Infiltration Mission (3)
The pharaoh mask, with an axe embedded right in the middle of its face, trembled violently. The once brilliant glow of its jewel-like eyes faded away.
Creak—thud.
It seemed the mask was the key component, as the massive scarab beneath it also ceased its movements and slumped to the ground.
Dalen opened and closed his hand, feeling a bit uneasy. Should he not have thrown it?
He shook his head. No, that wasn’t it. What if it had started casting spells the moment it detected an intruder?
The Sandstorm Dynasty was a civilization built on highly advanced magical arts, particularly soul altar magic. They could not only animate statues with souls but also have those statues cast spells.
Some of those spells could even turn opponents into sand sculptures.
Having fought alongside them in a few rare instances, Dalen could confirm this.
Click.
Just then, another scarab emerged.
It stood next to the now inactive scarab, opened its shell, and revealed another bust wearing a pharaoh mask.
The new pharaoh mask glanced at the previous one, which still had the axe lodged in it, and spoke in a surprised tone.
“An axe, of all things. Almost like a spell, I must say.”
The scarab used its clawed foreleg to gently remove the axe.
The pharaoh mask examined the axe for a moment, then slowly placed it on the ground and slid it back toward Dalen.
The axe skidded across the floor of the ruins and returned to Dalen’s hand. It seemed like returning the weapon was a gesture indicating they wouldn’t hold the attack against him.
As if to confirm this, the pharaoh mask spoke again.
“Let me introduce myself properly. Greetings.”
”…Sorry about the axe, but I’m not exactly in a good mood,” Dalen replied, tucking the axe back into his belt. He wasn’t in a good mood at all.
With walls and ceilings trying to crush him into jelly and brass bullets coming at him like a barrage of claymores, how could he be?
”…I see. Judging by the state of things, I can understand why. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the 14th king of the great Sandstorm Dynasty, Kheph Nehakara Ahashepsut. And you are?”
“Dalen.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Dalen. Could you wait a moment? I need to read the guardian’s memory terminal to fully grasp the situation.”
Dalen nodded and lowered his sword. With his consent, the jewel eyes of the pharaoh mask began to spin.
“Phew…”
A white mist escaped with his sigh, steam slowly rising from his body.
Accepting the pharaoh’s proposal bought him some time, and as he relaxed slightly, the regenerative factors of his dragon blood began rapidly healing his body.
Even for Dalen, it was tough to remain unscathed amidst the collapsing walls, ceilings, and various traps of the ruins.
The only reason he could quickly recover his combat functions was due to his significantly increased stamina and mastery of dragon blood compared to before.
In other words, his digestive system and some bones, which weren’t immediately necessary for battle, had accumulated considerable damage.
Hiss—
Twisted blood vessels and nerves realigned, and broken bone fragments and internal wounds healed in an instant.
As his body mended, Dalen’s thoughts wandered. A king, huh. A pharaoh, since he’s a king of the desert. And the 14th… that sounded familiar.
”…”
He sifted through the hazy memories beyond the monitor, recalling the few times he’d collaborated with the Sandstorm Dynasty.
The dynasty had more than a few kings, and their names were notoriously difficult. Thanks to his recently heightened intelligence, he managed to retrieve the information he needed.
‘The 14th king of the Sandstorm Dynasty. Kheph.’
He remembered calling him just Kheph, using the first part of his name. It was during one of the two hundred-something cycles when they had formed a joint front.
What was unique about him was his unusually mild disposition towards humans, especially for a pharaoh.
“Thank you for waiting.”
The spinning jewel eyes, like a computer’s loading cursor, came to a stop.
Pharaoh Kheph seemed to ponder something before speaking again.
“The guardian of the tomb has identified you as an enemy. I ask without malice, did you attempt to rob the tomb?”
“No.”
The pharaoh tilted his head, asking again.
“I truly mean no offense. Truly. The owner of this tomb has already crossed the Nehakara River. They cannot be resurrected. Besides, I understand that remnants of our civilization hold significant value to your kind.”
He spoke as if justifying grave robbing, which was amusing coming from a pharaoh, but Dalen shook his head again. If it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true.
“I was just passing through.”
“Even so, this is a military facility and a tomb. Just passing through seems…”
“If it was abandoned three thousand years ago, it’s just a cave now.”
“Hmm, that’s a fair point.”
The pharaoh mask nodded up and down. Dalen rolled his shoulders.
In the brief moment, his cracked bones and torn blood vessels had all returned to normal.
Thanks to his high stamina, even after regenerating with dragon blood, he didn’t feel too fatigued.
“Then could you tell this guardian or whatever to leave me and my companions alone?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
Pharaoh Kheph shook his head. Dalen’s eyebrow twitched. Wasn’t he a king? Couldn’t he handle a single tomb guardian?
