Ordial.
Adventuring Guild — Guildmasters Office.
While Faofa was located within the dungeon he had uncovered, back at the adventuring guild, an important meeting was being held between two prominent figures of power within the borders of Ordial.
Inside the Guildmasters Office, at a large desk which was located at the back of the room, with a large circular window behind it, letting in the sunlight, a man sat. His clothes were tattered and scuffed, showing clear signs of age and overuse. Their colours were mostly washed out, except for a deep red coat that he wore over the tattered clothing underneath it.
His hair was light grey, with some strands of white hair peaking their way through the grey hairs, and across his face, was a short beard that covered his chin and the top portion of his lips.
The man's face also had old scars that went over his left eye and traced themselves down his neck and undoubtedly, further down his body – showing off his experience in battle and that he had been through much. This man was clearly a warrior with experience – an Adventurer amongst adventurers.
This was the Ordial Adventuring Guilds Guildmaster – Gidou.
The door to the office flew open, before a young dwarven female walked in and bowed towards the Guildmaster.
“Guildmaster, Duke Lucas has arrived.”
Gidou remained silent at first, before exhaling and leaning back into his seat, looking at the Dwarf with his grey eyes.
“He may come in.”
The Dwarf nodded, leaving the office. A moment later, a man dressed in black robes and carrying a black and gold walking stick walked into the office, closing the door behind him. The man had white hair and a small, but noticeable moustache - however, no beard. Over his white hair, he wore a black hat, from which a golden feather sprawled upwards.
When he lifted his head up to look at Gidou, a small golden monocle shone - a pair of dark blue eyes behind it. This was Duke Lucas von Haloth – the one who governed Ordial. Gidou exhaled.
“Come on, take a seat – we can talk.”
Gidou invited the Duke, gesturing to a small sofa located in front of his desk. The Duke nodded and with a smile, walked over to it, sitting down in it, crossing his legs and placing his cane to the side, before looking at Gidou.
“Now then, let’s not waste any time. I have a lot to do today.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Gidou replied, rubbing the back of his neck before opening a drawer in his desk and taking out a small folder of papers, plucking them onto his desk. Then, he snapped his fingers – all window curtains immediately closing and blocking visibility into and out the office. “I’ll get straight to the point – this folder contains the report I received from the A-Rank party ‘Thunder Bringers’ surrounding the Abyssal Ruins.”
Gidou threw the folder of documents at the Duke, who caught it before gently placing it onto his lap, opening the folder up and beginning to sort through the documents inside it. Meanwhile, Gidou continued his explanation.
“After the initial failure of investigating them by the C-Rank party ‘Natures Leaf’, I sent the ‘Thunder Bringers’ as you had requested. They journeyed to the ruins and found them to not have as intense of a presence as normal. When they headed inside, they found the seal that kept Arabor away to be open and there was no sign of the dragon anywhere.”
As Gidou explained, Lucas continued sorting through the documented reports. There were a couple of images attached as well, indeed showing the seal that was keeping the Primal Dragon of Abyss separate from the world opened and it being completely barren and empty. Gidou leaned forward.
“Thunder Bringers also stated that they had found traces of a ritual that had been held at the top point of the inside of the seal – it is likely that there was some outside influence in this scenario.”
“Is that so?” Lucas looked a bit sceptical, placing the reports to the side, before scratching his chin and going silent for a bit. Gidou watched him for a while, before exhaling and leaning back into his chair again.
“What do we do? The truth is undoubtedly correct – Arabor has disappeared from his tomb. We can’t keep something like that a secret.”
Gidous eyes sharpened on the Duke. “Especially from the Holy Night Order.”
Lucas kept silent the entire time, simply deep in his thoughts, before eventually exhaling lightly and picking up all the documents and placing them back inside the folder.
“We won’t keep it a secret – at least, not from the Order. However, for now I believe it to be for the best if we keep it a secret from the general public.” Lucas closed up the folder and tossed it onto Gidous desk, before leaning his back slightly against the sofa.
