---Delta---
A crowd of adventurers was surrounding a big, blue gate, floating in the air above a cleared plot of land, surrounded by half-restored buildings. This was the entrance to the lv.58 realm-type dungeon colloquially called "Hag Heights".
"What is going on? Why are the Hag Heights closed today?" a confused adventurer asked the crowd as he arrived. The gate was blocked by guild personnel who let nobody enter.
"It's not just the Hag Heights. They have closed a bunch of the high-level dungeons in the city. Apparently, a big shot reserved them," someone in the crowd answered.
"Do you think one of the big guilds is grinding levels?" someone asked. "Wouldn't they go to the holy land, if that was the case?" someone else answered. Right, the people visiting the dungeons within Delta were generally recognized as those left behind.
They didn't have the money or skills to travel or pay for the teleport to the Holy Land. If they did, they would have been part of a guild to begin with and made a living by running dungeons in Delta.
"What are we going to do today, if they actually destroy it?" someone asked worried.
They had decided on a life as adventurers, but they were the ones left behind. These people depended on the local dungeons to make a living. If someone suddenly started closing them, it would actually threaten their livelihoods.
"Don't worry, the guild manages the dungeons for a reason. They don't allow people to close dungeons of this level. In a day or two, the beasts will respawn, and it will be fine," someone said confidently.
He was right in that the guild did not allow the destruction of the dungeon cores in the case of easily manageable dungeons like the Hag Heights. However, whether anything would respawn anytime soon was questionable.
---Hag Height, 20 minutes earlier---
The dungeon encompassed a deep canyon with steep valley, rock faces, and stone spires. The surrounding cliffs were covered in cliffs and were home to monsters called Vulturehags. They were a mix of a hag and a vulture, well-versed in dark magic and curses.
When adventurers entered the valley, they would be met by a whole swarm. They would curse their victims before ripping them apart with their claws. However, since their general level was only around fifty, it was a good place for adventurers in the 60s to farm experience and some pocket money.
Today, someone entered the dungeon without alerting the residents. Their purpose was not to battle, but to reap. Seth wore the helmet of Hades and the Wraithguard. Although that meant he didn't get the full set effect, it didn't matter in this case.
The blacksmith loosened his muscles before he shot off at top speed. He couldn't compare to the mind-blowing speed of Faenys in her new armor, but Seth wasn't slow at all when relying on his armor. Even when it was not the full set.
An invisible lightning swept across the caves, and like a shadow of death, he only left corpses in his wake. Their bodies were spotless, unharmed. They had simply stopped living the moment Seth extracted their souls with a single touch.
The blacksmith had come to realize that he didn't have the time to look for the perfect high-quality souls for Cade's armor. He had to do it himself. So instead of counting on quality, Seth went for quantity. Monique's armor had shown that refining a huge number of souls could also yield good results.
Although they couldn't even resist his soul robbery in the slightest (thanks to the massive level difference), each Vulturehag had at least a medium-sized soul. By the time Seth reached the boss in the cave at the central mountain, there were roughly 230 bodies that looked like they had lain down for a nap, only to never awaken from an eternal slumber.
Or there would have been, if the blacksmith had not swept them up in 3 neat inventory stacks. Although their levels were low and their materials not worth noting, the Golem Forge needed sustenance, and the mines needed workers.
There was also a booming business of renting out golems to adventurers for raiding dungeons. Although Seth took their souls, the Vulturehags were attuned to magic, so they could also act as a mage golem. One couldn't make too many; there was always a use.
The boss was slumbering inside a spacious cave at the central rock spire. It was a massive vulture with the head of an ugly old woman. The previous beasts still had more humanoid features and proportions.
Not humanoid enough to make them interesting for the special kind of people, but with some armor, they wouldn't look too weird. This one, however, was the size of a Wyvern and only left with the ugly face of an old woman. Apart from that, it was just a giant bird.
< Vulture Witch lv.60(Boss)>
Despite its size, it was just small prey for the blacksmith. With an imperceptible touch, he made sure it would never wake up from its slumber, harvesting its souls. In the past, he would not have been able to pull this off.
While inside a dungeon, the dungeon monsters were usually bound to afore mentioned dungeon. This allowed them to respawn, just like adventurers who lost experience but came back alive at the adventurer guild. In the past, dungeon monsters would only drop the same soul residues as any other monster that was killed the ordinary way, and Seth was unable to use
However, with
Usually, the dungeon could recycle the beast for the most part. However, Seth had taken everything, body and soul. Even if he left the body, it was not worth much without the most precious part, the soul. A body could quickly be regenerated with magic, but the soul? There was no replacement for that.
Now, the dungeon would need to summon fresh monsters to replenish. That was not as hard for dungeons run by those massive factions like Kozdam, who used dungeons to invade and conquer worlds. But ordinary, wild dungeons? Seth actually had no idea where they got their stock in the first place.
They had souls, so they weren't some mindless meat puppets generated with magic. Al'Zalsar had once told him that she was summoned by a dungeon master against her will to serve as the boss. If this were the regular way dungeons were run… The dungeon may never recover, financially, from the damage Seth had just caused.
Especially since he didn't plan to touch the dungeon master. A dungeon would only reset completely if the dungeon master was killed and the dungeon got a new one. Resetting dungeons and breaking the core was not cool with the Adventurer Guild, but … maybe he did something worse?
Seth had emptied the DM's pockets and simply left with the loot. Well, not yet. He switched his equipment to the full Scorpio Set, appearing right in front of the dungeon core. The point of the Great Sog was suggestively pointing at the glowing crystal.
"Spit it out, I'm in a hurry," the bard spoke with the Voice of Seth, making it extensively clear that he didn't mind breaking the rules of the adventurer guild if he was not happy with the rewards. The tip only had to tap the crystal once before it spat out of 50 gold and a couple of items. The amount was actually surprising for a dungeon of this level range.
The blacksmith was surprised; it had been ages since he gained a new title. Encountering stronger monsters in a dungeon sounded like a curse, for everyone else, maybe. Elites meant better materials, so the crafter was happy.
This also meant that the coffees were properly emptied. If the dungeon was going to recover from this loss any time soon, now it wouldn't. Maybe he even caused an indirect reset, because the dungeon master went bankrupt?
Putting the Helmet of Hades back on, he left the dungeon. The day was young, and more dungeons waited to be ruined.