Daggers digging deep into flesh, spells rending bones and black slime, and a single spear flying through the battlefield with a trail of white flames. The groans of the dead and the heavy steps of an army of enemies. To be honest, I kinda expected that from this zombie adventure.
After all, the moment we entered the first chamber of the Rashan Ruins, a horde of onnikai-possessed corpses attacked us. Among them were a few humanoids, but most of them were the bodies of low ranking monsters, ranging from rank E to G. Did the onnikai army play their best cards on the village assault?
That was a possibility, and if you look at the situation like a game, then you could rationalize it. The village raid was the enemy’s chance to destroy a close-by foe while also “gathering” more bodies to turn into undead. You would, of course, send some stronger pawns after them. In addition, this was the first chamber of the ruin, who would place their strongest first when you could grind your intruders down with attrition first?
However, I knew this thinking was a bit naïve. This wasn’t a game, it was reality.
Regardless of what the truth was, the first chamber only had fodder. Saori blitzed through the enemy with a storm of claws and steel, keeping her [Lifetaker] buff at its maximum efficiency the whole time. Silva and Tasianna kept the enemies under control using their wind and ice spells respectively, making a fine support team. I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to train up my spear and [Hellblade Dragon] skills.
The spear was a bit taller than me. Despite the description saying that it was made with andurium, a lightweight metal that I hadn’t asked the blacksmiths about yet, it had a nice weight behind it, making it comfortable to wield for me. Due to my high strength, I wanted a weapon that made me feel like I could do damage with it, instead of a spear that felt like a plastic toy that would break with one hit.
For some agility training, I was throwing the spear around the chamber aiming at zombies, before catching up with it and tearing the spear out from their bodies. Meanwhile, I had my tail coated in [White Flames]. Since I could change any flames I produced into crimson, purple, and white using mana, I was using this fact to train my control over them.
Fundamentally, it was just another application of the [Hellblade Edge] dragon ability—by grinding and igniting my scale-dust, I could envelop my tail in a coat of fire. I just needed to change the fire with [White Flames] and I basically got [Hellblade Edge] with the holy element.
After retrieving my spear, I usually swung my tail in an arc to cleave any nearby zombies. The onnikais’ fear of the holy element was valid, since any undead that was hit by my tail quickly slumped down like a broken marionette. After creating some space between me and the zombies, I assumed the stance the guild master taught me and began wielding the spear normally.
I wouldn’t call myself trained yet. Honestly, I was still having some trouble fighting as a dragonewt, since I was more used to my dragon form. I was still having trouble adapting to using the spear, as I was more used to using my usual combat style of combining my spell casting with my dragon abilities. In fact, I barely fought in close-combat as a dragonewt, relying more on magic.
It felt awkward, as if this wasn’t for me. Which made sense after everything in the Belzac forest, but diversifying myself would be for the best on the road ahead. All these enemies were cannon fodder to me, making great practice dummies as I tried to implement spearmanship into my combat style.
I just had to stop using all my super strong spells, abilities, and skills, really.
After a couple more moments, the room was filled with corpses. Saori went wild and was the one with the highest kill count, far surpassing my killing speed and the support duo. Well, I wasn’t using any AOE spells like [Banishment Beam] or [Omnictus] for fear of the ruin collapsing, so whatever.
After confirming that nobody had leveled up, I cast [Sanctuary].
A few onnikais escaped from their possessed corpses during the battle but those who didn’t were now captured inside my barrier of light.
“Wow, my mana is regenerating at an insane rate. This ruin is overflowing with mana; no wonder so many monsters were spawning outside of it,” I mentioned.
Mana regeneration consisted of your body’s natural regeneration, similar to blood production, plus the mana that your body could absorb from the surroundings, which entered your body through mana paths. I noticed the high mana concentrations around Rashan Village and in the woods close to the ruins, but they couldn’t compare to the ruins themselves. The mana was “thick” like smoke in here to the point that I couldn’t even use [Mana Eyes] for more than a second or two.
“Miss Silva, could the onnikai have purposefully flooded the surroundings with mana and caused monster spawnings in order to possess them?” Saori asked, pointing at one of the fresher corpses. There were large holes in its throat and neck but no signs of other wounds.
“Possibly. These onnikais are simulating the creation of undead, but without actually transforming the corpses into true undead. Truthfully, if they were real undead and considered monsters, the human and beastman ones would be more problematic,” Silva answered. “From the look of it, this thick slime is actively regenerating any wounds or other injuries. Look, I noticed a few corpses that were hit by Miss Saori and Princess Hestia. The bodies hit by holy spells were abandoned by the onnikai while those slain by Miss Saori still have them.”
Saori’s strikes were precise and effective, aiming to kill with one hit or deal serious damage. Looking at some of the bodies closely, black slime was surrounding stab and slash wounds. If the onnikais were actively regenerating the bodies, then that would explain why some of the more weathered and damaged corpses could still move around.
While I found two more of the missing rank D adventurers, Silva performed the ritual dance to purify the onnikais just like before. Once it was done, the onnikais turned white and then disappeared like fading ghosts.
Thinking it was finished, I dispelled my [Sanctuary]. Silva, for some reason, frowned and mumbled, “This is not good …”
When I asked her to clarify, she answered with worry, “Princess Hestia, every onnikai that I’ve purified successfully turned into a spirit, but they just told me it would be dangerous for all of us if we delved even deeper into the ruins. The moment you deactivated your barrier, instead of flying up to the surface, they went through that entryway. I presume it’s the way down.”
They are going down? Are they being lured by something or what is happening?
Silva’s words gave me a bit of a fright of the unknown. We had no information of what was dwelling under all these corpses, while it was possible that the enemy already knew all about us. I could see perfectly fine in this darkness even without a light source, but I still felt scared. It was like imagining a vampire or ghost invading your home, even though you knew for sure your home was safe. The possibility or our imagination was the frightening part.
Steadying my breath and my heart, I recovered my resolve. We had a task so we couldn’t chicken out just yet. Moving back into formation, we ventured through the entryway and continued our spelunking.
Our formation was pretty simple but it wasn’t actually super effective from an RPG standpoint. We were essentially three mages and a rogue-mage, which meant we had no “tank” or warrior to stand in the front. Although my Job and equipment didn’t reflect it, I had to act as the frontliner for our party due to my high stats and pseudo-tanking with my healing spells, barrier skill, and natural regeneration.
In that sense, I was leading the group in the front, Silva moved behind me with Igniculus lighting our way, Tasianna was the third in the formation, and Saori was the last. Courtesy of her wariness, Saori was leaving a trail of mana threads behind so we could find the exit later. Labyrinth of Minos style.
