Chapter 10 – Tomb of the Unliving Part III
"<Light Sphere>"
Hikari, Lux and Guang descended down the dark stairways. From their research beforehand, they already knew about the entrance to the feijiang's tomb.
Allowing their <Light Sphere> to illuminate the path before them, they soon found themselves in a long corridor. But something was out of place, corpses were scattered along, and the walls seemed to be smeared with fresh blood.
"What… what happened here? Did the feijiang lure that many people in and killed them?!?!" Exclaimed Hikari immediately upon seeing the sight before them.
Guang and Lux both went forward and gave the corpse in front of them a closer look. Initially it had looked like a normal human's, but after seeing it up close, one could see that the skin of the corpse was wetter than normal, the neck of it was twisted in an unnatural manner and it had a terrifying facial expression on its face. Seeing that parts of its flesh was rotting away, it could be concluded that this wasn't a body that had been freshly killed. At least not when it first died.
This was more than likely an unanimated ghoul. However, what was interesting was the cause of death of the ghoul. It had died from various holes across its body, each one spanning a radius of 10 cm. It was impossible to imagine what had been used to kill the ghoul. Seeing as the insides of the holes were still wet, it became clear that these holes were what killed the ghoul the second time.
Normally, in order to kill a ghoul, either light magic or fire magic would have to be used. It was possible to kill it by chopping off its head as well, but ghouls getting killed by penetrating its body is unheard of. After all, they are undead which have a particularly high tolerance for pain, and can move even after taking large amount of damage.
"So, what happened to these poor people?" Hikari asked impatiently. Since she didn't go for a closer look, she hadn't realised that the corpse was a ghoul.
"Lux-sama, what do you think happened here?" Guang asked, completely ignoring Hikari right now. He was quite concerned about the scene before him. If this corpse was a ghoul, then it wouldn't be too surprising to assume that the rest of the corpses were some form of undead as well. "It couldn't be a local exorcist could it? Even though we didn't confirm with the local church, there shouldn't be anyone that is capable of doing this from there either."
"Hikari. Guang. Prepare your [Divine Revenant]. Although the undead has been eliminated here, we have no idea if it was a friend or a foe that did this. It's better to be more cautious about this." Lux commanded. Although experienced, she has never experienced a situation like this before. It wasn't just the unnatural death of the undead, but the fact that some of the undead were bisected, which is most likely what caused the walls to be sprayed with blood.
"Wait what? What happened? Why are we preparing our [Divine Revenant] all of a sudden?" Hikari was confused. Since she wasn't paying attention, she didn't really understand what was going on all of a sudden. Being ordered to prepare her [Divine Revenant] is akin to saying that there is a true monster up ahead.
"The corpses here are undead. All killed in an unnatural manner. What's more is that the death seems to be rather fresh, so whoever did this probably haven't left yet, or at least haven't gone too far away yet," Lux replied impatiently.
Hikari looked hesitantly at Guang. Sure she admired Lux like every other member of their corp, but she still couldn't believe that she was being asked to prepare her [Divine Revenant]. Only when she saw that Guang had already started to chant the aria for the spell without hesitation did she comply Lux's orders.
David was standing before the feijiang, who was also the owner of this tomb. The two of them stared at each other silently, trying to measure each other's capabilities. It was like one of those games where the first person to blink would lose.
On the side of the feijiang were a mezuki and a gozuki, guarding him as bodyguards would.
In the end, it was the feijiang that gave in first, "Human, what reason do you have to be here, disturbing my domain?"
"I came here to exterminate you," David replied coldly. "Unless you can give me a reason not to?"
He didn't give out his actual reason to be in the tomb for three reasons. Firstly, he had a sneaky suspicion that the feijiang in front of him was responsible for the horde of undead rushing at him. Secondly, he didn't want to expose anything about Lucifer. He may not trust Lucifer fully, but there ought to be a reason why he was told to exterminate the feijiang and the rest of the undead, aside from just training. Thirdly, he needed to place himself in a more favourable position where the enemies would be afraid of him. On one side of the feijiang was a mezuki, and a gozuki stood on the other side. Just from the aura and Lucifer's earlier warnings, he didn't think he could achieve victory without using <Possession>. Therefore, he had to buy as much time as possible to come up with a plan, just in case something unexpected happened.
"Exterminate me? You plan to exterminate me? The great me who…" the feijiang stopped there, and began to cough loudly. "The great me who has achieved immortality?! What a joke. Seize this foolish human at once!"
Upon the feijiang's command. The mezuki and gozuki charged towards David brandishing their weapons. The mezuki swung its halberd around, aiming the tip directly at David, while the gozuki leaped into the air, raising its hammer up high.
In response to this, David jumped backwards, at the same time, conjuring up his blade in his left hand to parry the incoming halberd. He landed just outside of the gozuki's hammer range as it came crashing down on where he originally stood. If he had reacted a second too late, he would have been smashed into a smear on the floor, unrecognisable by anyone or anything.
Although he had dodged the first attacks of the feijiang's guards, he wasn't in any way safe yet. The mezuki and the gozuki took upon an offensive stance and came charging at him once again.
"<Ice Barrier>, <Frost Shell>"
A huge wall of ice shot up from the ground, just underneath the feet of the gozuki, knocking it off-balance, while also blocking the path of the mezuki. Seeing the obstacle, the mezuki tried to move around it, but was assaulted by a barrage of that David casted.
While the mezuki was struggling to make an advance towards David, the gozuki got back on its feet. Picking up its hammer, it gave out an earth-shattering roar and glared at David with its eyes full of hatred. Swinging its hammer, it leaped into the air, above the wall of ice, and tried to smash David once again.
This time, David rolled to the side, dodging the gozuki's attack again. However, this caused him to stop assault on the incoming mezuki, allowing it to charge right at him.
Having been given no time to muster up any manner of defence, David had no choice to take the charge head on, using his blades to guard himself and soften the blow. Even so, he was knocked back several metres. A jolt of pain surged through his forearms, but he gritted his teeth and endured it. Taking this as an opportunity, he took a step backwards.
"<Freezing Icicle>"
Just like before, numerous icicles formed beside him. He fired them towards the gozuki and mezuki. Unlike the mindless undead, they did not stand there to be pierced and instead rotated their weapons around to block some of it.
Just as David felt that he was finally safe to go onto the offensive, he instinctively crouched. He saw a stinger swung over his head. Turning around. He saw a manticore behind him. It had snuck up on him while he was fighting the mezuki and gozuki.
David casted <Freezing Icicle> once more. This time, his target was the manticore. <Firestorm Tempest> would have been the more appropriate choice, but in this enclosed environment, he had no way of ensuring that he could avoid his own spell.
Since the manticore was close-by, many of the icicles pierced into the manticore's body. It let out a large roar and took a leap towards David.
David reacted by once again trying to roll out of the way. But this time he did not manage to remain unscathed. A front paw of the manticore managed to scratch his arm.
Seeing David starting to become more and more cornered. The feijiang laughed maniacally. It started to chant, "Oh glorious dark god. Let loose your wrath upon these foolish mortals. Eradicate the living. Blacken the light. Pierce through every obstacle with your darkness!!"
A huge ball of darkness flew towards David on the floor. The mezuki laughed. The gozuki laughed. The manticore howled. The feijiang laughed.