Hurting, everything was hurting. Lua felt as if her whole body would crumble. It felt like they had been fighting for hours, even though it had only been a few minutes. Lua raised the essence blade, slashing upwards and bisecting a skeleton.
Taking half a step back and pivoting she drove it into the chest of another and swung outwards, wrecking the ribcage of the creature. As she brought the blade around, a lucky hit struck her in the thigh, punching through the plate gaps in the Blood Relic and sinking through the bodysuit.
Bright red blood seeped from the wound but was just as quickly drunk up by the armour as it repaired itself and sealed her wound. 'My armour is beginning to break, and there isn't any blood to repair it.' Lua cursed.
Ducking under a bone and driving the blade through the attacker's skull she looked back at the others. It wasn't good. Nephis, Caster, Effie and Sunny were all injured. Cassie and Kai were getting tired.
Although not too injured her armour was beginning to falter. Her armor could repair itself, but it needed blood. And the undead didn't bleed. Thankfully the assimilated Scale Suit was healing it, but it wasn't nearly fast enough.
Seeing Sunny swap places with his unique echo Lua made the decision. "Wolf." she called out and the Eidolon manifested outside her body. The magenta in Lua's eyes began to quickly flow out and return to their usual bright rose gold colour. A visual indication of [Astral Bond] weakening.
The large starry wolf tore through the undead, its paws crushing bone, maw crushing skulls and tail sending bodies flying. Following Lua's lead Nephis finally summoned her divine flames, burning the undead away.
Sunny shouted. "Hey! Effie! How far are we from the exit from this damned place?! When is this going to end?!"
Swatting away an undead monster of her own, the huntress briefly glanced back and grinned. "What do you mean, "end "?!" Turning back to concentrate on the horde of enemies in front of them, Effie yelled "What end?! This was just a warm-up!"
Lua looked up to see another wave approaching. She let go of the essence blade and it hovered next to her body. Crimson sparks collected as Sky's Gift manifested. Using a spear in this environment without someone like Effie's skills was damn near idiotic, so Lua didn't use it as a weapon. Pushing essence into the enchantment [Forged Lightning], Lua raised the sparking spear and drove it into the horde.
The lighting burned through them, crackling and jumping across the numerous undead. Commanding the essence blade to defend her, she spun the spear in wide swaths, crushing anything that dared to approach her.
After what felt like an eternity Lua noticed something. 'Their numbers.' the number of undead in front of them had decreased dramatically. Turning her head she saw Sunny and his echo holding off an ever increasing mound. 'We're near the end'
Nephis quickly gave the command to swap formation. Nephis and Caster fell into the backline along with Wolf. Lua remained at the front, ploughing through the remainders.
Sunny approached and exchanged a few joking words with Effie before joining the two women at the front. After only a few more minutes they reached a more open section of the cavern.
A few meters in front of them, the floor of the catacombs was broken, collapsing into a vast, seemingly bottomless chasm. That terrifying abyss was filled with darkness that even Sunny's sight couldn't pierce.
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 clearly not fit for use.
Sunny turned to Effie and scowled, "So, what now?"
The huntress looked at him in confusion. "What else? We cross the bridge!"
With a grim expression on his face, he glanced at Effie and said, "Go."
Leaning on her spear, Effie weakly shook her head. "Someone will have to hold them off long enough for everyone to get to the other side. You should…"
Sunny interrupted her. "I'll be the last one to cross. Don't worry… I have a plan."
"You sure?" Lua confirmed, belatedly she realised Sunny had dawned the armour she repaired for him. 'An ascended of the 6th tier.' She was slightly annoyed that she failed to ever find it. But she didn't truly care.
Seeing Sunny's nod Lua was first to cross the bridge, Effie right behind her. Commanding her essence blades to assist sunny, Lua wasted no time reaching the other side. Upon reaching the stone she pivoted on the soles of her feet.
Rainbow sparks collected as she summoned Eventide, drew back the string and fired a light arrow into the horde Nephis was fighting. Sunny and Nephis talked for a few moments before she turned and ran across the bridge.
Sunny held out until the bridge was cut. Before turning and 'Jumping off?!' Lua dismissed Wolf and shot forward aiming to catch Sunny, but he fell before she could grab him. Shocked, she watched as the wall of undead ran off the chasm edge and fell.