The ruin itself looked and smelled old, if you ignored the obvious scent of death. There were cracks in the floor from which grass and plants grew, there was moss on the walls and ceiling, and the musty air smelled “pleasant” compared to the stench of decaying and rotting flesh. There were signs of battle—blood and scratch marks littered the hallways and empty side chambers.
While traversing this foul reeking place, the occasional enemies or monster room blocked our path forward. The deeper we went with every stairway, the stronger the enemies became. The quantity of rank E monsters decreased while Ds, like the loopriszars that attacked the village, began to appear.
The most morbid part about this horde was how fresh and alive they looked. The moment they noticed us, their expressions contorted in anger, roaring and screaming while they charged at us. There were also a few humans and beastmen among them who were able to shout “Hey!” or “There!”
Nothing elaborate, but this simpleness sent a chill down my spine. These onnikais were resurrecting dead bodies and using their black slime to heal them, to the point they could speak! Shivers, man, shivers!
“Killers-Are … Here.” That was just one of the many examples of these creepy things.
“Kill! Mana! Kuuuurrraraggghieeuuuukkk!”
“Die-Die! Give! Mana!”
Unnerving as hell.
“Verdammt! Why are there so many of these things?!”
“More! There are too many for me to stop, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna responded to my complaint.
“They are overwhelming us with numbers at this point! Tasianna, Miss Silva, get behind me!” Saori commanded before casting dark spells to cover for them.
“Thank you, Miss Saori! Sister Tasianna I will trust in your defensive spells! Igniculus get ready, Smite! May the Goddess of Wind blow away my sorrows, Wind Blast!” Silva shouted her chants and spells out.
On the third floor, the number of enemies just skyrocketed. The whole place was a miserable labyrinth filled with nothing but enemies. Without a map, we didn’t know which paths to avoid, so our travel speed was slow. Neither the villagers nor the guard captain were able to tell us anything, so we got ourselves into this mess due to a lack of information. I couldn’t blame it on anybody, but I really wanted to.
The attrition battle escalated even further once we barely got down the fourth staircase as our enemies tried to pincer her within it. “Quantity has a quality of its own,” and it was wearing us down.
It was tiring. We had already had to take three separate breaks as mental fatigue slowly caught up to us. The horrible smell, the sight of blood and corpses, the dull looking environment, everything you could hate during a ruin dive was there to sap our concentration. The hordes of zombies, even though they were cannon fodder, were stressing everybody out.
Imagine having a moment of respite just to hear the screeching sounds of “kiueeerrrrrrrkgiiiiiiiiiieeeee” from around the corner, announcing the next group of onnikais. There was a limit to how often you could hear these sounds before going crazy. I wanted to tear my hair out and blow up the place at this point.
The only remedy I had for this was playing some calming music with [Aerokinesis], transitioning into heart-pumping battle themes during a fight. Being a musician really kept our morale up as we didn’t need to be quiet. We could just sing until our lungs fell out until the next enemy.
It was just, there was a massive difference between getting jumpscared in front of a monitor, and getting pounced on by a zombie in real life. Instincts and adrenaline made proper rest impossible.
How long—how long have they been gathering all these corpses?! was the only thing I could think as we settled down for another break. I couldn’t even bring myself to sing now; the anxiety caught up to my positivity.
“Urgh, everywhere I walk, there is some puddle of blood, or shit, or fuck knows what. I feel gross, I smell disgusting and my body is itching this whole time, and I don’t know why! Fuck, I wish we could just teleport to the damn last floor already!” I released a miniature tantrum as I took a bite from a sandwich. Our food tasted slightly sour from the stench of corpses. “I hate underground ruins …”
“The whole place feels like it’s producing an endless supply of enemies. Well, let us look on the bright side; we are gaining a lot of experience with the hordes of enemies.”
Saori was right. Despite sharing experience among four people, everybody in this party had leveled up at least once. For the first time in three months, I managed to gain a level. Saori and Tasianna became level 73 and 55, respectively. Considering we had an experience drought since leaving the Belzac Forest and fighting the bandits, this Quest was actually quite the blessing for the three of us.
I really wanted to be happy about this opportunity, but …
“This is too difficult for a rank C Quest,” Tasianna mumbled with a pale face. “If it wasn’t for Lady Hestia and Miss Saori culling the enemies and the dragorade we are drinking to restore our mana and stamina, Sister Silva and I wouldn’t be fit for this Quest. The enemies are far too numerous.”
Neither Silva nor Tasianna were capable of melee combat, so they needed to use spells to fight and support. While Tasianna was able to fend for herself with her ice and torrent spells, Silva only had access to wind spells, which focused more on casting speed than damage, and the holy spells her light elemental could use. These ruins were too hard for them.
Saori and I were doing fine with fighting the enemies while protecting those two after we switched over from weapons to spells. If we weren’t so deep in the ruins, I would have started using stuff like [Omnictus] or [Banishment Beam] to quickly take out the hordes, but the destructive power of these two spells would be too much for the ruins to handle. Honestly, [Battle Frenzy] probably wouldn’t happen any time soon, but I was ready to blow this whole place up to vent my frustration.
Saori could deal with the enemies with her two daggers easily, but their killing speed couldn’t compare to her [Claws of Darkness] and [Umbral Pendulum] spells that cleaved multiple units at once. After Saori summoned a giant shadow cadejo and a clone of herself, the number of people able to kill dozens of enemies at once increased our clearing speed.
In a tight area with plenty of shadows, Saori was in her element, while I couldn’t even transform in these tight hallways and rooms. I was the size of a mammoth or something, no way I could fight as a dragon inside. Saori could, though, and she had been weaving out of her wolfkin and cadejo forms to Silva’s bafflement.
Frankly, I have no idea how long we had been in these ruins. Seeing as how we had three breaks, a couple of hours should have passed already, right? It was too bad that our party bracelets didn’t have any clocks. Knowing the time might actually calm me down a bit.
Regardless, our mental fatigue was too crippling for us to continue the journey down. With a unanimous agreement, our party decided to take this peaceful time to just rest and sleep in rotation. We couldn’t afford to get ambushed while sleeping.
Saori and Tasianna would sleep first as they were the most exhausted, while I would keep watch with Silva. It was just logical to keep at least one B rated adventurer awake.
I wanted to ask Silva about some fun topics while we stayed up together, to get my mind away from our nasty surroundings, but I couldn’t think of anything. I was too focused on the enemy that I began talking about them with Silva. “You talked about necromancer’s able to heal their undead’s wounds and how this black slime is similar. How did these onnikais figure it out? I thought only holy spells and the torrent elemental spell [Ocean Healing] could do it.”
