Akira walked down the smokey pathway that was only wide enough for three people to walk side by side. As he moved as silently as possible, he stayed close to the statues hiding in their shadows.
The hair on Akira's furry neck was raised as he had an intense feeling that the statues were staring at him as he passed but no matter how much he inspected or stared at them nothing happened.
Akira quickly hid behind one of the statues when he heard the muffled sound of voices up ahead of him. He squeezed in behind the statues and the stone path wall and slowly moved forward so he could get a better look at what lay ahead.
Peeking out from behind one of the statues he was only able to see a few nearby Demigods guarding the end of the pathway. Akira's eyes glowed yellow as activated his skill [Detect Life].
He quickly counted a total of 23 demigods guarding the end of the path with the group having an average level of 90.
Beyond the demigods was a large plaza, near the center a fist-sized floating red light moved around slowly.
Akira deactivated the skill and the glowing outlines of life disappeared. At the center of the plaza slightly hidden in the smoky fog was a new type of Molten Onyx infected that he had never seen before.
He decided to call it a Giant zombie for now. The Giant zombie had a dark stony onyx skin and wore a heavy set of mismatched armor. It's glowing red eyes scanned the area as it slowly wandered around in front of two dark black stone doors embedded into the mountain, and were cracked open wide enough for an adult human to enter.
A glowing red mist swirled around the body of the Giant zombie further obscuring its body and the area around it.
Everything Akira saw made him feel that his gut had been right and this was the place the two cultists had escaped to.
With his inspection of the area complete he listened to the conversations the nearby demigods were having.
“... and now we're stuck here guarding this path.”
“The boss monster behind us is strong enough to do that. Why do we have to?” complained a demigod.
“We really are missing out on hunting so we can get stronger.”
“You idiot. What monsters can we hunt with all these infected contaminating everything?”
“Why didn't we just join a guild and be done with it. Any guild would like to have me,” said a Bare chested demigod that Akira had seen fighting at Kodria.
“Then why are you stuck here with us?”
“... I was captured by them when I first got here...”
“Let's all join Frozenblood when this is over. I hear they accept anyone.”
“Will those two crazy people even let us go?”
“Sigh... everyone else is lucky to be able to work on completing the Main event quests while we are stuck standing here forever.”
“Hey, it is not all bad. Remember they said if we do this and they succeed in their ritual, then we will be rewarded with one of those powerful gems they have. With those things we'll be able to kick butt far above our levels,” said a demigod trying to raise everyone's morale.
“Didn't Panker already get one of those? Where did he go?”
“That guy has no sense of loyalty. He left all of us bros here as soon as he received his reward.”
“He and the others are so lucky.”
Akira silently walked back down the path using the statues to block anyone catching a glimpse of his body.
Mileena, Fluffball, and two other cavalrymen were guarding the entrance to the path when Akira returned to the group.
Everyone had grown restless as they stood around waiting for Akira while the [Zombie Treants], now fully engulfed, continued to creak and moan in pain behind them.
Akira explained all that he had seen so that they could brainstorm how to handle the situation.
“It's not impossible, but it will be difficult to get in there. We also don't know if they have any other surprises inside,” said Klyn.
“Our main problem is the pathway not being wide enough for us to use our numbers to fight them,” said Mileena.
“Klyn, once we get past the demigods we will need your holy chants to shield us from that large Giant Zombie boss,” said Akira.
“The first three to spearhead the attack should be me on the right, Dolph on the left, and Akira at center,” said Vilkas.
“YAP!” said Fluffball in protest.
“Don't worry, you can follow right behind me,” said Akira as he rubbed Fluffball's head.
“Should we go in with a bang or do a stealthy strike?” asked Dolph.
“GYAAAAAH!”
A loud pained scream echoed down the stone statue path alerting the werewolves that something big was going on.
The werewolves and Gargs formed up and quickly jogged up the pathway while hiding behind their shields as best they could.
“What is that thing doing!”
“Did that woman betray us?”
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“RETREAT!”
The muffled shouts of demigods reached them as they arrived near the end of the statue pathway.
The 23 demigods that had been guarding the path's exit were no longer there. Akira looked out towards the plaza and found only two demigods were still standing at the edge of the plaza with their weapons drawn ready to attack... but they only stood there like statues.
On the ground the Zombie knight that Akira had seen before laid on its back with its hands outstretched in a grasping motion towards the remaining two demigods. Its lower half had been severed by several attacks from the missing demigods.
A large whirlpool of red energy was swirling above the zombie knight. Underneath the whirlpool, there was a cone of mist stretching down and touching a glowing red gem necklace.
The red energy in the whirlpool was coming out of the demigod's bodies causing them to turn pale. Their arms snapped from the weight of their weapons which clattered to the ground.
Moments later the last two demigods disappeared into thousands of light particles but the particles did not disappear... they were sucked into the red whirlpool and then into the necklace.
The zombie knight's attention jerked to Akira and the werewolves standing at the end of the pathway and it grasped for them from where it lay.
Akira started to feel a tug at his energy as well as an invisible force that was trying to lock his movements as it drained him.
“Get back!” growled Akira through gritted teeth.
Dolph and Vilkas were having the same experience as him and felt their energy decreasing but the people behind them felt nothing.
