The Knight was still thinking about the current state of things.
The slowness brought about by this need, the need to consume human souls, was getting dangerous because these past fifty years have not been kind to the Knight. In the last 49 years, after killing the level 137 Alluga, the Knight learned why the Yiril was panicking and why this dungeon in particular is worse. Normal obsidian dungeons have an even spread of monsters ranging from 100-150, but because of the soul the Knight possessed it was flung into an abysmal dungeon. This dungeon is the more dangerous version of the latter, and for good cause. The abysmal dungeon has colonies upon colonies of the more powerful monsters. The Knight had the wrong idea the whole time, the reason why a level 200 would go nowhere near this dungeon was simple, death. The Knight had thought that the percentages went something like this; 20% weak 35% moderate and 45% strong instead of a three-way split balance like in the obsidian dungeon.
Let me explain further first. This dungeon is still an obsidian dungeon, just deeper and way more monster. A typical one has about 100-200 monsters inside, daunting but in 400 years one could surely eradicate them, and this was more so for someone stronger since already 33 percent is weak. However, an abysmal dungeon has about a thousand monsters. After the first year of culling, even as the weakest being in there, the Knight was feeling better about its chances.
It had slayed about 150 monsters ranging from 107-127. After killing the level 130, 131, 135, 137, the Knight was estimating that about a hundred monsters were left and most would range between 140-149, and then a final boss of 150. The thing is that when a dungeon is left open for a while the monsters start increasing, and because anything stronger than level 150 could not exist in an obsidian dungeon similar to how a dreadful soul could not in a normal obsidian dungeon. It seems whatever process that is involved in the formation of dungeons, has a form to exist in, creating a stable existence, which cannot be disturbed by those stronger.
So, about 40 years ago the Knight finally learned why being the weakest in this dungeon was a death trap. It was exploring further to see what is up ahead, when the Knight saw it, a whole massive area, with multitudes of level 150 monsters. The Knight was not terrified, just at peace. That was not even the deepest part of the dungeon. Meaning that from then onwards it was nothing but monsters that have maxed out at level 150. And by the looks of things there could be close to 700 maxed out monsters. And the Knight was already having problems facing level 140's.
What the Yiril meant was that in an abysmal dungeon, every monster between 100-149 was weak, they were the stragglers that escaped from the true horrors.
The first realisation is that the Knight has been risking its life performing miraculous feats, all just to beat the scraps of the dungeon, the monsters that were still not strong enough. The whole 49 years the Knight only managed to kill 10 monsters, and only one was level 140, and even that was by luck, the monster was about to become level 141, when the Knight and its helpers attacked. There was another level 142 there a hunter, that took advantage of the situation and tried to kill all three, the Knight used its helper as prey and waited until the stronger monster weakened the one that was already weaker. The level 142 was then tricked into following the Vile hunter and then they finished off the level 140 monster, in fact that's how the Knight lost the Vile hunter and the ability to teleport.
Simply put the Knight just about had enough of this dungeon, this world and everything in it. Greed however was not done, not even close.
That skill was the push still guiding the Knight. Even worse, it still had illusions about finishing within two cycles thus getting the book. There is something that would have made all this easier, a different will. Seeing that monster that was getting stronger, the Knight finally saw that if it had taken a different will, it would be able to grow stronger while conquering the dungeon. That monster that was getting stronger seemed to have been able to do so because its powers were too strong to be contained by the body of a level 140. It seems one had to get stronger, then when a threshold is reached, usually taking years upon years to reach, one becomes stronger. This is also why there is a huge divide between levels. Unlike what the Knight had been doing, a level 120, cannot compare to a 121, and a 149 is still weak when compared to a 150.
The Knight saw that if it continued at this pace the timer would run out and it would lose 50 levels, which sounded even worse now, that is considering it was even possible to still continue at this pace. The Knight was being modest really, the only reason it had been able to only kill 10 was simple. Forty years ago, the Knight had finally figured it out, after countless years of continual trial and error, how to create an army. The followers in the body of the Knight were mostly dormant, but when they were close proximity to a weakened monster, that has a tasty skill, like teleportation or the new favourite, soul sense. The Knight had to work harder to weaken a monster, which took too much time really, too much. Then it has to use the skill using the feather, to demonstrate its usefulness to the greedy followers, then grab the soul using visage of terror.
The last part was strange. The reason the Nared hunter had been taken was because, it had been weakened, its skill was alluring, and right when it was about to eat the Knight visage of terror was used. It seems the skill was even more dangerous than originally thought. When used, souls castrate themselves, and in this state the soul of the follower assimilates with the willing soul since it has understood its inferiority to the dreaded soul.
Due to how demanding it was to get a follower a vessel, it consumed quite some time, one even took five years to consume. If one thing was looking good was that the Knight possessed an army of 10 monsters, all above 125, due to the sacrifice of 10 levels to share the skills with the hive. The Knight and the followers were all connected, sharing dozens of skills. The Vile hunter was lost but when it was eaten by the level 142, it was able to take the body of the level 142. There was another Nared hunter down the line that was converted, this one level 138, which translated to 128, thus getting the teleportation skill back.