“I am not so sure about it, Princess Hestia, I—”
“Please, I am a bit too tired to keep up with formalities. Could we talk casually?”
Silva’s refined appearance when we first met her was nowhere to be seen. We were able to wash our faces with Tasianna’s [Create Water], but the blood and gore on her clothes couldn’t be washed off so easily. Like everyone else present, her hair was messy and drenched in sweat despite winter decreasing the temperature inside the ruins. I was even acting as a heater to prevent everybody from getting frostbite by increasing my body temperature.
Silva pondered it for a moment before nodding. “… Well, if you allow me to, then I will accept your offer, Hestia. Anyways, I can only give a hypothesis, but it will be a lecture.”
I nodded in acceptance.
“In the myths, the three daughters—the Night Sisters—of the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility gave birth to three new races: the dark elves, the vampires, and the grimgarians. Due to the existence of the eldest sister, Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, the art of ‘good’ necromancy began to spread,” Silva began. “In the past, before her birth, necromancy involved preventing the soul of the deceased from escaping their bodies and putting them in thralldom with a spell. Of course, many elves found it repulsive—an insult to the natural life and death cycle. However, modern necromancy is different.”
“Souls weren’t the domain of mortals but of Ilsaphone,” was the point. After gaining control over her powers, Ilsaphone began her work as the Goddess of Death by taking over full control of all the souls of the world, freeing any enthralled souls from their undead bodies. To this day, it was absolutely impossible for people to create an undead by turning a soul into a thrall, as Ilsaphone would free them immediately.
However, this caused the necromancers to be dissatisfied and destroy her statues and undermine her attempts to gain followers. Ilsaphone wasn’t liked by most mortals ’cause she was a symbol of death, but everybody had to tolerate her. After all, if they wanted to pray that their deceased loved ones would gain peace after death, they still had to pray to Ilsaphone. This coincided with what I read about the Goddess of Death.
Naturally, the Goddess of Death being hated by necromancers was ironic. To Ilsaphone, it was unpleasant. That was when her sister Vivachel, the Goddess of Vampires, suggested that she create a new process of necromancy. As gods, they had to find ways to gain followers and this was a ripe opportunity.
“The new art of necromancy is using mana to control a body like blood. By injecting mana into an undead’s body, they effectively take them over, like these onnikais do using their black slime. I haven’t studied the intricacies of necromancy, so I can’t tell you the full details. All I know is that necromancers can heal their undead with mana.”
So, Ilsaphone can collect souls but she cannot modify them yet. Aurena did say that Ilsaphone wasn’t the person who modified and changed my soul’s memories, nor was she involved in my rebirth.
Aurena could be lying to me, but for now, I should give her the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. She did say that she wouldn’t lie to me. Silva’s explanation on the topic is a myth, so I should take the details with a grain of salt. The gist of the story should be true, though.
“What I want to point out is that these onnikais might be reproducing something similar to undead, however, without turning them into actual undead monsters. None of the purified onnikais could answer my question so this will stay a hypothesis, unfortunately,” Silva said with a sigh. “Nevertheless, it worries me that so many onnikais are in the area. I have never seen so many in one place.”
“Could there be something similar to a brood mother in the depths?” I asked.
Silva massaged her temple in exasperation as she considered my idea. “Onnikais are the faefolk of the dead, or, agony-filled souls turned into them. I know I am a faemancer, but even we aren’t full experts on them considering how whimsical they are. We do know that onnikais can infect the true neutral spirits into ‘onnikais’ since fae adapt to their surroundings when born. Faefolk are that mischievous.”
“That’s why you found it so weird Tasianna wasn’t acting like most fairies, correct?” Silva nodded to my question. My fairy friend disliked the nature of a fairy, but she did have moments of being carefree and happy-go-lucky.
“Back to the topic, what concerns me is something else. Do you remember the purified spirits flying deeper into the ruins?” I nodded to her question. “I haven’t seen a single one of them yet. The spirits surrounding your body and Saori’s aren’t there anymore. I usually rely on the information of spirits and spriggans to avoid danger, so not being able to talk to any of them is unnerving … Wait. No.”
Looking at her widened eyes, I think we came to the same idea.
“… You also think it’s possible, right? ‘Fae adapt to their surroundings when born,’ that’s what you said, right? Well, isn’t being purified similar to being reborn for these onnikai-turned-spirits?” I commented.
If Silva, a faemancer, couldn’t see any spirits around, then where could they have gone? The ones she purified went deeper into the ruins, but she hadn’t seen them once yet. It was only an assumption, but it made sense to me.
“… This is not good,” Silva gulped. “Whether they leave the bodies by themselves or I purify them, the onnikai numbers won’t decrease unless we free the onnikai ‘leader.’ By the Gods. With how much mana is contaminating the ruin, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if the moment a monster is spawned, it’s killed and possessed by a free onnikai. This ruin is too similar to a dungeon with its endless creation of monsters.”
Another chill ran down my spine as cold sweat moistened my face. If we couldn’t deal with the problem now, then the onnikais would continue spawning more monsters. I had managed to collect the IDs of all the missing rank D adventurers, so one sub-task was finished. Now, I only have the main task left.
After Saori and Tasianna woke up, we brought them up to speed with what we thought up and then took our chance to rest. I didn’t know how long I slept, but it wasn’t enough for me. Still, my mental state was reset. That was all that I could wish for.
We carved our way through the last few chambers of the fourth underground floor and went down another set of stairs. Similar to the other floors, we first entered a hallway and followed it to a chamber. The mana in the air felt so tangible that it could strangle me anytime now; actually, maybe that wasn’t an exaggeration.
My [Danger Perception] and [Detection Sensor] were beeping like crazy. Whatever was in this chamber, the hostility it was sending out was suffocating.
I should put some insurance down, just in case … This is obviously a boss room.
Whatever was controlling all these onnikais, it probably wouldn’t be an easy fight, so we had to create as many advantages as possible. For the first time since we entered these ruins, I cast all my buffing spells on myself as well as [Sanctified Blaze] and [Prayer] on my party members. I also didn’t forget to activate some suitable music to activate [Idol]’s buff sharing effect, while also reminding my parallel minds to get ready to play [The Will to Fight and Survive] or [Dragon Fire] if needed. This was no time to hold back anything.
