Chương 31

There was no way Oliver was about to turn around and try to clean off his blood from the spine of a random book in that library. Even should the golem guardian calm down and stop attempting to actively smash his body into a pulp, the book might take quite a bit of time to locate. No, Oliver had to accept the loss of blood. Doubtlessly, the vampires would soon know he had infiltrated the castle. Their ability to detect fresh blood put the uncanny senses of sharks to shame.

And they might even discover he crept through their secret passageways. It was only a matter of time. So, the best thing to do was continue on and finish what he came for quickly, before his time ran out. Oliver double backed to the fork in the path and this time he took the passage he'd opted to avoid last time. Unlike the passage leading up to the library, this one sloped downward. Which was great. Both of his objectives should be down.

The werewolf should be chained up in the dungeon, and the servers somewhere inside the mountain underneath the dungeon. This tunnel ended at a stone wall. Oliver held up his glowing drone piece and scanned the wall carefully, searching for any sort of mechanism akin to the last two secret doors. He found on the side, where the walls met, a bit of stone protruding. Pressing down on it triggered the secret door with a click. He entered an empty dungeon cell.

It reeked of rot and moans of pain echoed throughout the prison.

"Perfect," he muttered quietly for Ben's benefit.

"I've now entered the castle's dungeon. Now to find that werewolf and complete the quest."

"What's that?" a screeching voice called out.

"Boy! Your tongue loosened enough for a chat about your tribe? Or just garbling out gobbly gook nonsense again? You know how I feel about goopy nonsense!" A monstrous creature stepped out of the shadows, stomping past Oliver's cell without even a glance in his direction. It stood taller than humans, its body covered in black fur and a smooshed snout. Massive ears sprouted from the crown of its scalp and its mouth hung open, revealing long, sharp canine teeth.

Rather than traditional arms, the monstrous upper appendages were sealed to its side with a thick, black membrane. Some sort of bat-man creature. While bestowing on him his quest, the werewolf girl had mentioned that the vampires were performing experiments with vampire blood. This monster was likely one of those results. Oliver used Appraisal on the bat monster. Billy Sanders. Bat-Vampire hybrid. Level 46 Monstrosity. The bat monster clearly thought Oliver's mutterings were that of the werewolf child's.

It strolled right past him, with clear intent on interrogating its prisoner. It walked with a limp, its bat arms extended outwards, likely for balance. Billy Sanders sounded like the name of a random person in town. Not one of the threatening names of vampires or their normal abominations. So that implied that at one point this creature had been a normal human. At least, as normal as all the mutated lobotomized people Oliver had spent his time around these last few years could be considered 'normal.'

Oliver couldn't help but think of the fact that these were all part of an experiment. Inhuman experiments inside an inhuman experiment. The cycle continued. Over the years, Oliver had killed a handful of monstrosity creatures. A few of the flesh ripper's escaped creations had served as some of Oliver's first challenges in the Nightmare Biome. Still, monstrosities as a creature type were a rarity in his biome.

The few people with the talent and skills to create monstrosities didn't usually bother since, the majority of the time, it resulted in the monster killing its creator. Still, the few Oliver had slain had not gone down easily. The only creature type that Oliver knew with more vitality than monstrosities were vampires. But monstrosities also lacked the well-known weaknesses that vampires had. Other than a weakness to electricity, each monstrosity was unique in what harmed them.

Since Oliver didn't have access to electricity at the moment, he thought it would be best to avoid a fight with Billy. And yet, it was also a vampire hybrid. How much of their weaknesses would carry over? Could Oliver still stake it in the heart or burn it? He opted for stealth for the time being. While he was currently contained within the cell and it acted as a cover for those not paying attention, the cell door wasn't actually locked. It creeeeaked open as Oliver pushed it. The wailing noise, long and grinding.

A different prisoner in a nearby cell called out, covering up Oliver's noise with muffled and garbled words. Grateful, Oliver snuck up to the cell of the prisoner and found a mutilated man, little more than a sack of flesh. Frederick North. Boneless. Level 2 Monstrosity. Boneless was an apt description of the man. The glob of skin undulated a bit, eyes on Oliver. The man opened a toothless mouth. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Goooo fweeee," he said to Oliver. Then he raised his voice and continued his earlier howling. Oliver nodded his thanks to the mutilated man. Nobody deserved a fate like that. For a moment, he debated shooting Fredrick to end his miserable existence. However, that would be throwing away any hope of saving the werewolf child. Better to save an innocent life than nobly end one. Taking advantage of the offered distraction, Oliver maneuvered through the shadows in the direction Billy had hobbled in earlier.

Sadly, it looked as if his hand was being forced. If Billy stood between himself and his quest objective, the monstrosity needed to be put down. Oliver needed to do his best to make this a quick assassination and call as little attention to his existence as possible. Shadow Slink allowed him to swoop through the darkness with ease. He edged around the occasional blue torch's light, a presence haunting the dungeon's shadows. The other prisoners didn't even look up as Oliver passed them.

