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Seth Chapter 88
🕑 Added 2024-04-19 23:39:23 +0000 UTCChapter 88
Although they had taken significant rest before entering the fury's chamber, most of them were too strained from the battle with their injuries still recovering, so the sight of lesser abyssal horrors shifting through the door towards them was the last thing they wanted.
“Oh fuck! Why are these heinous creatures still alive? How many of them are there? Is there a nest in the ruins or something?” Log frowned, picking up his weapon reluctantly.
“Were they waiting for us to defeat the fury before ambushing us?” Zara asked, her face pale.
“I don't know, but they sure don't seem like the type to think a lot,” Xarth said with a growl. “We just need to kill them all like the last time.”
Gritting his teeth, he glanced towards his broken axe and then the fury's axe that had survived the battle. He picked it up, having no other option as a tendril tried to grasp his hand.
Soon, a new battle began as more and more lesser abyssal horrors filled the room.
I don't have enough energy to deal with all this!
Seth muttered in his mind and jumped back to avoid the tendril with the Weather Staff in his hand. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be activated by touch and felt just like any other staff with a smooth texture.
He attached it to the staff strap that he had brought to carry it and took out his dagger before cutting through the tendrils that moved towards him. It was like cutting through butter as they fell on the ground.
With the added stats from ranking up, it was much easier to deal with the creatures, but he wasn't at his best.
That showed in his movements as he nearly tripped once due to a tendril grabbing on his leg, but he quickly cut it off. Focusing, he charged towards two lesser abyssal horrors as his mana moved into his blade.
They swished with their tendrils, but Seth sidestepped as they hit the floor right behind him before plunging his dagger.
The lesser abyssal horror cried out as it lost its eyes, squirming and twitching.
The second one held his hand with its tendrils, but it didn't even manage to shake him as Seth easily grabbed its eye from his left hand and put pressure.
It popped out as blood spurted out everywhere.
Frowning due to how disgusted he felt, he threw the lesser abyssal horror onto the floor as notifications flashed.
A noise grabbed his attention.
A few paces away from him, Rebecca held off three lesser abyssal horrors with a barrier. With every swing of their tendrils, cracks appeared on her barrier, but before it could break, three blades hit the monsters.
The monsters screamed and fell on the ground.
Rebecca took the chance and removed her barrier before stomping on the eyes of the horrors. After making sure they were dead, she stared at Seth.
“They… are relentless,” she said, looking like she was going to collapse with a few more spells.
“Yeah, they are trying to exhaust us with numbers and it seems to be working.”
He turned his head to look up at the entrance from where more and more lesser abyssal horrors were coming through.
Earlier, they had fought off a few dozen of them, but this time, over 50 of them already filled the chamber and they were still coming in.
Just in front of the doorway, The Divers fought.
Unlike before, they weren't at their best with Log and Zacky barely being effective against the lesser abyssal horrors surrounding them. Zara wasn't able to protect them with her fireballs since she herself was struggling.
Xarth fared comparatively better, but the fury's axe was too big for him, making him take long pauses between each strike.
It gave enough time for the lesser abyssal horrors to strike at the bruises that hadn't fully healed on his body.
Knowing that he couldn't let them take on, Seth took a deep breath, pushing out the exhaustion from his body and jumped up towards the lesser abyssal horrors.
He was the highest levelled person in the room, so he couldn't afford to slack, especially with the outpouring of the monsters.
Conjuring up blades all around him, Seth aimed.
It was a bit easy to bring them out now and it didn't even take a second, but controlling so many of them was hard. Yet, he launched them one after another.
They left a streak of mana on their trails and hit the lesser abyssal horrors one after another, right in the eye.
Two of them died on the spot while others managed to survive the attack, but it gave enough time for the others to finish them off.
The other monsters looked up at him in surprise and taking the opportunity, he flickered, appearing in the middle of a dozen of them.
One of them snarled at him, it's voice echoing across the chamber. It's tendrils moved like a whip, but Seth swung his blade, cutting them off before grabbing another tendril that came for him.
Pulling at the lesser abyssal horror, he threw it at around before conjuring up more blades.
All around him, monsters snarled as they attacked him, but he kept killing them one by one. Unlike them who were fighting Seth for the first time, he had killed hundred of them by now and was used to each of their movments.
Whenever his blade moved, monsters fell, but the longer the fight continued, the more exhausted he felt.
Just as he twisted his blade into the eye of another lesser abyssal horror, he gritted his teeth and his shoulders heaved, but a tendril cracked at his shoulder like a whip.
Turning around, he saw the abyss creature too close to him and swing his blade. The tendrils moving for him got sweapt away by it and he lunged forward, killing it on the spot.
“Damn! They are never ending!” He frowned, looking at the blood on his hands, blade and armour, then raised his head to look all around him.
Despite killing over two dozens of the lesser abyssal horrors, they still filled the room and Seth could see more of them coming through the door.
How many of these are here? Like this, we would soon have casualties.
He stared at the Divers and Rebecca who had taken quite a bit of hits.
Quickly making up his mind, he shouted out, “We need to run. There are hoards of these bastards. We can't deal with them all.”
“But how? They are blocking up the entrance!” Xarth looked at him while crushing a lesser abyssal horror into paste by smashing it with his large foot.
“If we run, they are just going to chase us. We need a way to trap them. If we leave from the entrance, we are just going to find ourselves with more of them,” Rebecca said, her voice quivering under the intense pressure she felt.