Of course, Saori and Tasianna didn’t slack off with their contribution. Summoning her [Shadow Pack] wolf and [Shadow Clone], she also coated everybody in a veil of her [Shadow Armament] to increase our dark resistance and enable us to join her [Shadow Dash]. Tasianna increased our wisdom, so our resistance against magic and our mana regeneration rates, with [Protective Water]. She also had [Glacial Protection] to increase our physical defense, but the cold stung our bodies, hurting us in the process, so unfortunately, she was the only one who could use it.
Silva didn’t have any buffing spells left that didn’t overlap with our buffs, so she couldn’t do much there. However, with Igniculus her light elemental, she was able to temporarily imbue Saori’s daggers with the holy element. I didn’t need it, as I could “coat” my spear in [White Flames]. I just used [Pyrokinesis] to keep it around the spear, nothing complicated.
Once we were ready, I set my insurance—a certain grey magic circle—before we entered the room. Inside, we noticed a single pedestal at the end of the room, holding up a hand-sized, stygian crystal ball with black slime. Behind it was a massive, closed gate. As we approached it, the ball suddenly vibrated.
“Weeellllllcoooome!”
“Yaaaie!” All four of us cried out as we assumed a combat stance. We were fully focused on the source of the eerie voice: the black ball.
“Faaiiiirrrrryyy. Eeeleeemeentaal. Sourrrcees ooff Maanaaaa! Maaanaaaaa!”
It was too late for us to notice when the shadows moved.
“Awroooooooooooooooooo!”
Next to the ball, four large raven-black wolves appeared, all looking frighteningly similar to Saori’s [Shadow Pack] wolf, only they were larger. Instead of being formed of shadows, their bodies were a mix of rotting flesh, black slime and their skeleton. However, their menacing aura reminded me of somebody I knew too well.
“Garms!”
“Grriiaarrrck! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!” Without warning, Saori’s eyes blazed in red as she snarled at the group of wolves, showing off her fangs. Her face contorted into a demon’s as her growling wouldn’t stop.
[“Saori, calm down!”] I tried to soothe her but to no avail. The four wolves and Saori glared at each other, seemingly dueling each other as their bloodthirst was clashing together in an attempt to dominate the others, or otherwise show who was the alpha.
Wait, are her instincts controlling her?! Shit!
“The shadows! Things are coming out from them!” this time, Silva shouted.
With one move, the whole room was filled with zomb-monsters. No humans or beastmen were here anymore. As expected, the onnikais controlled every monster that spawned.
“Yeeeees! Feeaarrrrr uss! Feaaaarr the daaaamned! Deessstroyy!”
“Please, listen to me!” In an attempt to diffuse the situation, Silva stepped forward. “I am a daughter of Goddess Zephira, the Origin Goddess of Wind! I am here to free you and bring you back to safety! Our wind mother has tasked me to help you! Please, these are my companions, we aren’t here to harm you!”
“Zeeeephhiirrrraa? Zeeeeepphhhirra?! Whhyyyy?! Whhhhhhyyy?!”
The black slime of the ball started to convulse as its voice shrieked in pain.
“Whhyyy?! Haaveee yoouuuuuu foorrrrgootttten uuuuuus?! Whyyyyyyy!”
The voice shifted from anger to sorrow, over and over again as the cries began influencing the wolves and zombies. Their shrieks were deafening like cries of banshees. It felt like a sonic attack as their combined voices echoed through the chamber.
“Illlllssaappphhhhoneeeeee! Forrrrrgiveeeeen usssss. Zeeeepppppphhiirrrrrra! Fooorrggottteen ussssss! Kiiiiilllllll!”
Scheiße! Silva!
Acting on what my [Foresight] showed me, I pounced at Silva and pulled her out of the way of a spear-like shadow suddenly coming out of a shadow. As I was asking if Silva was alright, the shadow began to move.
“W-what is that?!” I cried out.
Large hands with sharp claws came out of the shadow, pushing itself out. A large dog-like head with sharp black teeth growing out of the edges of its mouth appeared, pulling out a monstrous body with a height that could rival a dinosaur. It stood on three legs with a large tail completing its appearance. Its whole body was devoid of details—only shadows and black slime was covering it.
“Maaaannnnnnnaaaa!” A deep growl similar to the ball’s voice was released from the shadow beast.
Arck! M-my mana?!
“Urgh! I-It’s draining our mana! It’s draining our mana!!!” Tasianna cried out in a panic, her face paled as she slumped on the floor and screamed. Not in pain, but in fear. “Aieeeeeeeeeeeee!!!”
“Igniculus! Quickly into your cage. Into your cage now!” Silva cried out to the weakening light elemental, even grabbing and forcefully putting him back into his wooden cage when he couldn’t respond.
System Voice?!
My eyes widened at the mention of a dungeon, only to shift my attention at how it mentioned the area was too contaminated in mana. “What the fucking fuck! Verdammte Scheiße, what the hell is this shit?!”
“Grrrrrrack!” As I was confused by the sudden System messages, a blue mist emitted from Saori’s body. Once it dissipated, Saori’s body was covered in full fur and her head resembled a wolf’s. She turned into her [Humanize (Minor)] form!
Without warning, she and her shadow cadejo and clone sprung at the horde of zombies in the direction of the four zombie garms. The red mist coming off from her eyes made her look like a berserker as she charged in fearlessly.
“Saori! Get back here!” I screamed. Was this a biological quirk of a Belzac wolf similar to [Battle Frenzy]?
Scheiße! The onnikai blocked our way out and they’re even charging at us now!
“Tasianna, Silva! Get up! Get up! We need to fight!” I couldn’t help Saori while Tasianna and Silva were being consumed with fear. I had to drag them on their feet and shout at them to bring their focus back to our current predicament. “Stay in my barrier, and get ready to fight! Sanctuary!”
This is no time to hold anything back! Please, let this work! Don’t cave us in!
Remembering how I fortified the walls I made for Carine Village, I activated [Terra Wall] and used [Fluid Cast] to have it fortify the chamber instead of creating new earthen constructs.
Humanize!
Mana mist covered my whole body as wings sprouted out of my body and my body’s skeleton adapted to my new form. All my pink skin changed color to a crimson red as scales protruded out of my body. My fangs became sharper, my claws even longer, and my tail’s carapace turned thicker.
Strength filled my body as the song [The Will to Fight and Survive] filled the room with peppy music. Nine magic circles appeared around my body as a veil of scale-dust surrounded Tasianna, Silva, and me like a protective coat.
As I was ready to fight, another System message appeared before me.
“Kuuurrrrraaaaaccccck! Giiiiiiveeeee! Maaaaannaaaaaaaa!”
Wat?
AbyssRaven That is a bit of a problem, buuuuuuut, Hestia about to get her first Divine Quest as a Champion of Aurena!
