With a sound that reminded him of rushing water, a terrifying wave of undead monsters crashed into their formation, threatening to break it apart. Effie braced for the impact and withstood the furious onslaught, somehow managing to split the wave in two.
From one side, Changing Star dove into the torrent of skeletal wraiths, her incandescent sword cutting through them like a ray of pure sunlight piercing the darkness. From the other, Caster's enchanted blade was doing the same. The scion of the Han Li clan moved with astonishing speed, turning into a blurry whirlwind of ghostly green steel.
Everything that touched it turned to dust.
Shashi yelled in a hoarse tone. "Prepare yourselves!"
In the next moment, the wave of monsters was upon them.
The hoard of skeletons attacked out relentlessly. My robes were tattered and torn from multiple sides. As the skeletons lunged at me, I immediately picked one by the leg and swung him to the like a sword to the other skeletons. However this method did not prove to be useful much since the skeleton in my hand was resisting. I corroded its leg and moved on, my fists tearing through the skeletons.
I noticed that several small blood balls were floating around Shashi. They seemed to be shooting out small streams of blood, protecting her blind spots. But she realized that this technique consumed much of her blood, so she stopped using it.
At some point, Effie finally got rid of her shield and summoned her spear. With the spear huntress became even more deadly, however with the lack of protection a shield gave, wounds started accumulating around her body.
... Despite everything, things weren't going well for the cohort.
Or at least, it seemed that way for a while.
But I noticed that the number of skeletons attacking the cohort from the front had begun to
diminish. Pretty soon, Nephis, Effie and Caster were getting a few moments to catch their breaths from time to time. The pressure on the middle had also lessened.
The Stone Saint, on the other hand, had to hold off an ever-increasing number of undead creatures attacking the party from the rear. When the balance of the rolling battle noticeably shifted, Changing Star gave a command to change the formation of the cohort.
Sunny went to the front, while Nephis went to the rear to support the Stone Saint.
After several more minutes of furious fighting, the tunnel they were moving through suddenly opened into a large cavern. A few meters in front of them, the floor of the catacombs was broken, collapsing into a vast, seemingly bottomless chasm.
The chasm was no less than forty meters across and stretched far into the distance to both left and right, like a dark border separating the world of the living from the world of the dead. A rickety rope bridge was drawn across it, connecting to a similar-looking tunnel at the other end of the abyssal chasm.
The rope bridge looked like a derelict of ancient times. It was flimsy, slippery, and rotten through and through.
Shashi and I looked at each other. "It was nice meeting you.. no way I am crossing that."
"..Don't be dramatic.. It will be fine, I hope.." I murmured the last part.
***
Soon everyone crossed the bridge while Sunny and Saint held the skeletons off. Nephis was the last to cross, and suddenly she stroke the bridge and it collapsed.
I observed Sunny as he jumped off the edge at full speed, however before he could plummet down, Shashi's blood rope immediately flew forward and wrapped itself around Sunny's waist. Then Shashi commended her blood to go back to her own body, this way the blood immediately pulled Sunny towards us as he successfully landed face-first into the ground.
Effie laughed in the distance as Sunny got up to his feet, giving Effie an annoyed glare he turned to Shashi.
"Thanks.."
Shashi nodded at him.
"You guys know that I can fly right..? You didn't need to do that jump.." Kai suddenly spoke up.
Everyone stared at him for a while, the silence was too loud. However I didn't dare laugh out loud near Shashi.
***
I supplied Shashi with some of my blood since she had used much in the tunnels. Nephis had given out the order, and now we were going to continue our walk. The tunnels were now strongly angled down. With each minute, the cohort was descending deeper and deeper underground.
"Where do you think these skeletons come from?" Shashi asked me in a quiet tone as we walked. I only gave her a shrug as I had no idea where these immortal skeletons came from. Our pondering was cut short by Effie.
After discussing something with Nephis, she gave her a nod and turned to the rest of them:
"Listen up. We're close to the central chamber of this maze. The exit to the surface is right ahead. However, getting to it won't be easy."
The tall huntress hesitated, and then said:
"If we want to make it outside, we will have to act fast. There's a big fat bastard of a Nightmare Creature that lives in that chamber. However, it takes time for it to fully wake up. So ... don't stop to look at it, don't panic, don't lose your cool. It might look scary, but if you follow Neph and do what she tells you to do, you should be alright."
She waited for a bit to make sure that everyone understood her meaning, and then grinned.
"Alright. If everyone is ready, let's go meet the Lord of the Dead."
Summoning my weapons to imbue my arms once again, I muttered:
"I don't like this.."
"Me neither." Shashi spoke as she conjured a katana out of her blood.
...Soon, they entered a giant underground chamber.
The giant underground chamber was circular in shape and as immense as the grand hall of the Bright Castle. Its walls were built out of the same grey stone slabs as the mighty walls of the Dark City, but unlike them, the walls of the chamber were covered with whispering streams of cold, nebulous black water.
In the center of it, a vast mountain of human bones rose from the ground, reaching almost halfway to the distant ceiling. Thousands ... no, hundreds of thousands of people must have perished to create it.
The exit Effie had told us about was the breach in the dome of the underground chamber. With Kai's aspect and Nephis's golden rope getting out of here was going to be easy.
Sensing a movement in the distance, I looked to see that the mountain of bones were moving.. At first I thought that the nightmare creature was lying inside it.
However I came to a realization that the mountain of bones was the creature itself. That would mean that the monster in front of us was.. a fallen tryant.
'Oh we are damned..'
Nephis handed her golden rope to Kai.
Before the beautiful archer could take it, though, the mountainous creature suddenly rippled.
A moment later, a twisted pillar of bones shot from its body, flying in their direction with the force of a siege ram...
***
Nephis and Kai dove away, and the massive pillar of bone shot past them. However the pillar was already moving, whipping sideways with tremendous force.
Cassie and Sunny were behind it, so they were safe. However Effie, Caster, Shashi and me were not. Almost everyone reacted with admirable speed and threw themselves onto the ground, allowing the terrifying limb of the gargantuan creature to fly above their heads.
Rising from the stone floor, the huntress screamed:
"It's just thrashing in its sleep! Move! We need to get out of here before the bastard wakes up!"
Kai had finally flown up and threw the golden rope downwards. Cassie was the first one to climb up, after her everyone started climbing one by one. I let Shashi go first and followed behind her, climbing the rope easily by swinging myself upwards.
Nephis and Sunny were the last one to climb, however Sunny did something insane and stayed behind. Why was that damn fool running towards the pile of bones? I stared down at him worriedly, he was finally climbing the rope. I immediately grabbed his arm to pull him upwards, the force I put into the pull was a bit too much so he ended up falling into the mud.
'Sorry , not sorry.'
Nephis immediately approached Sunny and kneeled beside him.
"Are you insane? Why did you do that?"
He tried to chuckle, but ended up twisting in an excruciating coughing fit. When Sunny was finally able to breathe again, he said weakly:
"Yes, no? Maybe. I don't know. I just ... saw something shiny."
With that, he opened his fist and showed Changing Star the glowing crystal of the ascended soul shard.
She stared at it for a few moments, and then sighed.
Without saying anything else, Nephis placed her cool hands on his chest and closed her eyes.
A moment later, the purifying white flame spread through his body like a warm embrace, repairing any damage done to it.
I couldn't help by role my eyes at the scene.