Chapter 93 - Open The Seal

Vivi ran out of ether. Two balls of concentrated ether shot directly at her.

Everything around her became harder to see. Objects and enemies moved faster. The grouping of skeletons in the middle of the room looked like a blurry mess of flashes of light. She couldn’t make out Aang from within the fray. Without ether empowering her, Vivi lost her senses. She was back to a lost child—a useless pawn that required protection.

Luckily, she received just that. Lydi pushed her aside with force. Vivi tumbled across the ground, but she avoided the mages’ spells, surviving with scratches. She quickly pushed herself up.

She glanced at the hole in the throne. She’d created a crack in the bones with her sword, but the hole was still too tight to squeeze through. “Lydi, the throne!” she called. “Lucius is in there!”

Lydi gritted her teeth. Smoke rose from her cheek, and from her clothes. She’d dodged the balls of ether, but spray wisps had spread from impact, hitting her. She grimaced through the pain and turned to the throne. Her staff filled with ether as she charged an attack, aiming it at the throne.

The crack opened up, revealing a stairway down. Lucius? Vivi called. Can you hear me?

“It’s a trap…” Lucius said. “A ritual… I think the boss is here…”

A trap? Glancing behind, skeleton warriors were running at her. More and more skeletons were alerted of her and Lydi’s presence. Vivi was no longer hidden.

Lydi descended into the throne. She hadn’t heard Lucius say it’s a trap. Vivi opened her mouth, about to shout a warning.

She had no time. The skeletons behind her were on her trail. More balls of ether were charging above. Staying up meant death. Vivi clicked her tongue, having no choice but to follow Lydi into the throne. She grabbed her fallen sword on the way and ran into the throne.

“Hold this position!” Vivi said at the bottom of the dark stairs. “Lucius said it’s a trap. Let’s not go deeper.”

Lydi was still grimacing, but she followed orders. “Give me your sword. I’ll fill it for you.”

Vivi handed her sword to Lydi, who poured ether through the runes, then gave the sword back to Vivi. The veins lit up bright. Vivi’s body was still weak, and her swings wouldn’t hold weight, but her sword was powerful in case ambushes came.

A skeleton warrior entered after them. Lydi shot a discharge into the narrow chokepoint. The skeleton couldn’t dodge, choosing to tank the attack straight-on.

It withstood. The skeleton walked straight through Lydi’s attack with mild scratches on its bones.

Lydi stepped backward and summoned her two skeletons. The summons faced their enemy with steel swords lifted. The skeleton warrior swiped, instantly cutting down both summons.

Lydi gritted her teeth. “Useless skill!” she growled. More ether poured into her staff, a lot more than before.

This time, the release was different. Lydi didn’t merely shoot it all out at once. The energy came out as a concentrated beam with a smaller surface area. She pointed the attack directly at the skeleton’s forehead.

The attack pierced right through, creating a small hole in the skeleton’s skull.

The skeleton stayed on two feet. It took a step forward, now with a hole in its head, as if nothing had happened.

“No way,” Lydi said. Her face grew pale.

More footsteps were coming. Another skeleton warrior descended after the first, then a third. Lydi and Vivi were forced to step back, toward the trap.

The fourth arrival was Aang. His face was bloody, shirt ragged, cuts and bruises covering his body. The damages were visible even through his ascension skill.

But he still had plenty of energy remaining. He slashed the skeletons from behind, effortlessly cutting them down Skeleton Cutter. All three skeletons fell.

“Good find,” Aang said. He stepped forward with haste, descending deeper into the tunnel.

“Lucius said this was trapped,” Vivi said.

“We’ll have to walk into it,” Aang said. “The skeletons behind us will forget us after our presence gets far enough.”

The hallway, with no end in sight, was vacant of monsters. The air smelled like burnt meat. The brick floor was back, including the glow between the bricks. The color had turned from red closer to black. It wasn’t bright, but the dark glow offered just enough light to see the creepy demonic faces lining the walls.

The faces were embedded into the stone. Most faces were of the same species as Uundref, but far tougher. Their horns were thick, and they had large teeth with bulky jaws. Tall foreheads and no facial hair. Each one showed their teeth, grimacing.

Humanoid demons were mixed in. The regular demons weren’t frowning or showing aggression. They showed humility, as if trying to hide in the walls they were carved in. Some were crying.

Vivi felt a chill. But she ignored her fears, focusing on the task at hand. “What about the Skeleton King?” she asked.

“We’ll leave it behind,” Aang said. “I don’t think the Skeleton King is the main boss. It was just protecting this path. Killing it is irrelevant to clearing the dungeon.”

“We’re too weak to defeat the Skeleton King’s army, aren’t we?” Lydi asked. She was out of breath already.

“I can’t defeat it alone,” Aang said, speaking calmly. “I exhausted over five thousand ether in that fight alone. Ascension skills are no joke. I have under nine thousand remaining for the main boss fight. We will hope the main boss is easier to deal with than the Skeleton King.”

“Fantastic,” Lydi said. “I’ve never felt safer in my life.”

Vivi wanted to ask how they were supposed to defeat the main boss, which would probably be far stronger than the Skeleton King above, but she stayed quiet. Aang stood tall despite his wounds. He wasn’t planning on dying.

Without Lucius, Vivi’s sixth sense slowly disappeared. The air felt heavy and eerie, but Vivi couldn’t tell where the feeling came from. She felt just like she did when entering Zand, before practice and before filling her ether reserves. All around, she felt weak.

However, she could feel Lucius’s presence at the end of the tunnel. He wasn’t in pain, nor panicked. His presence was surprisingly calm.

“Uh, Vivi…” Lucius said again. They were close enough for his voice to be clear. “I take it back. This isn’t a trap. I don’t know what this is. There’s something weird here. I can feel a presence.”

A presence? Vivi thought.

The tunnel ahead opened up. The group stepped into a large chamber, resembling a cathedral. The floor and walls were lit up with the black glow. The walls were barely visible through a thick fog. The burning black glow covered the floor but faded into an icy blue as the dome roof reached higher. Vivi had to raise her head to see the ceiling. The walls were covered in more creepy faces. Hundreds of them, reaching high up in the ceiling.

In the middle of the room was an altar. Five robed cultists surrounded it, kneeled in a circle around a ritual. Lucius was strapped in the middle, his paws held down with rope on all sides.

Lucius! Vivi called.

“Vivi, something is wrong,” Lucius said. “Don’t step closer. They can’t kill me. I’m a spirit.”

A loud thump sounded from behind. Vivi glanced at the doorway to find themselves blocked. A slab of stone blocked the doorway. Their exit was covered! At the same time, the faces on the walls moved. They opened their eyes, revealing bloodshot eyes. Every one of them stared down at the three contestants.

“There’s someone here!” Lucius said. “I can feel them! A spirit!”

A new voice spoke in Vivi’s head. A laughing man's voice. “Seal open the last of the world’s dungeons!”

The ground beneath the altar rumbled. A feeling of hostile ether filled the air, strong enough that Vivi could sense it even now. The ether was coming from somewhere.

From below.

A skeletal arm crashed through the floor, destroying the altar and sending Lucius flying to the air. The fist was the size of a wrecking ball, and the arm was as long as three people. A second arm shot through the floor, followed by a skeleton’s head. The middle of the arena collapsed as the gigantic skeleton appeared from beneath. The cultists disintegrated to ether, dying from the impact.

Lucius recovered from the impact and flew down to Vivi. He was freed.

A red glow appeared in the skeleton’s eyes. The boss stared down at the invaders of its arena.

“A Death Tyrant!” Aang called. “Run!”