Seth Chapter 73

Chapter 73

They moved with caution and scanned each room they came across. The unexplored area was massive, and with traps and monsters all around, it took a lot of time to deal with each of them.

Every ten steps, they would trigger some sort of a trap in the corridor.

Arrows would come flying around at them and sometimes, the ground would shift to reveal spikes, ready to pierce into their flesh. Once, flames shot up at them as soon as Seth stepped foot in a room and although he jumped out of the way, parts of his cloak burned.

It seemed like most of the traps were triggered either by stepping onto them, crossing into a wire or just by sound, so there was no escaping them.

If you avoid one, another would get triggered.

Fortunately, with Rebecca's barrier and Seth being quick on his feet, they were able to survive each of them without getting injured.

Though, their search for the staff didn't seem to end as they wandered the unexplored parts.

A few rooms contained chests filled with a gold coins and statues, but the Weather Staff they were looking for was missing.

The map they had didn't have the location of the artifact and since they were so deep into the ruins, it proved useless as the pathways weren't identified.

Both Seth and Rebecca were on their own.

“Seth, be careful!”

Rebecca shouted out as a large skeleton warrior lunged at him, swinging a large axe in a horizontal line. He dodged with a side step and slashed at the skeleton's bones, his dagger ripping into his arms.

A few shards of bones flew by as the skeleton warrior turned towards him before clanging its teeth together in a hollow laugh.

Seth flickered away as the warrior swung its axe again.

Appearing right on top of it, he dug its blade into the shoulder, chipping away at the bones.

Against a skeleton, something like a broad sword would have been way more effective rather than a small dagger, but Seth had no alternative as he kicked at the charging monster.

A forceball came from behind, hitting it right in the head as it fell on the ground.

With a stomp of its leg, Seth broke its skull after throwing away the axe, ending its life.

Notifications flashed in front of his eyes as Seth shook his head.

You have defeated a Level 27 Skeleton Knight!

You have gotten experience!

Looking around, he saw more bodies of the skeletons lying around. It had been a small band of a dozen of them.

It hadn't been easy dealing with all of them, but other than three skeleton knights, most of them have been low levelled skeletons that could barely hold a sword.

It was one of the easier rooms.

Before this, the room they were in had another golem that had been harder to beat than the first one they had faced in the beginning.

After taking a look around to make sure there were no other monsters around, Seth frowned.

“Looks like it's another empty room,” he said, looking at Rebecca. Her eyes glanced through the skeleton bones to look at the statues placed in the corners of the room.

“Yes, how many we have been through now?”

“Six,” he replied, opening up the map. “I think we haven't even been through half of the rooms in here. I have not seen any artifacts till now, much less the Weather Staff.”

“We need to keep looking. Maybe it's in the next room.”

“I hope so.”

They looked through the room once more before opening the door to the corridor that led to the next.

As soon as they stepped into it, a trap lit up and arrows flew at them, but Rebecca was already prepared with her barrier and it was only a small delay before they were on their way to the next room.

Seth rubbed his arms as he walked, glancing around for any danger. The temperature was dropping, the deeper they went.

His instincts were on high alert as he moved. The more they walked into the ruins, the levels of monsters seemed to be increasing.

Although the undead were mobs, the golems they have encountered till now were extremely strong. If the Stormweaver was experimenting in here and making more of those, then he was sure that the Weather Staff would be protected by one. Maybe even a group of guardians.

If that was the case, then Seth doubted they would be able to deal with them.

Slowly, they found themselves in front of another room and unlike the rooms they had been before, the door to this one was open and both of them halted a few steps away from it.

Their eyes widened as they stared at what awaited them inside the room.

The room seemed to be the biggest they have seen till now. Three golems stood on each side of the wall, their eyes staring right at the door, like they were waiting for Seth to set foot in.

One of them was holding an axe while the other held a sword. The last one in the centre was empty handed, but was bigger than the both of them with runes all around its face going all the way down to its neck.

They seemed to be locked at their places, but Seth knew that once they got inside, the room would lock and they would be surrounded.

Just a glance through the levels of the golems made him frown.

Stormweaver's Guardian - Level 35

Stormweaver's Guardian - Level 37

Stormweaver's Wrath - Level 40

“I don't think we can fight with it,” Rebecca muttered, frowning just like him as she scanned their levels. “We are severely lacking in levels and there are three of them.”

“We can take on two of them, but that wrath looks like a whole different level of threat.”