They huddled in the corners of their cells. Some rocking, some appearing comatose. All bore some form of obvious mutilation. Down the hall, Billy, the bat monster, cursed and then let out his own wailing scream that rattled the entire dungeon. Oliver's hands went to his ears but the reverberations shook him down to his bones. There was no escaping the noise. His skill ended as he fell to his knees. Overwhelmed by the piercing screech, he barely even processed that he slumped up against the nearest cell's bars.

When it ended, Oliver lowered his shaking hands to reveal they were smudged in blood. An echo of Billy's scream remained bouncing around in his skull. His breaking shaky, Oliver tried to regain his footing and hide, slink into the shadows with his skill. But Billy burst from around the corner, propelled by a powerful flap of his wings. His fangs out as his scarlet eyes locked onto Oliver. His mouth moved, signifying that he spoke something to Oliver, but whatever the message, it was indecipherable.

Oliver's ears still rang from the piercing scream. Billy's clawed feet gripped the bars of the cell adjacent to Oliver. He launched himself off the cell, mouth agape and teeth flashing in the torchlight. While currently deaf, wobbly on his feet, and suffering from a splitting headache, Oliver was thankfully not otherwise damaged. In a flash, he drew out his gun and fired. He felt the kick of the weapon in his hand and Billy's shoulder burst apart as the silver bullet tore through his flesh.

Billy's flight now thrown eschew, Oliver jumped to the side as the bat monstrosity smashed into the cell's bars. Before Billy had a chance to recover, the flat of Oliver's shovel smacked into the side of his crumpled form, batting him down the dungeon hall. Billy rolled on the ground for several seconds, then he righted himself in a crunch and propelled himself back at Oliver at an enhanced speed.

Before Oliver even had the chance to reposition his footing or raise his shovel defensively, Billy rammed into his leg and ripped out chunks of muscle and sinew with his teeth. Oliver's own screams were silent to him as the ringing of Billy's first attack continued to echo his ears, removing all other sound from their confrontation. Despite the crippling pain, Oliver slumped onto the cell bars rather than collapse completely prone on the floor. He then jabbed his shovel down, shoving it between Billy and his thigh.

Then he pried the bat monster off of himself, his eyes blurring at the pain of him using the wounded leg as a fulcrum. Billy's flesh sizzled as the flat of the silver shovel pressed up against his face. The smell of burning fur filled the dungeon. The monstrosity refused to let go though, only his upper jaw getting pried up as his lower jaw remained clamped in Oliver's leg. But that left an opening. Lacking the time to reload his blunderbuss, Oliver dropped the weapon.

Then with his now free hand, Oliver reached into his pocket and grasped at the contents within. He shoved a handful of pure salt down the monster's throat. That, finally, forced Billy off of him. The bat monstrosity reeled back, his mouth still agape. While Billy's face was now coated in human blood with wads of flesh, his jaw remained agape as he gagged. Oliver could still see inside of his throat as it bubbled. The blisters popped and regrew rapidly while the opening itself shrank.

The exterior of the throat expanded, however, swelled up like fermenting dough. Oliver used every shred of his Strength to shove Billy away. The monstrosity fell on the floor, no longer able to keep balance. He clawed at his neck, tearing off skin and fur as if in an attempt to remove the burning flesh from his exterior. A rip in his throat resulted in a sizzling glob of tissue to dribble down his neck and onto his shoulder, leaving behind a snail-trail of burned skin.

Gasping for air, Oliver righted himself and stood over his downed foe. Billy writhed at his feet, clawed wing grasping at Oliver's pant leg. While he debated abandoning Billy like that, to suffer before death, Oliver decided it would be safer just to kill him outright. If Billy did somehow remove the salt from his insides, then it was possible he'd heal and recover enough to attempt vengeance on Oliver.

So Oliver, balanced on his good leg, chopped down with the blade of his shovel, removing Billy's head from his body. The head didn't roll. Rather it flopped onto the stone dungeon floor. Curls of steam rose up from the bubbling blood that oozed out of Billy's neck. His body continued to twitch and Oliver waited for half a minute, just to be certain the monstrosity truly was dead. His hearing slowly returned.

Enough that he recognized that the cries and shouts of the other prisoners in the dungeon would attract attention. And that was if the noise from his gunshot and battle with Billy hadn't already garnered the awareness of his enemies. He was in a bad position and needed to move on quickly. Still, he wouldn't be much of a [Grave Robber] if he didn't loot the fresh body. Gingerly, so as to not get snatched at if the monstrosity had any undead tricks, Oliver searched Billy's pockets.

Sadly, the monstrosity had very little on him. A black key and 50 Mel were all he recovered. Well, there was also a jar full of dead fruit flies, but Oliver opted not to steal the dead bat's snack. Once he confirmed the corpse was cooling, Oliver used his shovel to hobble down the hallway, making his way over to his quest objective.