Looking down the cohort found Sunny attached to the wall, he called out to them, eliciting funny faces from the six of them. Soon, he climbed over the edge of the cliff and sprawled on the cold ground, breathing heavily. The rest of the cohort just stared at him.
"...What?"
Effie was the first to speak. "Uh… glad you're alive, Sunny. But also… What the hell? How did you do that?"
He threw her the kunai. Once the huntress bent down to pick it up, Sunny pulled on an invisible string and made the dagger fly back into his hand. "Oh, that? That was a piece of cake. Nothing that a knife and a piece of string can't solve... more or less."
Effie blinked a couple of times, then slowly straightened herself up. "...Cool Memory. Where did you get it?"
Sunny dismissed the kunai and tiredly waved his hand. "You know those porcupine monsters back in the city? I got it off one of those."
Lua collapsed onto her back, dismissed her cracked draconic helmet and painted, sweat soaking her face, her bright golden eyes looking slightly bloodshot. The cohort rested for a bit, recuperating their strength.
Thankfully for Lua, Winter's Warmth and its enchantments were working overtime to help her. 'Must also be thanks to the [Asura] attribute.' Lua took her time resting, ignoring the conversation between Sunny and Kai.
Nephis rose to her feet and glanced at the members of the cohort. Her pale face was calm and composed. "Time to go. Gather your strength."
With sighs and groans of pain, everyone stood up. After a few minutes of walking through the new tunnels Effie went and talked to Nephis.
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. 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."
The cohort finally made it to a large circular chamber. 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.
Lua stared at the pile of bones for a few seconds then spoke "A Fallen Tyrant." Her voice was quiet, yet everyone heard her.
Lua glanced at Nephis. The golden rope was already in her hands, and she was passing it 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. Before the thunderous sound of it crashing against the wall of the chamber even reached their ears, the pillar was already moving, whipping sideways with tremendous force.
"Its going to wake up soon, hurry!" Lua yelled, already moving to the hole in the dome. A second pillar of bones shot out towards her. She only had a split second to react but managed to slide under the pillar.
The Lord of the Dead was slowly coming to its senses. The bones constituting its repulsive body moved and rippled, unfurling from within the white mass like giant, twisting limbs. It seemed to be slowly turning from a shapeless hill into some semblance of a creature.
The two massive pillars whipped left and right, then fell to the ground and slowly retreated back inside the body of the Lord of the Dead.
Meanwhile, Nephis was back at her feet. Dashing toward Kai, she pushed one end of the golden rope into his hands and pointed to the breach in the dome of the chamber. In the next moment, the archer soared into the air, flying to his destination with incredible speed.
With a terrifying scraping sound, the whole white mountain rippled once again, and several devastating pillars of bone shot to intercept him. Lua conjured a rough shield shape of essence, deflecting the hit Kai would have taken.
The pillar swung back and went for Lua, this time as she dodged a massive leech latched onto her armour, attempting to break through. "Ugh." Wasting no time Lua raised Sky's gift and plunged it into the leech.
The spear tip cleaved through the beast. Lua flicked her wrist, the shiny ascended soul shard got tossed up. She caught it and squeezed. shattering the single ascended soul core.
[You have slain a Fallen Beast, Corpse Eater.]
[Your soul grows purer]
[You have received a Memory.]
By the time Lua killed the leach Kai was already standing on the palm of the giant stone hand, the golden rope looped around one of its fingers.
Cassie was the first one to climb up. With the flying rapier loyally hovering over her shoulder, the blind girl effortlessly moved up the rope, reaching the distant ceiling of the underground chamber less than ten seconds later.
Lua was next, instead of climbing the rope she launched herself off the ground, conjuring an essence platform midair, then jumping again. She landed on the palm and climbed out of the chamber completely.
Landing in the mud of the surface, she grabbed Cassie and yanked her out the way, holding the blind girl in her arms for a few seconds before letting her down. Effie shot out of the hole, quickly followed by Caster.
Nephis was next, emerging from the hole. "Where's Sunny?" Lua asked. Almost a minute later Sunny emerged, a large wound on his arm. Climbing out of the mud, Sunny fell to his knees, and then tiredly lowered himself to the ground. The breath was escaping from his lungs with laborious, raspy sounds.
Lua watched tiredly as Nephis berated then healed him. Nephis then moved one by one healing all their wounds.