Chapter 634

Chapter 634

“Are you claiming they are immortal?” Enkrid’s voice was steady as he posed the question. “Exactly that. They do not perish. A standard blade is useless against a wraith. Under normal circumstances, we would use spiritual energy to dispatch them easily, but this zone suppresses it. Deprived of that advantage, these creatures have become as lethal as reapers of death.” As the fairy spoke, several waterlogged cadavers extended their necks. Their spinal columns stretched with a sickening, rubbery elasticity—a physical impossibility permitted only by the spirits inhabiting the flesh. Patches of frost clung to their skin, a testament to the supernatural chill the wraiths radiated. “Striking with a Will-fortified weapon won’t grant you a kill either. Save yourself the trouble of asking,” Bran remarked. Among the Woodguards present, his intuition was clearly the sharpest. He had anticipated the exact counter-argument Enkrid was forming. “Zero.” At Bran’s command, Zero lunged. He neatly lopped off the arm of a closing corpse. As the limb fell, the shimmering silhouette of a wraith behind the body lashed out with a spectral hand. The movement lacked true speed; provided one could perceive the spirit, it was simple enough to evade. It pulsed with a faint luminescence, easily caught by the light. While a human might lose sight of it depending on the glare, no fairy would be so easily deceived. Zero pivoted backward, giving the ghost’s fingers a wide berth. On the stone floor, the detached arm twitched. It didn’t lie still; instead, it began to drag itself forward, fingers digging into the ground like a grotesque insect. “Observe. You sever a limb, and the limb continues the hunt. It’s the same for their legs. Furthermore, they are incredibly resistant to fire.” This wasn’t theoretical knowledge. It was clear the fairies had attempted to breach this maze before; their familiarity with the mechanics of these horrors proved they had scouted this ground at a heavy cost. Enkrid had suspected as much the moment Bran mentioned their previous foray. Yet, despite facing immortal opposition, Bran wasn’t panicked. He possessed a solution. Sensing Enkrid’s gaze, Bran explained the strategy. “Push through the line and locate the nearby sphere. Shatter it. That is their anchor—their life vessel. While the group draws their focus, one of us must slip past to destroy it.” Enkrid gave a curt nod, though the plan struck him as tedious. Until that orb was found, they were locked in a war of attrition. It was a classic setup designed to bleed a warrior’s stamina until they collapsed from exhaustion. ‘If a demon rules this domain…’ …it was likely a sadistic creature that took pleasure in wearing down its visitors bit by bit. “These shadows won’t dissipate unless you possess a blade capable of reaping souls. We will create the opening; Brisa will find the target.” One of the fairies volunteered for the dangerous task of weaving through the undead. Brisa, the female warrior, stowed her needle-like sword in favor of a compact dagger. Her gaze darted across the sea of drowned dead, plotting a trajectory through the chaos. However, before she could move— “That won’t be necessary.” Pell stepped into the vanguard, his hand tightening on his hilt. He carried the Idol Slayer—a legendary weapon forged specifically to tear through spectral essences and spirits. Against incorporeal enemies, it was less a tool and more a catastrophic counter. “Clear the path,” Enkrid commanded. Pell moved forward with a light, effortless stride. “Watch yourself!” Brisa cried out. She saw the shift in the room; the moment Pell advanced, every corpse in the chamber pivoted toward him simultaneously, drawn by the presence of his blade. The situation was objectively perilous. For anyone else, it would have been a death sentence. But for Pell, and for the weapon he gripped, the odds were different. In silence, Pell planted his lead foot and unleashed a sweeping strike. In that single motion, Enkrid recognized the influence of Ragna’s Severance—a technique where the blade acts as an impassable boundary, shearing through bone and spirit without losing a fraction of its momentum. Enkrid had noted it during their bouts. ‘The boy has terrifying potential.’ Had Ragna not existed, Pell would be considered a once-in-a-generation prodigy. Even with Ragna around, he was impossible to ignore. It wasn’t just mimicry; Pell absorbed the essence of a technique and reshaped it to fit his own rhythm. He didn’t need to overthink; his body naturally gravitated toward the most lethal opening. Calling it “talent” seemed like an understatement. The Shepherd’s Sword style merged with the Idol Slayer in a lethal, rhythmic display. The frozen, drowned dead were formidable. Even as they were hacked apart, they grabbed and bit. Detached parts sought to trip and maim. They were enemies that laughed at traditional lethality—cutting them only doubled the number of attackers. The wraiths’ presence suppressed heat, making them difficult to cremate, and the damp environment fought against any spark. In a place where spiritual emission was forbidden, they were a nightmare. Two fairies reached for alchemical flasks at their belts, prepared to douse the area in flames if the line broke. The oil was a precious mixture—Woodguard resins blended with flaxseed and rare botanicals. If Kraiss had been present, he would have likely grumbled: “You’re wasting that liquid gold on these freaks? Stop being lazy. Just swing your swords and give the oil to me for safekeeping.” But Pell didn’t need the help. He was reveling in the weight of the Idol Slayer. He cleaved through craniums and pierced through chests, moving with a fluid grace that surpassed even seasoned knights. It was the natural result of his environment; his sparring partners were monsters like Enkrid, Ragna, and Rem. Pushed daily by the strongest warriors he knew, and fueled by his drive to stay ahead of Rophod, Pell had become a force of nature. Facing a hundred cursed corpses, he didn’t waver. Not a single monster retreated; they lunged with rotting, infectious claws, yet Pell danced through the center of the storm, leading the massacre like a conductor. Crack! A skull split wide, venting the dark, viscous ichor of a dying wraith. Schwing. A piercing wail echoed as a spirit was severed from its host—the sound of an entity truly dying. To Pell, these ghosts were simpler than any physical foe. They were less trouble than swatting flies. When the last of the wraiths dissipated, a path to a downward staircase was revealed. A dull, weathered orb rolled out from beneath the heap of fallen bodies. Bran had suggested searching for the vessel behind the lines, but it turned out one of the creatures had been guarding it internally. Had they tried to slip past, they would have circled the room in a futile search while the horde wore them down. No one complained about the change in plan. “We should duel when this is over,” Zero said to Pell. It was a rare moment of competitive fire from the fairy. While Enkrid acknowledged Zero’s skill, the other fairies remained silent, still processing the display they had just witnessed. “You, that Frokk fellow… your group is full of monsters,” Bran muttered, a flicker of genuine optimism entering his voice. “We cannot permit Lady Shinar to remain in that demon’s clutches,” another warrior added. Enkrid gave no verbal reply, simply leading the way down. The masonry of the stairs was precise and clean. This wasn’t a natural cave; it was an intentional construction—the work of a mind, whether human or demonic. “Do we know the depth of this place?” “It’s a labyrinth, but not a massive one. I suspect the master of this place awaits us on the level below,” Bran answered. It was an educated guess; the full layout remained a mystery. At the bottom, they found corridors of perfectly hewn stone. The hallway stretched into a void so absolute that even the fairies’ thermal vision could not pierce the gloom. ‘Sorcery,’ Enkrid’s gut told him. “This is our last chance to breathe,” Bran said, calling for a momentary halt. It wasn’t a comfortable place for a meal or a nap, but the dry stone was an improvement over the previous floor. Despite the rest, the atmosphere was growing heavy, a physical weight pressing down on their lungs. The fairies looked pale, their vitality flagging, save for Zero and Bran. Pell and Lua Gharne, however, looked as though they were on a stroll. “Still better than that week of sleep-deprivation training in the peaks,” Pell joked. He was referencing a brutal endurance regime Enkrid had also survived—a hellish course designed to push a soldier past the point of mental collapse. Audin and Rem had crafted that nightmare. Pell had conquered it. Ragna had simply scoffed at the idea, asking why he’d bother with something so tedious. In the Border Guard, that training was legendary for breaking men. Pell had passed