Chapter 90 - Hell Castle (Part Two)

Enemies surrounded Vivi. Archers to the right. A rigor-runed skeleton to the left. An assassin directly ahead. She felt hostile ether behind her as well.

Lucius panicked within her, shouting orders. Vivi didn’t hear them. She didn’t have time for hesitations. Stopping for a fraction of a second would have led to her death. Attempting to defend would have led to her death. She couldn’t block four attacks all at once.

She could only continue charging forward. She leaned her head to the right, dodging the assassin’s thrown dagger. She swiped with her sword, cutting an arrow that would have hit her shoulder. Then she swung at the assassin skeleton in front of her.

The assassin tried to duck again. This time, Vivi saw it. She redirected her swing—made easy by Abyss Destroyer's swiftness rune. The assassin was taken off-guard. Her sword cut right through. Behind her, Lydi shot a discharge of ether at the archer.

The charging skeleton’s swing came next. It threw an overhead swing at Vivi.

Vivi grimaced and planted her feet to the ground for a strong footing. She slashed wide, hitting the skeleton’s swing.

As the blades connected, time seemed to pause for a moment. The hilt of the skeleton's greatsword was lined with mass runes. Vivi's shortsword was tiny against the greatsword and the misty aura surrounding it. Dozens of other runes lined the greatsword's hilt. The rest of the runes, however…

They weren’t runic at all. They were just aimless patterns, mimicking runes.

The impact came. Vivi’s body trembled by the shockwave, hair flaring out. Abyss Destroyer glowed bright.

A crack sounded from the bony greatsword. Vivi’s sword was far stronger, and her swing carried much more force. The skeleton was blasted backward, flying until crashing into a mound. Its sword stayed in one piece, but with a huge crack in the middle.

“It’s fake,” Vivi said. “Your sword is fake!”

She ran after the fallen skeleton to finish the job. The skeleton held its sword in an attempt to block. But it was already cracked. Vivi swung at the damaged spot, cracking it in half before cutting down the skeleton. It disintegrated to ether.

Vivi wiped her forehead and caught her breath. She’d exerted herself to her limits, chasing the assassin. Over four hundred of Lucius’s wisps were dimmed in that fight alone.

The cat was cackling in her head. “I thought you were dead! You’re insane, Vivi!”

Lydi stepped up the hill with a frown on her face. “Reckless idiot. You’re not Aang. You can’t just run in and hope to kill everything.”

Vivi smiled. She looked down at the main path. Most skeletons were already dead. Aang was finishing up the last skeletons on the leftmost hills. Thousands of ether sizzled from the skeletons he’d killed. During the time Vivi and Lydi had killed a total of four skeletons, Aang had cleared the rest.

With the last skeleton killed, Aang collected the ether, recharging the wisps he’d spent. He waited for Vivi and Lydi to head down. Vivi took a drink from her canteen and descended to the main path.

“Are you sure you needed to bring us with you?” Lydi asked.

Aang didn't respond. He was frowning at the castle. “The third level is different. The castle wasn’t filled with lava the last time we visited. It was just a regular brick castle.”

“I think the skeletons wield fake runeswords,” Vivi said. “Their powers don’t come from runes at all. The runes are just scribbles.”

“That’s likely,” Aang said. “Dungeon monsters mostly consist of ether. Everything here is created by imitating real structures. The dungeon picked runic patterns as its visual theme. Somehow. It’s hard to believe all this exists in a dungeon.”

“Someone probably built the castle here during the age of typhoons,” Lydi said. “Or perhaps even earlier. Throughout the years, the dungeon must have adopted the castle as a part of itself.”

“If there’s a boss inside,” Lucius said, “it doesn’t matter whose castle this is. We just need to clear its insides.”

“The smartest cat I’ve ever met,” Lydi said with a sigh.

Lucius smiled, taking it as a compliment. He was right, though. The castle needed to be cleared.

