"These men would help you find the pentagrams. I hope that you manage to succeed on this quest, so our world can become free from evil again. " The old man said to the group as he presented the party's guides.
"Well, let's go then. The sooner we end this here, the sooner we can return home. " Edwin said as he prepared himself to start their journey.
Soon after, the group left the camp and started following their guides. Even though they had their eyes covered with clothes, and it was pretty dark around them, they managed to travel skillfully through the mall without any complications, probably because they were already used to that kind of life.
In less than ten minutes, the group reached the stairs to go to the floor above them, and when they got there, they found that there was a little mist flowing in the air. It wasn't much, so it didn't make it more difficult to see around them, but it confirmed some of the old man's words, so they decided to be careful.
"You will be alright around here. I thought that the mist could make you go crazy. " Raziel asked their guides.
"Don't you worry, this amount of mist is almost harmless. Until the mist makes it hard to see what is a few meters ahead, we can continue guiding you through this place. " One of the men replied.
"I see. And how much longer is it going to take until we find one of those crawlers that you talked about? " Raziel continued asking.
"Well, it depends. You never know when you will find one of those monsters, but they live mainly inside the mist, so we may find some of the weaker ones around. " The man replied.
"If they live in the mist, how is it that your companions were looking if we were crawlers when we met them?" Cyrus asked while arching an eyebrow.
"From time to time, some of the weaker crawlers would become disoriented and descend to the lower floors. Even more, there have been cases of crawlers falling from a higher floor through some opening on the ceiling, so you can never let your guard down." the man explained.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Well, I guess that makes sense," Cyrus said, accepting the man's words.
After that, they continued walking for a few more minutes before Arthur said something.
"I think I have felt something," Arthur said, while making a sign for his companions to stop walking.
For a few seconds, Arthur stood completely still with his eyes closed, before suddenly creating a ball of light which he threw tens of meters away. As the ball flew across that distance, the light that it emitted illuminated the area until it hit a wall. But by the time the ball hit the wall, they had already seen what Arthur had felt.
A horrendous creature stood in front of the group. It had pale skin all over its body, with the only exception being its mouth, which, as it didn't have lips, let the group see the sharp teeth that it had. It was sitting on the ground, using its incredibly long arms to cover the area where its eyes should be if it had a human face.
At first, it looked like it was crying, as it was making noises that sounded like sobbing, but soon the group noticed that that was not the case the moment the creature suddenly stood up and dashed toward them.
Without thinking about it twice, Cyrus quickly unsheathed its swords and released two air slashes that were aimed at the beast's back legs, while Edwin took out his spear, which began to glow with great intensity before thrusting it through the creature's chest.
With a quick reaction from the Yuoko cultivators, the creature soon found itself with two cut legs and a spear traversing its chest. Before giving it any chance to attack them before dying, Gar quickly punched the beast a few times, breaking its long arms completely.
"So, this is a crawler?" Cyrus asked, a little surprised. "I'm not going to lie, I expected them to be bigger and tougher."
After seeing that the group took care of a crawler without any kind of problem, their guides became speechless, as they didn't expect the group to be as strong as it was.
After recovering from their shock, the men quickly began to inspect the corpse of the monster before talking to the cultivators.
"Yes, this was a crawler. It seems like it wasn't one of the strongest individuals, but it wasn't one of the weakest either. You can expect the average crawler to be a little weaker than this one. " The man explained.
"Well, if this is the average, I think we can divide ourselves without worrying much," Gar said while laughing.
"Don't get too confident after killing one crawler. It is unusual to find one alone, as they tend to travel in small groups, so even if their strength is not that great, they can be a real problem if they manage to use their numerical advantage to their benefit. " The man explained.
"Don't you worry, they may travel in groups, but we have managed to kill one of these without any problems, and we have yet to use our real strength," Gar said confidently.