“This is one of the Primordial gods we’re speaking about – if it becomes public information that he has vanished from his tomb, it’ll surely cause a panic and potentially even catch the attention of the Deities Church.” Gidou sighed, scratching the back of his head lightly.
“Then what should I report to the other guild branches?”
“For now? Nothing.” Lucas replied with a cold tone, turning his eyes away.
“I must first make a report to the Order about the situation. Until then, keep quiet about the disappearance of the dragon.” Lucas got up from his seat, taking hold of his cane, before leaning onto it and looking at Gidou again.
“However, I suggest making sure that no one goes near the Abyssal Ruins for now. The Order will most likely send someone to investigate more thoroughly and having citizens or low ranking adventurers around there will cause more trouble.”
Gidou nodded, crossing his arms. “Then I shall contact ‘The Banishers’ party. They’ll be the ones to watch over the territory until the Order decides what to do.” Lucas nodded to Gidous statement, before reaching his free hand into his robes left pocket and taking out a small golden pocket watch, flipping it open.
“I have to take my leave now. Thank you for your report Gidou and farewell.” Lucas stated, bowing towards Gidou a bit, before turning around and leaving the office a couple moments later – the door of the office slamming behind him. Gidou remained silent for a bit, exhaling eventually and clapping his hands together, causing the curtains in the office to open again.
The Guildmaster rose up from his seat and walked up to the large circular window behind his desk, looking out of it. Something told him that the world was about to enter a new stage – that big changes were about to happen. Arabors disappearance from the tomb…
It was worrying.
Not because the Dragon may start rampaging or destroying everything in his path, but because his disappearance may cause some bad blood to be stirred up between them and the Deities Church — or more specifically… The Deities themselves.
The ones who had originally imprisoned the God of Abyss inside that tomb in the first place.
“The only thing I don’t understand… Where is the dragon now?”
Back in the A-Rank Dungeon.
The onslaught of the stone statues continued, the rocky beasts charging at me and swinging their large, stone weapons. I held the long spear I had made using ‘Shadowlord’ in my hands tightly, swinging it around and slicing apart the incoming monsters – However, no matter how many times I pushed them back or destroyed their bodies, the onslaught didn't stop.
They kept on regenerating and getting back up, before charging at me again. It was getting tiresome. I was slowly starting to feel the intense pressure they were putting on me as well – as the longer and longer the fight continued and the things kept coming back, the more and more exhausted I grew.
Even with my high stamina, facing all these things that – while they weren’t all that hard to destroy – possessed power greater than anything I had faced so far, even out powering the Chimera while it was alive, I was starting to feel quite the sweat build up and my first signs of tiredness.
“They just won’t stay down huh?” I thought, being pushed back by one of the statues before blocking the attack of another one – smashing it to pieces afterwards. I had to figure out how to make sure these things stayed down after being destroyed, otherwise I was eventually going to run out of stamina and magical energy, being left at the complete mercy of these things.
I leapt up into the air again, using ‘Shadowlord’ to create a large appendage right under me to stand on, before forming as many purple orbs in the air around me as I could, as well as making them all as large as I could.
Then, I broke my long spear in half, before throwing it into the air, the shadows that made up the spear deforming and then infusing into the purple orbs, making them grow larger and gain this veiny, black texture across them.
“Let’s hope this trick I learned recently will help me here.” I thought, before taking in a deep breath – the orbs around me minimising to a tiny, tiny size.
The statues rushed towards me and the appendage I was standing on, their weapons high in the air. As they got close, I opened my eyes and then extended my right arm out towards them. After waiting for them to get a little bit closer – I exhaled.
“Shadow Venom barrage.”
The orbs around me immediately expanded, firing off large darts towards the statues – the darts flying in every direction and being fired rapidly – as if they were coming from a machine gun. The statues stopped, looking at the incoming darts, however they did not dodge or block them — instead, being torn apart by the darts, as they collided with their bodies.
The darts absolutely pulverised the bodies of the statues – not leaving even dust from them. The few statues that didn’t get basically erased, quickly regenerated before standing back up and dashing towards me again.