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Daggers digging deep into flesh, spells rending bones and black slime, and a single spear flying through the battlefield with a trail of white flames. The groans of the dead and the heavy steps of an army of enemies. To be honest, I kinda expected that from this zombie adventure.
After all, the moment we entered the first chamber of the Rashan Ruins, a horde of onnikai-possessed corpses attacked us. Among them were a few humanoids, but most of them were the bodies of low ranking monsters, ranging from rank E to G. Did the onnikai army play their best cards on the village assault?
That was a possibility, and if you look at the situation like a game, then you could rationalize it. The village raid was the enemy’s chance to destroy a close-by foe while also “gathering” more bodies to turn into undead. You would, of course, send some stronger pawns after them. In addition, this was the first chamber of the ruin, who would place their strongest first when you could grind your intruders down with attrition first?
However, I knew this thinking was a bit naïve. This wasn’t a game, it was reality.
Regardless of what the truth was, the first chamber only had fodder. Saori blitzed through the enemy with a storm of claws and steel, keeping her [Lifetaker] buff at its maximum efficiency the whole time. Silva and Tasianna kept the enemies under control using their wind and ice spells respectively, making a fine support team. I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to train up my spear and [Hellblade Dragon] skills.
The spear was a bit taller than me. Despite the description saying that it was made with andurium, a lightweight metal that I hadn’t asked the blacksmiths about yet, it had a nice weight behind it, making it comfortable to wield for me. Due to my high strength, I wanted a weapon that made me feel like I could do damage with it, instead of a spear that felt like a plastic toy that would break with one hit.
For some agility training, I was throwing the spear around the chamber aiming at zombies, before catching up with it and tearing the spear out from their bodies. Meanwhile, I had my tail coated in [White Flames]. Since I could change any flames I produced into crimson, purple, and white using mana, I was using this fact to train my control over them.
Fundamentally, it was just another application of the [Hellblade Edge] dragon ability—by grinding and igniting my scale-dust, I could envelop my tail in a coat of fire. I just needed to change the fire with [White Flames] and I basically got [Hellblade Edge] with the holy element.
After retrieving my spear, I usually swung my tail in an arc to cleave any nearby zombies. The onnikais’ fear of the holy element was valid, since any undead that was hit by my tail quickly slumped down like a broken marionette. After creating some space between me and the zombies, I assumed the stance the guild master taught me and began wielding the spear normally.
I wouldn’t call myself trained yet. Honestly, I was still having some trouble fighting as a dragonewt, since I was more used to my dragon form. I was still having trouble adapting to using the spear, as I was more used to using my usual combat style of combining my spell casting with my dragon abilities. In fact, I barely fought in close-combat as a dragonewt, relying more on magic.
It felt awkward, as if this wasn’t for me. Which made sense after everything in the Belzac forest, but diversifying myself would be for the best on the road ahead. All these enemies were cannon fodder to me, making great practice dummies as I tried to implement spearmanship into my combat style.
I just had to stop using all my super strong spells, abilities, and skills, really.
After a couple more moments, the room was filled with corpses. Saori went wild and was the one with the highest kill count, far surpassing my killing speed and the support duo. Well, I wasn’t using any AOE spells like [Banishment Beam] or [Omnictus] for fear of the ruin collapsing, so whatever.
After confirming that nobody had leveled up, I cast [Sanctuary].
A few onnikais escaped from their possessed corpses during the battle but those who didn’t were now captured inside my barrier of light.
“Wow, my mana is regenerating at an insane rate. This ruin is overflowing with mana; no wonder so many monsters were spawning outside of it,” I mentioned.
Mana regeneration consisted of your body’s natural regeneration, similar to blood production, plus the mana that your body could absorb from the surroundings, which entered your body through mana paths. I noticed the high mana concentrations around Rashan Village and in the woods close to the ruins, but they couldn’t compare to the ruins themselves. The mana was “thick” like smoke in here to the point that I couldn’t even use [Mana Eyes] for more than a second or two.
“Miss Silva, could the onnikai have purposefully flooded the surroundings with mana and caused monster spawnings in order to possess them?” Saori asked, pointing at one of the fresher corpses. There were large holes in its throat and neck but no signs of other wounds.
“Possibly. These onnikais are simulating the creation of undead, but without actually transforming the corpses into true undead. Truthfully, if they were real undead and considered monsters, the human and beastman ones would be more problematic,” Silva answered. “From the look of it, this thick slime is actively regenerating any wounds or other injuries. Look, I noticed a few corpses that were hit by Miss Saori and Princess Hestia. The bodies hit by holy spells were abandoned by the onnikai while those slain by Miss Saori still have them.”
Saori’s strikes were precise and effective, aiming to kill with one hit or deal serious damage. Looking at some of the bodies closely, black slime was surrounding stab and slash wounds. If the onnikais were actively regenerating the bodies, then that would explain why some of the more weathered and damaged corpses could still move around.
While I found two more of the missing rank D adventurers, Silva performed the ritual dance to purify the onnikais just like before. Once it was done, the onnikais turned white and then disappeared like fading ghosts.
Thinking it was finished, I dispelled my [Sanctuary]. Silva, for some reason, frowned and mumbled, “This is not good …”
When I asked her to clarify, she answered with worry, “Princess Hestia, every onnikai that I’ve purified successfully turned into a spirit, but they just told me it would be dangerous for all of us if we delved even deeper into the ruins. The moment you deactivated your barrier, instead of flying up to the surface, they went through that entryway. I presume it’s the way down.”
They are going down? Are they being lured by something or what is happening?
Silva’s words gave me a bit of a fright of the unknown. We had no information of what was dwelling under all these corpses, while it was possible that the enemy already knew all about us. I could see perfectly fine in this darkness even without a light source, but I still felt scared. It was like imagining a vampire or ghost invading your home, even though you knew for sure your home was safe. The possibility or our imagination was the frightening part.
Steadying my breath and my heart, I recovered my resolve. We had a task so we couldn’t chicken out just yet. Moving back into formation, we ventured through the entryway and continued our spelunking.
Our formation was pretty simple but it wasn’t actually super effective from an RPG standpoint. We were essentially three mages and a rogue-mage, which meant we had no “tank” or warrior to stand in the front. Although my Job and equipment didn’t reflect it, I had to act as the frontliner for our party due to my high stats and pseudo-tanking with my healing spells, barrier skill, and natural regeneration.
In that sense, I was leading the group in the front, Silva moved behind me with Igniculus lighting our way, Tasianna was the third in the formation, and Saori was the last. Courtesy of her wariness, Saori was leaving a trail of mana threads behind so we could find the exit later. Labyrinth of Minos style.