Still, they followed orders and retreated over ten paces.
Sensing something wrong Klyn started to chant with his hands pointed towards Akira.
Akira grabbed onto both Dolph and Vilkas' arms and with all his strength he launched them back towards the others.
He spat out blood covering a patch of the snowy path in red as he fought against the suction force pulling at his entire being.
A white light launched from Klyn's hand and covered Akira.
Akira's body was freed of the heavyweight pressing down on him allowing him to move, but even with the protection from Klyn, he felt his energy slowly decreasing.
Step by step he moved away from the plaza and felt the effects lessen and completely disappear when he reached the rest of the werewolves.
“Grooooor!” the zombie knight on the ground roared in anger at its prey escaping. It tried to move towards them but it seemed like it was stuck to the ground and could not get off its back.
Akira took out a spear from his bag and gathered power into his muscles before launching it with all his might.
The spear was accurate and hit its target... the red necklace. He now believed that the red necklace was the red light he had seen when using the skill [Life Detect].
The spear was only able to leave behind a white scratch before it bounced off and clattered against the mountain wall falling to the ground out of reach for Akira to retrieve.
Akira took another spear out and launched it but the result was the same.
“It's no use,” said Dolph after looking at the results of the several spears that now lay on the ground near the end of the plaza.
“What are we going to do? If we get too close that thing will lock us down and...” said Mileena.
Klyn stood next to Akira and started muttering a holy chant and sent a wave of white light towards the immobile zombie knight.
“GROOOOR!” The zombie knight let out a loud pained roar as the swirling red mist swooped down and covered its body blocking the white light.
Beads of sweat started to run down Klyn's forehead as he tried to force the white light through the red mist to reach the zombie knight.
“I can't breakthrough... it's draining too much of my energy,” said Klyn as he gasped for air and dropped his hands.
The white light slowly disappeared and the red mist once again returned to swirling above the necklace.
“Yap!” said Fluffball.
“You sure?” asked Akira. “Then see if you can hit that necklace!”
Fluffball stepped up next to Akira and grew to his full size. A blue light started to gather near his mouth as he gathered his holy ice energy into an ice ball and launched it at the red gem necklace.
Crack! The ice smashed against the necklace!
Akira was able to see a small sliver of a crack appear but before they could celebrate the swirling red mist covered the necklace and the zombie body for a few seconds and when it returned to its previous position the necklace was once again a flawless surface even the white scratch marks from Akira were gone.
Fluffball once again launched another attack but the same thing happened after another crack appeared.
“You did well, but we may need to figure out another way, don't wear yourself out,” said Akira patting Fluffball.
“YAP!” said Fluffball, not giving up. His body glittered as his ice armor covered his body and he once again gathered a blue holy ice light near his mouth and...
...jumped forward charging towards the downed zombie knight before Akira could grab him and stop him.
“Fluffball! Get back here!”
Klyn and the two other holy shamen seeing this started to chant and sent a white light towards the reckless Fluffball.
When he was ten feet away from the downed zombie knight the blue ice ball shot forward just as Fluffball's legs gave out and he collapsed to the icy ground and slid several feet towards the zombie knight.
CRACK! The holy ice ball smashed into the red necklace and shattered against it.
For one second there was complete silence then...
BOOOM!
The energy inside the red gem necklace exploded out with great force and sent Fluffball flying back towards the path.
Akira, not fearing the explosion, leaped forward to catch Fluffball.
The wave of red energy spread out to collide with everything in its way. But before the full brunt of the explosion reached Akira the red mist whirlpool started to swirl even faster and halted the wave of energy. The forward momentum reversed and it was sucked and compressed into two pea-sized red energy balls below the Whirlpool.
Akira felt a chill as he looked at the small balls. The compressed energy inside just one of the balls was enough to kill everyone behind him if it exploded.
The red energy balls hovered in the air for a moment before the red misty whirlpool disappeared revealing an empty spot on the ground where the body of the zombie knight had been.
The two red energy balls shot towards two different dark dwarf statues on either side of the open stone doors leading into the mountain and entered the open mouths of the statues causing the eyes to glow red.
Moments later the eyes once again turned back to their black onyx.
“What just happened?” asked Mileena in shock.
Now that the Immediate threat was neutralized, Akira paid the surroundings no more attention and focused on Fluffball.
He checked him for any wounds and found none.
“Yap,” said Fluffball weakly. He was exhausted to the point he could not lift his head to lick Akira's face.
Seeing this Akira took out a blue potion from his bag and gave Fluffball a sip since he had no energy to chew one of the hard blue candies.
Klyn and the other shaman came over to Akira and cast their healing chants on Fluffball while they also inspected him.
“He seems fine. But he needs to rest and regain his energy naturally. Whatever that thing was, I hope there are not anymore like it inside,” said Klyn pointing towards the open stone doors.
Fluffball had gained some of his energy back after getting fussed over by everyone and squirmed in Akira's arms to get into a better position. When he was satisfied he closed his eyes and started to doze off.
With a relieved sigh, Akira looked at a system message that had popped up moments before.
Fluffball has killed [Life absorption Chimera Panker]!
You have both Leveled up!