“What is this place?” Asked Dolph as they ran down several hundreds of stairs that continued to spiral down deep into the underground.
“It should be the place I have been looking for a long time. I really should thank the demigods, if it was not for them I would have probably not found this entrance,” said Akira.
“Wait, are we entering some dangerous place?” asked Vilkas.
“It’s no more dangerous than if we stayed outside…” said Akira.
“Yap,” said a worried Fluffball.
After running and jumping down what seemed like a thousand steps they reached a dead end.
“What now?” asked Dolph.
“Maybe if I do this…” said Akira as he pulled out several pieces of old parchment each a different size and shape.
When he pulled out the last piece a bright flash blinded them for a second before disappearing and revealing a complete map that was glowing white and floating in the air in front of them.
Behind the floating map was a new white portal that was quickly growing in size.
Akira grabbed onto the floating map and turned to the others behind him.
“Hurry inside before the demigods get here!” shouted Akira as he touched the growing portal and was sucked inside.
Fluffball was right behind him disappearing into the swirling portal that had stopped growing.
“Damn it! I knew he was going to do something crazy like this!” grumbled Dolph as he and Vilkas both disappeared into the portal.
Sometime later two out-of-breath demigods huffed and puffed as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“What is this place?”
“A hideout?”
“How could it be a hideout? There’s no one here and look, there is a portal.”
“A dungeon? Should we call the others? I don’t think we can clear it by ourselves and if we die we will probably drop some of our equipment and items. It’s next to impossible to resupply here with no one able to get past the sea monster and the skeleton pirates.”
“No I don’t think we need to do that…That map he had….do you think?”
“What? Do you think this is the place that those dark robed guys said holds their mysterious treasure?”
“That’s right. This is not a dungeon but a treasure trove!”
“Then we can’t let them steal all the stuff inside! If we complete this task with just the two of us we can take all the rewards and leave everyone else with nothing! We may even get a promotion!”
With their minds now made up they two touched the portal and were sucked inside before the white portal slowly disappeared.
***
Ding!
-
You have entered the Underground Palace vaults!
You are 1 of 6 trial runners.
Defeat the guardian to receive your reward!
Akira looked around for the others but only found an empty and eerie garden.
“Of course it would be like this… I hope the others don’t fall into any harm…” said Akira as he inspected the garden.
There was no ceiling above him allowing him to see a crescent moon along with several unfamiliar stars hanging in the dark purple night sky.
On the ground all around him were rows of blue, gray, and white ephemeral ghost flowers that swayed in the light breeze. When Akira tried to touch one his hand passed right through them.
Behind the rows of flowers were several hundred weathered headstones of varying ages.
“A cemetery?” muttered Akira as he walked over to one of the headstones and tried to read the name on it… but the language was even more archaic than that of which the Minos and Oni factions spoke.
The sights around him did not make him feel like he was inside a dungeon, just an extremely creepy cemetery.
THUMP! THUMP!
The large footsteps of something in the distance caused Akira to look up from the headstone and squint to try and figure out what was making such a loud noise.
With the dim moonlight, he was able to make out a bony monster that was pacing back and forth between a Large smooth round boulder. [Skeleton Guardian lvl 230]
“That’s the thing I have to beat?”
As if it had heard him speak, The Giant [Skeleton Guardian] stopped its pacing and looked in Akira’s direction. It let out a silent roar before stomping over to him with its large legs covering the distance at an alarming speed.
It leapt through the air covering the remaining distance between them in only a few seconds before slamming a large bony fist into the ground trying to smush Akira who had dodged that attack.
Standing back up straight it stomped its large bony foot where Akira was now standing.
“Uhhhh…” Akira let out a groan as he blocked the large bony foot with his shield and withstood the full force of the [Skeleton Guardian’s] body weight as it pressed down upon him trying to crush him.
With his free arm, he managed to activate the skill [Sword Slash] and watched as the blue crescent attack slammed into the bony leg pressing down on him.
“How tough are these bones?” grunted Akira as he looked at the thin white line that was the only visible result of his attack.
Akira was forced to switch out his sword for a mace that he had also scavenged from a demigod to try and deal damage to the large [Skeleton Guardian].
With each swing of his mace, small cracks could be seen on the large bony leg. It was slow work trying to break the bone. Although it was better than using his sword he would be here for several more hours if things continued as they were.
Whump! Instead of the large bony foot stomping down on him lashed out and kicked him in the chest catching him off guard and sending him flying back into several headstones which were broken as he flew past them and slammed into the ground leaving a large burrow in the ground.
The [Skeleton Guardian] jumped into the air and used its whole body to stomp on Akira landing on his armored legs before he could escape.
Neither Akira’s armored legs nor the skeleton bony feet broke from the stomp attack but the [Skeleton Guardian] had landed on the sharp pointed kneecap armor causing it great pain as it hopped off of him and began jumping around silently howling in pain giving Akira a few moments to stand back up on wobbly legs.