The ruin itself looked and smelled old, if you ignored the obvious scent of death. There were cracks in the floor from which grass and plants grew, there was moss on the walls and ceiling, and the musty air smelled “pleasant” compared to the stench of decaying and rotting flesh. There were signs of battle—blood and scratch marks littered the hallways and empty side chambers.
While traversing this foul reeking place, the occasional enemies or monster room blocked our path forward. The deeper we went with every stairway, the stronger the enemies became. The quantity of rank E monsters decreased while Ds, like the loopriszars that attacked the village, began to appear.
The most morbid part about this horde was how fresh and alive they looked. The moment they noticed us, their expressions contorted in anger, roaring and screaming while they charged at us. There were also a few humans and beastmen among them who were able to shout “Hey!” or “There!”
Nothing elaborate, but this simpleness sent a chill down my spine. These onnikais were resurrecting dead bodies and using their black slime to heal them, to the point they could speak! Shivers, man, shivers!
“Killers-Are … Here.” That was just one of the many examples of these creepy things.
“Kill! Mana! Kuuuurrraraggghieeuuuukkk!”
“Die-Die! Give! Mana!”
Unnerving as hell.
“Verdammt! Why are there so many of these things?!”
“More! There are too many for me to stop, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna responded to my complaint.
“They are overwhelming us with numbers at this point! Tasianna, Miss Silva, get behind me!” Saori commanded before casting dark spells to cover for them.
“Thank you, Miss Saori! Sister Tasianna I will trust in your defensive spells! Igniculus get ready, Smite! May the Goddess of Wind blow away my sorrows, Wind Blast!” Silva shouted her chants and spells out.
On the third floor, the number of enemies just skyrocketed. The whole place was a miserable labyrinth filled with nothing but enemies. Without a map, we didn’t know which paths to avoid, so our travel speed was slow. Neither the villagers nor the guard captain were able to tell us anything, so we got ourselves into this mess due to a lack of information. I couldn’t blame it on anybody, but I really wanted to.
The attrition battle escalated even further once we barely got down the fourth staircase as our enemies tried to pincer her within it. “Quantity has a quality of its own,” and it was wearing us down.
It was tiring. We had already had to take three separate breaks as mental fatigue slowly caught up to us. The horrible smell, the sight of blood and corpses, the dull looking environment, everything you could hate during a ruin dive was there to sap our concentration. The hordes of zombies, even though they were cannon fodder, were stressing everybody out.
Imagine having a moment of respite just to hear the screeching sounds of “kiueeerrrrrrrkgiiiiiiiiiieeeee” from around the corner, announcing the next group of onnikais. There was a limit to how often you could hear these sounds before going crazy. I wanted to tear my hair out and blow up the place at this point.
The only remedy I had for this was playing some calming music with [Aerokinesis], transitioning into heart-pumping battle themes during a fight. Being a musician really kept our morale up as we didn’t need to be quiet. We could just sing until our lungs fell out until the next enemy.
It was just, there was a massive difference between getting jumpscared in front of a monitor, and getting pounced on by a zombie in real life. Instincts and adrenaline made proper rest impossible.
How long—how long have they been gathering all these corpses?! was the only thing I could think as we settled down for another break. I couldn’t even bring myself to sing now; the anxiety caught up to my positivity.
“Urgh, everywhere I walk, there is some puddle of blood, or shit, or fuck knows what. I feel gross, I smell disgusting and my body is itching this whole time, and I don’t know why! Fuck, I wish we could just teleport to the damn last floor already!” I released a miniature tantrum as I took a bite from a sandwich. Our food tasted slightly sour from the stench of corpses. “I hate underground ruins …”
“The whole place feels like it’s producing an endless supply of enemies. Well, let us look on the bright side; we are gaining a lot of experience with the hordes of enemies.”
Saori was right. Despite sharing experience among four people, everybody in this party had leveled up at least once. For the first time in three months, I managed to gain a level. Saori and Tasianna became level 73 and 55, respectively. Considering we had an experience drought since leaving the Belzac Forest and fighting the bandits, this Quest was actually quite the blessing for the three of us.
I really wanted to be happy about this opportunity, but …
“This is too difficult for a rank C Quest,” Tasianna mumbled with a pale face. “If it wasn’t for Lady Hestia and Miss Saori culling the enemies and the dragorade we are drinking to restore our mana and stamina, Sister Silva and I wouldn’t be fit for this Quest. The enemies are far too numerous.”
Neither Silva nor Tasianna were capable of melee combat, so they needed to use spells to fight and support. While Tasianna was able to fend for herself with her ice and torrent spells, Silva only had access to wind spells, which focused more on casting speed than damage, and the holy spells her light elemental could use. These ruins were too hard for them.
Saori and I were doing fine with fighting the enemies while protecting those two after we switched over from weapons to spells. If we weren’t so deep in the ruins, I would have started using stuff like [Omnictus] or [Banishment Beam] to quickly take out the hordes, but the destructive power of these two spells would be too much for the ruins to handle. Honestly, [Battle Frenzy] probably wouldn’t happen any time soon, but I was ready to blow this whole place up to vent my frustration.
Saori could deal with the enemies with her two daggers easily, but their killing speed couldn’t compare to her [Claws of Darkness] and [Umbral Pendulum] spells that cleaved multiple units at once. After Saori summoned a giant shadow cadejo and a clone of herself, the number of people able to kill dozens of enemies at once increased our clearing speed.
In a tight area with plenty of shadows, Saori was in her element, while I couldn’t even transform in these tight hallways and rooms. I was the size of a mammoth or something, no way I could fight as a dragon inside. Saori could, though, and she had been weaving out of her wolfkin and cadejo forms to Silva’s bafflement.
Frankly, I have no idea how long we had been in these ruins. Seeing as how we had three breaks, a couple of hours should have passed already, right? It was too bad that our party bracelets didn’t have any clocks. Knowing the time might actually calm me down a bit.
Regardless, our mental fatigue was too crippling for us to continue the journey down. With a unanimous agreement, our party decided to take this peaceful time to just rest and sleep in rotation. We couldn’t afford to get ambushed while sleeping.
Saori and Tasianna would sleep first as they were the most exhausted, while I would keep watch with Silva. It was just logical to keep at least one B rated adventurer awake.
I wanted to ask Silva about some fun topics while we stayed up together, to get my mind away from our nasty surroundings, but I couldn’t think of anything. I was too focused on the enemy that I began talking about them with Silva. “You talked about necromancer’s able to heal their undead’s wounds and how this black slime is similar. How did these onnikais figure it out? I thought only holy spells and the torrent elemental spell [Ocean Healing] could do it.”
