As I ran into the deeper parts of the ruins, I analysed my surroundings. I had been expecting an ancient quarry or underground village, but instead found myself within so kind of maze.
An endless stone brick corridor spread out before , which occasionally turned into a crossroad. Other than that, there wasnt much to see. If it werent for this place having too few monsters and no system notifications, I would have thought it to be a dungeon instead, because its winding pathways seed completely useless for any civilization.
In fact, my foremost theory was that this place had been a dungeon at so point, but wasnt anymore. I just made no sense for this place to be manmade at all.
Soon enough, I encountered my first monster. Conveniently, it was a golem of so sort, made of the sa bricks that the rest of the ruins seed to be made out of. The dull grey bricks slotted together to create a humanoid form lacking a head. Instead, a single red rectangle shone from the middle of their torso, which shone its sanguine light, illuminating the tunnel a bit. Thankfully, I never needed light to see anymore, so I didnt need to rely on the monsters to light up the area for during battle. The golem stood at twice the height of an adult man, so his head? Torso? Just barely stayed clear of the ceiling.
Our encounter had happened spontaneously. I had been running along when suddenly, one of the bricks on the wall lit up and tore itself out of its place, the rest of the wall following it to create its body. From there, it had instantly decided to attack , leaving no choice but to defend myself. The creature was remarkably tough, but it was hard to assign it a tier, because while it could boast of its strength and endurance, it was slow and uncoordinated, its movents not ant for battle. My overloaded orbs were rather effective and destroyed the creature in a few volleys, a testant to the golems durability. Even after the creature finally fell, the bricks that it had used were more or less still intact, making theorize that my orbs hadnt destroyed the creature so much as disturbed its mana with the overloaded property, which tended to upset mana it ca into contact with.
All that was left of the wall that had co to life were more bricks, sohow Even where the wall had co out, more bricks laid in weight. Had all dirt turned into stone bricks around here?
Ignoring the morbid thought, I carried on and found a few more monsters as I traveled. All were made of stone, conveniently. Golems, gargoyles, and statues ford themselves out of the walls occasionally, always coming out one at a ti. The battles beca lengthier the more bricks the monsters used to create their bodies and attack , but none could really touch as long as I paid attention. It helped that they didnt have ranged attacks. It was easy to see that even a group of ordinary classers could have issues with having to deal with repeated ambushes, though. If it werent for my endurance, I would need to take occasional breaks in this hostile environnt. Thankfully, my efforts were rewarded by a level.
Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 69!
For so reason, I instinctually felt that that was a nice number. Nonetheless, I had to continue delving.
After another half-hour of exploring, I noticed sothing peculiar. A single whisp of black mana floated around near a crossroad, with more mana of the sa affinity visible down one of its four paths. Slightly on edge but curious, I decided to follow the mana. It took down nurous different corridors, though each looked identical, until eventually, I found a set of stairs leading down.
I could have decided to scour the rest of the area, but saw no reason to. The largest and most valuable treasures tended to be kept further down, after all.
At the bottom of the set of stairs I found myself in another corridor, but this one didnt lead to nowhere like the other ones. A few ters before , a tal gate stood. A few dozen thick tal spikes went from the floor to the ceiling, keeping intruders out. Or in, I supposed. The monotone brick wall was broken up by a key-shaped hole on the left-hand side. Another one was visible on the other side of the gate as well.
Out of curiosity, I drew my sword and hit the fence full force, even using my skills to boost my attack. My sword beca covered in mana mid-swing, which rushed like the wind and hit the gate with a clang and piercing crack. Before I could react, a sickly green flash erupted and I was thrown backward.
My instincts kicked in so I jumped upright, searching for an enemy, but found myself alone, staring at that damn gate. Once I shook off the surprise, I noticed a strange feeling on my arm, as if a thousand spiders were slowly crawling up, only from the inside. I cast a glance at my sword arm, only to be t with it slowly disintegrating!
That sickly green light was eating my arm up, and I hadnt noticed right away because of [Dark form], which kept from feeling pain. Seeing that the skill wasnt even healing the damage the light was causing, I made the split-second decision to cut the arm off entirely. I brought my sword to my shoulder and hacked at it, making my arm, clothes and all, fall to the floor with a dull thud.
I grimaced at the sight, but perked up when I saw my flash reform at my shoulder. It squird like an army of worms, slowly gathering and shifting, regrowing my arm. In a dozen or so minutes, I knew I would have a brand-new appendage.
The arm I had cut off, anwhile, was still afflicted by the strange poison or curse. Now that the arm wasnt being healed by a tier 5 skill anymore, its disintegration had sped up twentyfold. The light continued to spread, crackling while it tore through my ex-flesh until, thirty seconds later, nothing but ash and cloth remained. Out of morbid curiosity I stirred the cloth and ash around a bit with my sword, finding that my sleeve was still perfectly intact. Whatever that drab gate had inflicted upon , it wasnt acid, because my clothes and sword wouldnt have survived. Poison didnt seem likely, either. After all, I had never actually touched anything with my bare hands. That left the most likely possibility: a curse.
Curses were only usable by those with dark affinities. These horrid spells varied from anything as simple as a curse-mark to spells that could affect whole cities in a very specific way at once. By their very nature, curses were ant to be cruel. Whether that ant killing the target instantly or making them suffer for eternity was left up to the caster. Give it up to the system for inventing the most ssed up stuff and giving it to the most unhinged people.
Ten minutes later, I stood there, staring at my reford limb. It was every bit as good as its predecessor, thankfully. Now that I had recovered from the presud curse, I was left with a choice.
Either I could leave and search for treasure elsewhere in the ruins, or I could attempt to get past the gate. Eri had warned that sothing fishy was going on with these ruins, and this curse seed to be an indication of what lay in store if I chose to push on.
A part of felt stubborn, however. Giving up now would be the sa as admitting that Eri was right and I shouldnt have co here. For all I knew, a great artifact lay in wait beyond that gate! One that perfectly suited my affinity! The gate was probably what had led to the city opening up the ruins anyway. They were searching for the key by sending others to scour the labyrinth on their behalf!
That might be a bit of a reach, but still. Everything seed too convenient to be explained otherwise. If I could just get passed that gate without needing to spend weeks, possibly months searching for that blasted key, only to lose it to high-tiered classers the mont I found it.
It was then that a dangerous idea ca to mind. I had the ability to teleport, of a kind. With [Ghost apparition], I could just reappear on the other side of that gate without any trouble. There was just one issue with that, though. The creator of such a powerful curse would have counterasures for sure
Was it even a risk worth taking?
I imagined the conversation I would be having with Eri if I turned back now. Yeah, I found the spot with all the treasure, but it seed too dangerous for despite my pseudo-immortality, so I left
Helios, that sounded even worse out loud than in my head.
I huffed. The curses creator had already failed to kill once with his trap and that was when he caught by surprise. Who was to say he would succeed this ti? The intangibility that the skill montarily gave would probably protect anyway
With my mind made up, I activated my skill and disappeared into a black tuft of mana.
Do your worst
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