Approaching the portcullis, an uneasy feeling welled in Vivi’s stomach. Lava dripped on the main bridge from cracks in the ceiling and flowing down the walls from overflowing battlements. Still, the air wasn’t as hot as Vivi would have expected. The lava wasn't real lava; it consisted mostly of wisps of ether. The ethereal lava was still hot, and falling into the moat would kill.

The castle's gates were silent, and the view behind the portcullis was pitch black. No monsters appeared out of thin air, and no explosions caused the bridge to collapse. The group made it to the portcullis without issues.

“This is likely our destination,” Aang said. “A structure of this scale should contain the boss. If it turns out that there’s another squadron boss before the main boss, we’ll be in trouble.”

“Is it time for strength potions?” Lydi asked.

“Let’s save them for the boss,” Aang said. “For now, let’s figure out how we’ll get past the gates.”

The portcullis was built for giants. The squares between the bars were wide enough that Eem could have squeezed through.

Aang stood tall before the gates, as if expecting the entrance to open. He waited there for a short while, expression growing increasingly troubled. He tried knocking at the portcullis. When nothing happened, he said, “Well, that’s not good.”

“What is it?” Vivi asked.

“I think it's a puzzle,” Lucius said. “In dungeons, the way forward usually opens when you step close enough. If it doesn’t open, there’s usually some sort of condition that needs to be met.”

“You mean, like a riddle we need to solve?”

“No, there’s probably a monster we need to kill,” Lucius said. “A smaller boss of sorts that might hold a key or an item we need to bring here for the gates to open.”

“We don’t have time to head back,” Aang said. “Vivi, try to cut it down.”

“Yes,” Vivi said. She called forth her crystal mithril sword again, went into stance, and threw a swing at the portcullis.

A cling resounded. Ether flowed within the weird black material of the portcullis, but not a scratch was left on its surface. Her sword couldn’t cut through.

The demons wore troubled expressions. “We won’t seriously have to go back to search for puzzle pieces, right?” Lydi asked.

“There are always solutions,” Lucius said. He flew between the squares, inside the castle. His red figure glowed slightly, lighting a circle underneath himself. The ground was made of smoldering bricks. “Maybe there’s a switch or something here…”

Suddenly, Lucius let out a screeching scream. A hand grabbed his tail and pulled him deeper into the castle.

***

Rohan stood perfectly still—his visor down and ether aura idly active—in the spot Alisa had told him to guard. If all went well, Uundref would try to kill him within the next hour.

Alisa had spoken to him as if he was an idiot again. The others didn’t trust Rohan to perform his part in the plan—any plan for that matter—if he wasn’t told exactly where he should stand and who he should fight. Even then, the Hollows made sure to hold his hand. His job could have been to peel a root potato, and the others would have been afraid to let him handle the knife without supervision.

Worst part was, the team was probably right. Rohan’s head was so clouded these days, he could barely bring himself to rise from bed, let alone play part in the plan to escape from this mess. Every time it looked like things were getting better, some nonsense switch was flipped in his head, and he was back there, that day, when the one person he’d cared about was brutally murdered.

It was getting exhausting, thinking about Zelle every day. Rohan just wanted to forget his past life ever existed.

The same could happen today… he thought. Vivi is in the dungeon. Ven is doing god knows what. Alisa is luring Uundref…

Alisa had said she had a trick she could use to lure Uundref, and only Uundref, to the desired location. She hadn’t told Rohan what exactly she was doing, but he guessed she planned on manipulating her aura to throw signals that only the most perceptive of hunters could sense.

No, that was too simple. Alisa always had something more clever prepared. She wasn’t one to get herself killed easily. The Hollows didn’t need constant protection. Rohan just needed to stand where he was, trusting the others to do their jobs.

Zelle hadn't required protection either. She would have lived if Rohan just hadn’t done anything.

Shut up, Rohan told himself. Don’t think… Just wait…

He stood there for another agonizing hour, alone with his useless worries. Until finally, the bony footsteps of the most terrifying Steward approached from below. Uundref was grinning as he met Rohan's eyes.

Rohan filled his sword with ether and yelled out, fully prepared for his death if necessary to defeat his opponent.