Jorge kneeled down and touched the blackened, burned corpse of the large feline before him. Soot and ash stuck to the tips of his fingers. He rubbed them together, still feeling the charged energy within their bodies just from glancing contact. It died before its body hit the ground, Lightning had ripped through its body without any of its natural defences against the Arcane slowing it down.

  A powerful [Class] skill and not learned magic, then?

  He didn't know why the person who had killed it needed to stab it through the neck after obliterating it with so much energy.

  Seems like a waste of energy and time.

  Except that you know better than to assume something like that with a battle scene this gruesome before him. He turned around to stay with the rest of his party. Each one was before another dead feline, studying the carcass and trying to figure out who or what had gone through such a large pack of monsters so easily. There was no indication of what could have been in the area.

  No signs within the aether, no arcane mana within the air, nothing to indicate a large battle had occurred.

  “Jorge! Come look!” Sami shouted from the edges of the clearing. Her back was to them as she finished dragging out a dead monster that had been half way out of the grass plains.

  He got up and rushed toward her position, stopping in his tracks as soon as he got close enough to see what she was hinting at.

  She pointed at three more carcasses within the grass plains. Hidden from their sight. “There’s more! At least a dozen total. Except they were killed different. Not a trace of lightning in their bodies at all.”

  “Different? How?”

  The longer they searched this massacre the more dread Jorge felt. They were stuck in this dungeon until they either survived for three to four months or killed the dungeon boss. There was no other way out that they could afford. Of course, the rich had their trinkets and what not, but that did not apply to them and this meat-grinder they were in. A level twenty seven dungeon was special, but nothing that someone as powerful as a noble elite would find interesting or worth their time.

  Not enough resources to be sucked dry from basic grass plains.

  “Look here,” Sami stepped out of the way, dragging the dead body closer to Jorge. “Its face is melted to the bone. It died from horrific pain and suffering rather than from a fatal wound. This one… This is one of the lucky one.”

  Jorge started to check the baker’s dozen of dead before him. Thoroughly studying the gruesome, vomit inducing scene of melted muscle and skin that had molded into a nauseating mix. It had dripped off the large felines bones like liquid. He couldn’t imagine such a destruction amount of corrosive power in the hands of a single person. Much less one that worked in tandem with a powerful Lightning [Class] monster that tore through almost level thirty monsters like they were nothing.

  “Gather the party. We need to discuss our next steps,” Jorge said.

  Sami nodded and ran back into the clearing, her robe and cloak trailing after her.

  Jorge, on the other hand, picked up the two large felines in front of him and moved toward the opposite side where their primary resource extractor stood over a pile that had started to form around the odd, lanky, and unrealistically tall man. He marveled at how much each giant feline weighed on his shoulders. Wondering whether he was strong enough to kill even three alone. Two was already pushing his limits, and yet, they stood in the center of at least thirty some odd dead.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Not killed by a well oiled party.

  Not by a group of knights.

  Rather, by two individuals with destructive powers and [Class] skills.

  “Kelidor,” Jorge said as he approached him.

  Their resource extractor turned his head, a tight, black blindfold covered much of his face and yet he saw better than any of them. “Party Leader. You bring me more to study?”

  “Yeah. There’s at least eleven more in the grass plains. Killed by some sort of corrosive liquid–”

  “Corrosive liquid? Let me see,” Kelidor rushed to him and looked over the dead felines he brought. Touching the nasty molten muscle and body parts without a single goosebump. “So strange. So powerful. This venom doesn't last ten seconds yet it is powerful enough to tear through elite natural defenses.”

  “Venom? What if we survive the initial corrosiveness?”

  “You’re likely to die from the it entering your blood stream after a few hours of gruesome torture. Unless we can figure out an antidote.”

  Jorge frowned as he finally began to understand Kelidor’s amazement with the venom. “Yet, it only lasts less then ten seconds. Nowhere enough to gather, transport, and study in time. Not before it would be impossible to figure an antidote for.”

  Kelidor gave him a deranged smile. Enjoying the thought of how dangerous the venom was and how it could be implemented. The strange member of their party went on for the next ten minutes about the subject, from its potential as a class, the types of attacks that could have potentially been used, and even the guesses he had on the chemical makeup of the venom itself.

  Everything that Jorge had very little interest in, but he listened anyway.

  A party leader was made to sacrifice and commit to duty.

  Even if it bored him to death.

  “–breakdown of the underlying bonds that creates the violent reaction–” Kelidor stopped speaking mid-sentence. He stared at the dead corpse in front of him with a serious gaze. “That… makes no sense?”

  “What makes no sense?” Sami walked up to the group, carrying one of the felines from the grass plains. Her role wasn’t to be a physical presence, but rather to be a magical one. Primarily one that did not waste their Arcane energy and mana on day to day bullshit like the other mage in their party. She dropped the feline on top of the growing stack of dead they were going to loot and dispose of to not attract any roaming bosses.

  Jorge stayed quiet and watched Kelidor fuss about with the ether that surrounded them. He then copied him and began to make another attempt at reading the Arcane mana and energy that surrounded them.

  “Do you see it?” Kelidor said without looking back.

  Jorge blinked blankly. It was clear and obvious that this was a second individual class being used. What was there more to look for? “No? What am I looking for?”

  “I see it!” Sami shouted, rushing to another dead feline that had been killed by the Lightning [Class]er. “It’s as if–”

  “–as if they are identical.” Kelidor finished her sentence.

  “Identical? That’s not possible. Are we making a mistake? Or is there a viable explanation to this scenario that isn’t absurdity.”

  Kelidor slowly turned to look at Jorge. “Mistake? I don’t make mistakes, Party Leader.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know,” the odd man frowned. He shifted his attention back to the dead feline before him. “I know you did not intend to question my skills and understanding of the Arcane. Yet, it insults me nonetheless. Forget me and this grievous attempt at devaluing my talents and expertise. We have something more important to deal with. Mainly figuring out why the venom’s signature in the ether is almost the same as the lightnings.”

  Sami hummed. “What if they’re using non-[Class] skills on one of them? They could have learned it in some obscure School of Destruction or happened upon an inheritance?”

  “We’ve already established that the lightning was definitely a [Class] skill.” Jorge was happy with the change in subject.

  Dealing with powerful, very capable individuals in a team tended to be more stressful than normal peoples. Ego’s were always inflated. Diva’s tended to fill their numbers, and everyone thought they were the strongest of the bunch. Maybe that was more to do with how recently some of them joined their band of adventurers. Being part of them for over a year was nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it should have eased all this underlying tension.

  Kelidor stood up and spun on his heels. He started to jog towards the rest of the felines within the grass plains “Then we know what we need to search for!”

  “Want me to follow?” Sami asked once Kelidor had already disappeared into the long stalks.

  “No,” Jorge said. “Let the rest of the party know what we discovered. It is likely we wont stop searching until night arrives. We got lucky catching the trail of the Lightning [Class] with how brazen and wastefully it was being used. I doubt the same thing is possible with the venom. I hadn’t noticed its trail until you pointed it out.”

  Sami nodded and ran from the direction she had come from.

  Leaving him alone in the clearing.

  Jorge let out a sigh and rushed to follow Kelidor. Best he stuck close to him, lest one of them gets caught unawares in the giant grass by some monster.