Luckily, the ones that I had pulverised didn’t seem to be regenerating.
“Guess not even these things can return from being quite literally dusted to nothingness..."
I exhaled, the orbs disappearing from around before I leapt off of the large appendage and dashing down at the remaining statues – forming a shadow longspear again, before crashing down into the first statue. From there, I quickly tore through the remaining ones — smashing them to pieces.
Then, before they started to regenerate, I repeated the same combo attack as before, raining down the barrage of darts at the smashed statues, pulverising the remaining parts that had made up their stone bodies.
After the dust kicked up cleared, not a sign of their stone bodies remained.
I exhaled, falling onto my back, as I exhaled heavily.
“No idea why I waited that long to try that combo attack… I could have used it so much sooner and been done with this bullshit.” I sighed. I guess even my brain, which is so unbelievably cautious most of the time, suffered from a delayed idea formation. After resting on the ground for a bit, I rose back up to my feet and turned to look at the sarcophagus in the room as well as the large hooded statue that held the scythe.
If I had to guess, based on the knights I just faced, this statue most likely was also going to come alive and most likely was the boss of this dungeon.
I sharpened my gaze onto the statue – before beginning to walk closer to it. And as expected, right as I got close to the sarcophagus in front of the hooded statue, the thing began to shake and slowly move. With its movement, the entire dungeon also began to shake – as the thing pulled itself from its pedestal and sprawled a large pair of black – absolutely NOT made of stone – feathered wings.
The creature then swung the scythe in its hands at me, forcing me to leap back as it crashed into the ground and kicked up a dust cloud. I coughed a bit, before using the shadows to disrupt the cloud, before using ‘Enlightened' on the statue.
Tomb Guard - Reaping Angel
Rank: ?
Level: 90
As I had predicted, this thing most definitely was the dungeon boss. Not only was it stronger than the Knight statues, but it also had a clear title, which could be interpreted as the same thing as a name. And I’ve faced enough creatures to know that a named monster is much, much more serious news.
The statue moved over the sarcophagus, before suddenly speaking – its voice deep, distorted and rough.
“Intruder… In the emperor's tomb… Must be eliminated.”
“Great, and this thing knows how to talk..” I thought, before exhaling and kneeling down, sinking my right arm into the shadows. After a moment, I pulled out a halberd, before dashing at the statue, gripping the polearm weapon in my hands.
The statue remained in place and didn’t even flinch as I got closer, until I swung my weapon at it – at which point, the thing didn’t just block my attack, it straight up reflected it, pushing me away, before swinging its scythe towards me – sending a blade made of air towards me.
“Shit—!” I quickly looked at the shadows below me, pulling them up to block the air blade, before forming them into a platform below me. Afterwards, I leapt at the statue again – swinging my halberd at it again.
However, the thing once again, reflected my attack – though this time, I managed to keep my balance and wasn’t flung away, instead, I began a barrage of attacks at the statue, which reflected each and every one of them. An exchange of blows began between me and the statue — shaking the entire dungeon and sending great force of air through it.
After a bit, the statue pushed me back again, before flying up into the air with its wings. “Guess it is going to use the fact that it can fly to its advantage…”
I shed a sweat, before standing back up about to dash at the statue again – however, I was suddenly stopped.
A sudden, sharp feeling hit me. It felt like my heart had been stabbed through. I dropped to my knees, my pupils shaking lightly while the halberd broke apart, as I let go of it. “What… is this feeling?”
It felt like my entire body was burning up.
Did the statue use some sort of skill without me realising? There’s no way right? There was no indication of it using a ‘skill’ or magic…
The statue began to approach me from the air, while the sharp feeling in my chest continued. I tried to push through it and stand up, however the pain worsened and I fell to the ground, grasping my chest tightly. What was this feeling? I was suddenly feeling cold… alone…
It felt as though I was dying…
It felt as though…
I was being consumed.
…
= WARNING =
Continued connection to the ‘Abyss’ has caused corruption levels to build up.
Attempting to resist corruption…
Failed.
Retrying…
Failed.
Retrying…
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