Chapter 210 Matthew Hinks(2)
Leo looked at the scenery on the fifth floor with a look of awe. The scenery before him was a mixture of blue and green. There was a green field before him, but there were also ponds of all sizes scattered all over the place.
"We might be getting close to the boss room." Sarah said after seeing the fifth floor.
"I have a feeling that monsters will jump out of these ponds." Leo mumbled.
"It's probably not even a pond." Oscar said, and he continued, "Although it may seem like there are multiple ponds, they might actually be connected with each other underground."
He proceeded to swing one of his axes into the ground before bringing it back up.
"See? We're just standing on a layer of ground. There's actually a whole ocean underneath us."
"..." Leo had a somewhat anxious look on his face.
What if he accidentally fell into the water? He couldn't swim, so he'd be in deep trouble, not to mention the unknown amount of sea monsters swimming around.
"Let's follow the wall and avoid the middle. It might take a little longer, but it's much safer than going straight through it." Sarah suggested.
"Alright." Leo had no complaints about avoiding the ponds.
Thus, they began walking the right side of the Labyrinth, keeping close to the wall.
While the others weren't paying attention, Leo slipped the Devourer of Gods into one of the ponds to allow it to hunt the monsters underneath them.
Sometime later, Oscar would notice a black dot in the sky, and it was getting bigger with every passing second.
"It's a flying monster!" Oscar warned them.
This flying monster resembled an eagle, had metallic-looking feathers, and a large black parrot-like beak.
Seeing this, Leo immediately tossed a Void Spear at it.
"Ah! It dodged!" Oscar exclaimed when the monster dodged the Void Spear.
However, to everyone's surprise, the Void Spear suddenly changed directions and chased after the monster like a homing missile.
This surprised not only his teammates, but it also freaked out the monster, as it has never seen anything like this before.
The Void Spear eventually struck its target, causing the flying monster to plunge into one of the ponds.
When that happened, Leo could see multiple sea monsters fighting to consume the monster's corpse, acting like a bunch of piranhas.
"How did you do that just now?" Jasper asked Leo afterward.
"Do what?" Leo acted ignorant.
"Change the direction of your magic spell when it's already sent out! That's my first time seeing it!"
"I don't know." He shrugged, "It just happened naturally, I guess."
"..." Jasper was speechless.
"You need extreme control over your mana in order to do something like that." Sarah suddenly said, and she continued, "I have met several S-Rank Adventurers before and only one of them had the capability to do what Leon just did."
"Just how much more power are you withholding, Leon? You're like a bottomless pit of power." Oscar said in a joking tone, yet his face was dead serious.
They continued moving forward shortly after.
Leo and Lia would take turns shooting down the monsters, mostly because Lia was getting bored of just walking.
The others were also getting bored, but there was nothing they could do in this situation but rely on Leo and Lia.
About two hours after Leo and his team arrived at the fifth floor, Matthew Hinks aso entered the fifth floor. However, unlike Leo's team, he went straight across the floor without a care in the world, and all monsters that dared to attack him were burned until there was nothing left.
Several hours later, he arrived at the end of the floor, and without any hesitation, he proceeded to go to the next floor, unaware that he'd passed Leo's team.
Matthew would continue moving forward without stopping until he reached the boss room.
"They're not here yet? How slow." Matthew proceeded to take out a chair and placed it right in front of the boss room. He then sat on it and began waiting.
Meanwhile, after arriving at the sixth floor of the Labyrinth, Leo and his team noticed something odd about the scenery, as they noticed burn marks all over the place, almost as though a fire had occurred here recently.
Furthermore, there were burnt corpses that belonged to monsters that scattered all over the place.
"This is… Did someone come here ahead of us and kill these monsters?" Oscar asked out loud.
"That's not possible… The previous floors had no indication that someone had shown up before us." Sarah said.
"What about those assassins that tried to ambush us? They were ahead of us." Jasper said.
"That's true… But why would they leave no traces in the previous floors but leave so much evidence of their presence here? That doesn't make any sense."
"Let's keep going and see how things go." Leo said, "We might get ambushed again, so we need to stay on alert."
"Let's do that."
They had planned on taking a break after arriving at the sixth floor, but now that there's a chance that they're not alone, they decided to give up resting to avoid being ambushed like what happened on the second floor.
"Let's also follow the trail left behind by whoever killed these monsters. They might lead us straight towards the next floor." Sarah suddenly suggested.
Thus, they began moving forward, but they followed the traces left behind by Matthew, unaware that they were walking towards an S-Rank Adventurer.
Over the next two days, Leo and his team would clear 2 more floors not including the sixth floor, mostly because they followed the trail and there were barely any monsters left to attack them.
When they started descending the staircase that led them towards the ninth floor, they noticed a change in the atmosphere, making it harder for them to breathe.
"The next floor will most likely be the boss room." Sarah warned them, as she has felt this exact feeling multiple times before, and all of them led to the boss room.