clapped softly. "How long have you been training with the spear?"

"Since I was eight."

’That’s around the same time I started learning the ancient boxing style.’ The same time he used in gaining mastery in boxing was the same Isolde used to gain spear mastery.

Both of them walked through the opened path into the next, ascended a staircase, and entered the next hall with the same chessboard floor.

Ten seven-feet-tall hulking armoured humanoids, built like living towers, stood in a row facing them.

Their cuirasses were so bulky and huge that they made their helmets small. Their pauldrons also rose up like walls, making the heads even harder to damage.

Green flames billowed upward from the top of their helms, and all these hulking armoured creatures held war hammers.

These 7.5 high tiers also had blue loincloths, but these ones had the symbol of a tower.

"Rooks," Godfrey muttered as he gripped Isolde’s wrist before she took a step.

"You’ve had your turn. This is mine."