Infiltration Mission (Part 2)
Dalen sprinted forward. Leading the way was a fellow knight, while two mages followed closely behind.
Glancing back at Lucia, Dalen reached out and caught an arrow mid-flight. Its brass tip glinted in the dim light.
“Damn it!”
Lucia cursed, her shield deflecting arrows and blades with a swift motion.
Felber and Tommy Valentino hurriedly cast protective spells over the group. Dalen swatted away another arrow with the back of his hand, his mind racing.
“This isn’t good.”
Every instinct screamed at him. The walls seemed to close in, the corridors tightening around them.
Rusty blades jutted from the gaps in the walls, and the cracked ceiling dripped with foul-smelling oil.
Dalen looked up, gripping his sword with both hands. Could he cut through the oil with his blade?
“Elle Nimentum!”
Suddenly, part of the approaching wall crumbled, and a mound of earth surged upward.
The hastily constructed barrier absorbed the oil for a moment, collapsing just as the group passed through.
“Are you alright, Master?”
“Hahaha! I may be old, but my legs haven’t rusted yet! I used to explore labyrinths in my youth!”
Felber laughed heartily, reassuring his concerned apprentice.
Dalen drew his steel sword, slicing through a spear that flew towards them. The spear’s shaft was made entirely of brass.
“Sir Heston! How much longer do we have to run?”
Rumble—!
Lucia shouted, seeing the floor and ceiling closing in just twenty meters behind them.
“Well, uh! The map doesn’t exactly mark traps or hidden paths…!”
“You idiot! Head towards the dining hall or storage! They wouldn’t put traps where people eat!”
“Right! This way!”
Despite their bickering, the knight brothers managed to find a path. Yet, Dalen couldn’t shake a nagging sense of unease.
It wasn’t that he doubted the knights’ abilities. From what he’d observed, they were adept at finding their way, even amidst their constant squabbles.
But would there truly be no traps in the dining area?
His instincts, sharper than anyone else’s in the group, whispered otherwise.
“We’re not avoiding the traps.”
Dalen’s intuition told him.
“We’re being chased by them.”
It made no sense. How could stationary traps pursue them?
Dalen focused his senses. His perception, a blend of touch, sight, and something beyond, peered through the walls.
Creak—clank.
Rumble!
Bricks moved beneath the corridors, mechanisms swimming through the earth, reassembling themselves.
They seemed alive, tracking the group’s movements, launching arrows and blades, crushing the passages.
Damn. It’s like a living museum on steroids. Dalen called out to the demon lurking in his mind.
“Hey.”
[Sniff, I just said one wrong thing… Yes, sir!]
“Stop whining and tell me straight. The walls and traps are moving on their own. What’s going on?”
In truth, he knew little about such ruins.
The game was about preventing the apocalypse. Most playthroughs involved siding with humanity, struggling to save the continent and avert disaster.
In a few runs, he’d gone rogue, siding with the apocalypse, or abandoned everything to become an herbalist or fisherman.
“Herbalism or farming is at least relaxing, but archaeology? That means studying hieroglyphs and the continent’s history.”
He’d turned to gaming to escape the harsh realities and headaches of life.
Why would he want to study ancient ruins and archaeology in a game meant for escapism?
”…Tsk.”
Dalen clicked his tongue. Regret was regret, and ignorance was ignorance.
And when you don’t know something, it’s usually wise to ask someone older.
In this case, it wasn’t a person, but a demon on a leash.
[…It’s likely a guardian created through soul altar magic.]
“Soul altar magic? Right. The Sandstorm Dynasty used to animate statues and structures with souls.”
[How do you even know that… It’s a dynasty that perished over three thousand years ago?]
The Sandstorm Dynasty.
An ancient civilization whose remnants could only be found in the distant western desert.
Few records remained, but the dynasty was known for its mastery of powerful golems.
“We fought alongside them once, during the invasion of the evil gods.”
A nation long gone.
Yet, due to their brilliant technology, some of their kings and armies still slumbered deep beneath the desert.
Even their technology couldn’t ultimately prevent the apocalypse.
[The Sandstorm Dynasty excelled in soul altar magic. They’d embed souls into entire buildings, especially in important places like tombs or military facilities.]
Embedding souls into buildings, not just statues. Dalen’s eyebrow twitched.
“So, they’ll chase us until we’re dead?”
[Most likely.]
Running wouldn’t solve anything. There was only one option left: fight.
Dalen slowed his pace. He caught up with the two mages and Lucia, shouting to them.
“Keep running! I’ll catch up soon.”
“What? What are you saying?”
Felber’s eyes widened. Instead of answering, Dalen sheathed his steel sword and drew his holy sword.
Gripping it with both hands, he summoned power from beyond his imagination, a low rumble resonating along the blade.
Felber sighed.
“How did you reach that level of mastery in such a short time… Alright, we’ll go ahead.”
The two mages passed him, and Lucia brushed by, her eyes filled with concern but no words.
She trusted him. He’d faced demons and witches and returned alive.
Dalen responded to her silent trust with a confident smirk.
He stopped.
Creak!
Rumble—
The ground trembled. The walls and ceiling closed in, ready to crush him.
Dalen took a deep breath. Energy swirled from his shoulders to his fingertips.