with his head high. Frokk’s stamina was simply inhuman by nature. As for Enkrid? He had actually seemed to find the torture refreshing. He wasn’t tired now; he was just getting started. After their brief respite, they pushed forward. The path was linear, offering no turns or diversions. As the shadows thinned slightly, a massive shape lunged. “Troll,” Pell identified. Before the word fully left his mouth, Enkrid had already closed the distance. He crushed the first one’s throat with his bare hand and decapitated the second as it raised its club. It happened in the blink of an eye. The hallway offered plenty of room for their maneuvers. Glowstones provided a bubble of light, while the darkness to their flanks churned like thick smoke. Occasionally, soot-colored shapes would dart out from the gloom. Zero was always ready. “Wraith.” The moment he spoke, Pell’s blade would flash, and the spirit would vanish. Other horrors appeared—cockatrices and basilisks, creatures of petrifaction. Yet, they seemed strangely diminished, lacking the vigor of their wild counterparts. The passage of time felt distorted; it felt as though they had been fighting for an entire day. “Are they coming off an assembly line somewhere?” Pell grumbled. He wasn’t afraid, just growing bored with the repetition. That boredom vanished instantly at the next turn. The hallway was no longer crowded. A single figure stood in their path. It resembled a suit of armor left on a display rack, motionless in the center of the corridor. It was black plate, the metal dull and pitted. Through the visor, one could see the writhing of maggots where eyes should have been. The sockets were hollow, the spirit within seemingly stagnant. It was a corpse in every sense. The figure was thin, almost skeletal, and it leaned on a massive greatsword that seemed far too heavy for its frame. The blade’s tip rested on the stone, its surface a bruised, muddy red. It didn’t reflect the glowstone’s light; it seemed to consume it. Around the weapon, the light simply failed to penetrate. Long, jagged shadows bled across the floor like spilled ink. “Argila?” Zero whispered, his voice trembling. She had been a celebrated fairy knight who had vanished into this maze long ago. Now, she stood as a hollowed-out guardian, tethered to the darkness. Enkrid didn’t wait for the fairies to finish their realization. Click. The armored head tilted to the side. There was no killing intent, no surge of emotion—only a shift in posture that signaled immediate violence. Enkrid stepped out in front, his blades clearing their sheaths. His Jinblade hummed, radiating a light that directly challenged the shadow-slicked edge of Argila’s sword. He took the lead because his instincts screamed that this was a threshold no one else could cross. A shroud of black mist billowed behind the fallen knight, and then, she moved. Skreeeeee! The greatsword shrieked against the floor as it swung upward in a lethal crescent. Bran recognized the style and the weapon instantly. He roared a warning. “Evade it!” But his true meaning was more specific: Do not let your steel touch hers. Bran had watched Enkrid fight. He knew the man was a titan, that the legends of his demon-slaying were grounded in reality. But the fairies had their own hidden counters for a reason. ‘We cannot emit energy, but we can store it.’ True spiritual projection was sealed, but internal refinement was possible. The fairies carried a trump card: Kiaos, the “Final Dance”—a concentrated spiritual fruit. To consume it was to invite certain death, but in the final moments before the heart stopped, the user became a god of war. Bran was already reaching for it. Argila was a legend, and her sword was a cursed masterpiece. It was a blade of cumulative weight. For every seven times an opponent parried or clashed with it, their own weapon would double in perceived mass. It was the ultimate technique of a fairy genius, powered by Will and the soul. Whatever dark magic had resurrected her, her martial prowess remained intact. “If you trade blows, you are finished!” Bran screamed. Clang! The warning came too late. The blades collided with a shower of sparks. “Get back! Do not cross swords with her!” Enkrid ignored the plea, his hands a blur as he met the relentless, high-speed flurry of Argila’s strikes. Bran could barely track the exchange, but the conclusion was clear to him: in a contest of blades against that woman, standing your ground meant certain destruction.