“I am not so sure about it, Princess Hestia, I—”
“Please, I am a bit too tired to keep up with formalities. Could we talk casually?”
Silva’s refined appearance when we first met her was nowhere to be seen. We were able to wash our faces with Tasianna’s [Create Water], but the blood and gore on her clothes couldn’t be washed off so easily. Like everyone else present, her hair was messy and drenched in sweat despite winter decreasing the temperature inside the ruins. I was even acting as a heater to prevent everybody from getting frostbite by increasing my body temperature.
Silva pondered it for a moment before nodding. “… Well, if you allow me to, then I will accept your offer, Hestia. Anyways, I can only give a hypothesis, but it will be a lecture.”
I nodded in acceptance.
“In the myths, the three daughters—the Night Sisters—of the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Monsters and Fertility gave birth to three new races: the dark elves, the vampires, and the grimgarians. Due to the existence of the eldest sister, Ilsaphone, the Goddess of Death and Necromancy, the art of ‘good’ necromancy began to spread,” Silva began. “In the past, before her birth, necromancy involved preventing the soul of the deceased from escaping their bodies and putting them in thralldom with a spell. Of course, many elves found it repulsive—an insult to the natural life and death cycle. However, modern necromancy is different.”
“Souls weren’t the domain of mortals but of Ilsaphone,” was the point. After gaining control over her powers, Ilsaphone began her work as the Goddess of Death by taking over full control of all the souls of the world, freeing any enthralled souls from their undead bodies. To this day, it was absolutely impossible for people to create an undead by turning a soul into a thrall, as Ilsaphone would free them immediately.
However, this caused the necromancers to be dissatisfied and destroy her statues and undermine her attempts to gain followers. Ilsaphone wasn’t liked by most mortals ’cause she was a symbol of death, but everybody had to tolerate her. After all, if they wanted to pray that their deceased loved ones would gain peace after death, they still had to pray to Ilsaphone. This coincided with what I read about the Goddess of Death.
Naturally, the Goddess of Death being hated by necromancers was ironic. To Ilsaphone, it was unpleasant. That was when her sister Vivachel, the Goddess of Vampires, suggested that she create a new process of necromancy. As gods, they had to find ways to gain followers and this was a ripe opportunity.
“The new art of necromancy is using mana to control a body like blood. By injecting mana into an undead’s body, they effectively take them over, like these onnikais do using their black slime. I haven’t studied the intricacies of necromancy, so I can’t tell you the full details. All I know is that necromancers can heal their undead with mana.”
So, Ilsaphone can collect souls but she cannot modify them yet. Aurena did say that Ilsaphone wasn’t the person who modified and changed my soul’s memories, nor was she involved in my rebirth.
Aurena could be lying to me, but for now, I should give her the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. She did say that she wouldn’t lie to me. Silva’s explanation on the topic is a myth, so I should take the details with a grain of salt. The gist of the story should be true, though.
“What I want to point out is that these onnikais might be reproducing something similar to undead, however, without turning them into actual undead monsters. None of the purified onnikais could answer my question so this will stay a hypothesis, unfortunately,” Silva said with a sigh. “Nevertheless, it worries me that so many onnikais are in the area. I have never seen so many in one place.”
“Could there be something similar to a brood mother in the depths?” I asked.
Silva massaged her temple in exasperation as she considered my idea. “Onnikais are the faefolk of the dead, or, agony-filled souls turned into them. I know I am a faemancer, but even we aren’t full experts on them considering how whimsical they are. We do know that onnikais can infect the true neutral spirits into ‘onnikais’ since fae adapt to their surroundings when born. Faefolk are that mischievous.”
“That’s why you found it so weird Tasianna wasn’t acting like most fairies, correct?” Silva nodded to my question. My fairy friend disliked the nature of a fairy, but she did have moments of being carefree and happy-go-lucky.
“Back to the topic, what concerns me is something else. Do you remember the purified spirits flying deeper into the ruins?” I nodded to her question. “I haven’t seen a single one of them yet. The spirits surrounding your body and Saori’s aren’t there anymore. I usually rely on the information of spirits and spriggans to avoid danger, so not being able to talk to any of them is unnerving … Wait. No.”
Looking at her widened eyes, I think we came to the same idea.
“… You also think it’s possible, right? ‘Fae adapt to their surroundings when born,’ that’s what you said, right? Well, isn’t being purified similar to being reborn for these onnikai-turned-spirits?” I commented.
If Silva, a faemancer, couldn’t see any spirits around, then where could they have gone? The ones she purified went deeper into the ruins, but she hadn’t seen them once yet. It was only an assumption, but it made sense to me.
“… This is not good,” Silva gulped. “Whether they leave the bodies by themselves or I purify them, the onnikai numbers won’t decrease unless we free the onnikai ‘leader.’ By the Gods. With how much mana is contaminating the ruin, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if the moment a monster is spawned, it’s killed and possessed by a free onnikai. This ruin is too similar to a dungeon with its endless creation of monsters.”
Another chill ran down my spine as cold sweat moistened my face. If we couldn’t deal with the problem now, then the onnikais would continue spawning more monsters. I had managed to collect the IDs of all the missing rank D adventurers, so one sub-task was finished. Now, I only have the main task left.
After Saori and Tasianna woke up, we brought them up to speed with what we thought up and then took our chance to rest. I didn’t know how long I slept, but it wasn’t enough for me. Still, my mental state was reset. That was all that I could wish for.
We carved our way through the last few chambers of the fourth underground floor and went down another set of stairs. Similar to the other floors, we first entered a hallway and followed it to a chamber. The mana in the air felt so tangible that it could strangle me anytime now; actually, maybe that wasn’t an exaggeration.
My [Danger Perception] and [Detection Sensor] were beeping like crazy. Whatever was in this chamber, the hostility it was sending out was suffocating.
I should put some insurance down, just in case … This is obviously a boss room.
Whatever was controlling all these onnikais, it probably wouldn’t be an easy fight, so we had to create as many advantages as possible. For the first time since we entered these ruins, I cast all my buffing spells on myself as well as [Sanctified Blaze] and [Prayer] on my party members. I also didn’t forget to activate some suitable music to activate [Idol]’s buff sharing effect, while also reminding my parallel minds to get ready to play [The Will to Fight and Survive] or [Dragon Fire] if needed. This was no time to hold back anything.