He’d fought countless living foes. Even those resurrected from the dead.
But what about something that was never alive? Dalen’s eyes gleamed. It didn’t matter. If it had intent, it was alive in some sense.
Whether it appeared as stone, machinery, or nature itself.
Soul altar magic was an almost forgotten, mystical art.
His night vision, combined with his domain, allowed him to see through the mystical veil.
His sight, which had pierced through a witch’s domain, now saw through the walls and traps.
Unlike with the witch, he couldn’t find a physical form.
But the malice directed at him, the intent to kill, was unmistakable.
That was all he needed to swing his sword.
Clang—!
The holy sword sliced through space, leaving a stormy trail in its wake.
The closing walls split apart, and an explosion from the scar shattered the bricks.
The walls and ceiling recoiled as if alive, retreating.
Dalen grinned fiercely, thrusting his sword forward.
The blue blade roared with thunder.
The walls crumbled. The ceiling collapsed. It was as if he was battling the earth itself.
But Dalen wasn’t fighting the ground; he was confronting the will behind it.
An earthquake would be unavoidable. The splitting earth and falling debris had no intent.
But if the opponent had a clear will, it meant that will could be broken.
Boom—!
The descending ceiling turned to dust in the flash, and the attacking walls ground back into unformed stone and earth.
Each time, the ruins flinched, pulling back the walls and ceiling.
As if the destruction was part of its body.
Boom! Rumble—
The thunderous roar from his sword echoed through the ruins’ corridors.
The once-narrow passage had transformed into a vast chamber, pressing in on the intruder in a new way.
Clang—!
A golden bullet ricocheted off his sword.
Dalen swung his sword tirelessly against the hundreds of brass bullets raining down.
The storm of his crushing sword shredded the bullets. Some grazed his head, face, and limbs, slicing skin and lightly tearing muscle.
Each bullet packed a punch. Far more powerful than the ones fired by the special forces not long ago.
Clang!
Dalen responded simply. He put more strength into his sword.
The holy sword swung faster, stronger. The barrage from all directions halted as if hitting an invisible wall.
Huff.
His breathing grew heavy.
Huff.
His heart pounded as fiercely as his breath.
It had been a long time since he felt his stamina pushed to its limits. Not since he faced the fragment of the demon Arachne that had possessed the Grand Master.
He had grown strong enough to slice through even the lowest demons with ease, but now, a living ruin was trying to crush him to death.
“Heh.”
He let out a breath of steam and chuckled. Yeah, this was the game he used to play.
No matter how powerful you made your character, the game always threw even greater challenges your way.
By the end of hundreds of playthroughs, his characters were superhumans, unmatched by any hero.
They could wrestle with high-level demons using just a sword and silence a dragon’s roar with a single spell.
Yet even they ended up as cold corpses, victims of the apocalypse sweeping across the continent.
Crash!
Massive axe blades flew at him from all directions. With a single flash of his sword, he cut them all down.
A boulder the size of a house came crashing toward his head. He thrust his holy sword upward, and with a thunderous roar, the rock shattered and spiraled into a tornado of debris.
His shoulders ached, and his insides twisted. He had used his domain hundreds of times in succession, pushing his stamina to its limits, and now his strength was being wrung out to the last drop.
Yet the more he was pushed to his limits, the more his lips curled into a smile. It was the same when he hunted frogs in the sewers, and when he chased the Witch of Ash through the forest.
They say the mind follows the body. Dalen, who had no interest in philosophy, couldn’t help but agree with that sentiment.
At least in this moment.
The office worker who once scoffed at this medieval world, who grimaced at the rough fabric and the taste of stale beer, was fading away.
At least in this moment.
He was nothing short of a divine warrior descended from the heavens for battle.
[Crazy… my master is insane.]
The demon’s voice muttered inside him. Despite its rudeness, Dalen chuckled and adjusted his grip on his sword.
The chamber had fallen into a lull.
The killing intent from all directions remained, but the ruins no longer dared to recklessly attack him.
Dalen looked down at his sword.
The holy sword gleamed without a single nick.
It had withstood brass barrages and massive boulders, shattered ceilings and walls, yet remained unbroken.
Even the legendary blacksmith, Reberon Ahakim, would have struggled to forge such a weapon.
Rumble.
Just then, a door on the far side of the chamber opened. When did that door appear? Dalen sniffed, trying to clear his dust-clogged nose.
The ruins had long since blurred the lines between walls and doors, rearranging themselves at will.
Click. Clack.
Beetles crawled out from inside the door.
Each one was the size of a large motorcycle. Their golden shells and jewel-encrusted eyes were quite impressive.
They were constructs from his memory, statues used as war machines by the Sandstorm Dynasty.
Click. Clack. Click.
The beetles scuttled with their thin, sharp legs, surrounding Dalen in a wide circle. There seemed to be hundreds of them.
The largest one stepped forward.
Its shell opened, and a head resembling a pharaoh’s mask slowly rose.
The pharaoh mask looked around with a vacant expression, then spotted Dalen and let out a surprised “Oh!”
It opened its mouth to speak.
“Greetings—urk?!”
“Oh, were you trying to say hello?”
Dalen said belatedly, having silenced the mask with his axe.