Reading his expression, Kheph spoke in a regretful tone.
“It’s because I’m not the owner of this tomb. I have no authority here. I’m merely connected to this place through a ritual medium planted during its construction. My true self rests far away in my own sanctuary. This connection will soon be severed.”
“Only the tomb’s owner can stop the guardian?”
“Usually, yes.”
Damn it. Dalen’s face twisted further. Didn’t he say the tomb’s owner was dead? Couldn’t be resurrected? So, does that mean he has to destroy every last brick of this ruin to stop it?
Even though he’d caught his breath and regained his condition, that was an impossible task.
The guardian seemed to be preparing for a serious confrontation, judging by the murderous intent closing in from all sides.
The pharaoh slowly tilted his head and made an unexpected remark.
”…Perhaps the noble being you serve could be the answer.”
“A noble being?”
“More like captured than served, I suppose.”
[What? Me?]
A voice echoed in his mind, the voice of the demon. Pharaoh Kheph chuckled softly.
“Indeed. A tree resting in a small corner of the dream world. How could we not recognize you? Though your lush leaves and branches have all been broken, leaving only roots and a stump, most of which seem to have rotted away.”
[What are you talking about? I don’t know you. We’ve never met before, okay?]
“They say you forgot your past glory in the cauldron of Enaxagous. I wanted to dismiss it as a rumor, but it seems to be the unvarnished truth.”
The pharaoh mask murmured in a complex tone. Dalen tilted his head.
An immortal demon being referred to as a tree? Both the knight commander and this pharaoh kept talking about this demon in ways he didn’t understand.
‘No choice. Once you get involved with it, it ruins the cycle, so in the game, you just had to avoid and ignore it as much as possible.’
It was clear that this demon slave harbored secrets unknown to him. Though it seemed the demon itself was also unaware.
“All the souls of the Sandstorm Dynasty remember you, noble being.”
[Uh… what?]
The pharaoh mask bowed its head. The demon still seemed clueless.
The jewel eyes, which had been glowing yellow, began to lose their luster again. It was a similar reaction to when Dalen had split its head with an axe. The connection was breaking.
Kheph turned to Dalen and left him with one last piece of advice.
“If you wish to stop the guardian, destroy the soul jar.”
”…Thanks.”
With those words, the light in the pharaoh mask’s eyes faded. Dalen grinned. Yeah, he should have said that from the start.
He knew about soul jars. In fact, he had been planning to find a way to get to them.
‘The soul jars in the ruins are a good source for restoring the demon’s power.’
It was a fact he had stumbled upon at the cost of his life.
He never expected to gain a demon slave, so at the time, he thought it was useless information.
Creak—
With the pharaoh’s consciousness gone, the ruins began to move again.
A flash of murderous intent. Walls and ceilings shifting ominously.
Dalen tightened his grip on his sword. The scarabs, their eyes now glowing red, seemed ready for a full-on battle.
Rumble! Thud.
And the ceiling began to rotate. As it spun, it aligned something, then started to release massive stone pillars.
Thud, thud, thud—
The pillars descended from the ceiling to the floor, like facing the fists of a stone giant.
Dalen gripped his sword tightly with both hands. As he took a short breath, a whirlwind of energy enveloped his arms once more.
The sacred sword, still unyielding.
A thunderous roar and a flash of lightning that could tear even a demon’s flesh asunder.
Together, they could shatter that pillar. Just as he was about to swing the sword—
“The noble one you serve might be the answer.”
Pharaoh’s words suddenly echoed in his mind. He wasn’t one to speak nonsense. Dalen called out to the demon within him.
“Hey.”
[Yes, yes?]
“Come out.”
”?!”
The demon couldn’t respond. Dalen commanded with determination.
“Get out here, now.”
With a clatter, the chains of Halman did their job. Chains extended into the air, and at their end, the demon dangled, pulled out against its will.
The demon, expelled from its pocket dimension, found itself in Dalen’s grasp.
“Wait, wait! That thing… I’ll die!”
The demon shrieked, seeing the massive stone pillar bearing down on them. Dalen, unfazed, held the demon by the scruff and thrust it toward the pillar.
The pillar, charging with the force to crush even a fortress wall—
Stopped.
“Ho.”
Just before colliding with the demon.
It halted right in front of them.
With a rumble, the pillar, unable to withstand the sudden deceleration, crumbled into dust and fell apart.
Dalen slowly turned his hand holding the demon, shaking it a bit.
Each time he did, the twisted ceiling and walls flinched, and the brass beetles, poised to attack at any moment, hesitated and retreated.
“Ah…?”
The demon, now with a dazed look, was firmly grasped by Dalen, who chuckled softly.