Of course, Saori and Tasianna didn’t slack off with their contribution. Summoning her [Shadow Pack] wolf and [Shadow Clone], she also coated everybody in a veil of her [Shadow Armament] to increase our dark resistance and enable us to join her [Shadow Dash]. Tasianna increased our wisdom, so our resistance against magic and our mana regeneration rates, with [Protective Water]. She also had [Glacial Protection] to increase our physical defense, but the cold stung our bodies, hurting us in the process, so unfortunately, she was the only one who could use it.
Silva didn’t have any buffing spells left that didn’t overlap with our buffs, so she couldn’t do much there. However, with Igniculus her light elemental, she was able to temporarily imbue Saori’s daggers with the holy element. I didn’t need it, as I could “coat” my spear in [White Flames]. I just used [Pyrokinesis] to keep it around the spear, nothing complicated.
Once we were ready, I set my insurance—a certain grey magic circle—before we entered the room. Inside, we noticed a single pedestal at the end of the room, holding up a hand-sized, stygian crystal ball with black slime. Behind it was a massive, closed gate. As we approached it, the ball suddenly vibrated.
“Weeellllllcoooome!”
“Yaaaie!” All four of us cried out as we assumed a combat stance. We were fully focused on the source of the eerie voice: the black ball.
“Faaiiiirrrrryyy. Eeeleeemeentaal. Sourrrcees ooff Maanaaaa! Maaanaaaaa!”
It was too late for us to notice when the shadows moved.
“Awroooooooooooooooooo!”
Next to the ball, four large raven-black wolves appeared, all looking frighteningly similar to Saori’s [Shadow Pack] wolf, only they were larger. Instead of being formed of shadows, their bodies were a mix of rotting flesh, black slime and their skeleton. However, their menacing aura reminded me of somebody I knew too well.
“Garms!”
“Grriiaarrrck! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!” Without warning, Saori’s eyes blazed in red as she snarled at the group of wolves, showing off her fangs. Her face contorted into a demon’s as her growling wouldn’t stop.
[“Saori, calm down!”] I tried to soothe her but to no avail. The four wolves and Saori glared at each other, seemingly dueling each other as their bloodthirst was clashing together in an attempt to dominate the others, or otherwise show who was the alpha.
Wait, are her instincts controlling her?! Shit!
“The shadows! Things are coming out from them!” this time, Silva shouted.
With one move, the whole room was filled with zomb-monsters. No humans or beastmen were here anymore. As expected, the onnikais controlled every monster that spawned.
“Yeeeees! Feeaarrrrr uss! Feaaaarr the daaaamned! Deessstroyy!”
“Please, listen to me!” In an attempt to diffuse the situation, Silva stepped forward. “I am a daughter of Goddess Zephira, the Origin Goddess of Wind! I am here to free you and bring you back to safety! Our wind mother has tasked me to help you! Please, these are my companions, we aren’t here to harm you!”
“Zeeeephhiirrrraa? Zeeeeepphhhirra?! Whhyyyy?! Whhhhhhyyy?!”
The black slime of the ball started to convulse as its voice shrieked in pain.
“Whhyyy?! Haaveee yoouuuuuu foorrrrgootttten uuuuuus?! Whyyyyyyy!”
The voice shifted from anger to sorrow, over and over again as the cries began influencing the wolves and zombies. Their shrieks were deafening like cries of banshees. It felt like a sonic attack as their combined voices echoed through the chamber.
“Illlllssaappphhhhoneeeeee! Forrrrrgiveeeeen usssss. Zeeeepppppphhiirrrrrra! Fooorrggottteen ussssss! Kiiiiilllllll!”
Scheiße! Silva!
Acting on what my [Foresight] showed me, I pounced at Silva and pulled her out of the way of a spear-like shadow suddenly coming out of a shadow. As I was asking if Silva was alright, the shadow began to move.
“W-what is that?!” I cried out.
Large hands with sharp claws came out of the shadow, pushing itself out. A large dog-like head with sharp black teeth growing out of the edges of its mouth appeared, pulling out a monstrous body with a height that could rival a dinosaur. It stood on three legs with a large tail completing its appearance. Its whole body was devoid of details—only shadows and black slime was covering it.
“Maaaannnnnnnaaaa!” A deep growl similar to the ball’s voice was released from the shadow beast.
Arck! M-my mana?!
“Urgh! I-It’s draining our mana! It’s draining our mana!!!” Tasianna cried out in a panic, her face paled as she slumped on the floor and screamed. Not in pain, but in fear. “Aieeeeeeeeeeeee!!!”
“Igniculus! Quickly into your cage. Into your cage now!” Silva cried out to the weakening light elemental, even grabbing and forcefully putting him back into his wooden cage when he couldn’t respond.
System Voice?!
My eyes widened at the mention of a dungeon, only to shift my attention at how it mentioned the area was too contaminated in mana. “What the fucking fuck! Verdammte Scheiße, what the hell is this shit?!”
“Grrrrrrack!” As I was confused by the sudden System messages, a blue mist emitted from Saori’s body. Once it dissipated, Saori’s body was covered in full fur and her head resembled a wolf’s. She turned into her [Humanize (Minor)] form!
Without warning, she and her shadow cadejo and clone sprung at the horde of zombies in the direction of the four zombie garms. The red mist coming off from her eyes made her look like a berserker as she charged in fearlessly.
“Saori! Get back here!” I screamed. Was this a biological quirk of a Belzac wolf similar to [Battle Frenzy]?
Scheiße! The onnikai blocked our way out and they’re even charging at us now!
“Tasianna, Silva! Get up! Get up! We need to fight!” I couldn’t help Saori while Tasianna and Silva were being consumed with fear. I had to drag them on their feet and shout at them to bring their focus back to our current predicament. “Stay in my barrier, and get ready to fight! Sanctuary!”
This is no time to hold anything back! Please, let this work! Don’t cave us in!
Remembering how I fortified the walls I made for Carine Village, I activated [Terra Wall] and used [Fluid Cast] to have it fortify the chamber instead of creating new earthen constructs.
Humanize!
Mana mist covered my whole body as wings sprouted out of my body and my body’s skeleton adapted to my new form. All my pink skin changed color to a crimson red as scales protruded out of my body. My fangs became sharper, my claws even longer, and my tail’s carapace turned thicker.
Strength filled my body as the song [The Will to Fight and Survive] filled the room with peppy music. Nine magic circles appeared around my body as a veil of scale-dust surrounded Tasianna, Silva, and me like a protective coat.
As I was ready to fight, another System message appeared before me.
“Kuuurrrrraaaaaccccck! Giiiiiiveeeee! Maaaaannaaaaaaaa!”
Wat?
AbyssRaven That is a bit of a problem, buuuuuuut, Hestia about to get her first Divine Quest as a Champion of Aurena!
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