Seth bit his lips. She was right, especially with the rows of monsters clammering through the entrance. His eyes went around the room as he sent out more blades to fend off the lesser abyssal horrors charging at him.
Then, his eyes stopped at something as an idea clicked.
The room on the right that they hadn't checked till now. If they couldn't move ahead, that was the only way out. At least with the door in place, they would be able to hold off the horrors for a while.
“Everyone, move towards the stairs. We need to get into the room,” he shouted out, taking everyone's attention.
“That room? Is it even big enough? What if we get trapped?” Log asked, being the one closest to the stairs.
“I don't know. I will hold off the monsters, so run. Fast!”
At his command, none of them tried to object, knowing it was the only option they had.
Log led them to the stairs, followed by Xarth, Rebecca, Zara and finally, Zacky in the back. As they climbed the stairs, the monsters scorned and rushed at them.
But Seth blocked the way.
The Dark Blade simmered with energy as he activated Void Dominance for the first time.
His eyes suddenly took on a purple glow as the lesser abyssal horror swinging at him paused and floated back, its eyes widening in what Seth assumed to be fear.
It gave him enough time to stab his blade through its eyes.
Not only this one, all of the lesser abyssal horrors charging up at him seemed to be scared of him suddenly. A wild, overwhelming aura radiated outwards, pressing down on the creatures.
For a second, he wondered why the creatures hadn't been scared like this when he had exterminated so many of their brethren, but the footsteps behind him propped him to make his move.
Using the hesitation the lesser abyssal horrors showed, Seth conjured up more blades and shot them out instantly.
Due to being overwhelmed, they weren't able to move and in a matter of seconds, half dozens of them fell on the ground, blood pooling on the floor.
As notifications filled his vision, he looked back to see Xarth opening up the door. It was a simple door and with a creak, it swung open.
His party members entered through it and as he moved towards the stairs, he saw the lesser abyssal horrors moving towards him.
Releasing more of the aura he was feeling around his body, he glared at them, making them stall and skipped a few steps to land right in front of the door.
Making his way in, he closed it off.
“Can you put a temporary barrier over it, so they can't come in?” Seth looked back to Rebecca who nodded.
While she was working on the barrier around the door, he took a sigh of relief and looked at the room that they were in.
Dust was everywhere and a long table was in the middle of all of it with a statue on the back. Bookshelves and closed safes were in the corner alongside a large bed in the very back of the room.
“Is it a bedroom?” Zara asked, walking towards the bookshelves to look at the books on display. Her eyes shined as she took one out to turn it's pages.
“Seems like it,” he replied. “Probably the place to sleep and do light reading. It doesn't seem like it's big enough to build golems though.”
“There would be another place for that. Some sort of a laboratory. It doesn't matter though. These books seem to have a lot of records from the Stormweaver themselves. You don't know how valua—”
“It doesn't matter.” Xarth's voice boomed from the back, a hint of panic in it. “We need to find a way out of here or we are trapped with the horrors outside.”
“Yeah, we can't wait for too long” Seth agreed with him and just then, there was a loud knocking sound outside.
“They are here!” Rebecca yelled, finishing up her barrier. The door gave off a gleam now, covered in her mana but he knew it won't stay up for long.
“How much time do we have?”
“A few minutes.”
Seth nodded. “Look around the room. Try to see if there's a way out of here. Some sort of a secret hidden door to escape. Going by the Stormweaver's personality, he certainly seemed like the type to build one.”
All of them nodded and searched around the room for some sort of a lever or a button that would open up a secret door, but there was no instant success.
Loud shouts and scornful cries kept ringing from the outside and with each of them, Seth felt his heartbeat rising. He looked up at the bed, picking it up and looking under it, but there was nothing.
Frowning, he looked around until he saw the bookshelves.
“Zara, can you push the shelf?” He asked and the mage nodded. Xarth came to help her and both of them pushed it to the corner, revealing a hole in the wall.
“What's this?” Zacky asked, squinting at the hall. It was fourth feet tall, large enough for them to crawl under.
“Seems like the way out of here. Let's hurry!” Xarth urged and Zacky moved, using his short frame to move under the hole. Zara and Rebecca moved next.
As Log crawled, a cracking noise like someone had dropped a mirror appeared. Both the beastman and him moved quickly, putting the bookshelves in front of the door before crawling in themselves.
The passage was short and big enough for Xarth to move without troubles. Seth was just behind him and when he picked himself up from the ground, he saw stairs going up right in front.
A light ball floated in the air, illuminating the small room and the stairs.
It seemed like an escape route in case things went wrong. The others were already climbing and without wasting time, Seth followed them.
Through the way, he kept looking back for any noise or presence of the lesser abyssal horrors, but as time passed, he was sure they had lost them.
Like the stairs they had used to climb down to the boss chamber, these were similarly long and it was only after half an hour, they found a door that led to some sort of a passageway.
It didn't seem to be one they had traversed before, but going by the cracks on the surface and footprints on the dust, Seth knew they weren't the only ones here.
“Is it one of the pathways that was open to adventurers?” He asked, looking at everyone.
“No, I don't think so. At least I haven't been here before,” Xarth replied as they walked, being wary of the traps and the lesser abyssal horrors.
As Seth was about to say something, he heard a noise.
He stalled, looking up at the end of the corridor. Something stepped down from the darkness, slowly coming into the range of the light ball.
Taps of a cane hitting the floor resounded as Rebecca widened her eyes and froze.