Greed was something else, each monster in the army was one of a kind, not a single skill was repeated, and once a skill had been lost, they would hunt for that creature and get the skill back. The strongest monster vessel in the Vile army was level 135, from the body of a decaying monster, it was in a fight and had been chewed up to the bone by something stronger, but somehow it still clung to its soul. The thing still put up the most fight, but with a skill as superb as disillusion, it had to be taken. It had managed to kill about four vessels before succumbing.
The Yiril would have lost its head at the sight of this army. Not only were they all sharing skills in-between, but their leader was the weakest of them all. Good thing they are mindless. The Knight could have kept a few at their original level, without sacrificing the 10 levels to share a skill, but the thing is that the skills were way more tempting, they were better than the feather's one use. Even though it was surely a sight to behold, it was nothing in the sight of 700 level 150's.
The Knight could not handle level 140's, but with this small army and the abundance of skill that each brought, it was not too hard; so long as it was not an army against an army. The only loss was that, when a vessel is lost, the soul is consumed by the follower not the Knight, thus the Knights low kill count of only 10 in the past 49 years – it was the building of the army.
Things were not looking good, but they were better, except for the whole thing with no humans. One last major issue was that in about two years' time there would only be level 140's left, and with the scale of things this was not enough. So, the Knight was planning to hunt all of the monsters below level 140 down without much preparation, in a month instead of two years, not that many of them were left and the Knight could handle them with this army and a couple of tactics.
Currently though the Knight was hunting down one of the last groups, this was going to be a rumble. The Knight usually, spent weeks luring them into traps, and separating them to be picked off swiftly. That would take two years to eradicate those below level 140, but since the army is mostly complete, this was just going to be a simple slaughter. And to save time the Knight was going to hunt a whole group, the sound of battle would attract the others and then in the confusion, pick off the weak, whatever constituted weak in this place.
***
The Knight was slightly furious, it had actually taken it two months. A healthy level 140 had walked into the party, the rest were two deep since they were led away using bait. Two of the soldiers were sent deeper to bait all the level 140's deeper, only one ignored and went ahead, making the whole turmoil harder for the Knight to manage. Then those two teleported back up and fought in the battle. The Knight was just thinking about the Yiril again, and how shocked it would be to see a single level 105 caused so much havoc in an abysmal dungeon.
Now, after the slaughter, it was time to start seriously thinking about escape.
Why? It was simple really. The reason anything below 140 had survived in this dungeon, meaning the Knight's prey or hunters – depending on the situation, was because they all possessed skills that allowed them to get away, like invisibility, intangibility, teleportation, floating, immobility too. The others simply went too high to be followed, like the Retcher. As for anything stronger, it had a skill to survive. The Knight had two examples, as well as two skills from these examples.
The first was the snakelike beast with transparent skin and no scales, more like a worm with glassy hard skin, and solid insect legs, the level 142 Fero. It was responsible for killing the first Vile hunter. Its skill is absolute control field. This skill allows it to stop the skills of those in its vicinity, by allowing the air around it to be laced with a thick smoke of poison around it, that not only robs one of its skills but slowly decays it, this poising is emitted straight from its skin.
After it ate the Vile hunter, it had evolved into Vero and allowed the Knight to use this battle tested skill of something that thrives not just survives. When used the skill takes time for the gas to flow, and the other skills of the Knight are deactivated two. The way the Knight used it was, to make one follower stay within range of the enemy and use other skill to kill from a range. The second example is the three headed blood red horse, its level 145, the Ninx.
It had just gotten into a squabble with a monster that was stronger. It had been partially eaten, revealing ribs and organs. Giving the Knight trouble even on its death bed, but the skill, disillusion... This skill allows it to turn the horrors of its opponent into reality. The Knight itself has no fear as well as the army, but they had faced monsters bringing them close to death, so the Ninx had summoned a whole army of its own, made up of all its foes. The only downfall to the skill was that the only foes it can manifest is those the enemy has already defeated, like the Retcher.
This skill is not good for one who is fighting opponents that are weaker than it, but when they are stronger, then one can summon illusory allies that are almost on par. The other problem is that it can only summon one per rival. So, it was an effective still for thriving in here, since a fight with it would always mean the numbers are always on its side. The monster that had left it in such a state must have had to be stronger than the Ninx and its strongest defeated foe combined.
Now imagine the skill in the hands of the Knight. It could be used 11 times, 10 followers plus the Knight. So, if the knight is fighting 10 opponents, then each opponent will have 11 illusory versions of the same foe, thus 10 vs 11 becomes 10 vs 121, 100 vs 11 becomes 100 vs 1111. Even if the illusory foes cannot use skills and are weaker than their opponent this multiplication skill was useful. But the thing is without skills or true independence these copies might as well be a single being. The illusory beings all disappear when their conjurer is gone too.