An hour later...
The growls of the undead had died away, and the shouting of the slaughter was finally hushed. Silence had once again shrouded the blood-stained cave. The battlefield lay quiet, for it was now a graveyard of the unburied. The undead had once again turned into corpses.
Among the victors, a single man stood out, covered in the blood of his enemies with a greatsword tightly gripped in his hands. He looked around to see in anyone else had unfortunately survived. But in the field of the dead, there was no one who could stare back at Ashton.
"That was a close one..." Ashton panted.
[Hm... they were weaker than I expected them to be.]
Ashton sighed in annoyance. Weaker than expected? Was Astaroth sleeping throughout the fight or sothing? The only thing Ashton could think of that made them 'weaker' would be that these undead did not explode like the ones on the outside.
Instead of the ability to be a suicide bomber, their resilience was unlike anything else Ashton had witnessed before. It was the first ti he had to fight the undead that had regenerative powers. Yes, undead that could regenerate their limbs and in so cases, even their heads.
Simply killing them wasn't enough, he was forced to burn them thoroughly, and by thoroughly, he had to chop them into small bits first and then burn them until nothing was left behind.
Ashton couldn't afford to rush the process, as the undead would heal up if they weren't chopped down to bits. Also, Fire alone couldn't stop them so there was that.
[You had to burn them so, what's the big deal? It was pretty easy.]
"... let's just focus on the trial."
Despite saying that, the question was still lurking in his mind. Why were these undead eating each other? Not to ntion their questionable regenerative powers. Undead are not supposed to have those kinds of abilities... well, he should have been the only exception.
'Dwelling on the topic isn't going to help. I need to find and destroy the tree before any other weird bastards co chasing my ass.'
[I bet you want to ask that Siren about the location now.]
"Yeah, I kinda overlooked that matter..."
[Haha-]
"It ain't like you rembered it either."
[Ahem... that aside, it feels nice knowing girls aren't the only ones interested in you for once. The Undead would love to have so intimacy with you too. Damn, you're a chad! Even making the undead feel alive.]
'Just help find the tree... scratch that. I already did.'
Well, he had not found the tree yet, but he could sense a faint ominous aura around. An aura of death. Being a necromancer, sensing death wasn't weird. Still, he did feel a bit weird because there wasn't one source emitting such hostile mana, but two.
According to the description of the trial and Ursa's monologue, only one tree was supposed to exist. Which would an, that either the tree had reproduced by itself, or there was soone protecting the tree, which would an... they had eaten a shit ton of apples.
If there were two trees Ashton would be able to take one for himself and make himself and his summons stronger than ever. While in the second case, he might end up... finding a new summon for himself. Which would be an added bonus.
[You do know you don't have to take the entire tree with yourself, right? A couple of apple seeds should be enough.]
'I know that. But you know how lazy and forgetful I am. Do you think soone like would have the patience to raise a tree?'
[That is true... But you don't have to do it yourself. It's not like you know a Lich who is so obsessed with life and death that he would jump at the opportunity to study sothing new.]
'... ok, I'll do that.'
Without wasting another minute, Ashton headed towards the expected location of the tree. He did encounter so undead here and there, but he realised sothing. As he was getting closer to the sources, the number of undead he found was dwindling sharply. So much so, that it had been half an hour since he last killed an undead.
It felt weird because this tree was apparently able to give them more power. Therefore, it didn't make a lot of sense that they were populated away from the tree. It almost felt like they were scared of sothing and running away from it.
If that was the case, then it would make sense why they were eating each other, rather than the apples. Once the apples were consud, the undead beca hungry for as long as they lived. Not being able to eat any more apples might have made them go crazy.
As a result, they decided to eat the next best thing: The one who had eaten the apples. Still, Ashton wasn't convinced by his own theory, or maybe it was because he did not want to think soone stronger than everyone else was having a camping trip around the tree.
If what Ursa had said about the apples was true... and there was a creature living next to the tree, it would make a lot of sense why Ashton was feeling two sources of deadly aura instead of one. After eating thousands of apples, the bastard would feel like they were on steroids or sothing.
"It's getting darker now. I thought the moss would cover the entire cave, not just the shallow parts of it." Ashton mumbled before revealing Seraph's crystal once again to illuminate the path, "Now it's better."
[I find it weird as well. It almost feels as if soone got rid of them. Be careful from now onwards.]
Ashton nodded and used the light from Seraph's Crystal to guide him deeper. Further ahead was a single path. Its twisted trail led passed a handful of rooms.
At first glance, it looked like soone must have lived inside those rooms long ago. Because now everything had been consud by ti. The floor was littered with bones and long dried blood that had beco one with the floor now.
It was the sa story for every other room. Also, there were hundreds of claw marks visible and so tal chains in each room. Soone must have been chained there once, but why?
The deeper Ashton went into the cave, the more disturbing things got. There were clear signs of so sort of civilisation there. From machines and utensils that had been long since consud by nature and ti to shackled skeletons, that had their limbs extending in the direction of the missing doors, as if they were crying for help.
At first, it was just a trial zone, but now... it had beco sothing much more hideous and troubleso.
[Before you ask , I have no idea what this is.]
"Looks like your kind hid secrets from themselves. Because it's surprising that even you did not know about all this. It's a bit weird, don't you think?" Ashton jeered, "Wanna know my take on it?"
Astaroth didn't reply but Ashton continued either way, "This was so sort of prison. The fact that Ursa was sent here not once, but twice and Hydra's presence makes it all the more believable."
Astaroth remained silent. He wasn't so sure about Ashton's comnt, but what he said made more sense than anything else. Not to ntion, the type of chainlinks that had been used was certainly like the ones the Xyrans used long ago.
Also, considering the fact that the Xyran had created the planet from scratch using precursor technology, it wasn't possible that a secret civilisation was living under the rocks without them noticing it.
Upon pondering about it, he realised that hundreds of creatures have been 'imprisoned' on the planet like the Hydra and Ursa. So, in a sense, Euphoria had always been a prison more than a 'training facility'.
[This can't be... it?]
'What is it now?'
[The precursors, we did not kill all of them as we needed so help in understanding their technology. I always found it a bit weird that they agreed to teach us, especially after what we did to them. But now it makes sense.]
Astaroth did not state the obvious, but Ashton understood the hidden aning behind his words. These prison cells... must have once housed the captured precursors. Now it made sense why quite a few bones there looked a lot like human bones even though no human had ever stepped a foot inside the cave or anywhere close to it for that matter.
It was these prison cells that were used to torture the precursors until they committed to revealing the secrets behind their technologies. The more and more Ashton got to know about the Xyrans, the more he was beginning to loathe them.
"Please do not allow to use Raphael right now." Ashton said through his gritted teeth, "If I see any Xyran, I swear I'm going to rip them to shreds and make these undead feast on them."
Astaroth remained silent. The revelation was a bit too much for him as well. However, before they could discuss the matter any further, they heard a roar. The sound kept getting closer and closer.
Ashton imdiately bolted out of the room. He did not want to get trapped inside a tiny room for any reason whatsoever. However, by the ti he put his foot out of the door, he saw sothing from the corner of his eyes. Sothing gargantuan standing next to the door.
Ashton had found what he was looking for. The two deathly auras he had sensed were in front of him. An undead creature, unlike anything he had seen before and the tree, was on top of it.
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