Chapter 269: The final floor
The temple stood atop a pedestal carved with images of serpents, venom-blooming flowers, and scenes of sacrifice too detailed to be symbolic. The obsidian walls rose at crooked angles, covered in grotesque carvings of writhing beasts, skeletal priests, and fanged idols drooling venom.
At the very top, a single, massive serpent skull had been fused into the architecture, its fangs dripping with emerald ichor that vanished before touching the ground, absorbed into the sloshing poisonous liquid all around.
Massive stone doors stood closed at the front of the temple, etched with rotating rune circles that flickered between green, black, and violet.
And above those doors, a chilling inscription in an ancient script shimmered into visibility for just a moment: "All poisons are truth. All truth is death."
Damon narrowed his eyes, studying everything around him. There was no sign of a final boss or anything like that. In fact, this entire dungeon was more like a trial rather than a regular dungeon and the final floor only confirmed this.
If he was not wrong, then this final floor should probably have one or more rewards listed in the quest, and awarded for a partial completion.
Snapping him out of his thoughts, suddenly the shrill voice of the old man sounded. "Ahhh... ahhh... aioooo.... Ahhhh!" The old guy actually managed to trip over and fall into the acid pool.
Damon reacted as fast as he could but he was caught off guard and also in a weakened state. There was only so much he could do.
In the span of a second, the acidic poison had already reached the old man’s robes. The fabric hissed and sizzled, dissolving into steam as the liquid crept higher with terrifying speed.
His screams grew distorted, gurgling until a whip-like strand of venom shot up from the pool and coiled around his waist like a living tentacle, yanking him deeper into the glowing sludge.