In his right hand, the sacred sword. In his left, a meat—no, a demon shield.
With the perfect gear for tackling the ruins, it was time to start the raid in earnest.
Tick-tick-tick!
A beetle charged at him, its sharp pincers and long stinger inside its mouth looking menacing.
Swoosh—
Dalen thrust the shield in its face. The shield looked rather shabby.
It resembled a lump of dark clay, seemingly incapable of even stopping an arrow.
Flinch!
Yet, upon seeing the shield, the beetle froze. Dalen swiftly swung his sword.
Crunch!
The beetle, unable to even think of counterattacking, was split in two.
Dalen glanced at his status screen. The experience points were quite rewarding.
He had already taken down over a hundred beetles. Each one offered experience equivalent to a dozen or so formidable monsters like frogmen or gnolls.
Rumble!
The walls and ceiling, which had been shifting forms, stopped and quieted down when faced with the living shield.
Dalen walked steadily through the now-motionless corridor, a satisfied smile on his lips.
“Sigh, my damn life…”
The shield, or rather the demon, lamented.
Once used as a portable stove in his backpack, it was now literally a meat shield.
Though the Sandstorm Dynasty had some unknown connection with him, preventing any real harm, being a meat shield was unpleasant in itself.
He was a demon.
A demon meant to capture humans as sacrifices, to command dark sorcerers and necromancers. A noble being destined to curse this world and drag it into hell.
Having been freed from a long seal, he thought he could finally fulfill that wish, but then some thug barged in…
“Hey.”
The demon snapped back to reality. It was his master.
A voice that made his chest tighten with frustration and his vision blur.
“Hey, aren’t you going to answer?”
“No, Master!”
“We’re here.”
“What?”
“I said, we’re here.”
The demon rubbed his eyes and looked ahead. His master stood before a massive stone door.
A truly enormous stone door, as large as the gates of the fortress they had seen recently.
So what was he supposed to do? The demon couldn’t understand.
He cautiously looked up at his master. The master looked down with an indifferent gaze and spoke.
“Open it.”
“But how…?”
“Can’t do it?”
So, it’s nothing more than a meat shield. Dalen snorted.
The brass dust seemed to be getting into his nose and mouth, and bits of stone and brass were irritating inside his armor.
He needed to finish the mission quickly and wash up. But first, he had to deal with these ruins.
Finding the way was easy. There was no map, but the markings left on the floor of the corridor served as signposts to major locations.
Dalen’s destination was the king’s tomb, deep within the mausoleum.
Even without playing archaeologist, following those markers wasn’t difficult.
‘When I was being chased by demons, I followed those.’
At the end of one of his two visits to the ruins.
A horde of demons and their army invaded through a rift, and the order of paladins fought valiantly but ultimately fell.
It was late in the game, and his character was a mercenary of near-superhuman rank.
But even so, he wasn’t capable of single-handedly wrestling with demons, especially those empowered by sacrifices.
At that time, he and a few survivors, pursued by demons, had fled to these ruins.
The dying words of an archaeologist NPC leading their escape were to follow the direction indicated by those markers.
At the end of that path, Dalen had arrived at the king’s tomb, marked as a significant intruder by the ruins, and fought a final battle with the weakened demon.
So, it can’t be opened, huh. Dalen shrugged his shoulders.
If he put the demon down, the ruins would immediately switch to attack mode, so that wasn’t an option.
He temporarily planted the sacred sword in the ground and raised his fist. Flames quickly enveloped his hand and arm.
‘Armor is both a means of defense and a tool for attack.’
Recalling the martial art of Dehaman’s armored combat, the fiery gauntlet began to pulsate as if ready to explode.
A concretized image, slightly modified to fit the possibility. Extending the possibility achieved in the domain into reality.
Inhale—
He took a breath.
Whoosh.
Dalen thrust his fist forward.
Boom!
It was like the breath of a dragon.
The stone door, layered with countless defensive spells.
All those spells and the several meters thick stone were torn apart and melted away in the face of the surging wave of flames.
A hole about two meters in diameter was blown through the stone door.
Scrape.
Dalen pulled the sacred sword from the stone floor and stepped inside.
Whoosh…
A chilling wind blew from within the tomb. The musty air carried an inherent sense of foreboding.
Hum
The seal of the curse barrier glowed. Dalen ignored it. This level of curse was bearable.
His eyes gleamed as he pierced through the darkness filled with spells. He quickly found what he was looking for.
‘There it is.’
Deep inside the tomb.
In front of a massive stone coffin. An altar with a strange aura, and the jar placed upon it.
And.
[You have discovered the corpse of a hero who played tag with demons.]
The sight of a gray, shredded corpse discarded beside the altar caught his attention.