Chapter 54 - 53 Monster Festival

Having spent the last eight days fighting monsters and magical beasts on the second level of the Ocean Bluff Temple, Marcus had managed to reach level twenty. He did however run into the occasional problem. While his iron golem was useful against most monsters, it also attracted the attention of any adventures that came across it. These unwanted times of interference had slowed Marcus down and cost him numerous hours as the adventures always destroyed his golem forcing him to waste copious amounts of mana.

'Huh, I was hoping that my nonstop fighting in these last eight days would have yielded a couple more levels, but I have to kill over a hundred monsters around my level just for one level up. Oh well in a few more minutes I will be able to use my solid soul again and then I can level up faster.'

Soon Marcus was once again able to reform his physical form and stretching out his new body Marcus felt great to once again be able to feel, smell, and taste.

'Ah, while being a ghost has its perks not being able to sleep can start to weigh on the mind, and even though I do not need to eat, I can still taste, and I have missed delicious food. Now then, I should spend a little while longer grinding out at least two more levels before I head back and deal with Poulsen.'

With a body to fight with again Marcus set off in search of more monsters to kill. Soon he ran into a powerful monster that looks like is a bipedal crocodile, was over twelve feet tall and level twenty-two. Preparing to engage Marcus cast his iron skin and lightning strider spells and infused his body and weapon with mana. Ready to begin the battle Marcus shot forward towards the monster, until suddenly he felt a massive pressure on his body, and he then found himself in a completely different area.

Looking around Marcus noticed that he was not the only thing in the massive room he had been transported into. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of monsters surrounding all around him, and more were appearing ever second. Trying to run away Marcus found that he was unable to move no matter what he tried.

'What the hell is going on, one moment I am fighting that crocodile monster and the next I am in a massive room surrounded by monsters.'

Stuck in place without the ability to activate any of his spells or ranged abilities, Marcus hoping that something appeared in his personal log open his status. When he did, he found the message that said, 'You have been chosen to participate in dungeon 658's biannual monster festival, the final monster left will be the winner and receive glorious prizes.'

In the message he also found a countdown clock that had around four minutes before it reached zero. With nothing to do but wait Marcus thought of how he was going to get out of his current predicament.

After only about a minute, Marcus had come to the decision to flee, he had no guarantee that he could come out victorious against the other thousands of monsters that were continuously appearing. With his mind made up Marcus deactivated his solid soul and returned to his ghost form. Looking around he found that the nearest way out was to simply go through the ceiling that was two hundred feet above.

When the timer ran out Marcus could feel that the force keeping him locked in place had vanished and he immediately made a beeline for the ceiling as the other monsters began fighting.

However, when Marcus reached the ceiling, he was immediately repelled by some invisible force and no matter how hard he tried he could not escape.

'This is not good now my only option is to fight; I could try waiting until they all kill each other but then the last monster standing will probably be too much for me to handle. I am just going to have to fight my hardest and win.'

With no other option but to fight in the massive brawl of monsters, Marcus dropped down from the ceiling and cast his iron golem spell. Marcus then resolidified and brought out his scythe before launching himself towards the nearest monster.

Marcus fought like a fiend hacking and slashing through numerous monsters carefully reserving his mana to use against only the strongest foes. While he fought with near no regard for getting injured, he had ordered his Iron golem to protect him using its massive HP and durable body.

Unfortunately, he could not keep his iron golem up forever and after ten minutes it began to crumble leaving Marcus to fend for himself. No longer being protected by his iron golem guard, a massive ten-foot-tall monster that looked like the fusion of a raptor and a pelican leaped towards him. Dodging to the side Marcus swiftly brought up his scythe to block the creatures claw swipe and was pushed back over a dozen feet from the impact.

Realizing that he could not beat this monster with half measures Marcus activated his powerful enchantment spells and skills before letting off a heightened lightning javelin. The pelican raptor tried to evade but with its massive size it was unable to avoid the speedy lightning javelin.

With the pelican monster hurt and stunned by the electrical attack, Marcus initiated his assault jumping up and trying to decapitate the monster in one massive swing. The pelican raptor not willing to go down easy and coming out of its stun brought its claws up to intercept Marcus' attack. As the two opposing forces collided Marcus's slash managed to win out as he slice through the claws and deep into the monsters arm.

Detaching his scythe, Marcus began falling to the ground when the pelican raptor opened its large mouth and champed down on Marcus.

Feeling the razor-sharp teeth grinding against his iron skin trying to tear him to shreds, Marcus calming his mind to not panic, realized that the monster had just exposed a major weak point.

Reaching his left hand forward he began blasting fire shot after fire shot down the pelican's gullet, and with his spirt stat being much higher than it was the last time he used the spell Marcus was astounded to see the level of power this basic spell had reached.

As three-foot diameter balls of fire continuously blasted into its stomach the, the pelican raptor gave up on trying to eat Marcus and spit him out.

With its internal organs burned the pelican raptor was in horrible pain and instinctively tried to flee from Marcus. However, anticipating that this might happen Marcus had primitively tied his iron threads around its legs causing it to fall over, exposing its back.

A huge opening created Marcus leaped onto the creatures back and began hacking and slashing away. Within just a few seconds Marcus had managed to carve up the monster, leaving its corpse in multiple pieces.

Unfortunately for Marcus, his current situation was not a sprint but a marathon and just defeating one strong monster meant nothing as more began to surround him.

Fighting with everything he had for as long as he could, Marcus soon concluded that he was eventually going to lose if he did not take a break and recover his mana.. With this realization he quickly distanced himself from the other monsters fighting and went back into his ghost form to recovery and prepare for his coming battles.