Konrad Ryan - The Dungeon Destroyer: A LitRPG Level-Up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 2)

Konrad Ryan

The Dungeon Destroyer

A LitRPG Level-up Adventure

Copyright 2020 by Konrad Ryan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Konrad Ryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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First edition

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For those climbing, there is nothing beyond the mountaintop; but at the peak, one can only gaze upward, and fly.

Tad stood on the tallest peak of a vast mountain range. A stone tower climbed endlessly upward into the blue sky, further than even his enhanced vision could see; below, clouds hugged the skyscape like a blanket, jagged black mountaintops pierced through the silky white clouds as far as he could see. The view was breathtaking and dazzling. This hadnt been what he had expected when he gripped the key and teleported to the class tower.

The symbols scrawled across the key, writhing against his clenched fist, almost as if they were alive. Swords, bows, daggers, cloaks, crooks, and canes danced and twisted. They hadnt done this before. Were they reacting to the tower? Plus, the symbols looked eerily similar to those etched on dungeon doors. Tad brought up the keys description.

*Key to Class Tower: The keyword Teleport will move you to the class tower and back again. Can only be used from your room. Earn classes by climbing the tower! You may enter and leave as many times as you wish.*

He studied the key. He searched for the symbol of a snake squeezing its victim to death, but it wasnt there. Would this tower behave like a dungeon? It had to be a dungeon. How else could someone build an impossibly tall tower on the tallest peak, in a world filled with mountain ranges? He had to be on guard. Tad gripped the key once more.

Teleport.

He was back in his room, stealth vision activated in the darkness. The silhouettes of his bed and dirty laundry littered the floor in black and white.

Teleport.

Tad again stood on the peak of a majestic mountain range next to an impossibly tall tower. The air was thin and hard to breathe, his throat rough and tight. Gooseflesh crawled up his arms at the chill. With a thought, he banished the key in hand to one of his void slots he had earned with his equipment system. The key was his ticket out of here; he couldnt afford to lose it.

His tongue slicked across his three missing teeth, where Kothar-wa-Khasis, the reptilian boss, had smashed his face with an enormous two-handed sledgehammer.

His friends were dead.

Tads wonderment dwindled and then died completely. Before, Tad might have hollered, yipped, or hooted at the sight, but things had changed. He had changed. Dark thoughts snuffed out antiquated cheer. He closed his eyes and clenched his fist to harden his resolve. He would become stronger. Powerful enough that he could protect not only himself but also everyone who went into dungeons with him. Until he could be a dungeon leader who wouldnt lose a single member.

Unlike Gruff.

And this tower would facilitate that transformation.

Tad shook his head to clear his gloomy thoughts. He squinted to focus and examined the tower before him. Arches and pillars climbed up the entirety of its exterior. It reminded him of the Roman colosseum, as if someone had copied and pasted the structure on top of itself endlessly. A wooden door drew his eyes. As expected, it had the all too familiar wrought-iron rings for door handles. Tad approached carefully and traced the surface of the door with his fingertips. Belying its wooden appearance, the door was smooth to the touch, like frosted glass. He gripped the massive rings and pulled. The door swung open effortlessly.

Darkness loomed inside. Not the dark mist of the void, but regular darkness. Stealth vision activated and Tad stepped into the tower. Both the floors and walls of the tower were a uniform dusty white stone. The only feature that broke this convention was a brown pedestal, three feet high, in the center of the room.

Warily, Tad approached the pedestal. He didnt think there were monster pedestals, but he wouldnt be caught off guard if it grew a mouth and tried to bite off his head. The three-tiered pedestal was a murky brown. It reminded him of a wedding cake made of mud. Tad prodded the pedestal, and despite its polished marble-like appearance, it felt like sandstone to the touch. Nothing felt like it should. It made his skin crawl.

Tad circled the pedestal, studying it. What was he supposed to do here? He was supposed to earn a class, but there was nowhere to climb, no classes to earn. No stairs to reach the next floor. But no matter how you looked at it, this pedestal was way too suspicious. It had to be the key.

Gingerly at first, he pushed the pedestal. Then he pulled. Enhanced muscles groaned as he twisted and torqued, but the pedestal didnt budge. Next, his fingers explored the rough surface, inch by inch, looking for a hidden switch, or maybe a button. From the base, he worked his way upward. His fingers explored and caressed every inch of the structure, a blind sculptor assessing his new stone block. Finally, the rough texture changed beneath his fingers. The center of the top tier opened up into an invisible hole. His eyes refused to believe it was even there, but his entire index finger disappeared inward. Various ridges and bumps scraped his finger. His stomach dropped a second later at the realization of what hed discovered.

A keyhole.

And he had a key.

The very first level of the tower shouldnt be a fatal challenge. In his rank up trial, his first enemy had been ferocious, yet beatable. But maybe the difficulty scaled to his current strength, like when an MMORPG expansion was released and the new content was balanced for max level characters. Tad paused at the thought. If he wanted to earn a class, to gain a potential power-up, there was no choice. He would have to stick the key inside and see what happened, but recklessness had not been his friend in the past.

Tad gritted his teeth. On the quest for greatness, you could not always avoid perilous paths, but you didnt have to leap in with your eyes closed. But what about Zero? What choice would he have made? Instinctively, Tad knew exactly what Zero would have done. Anything. Zero would have done anything for power. He had seen it in the book Path to Zero. The man had sacrificed his friends and killed party members, just to fulfill a quest. Tad would not become like him, no matter what. But sometimes you had to dive straight into danger or no progress could be made. This was one of those times. Tad summoned the class tower key, which appeared in a puff of black smoke.

He inserted the key into the invisible hole and held his breath. Nothing. He twisted. Hundreds of tiny clicks responded in the pillar beneath him, a series of clockwork mechanisms. Then, the earth beneath his feet trembled and escalated into a rumble, until the entire class tower groaned. Tads teeth chattered from the vibrations, so deep they shook his soul. Suddenly, the entire pedestal shot upward through the ceiling in an explosion of rock and dust. When the pedestal came to a stop, the base revealed an enclosed spiral staircase that twisted upward, the destination unseen above. Familiar black mist drifted lazily across its steps.