“Yes, we need to look for a way around it.”

“But where? There was only one path since we entered this area of the ruins.”

He turned his face around to look at the corridor they had come from. Turning his eyes around it, he saw no other pathway. Even around the ceilings, there was no hole to get into.

He walked up towards the walls and traced the fingers between the small gaps.

They didn't seem like they would break and he didn't want to create something like an explosion to make a way forward. Lest, the whole ruins start to crumble down on them.

Getting no idea how to move, he looked at Rebecca who was staring at the guardians.

“So, what now? Are you ready to jump to your death?” he asked and her face paled.

“I told my master it's too dangerous. We can't deal with the guardians alone.”

“We can backtrack, check rooms to see if they have any hidden entrances and see if there's a way around. If not, I fear we need to return back to the city,” Seth proposed, thinking about any other hidden paths he might have missed on the way.

He wasn't able to think of any.

“Sounds good,” she agreed. “If nothing else, we can look for help in the guild or ask my master.”

He nodded and they started walking back, looking around for any gaps in the walls and ceilings they could use, but found nothing.

The way back was quite peaceful as they knew what traps to avoid and with monsters already dealt with, most of their time was spent thinking of ways around the room with the golems.

After two hours, they found themselves back in the room with the body of the golem still lying around. Nobody seemed to have touched it and taking one last look around the room, Seth stared at the crack on the wall.

“Are we going to find help?” He asked and Rebecca nodded after a second of silence.

“Yes, we will head to the guild. I'm pretty sure there will be people there who we can hire. With a party, we can take on the golems. If they belong to the guild, we can be rest assured they won't try anything funny if we bind them in a contract before,” she explained. Seth had never put out a request before, so he only had little information on how it worked. Thankfully, he had Rebecca. “My status as a former student of the academy should help. The adventurer guild in Nightshard City gives privileges to people associated with the academy.”

They left through the crack after that and the journey to the surface was silent. Both of them had been in the ruins for hours and their bodies were already tired.

As they walked up the stairs, the evening sun was ready to set.

Peeking towards the open ground from under the stairs, he saw no one around here. A false stench of dead monsters filled his nostrils as he gestured to Rebecca that it was safe.

The scatterers they have killed were still there and no one seemed to have come here in their absence.

Seth took the lead and walked outside, giving a glance to the corpses before stretching his body. Compared to the claustrophobic feeling in the ruins, he felt much better now.

“Are we going to head to the guild first?” He asked and passed a slab of stone.

“Yes, I'm hungry. I think we should get food there before finding people.”

He nodded. His stomach rumbled just then. He hadn't eaten since coming to Nightshard City and although as he had grown in levels, he had noticed how he could stay without food for long periods of time without feeling weak, he still wanted to have his fill everyday.

Food in this world was good, especially with the variety of monster meat he could eat.

As he took a step forward, Seth stopped and looked around, staring into the air.

“What happened?” Rebecca asked, stopping and looking back at him. “Why did you stop suddenly?”

“I felt something,” he said. “Like a fluctuation of mana. It was just there for a second, but I am pretty sure it was there.”

He looked through the stone slabs and the corpses before his eyes fixed to the bushes far away from them. There were tall and dense, filled with thorns and looking like a great hiding spot.

He kept staring at them, feeling no movements coming from them.

“Is it a monster?” Rebecca asked, following his line of sight.

“Maybe,” he replied. He didn't feel like it was a hulking scatterer or some other monster. The fluctuation he had felt was eerily similar to something he had felt and fought before. He knew it because—

“Seth, look out!”

Out of nowhere, the bushes moved and out of them, lesser abyssal horrors popped up, surrounding the ruins in an instant.

Abyssal mana flowed around them and they looked infuriated. The purple miasma covering their body filled everywhere in the ruins and the tendrils lashed on the ground, like they were calling them up to attack.

Lesser Abyssal Horror - ???

Just like all the time he had encountered them, he couldn't check their levels, but due to his experience of dealing with them, he had a good inkling of where they stood in strength.

There were over two dozens of them and they covered every spot in the ruins.

“Where did they come from?” He muttered, wondering who had summoned them out of the abyss. He couldn't see anyone else here.

His heart fell, wondering if it was Gabriel, but there were no signs of anyone.

“Prepare yourself, Seth!”

Rebecca yelled, conjuring up a barrier as hundreds of tendrils lashed at them.

Frowning, Seth poured his mana into his blade and used Flickering Step to dart between them, ready to begin another battle.