“Man this is rough,” said Akira as he used his mace as a staff to steady himself. As he watched the [Skeleton Guardian] hopping around a new idea popped into his head.
“Maybe I should try that…”
He switched his mace out for the new fire sword that he had picked up some time ago after the raid on the Demigod camp.
He activated the skill [Shield Slam] to rush forward and slam into the damaged and cracked leg making the [Skeleton Guardian] stumble forward allowing Akira a great opportunity to start hacking at the damaged bony leg kneecap.
A fierce fiery heat flared up as the sword struck the white bone and started to slice through the kneecap leaving a large red gash.
Fwoosh!
Akira rolled away from the [Skeleton Guardians] kick and dodged several more attacks before managing to strike the damaged kneecap again.
He was forced to play the dangerous dodging game for over several rounds as he rushed in and attacked the [Skeleton Guardian] knee and then narrowly escaped a kick or punch.
After 10 failed attempts to cut the leg he was successful on the 11th attack!
The [Skeleton Guardian] flailed about and fell forward with its bony arms outstretched to stop the fall.
Akira dashed up the left bony arm and with full force of his fiery sword swung at its head…
Bonk… only for it to bounce off dealing no damage and as the sword was no longer giving off any heat and was as cold as any other sword.
“Damn it, did I use all of its energy already? Uuugh…”
The [Skeleton Guardian] grabbed onto Akira and flung him into the ground with its full power.
“Gahhhh!” Akira let out a pained groan as his body slammed into the ground and bounced away from the [Skeleton Guardian] with such force that he spat out blood from the massive internal damage he had received from the attack.
While Akira lay on the ground dazed and coughing up blood the [Skeleton Guardian] repeatedly tried to stand up but failed and was only able to stabilize itself by using its arms to stay in an unbalanced kneeling position.
From where Akira lay his eyes caught sight of something he had not seen until now. Behind the [Skeleton Guardians] large Rib Cage was a glowing red core.
‘That must be the key to all of this!’ thought Akira as he spat out blood and used the sword as a cane to pull himself back up onto his feet where he swayed for several seconds.
The [Skeleton Guardian] seeing Akira was still alive grabbed onto its severed leg and using it as a sword swung it trying to hit Akira but was too far away to reach him.
It tried to hobble closer to him but its movements were horrible as it repeatedly fell on its face and had to push itself back up into a standing position.
“I don’t know how much more of a beating I can take…” said Akira as he ate a red candy. He took out several random monster cores he had gathered and used them to feed the fire sword which greedily melted away a dozen of them before a fierce blaze even stronger than before flared up and covered the sword causing the air around it to shimmer from the heat.
“Let’s end this fight!” growled Akira as he pointed his sword at the [Skeleton Guardian] in a challenge.
The [Skeleton Guardian] silently roared and shook its leg sword at Akira angrily.
Activating his skill [Shield Slam] Akira shot forward at a speed that was too fast for the [Skeleton Guardian] to react to.
Its attack with the severed leg landed well behind him as he shot past and with the forward momentum he used the skill [Pounce] to launch himself up at the rib cage, his sword burning fiercely as it shot through the open rib cage and pierced the Core heart stone!
Wham! The [Skeleton Guardians] free fist slammed into Akira’s body sending him flying backwards once again.
Unfortunately for the [Skeleton Guardian], the fire sword that was now stuck in the core had pierced all the way through causing it to crack and then shatter into thousands of small shards.
The large body of the [Skeleton Guardian] fell to the ground and no longer moved.
Ding!
-
You have defeated the Garden Vault’s guardian!
+10 Honor!
Level up! You are now level 235!
Enter the vault to receive your reward!
Akira was unable to move for nearly a half hour as he recovered from the beating his body had received.
When he was able to stand back up he ate a blue and red candy before walking over to the large smooth stone that the [Skeleton Guardian]. With great difficulty, he pushed the stone lid off of the vault’s entrance and descended into the vault.
Mysterious red floating fires flared up above him as soon as he started walking down the steps and lit his path.
At the bottom of the vault’s steps, there was a bright golden glow obscuring his vision until he entered the vault room.
A kingdom’s worth of gold trinkets, coins, chests, and other special items was piled up on the ground into small mountains all throughout the room.
Ding!
-
Pick one item as your reward!
Akira was stumped as to what he should take. He was not lacking in money so it only took him a few minutes to slowly peruse through several of the small mountains ignoring the gold trinkets and coins.
As time continued to pass he started to notice several of the gold trinkets were starting to melt!
Seconds passed and the number of melting items continued to increase until whole piles were melting!
“So there is a time limit?” asked Akira.
He now felt even more pressure to make a choice as he was rushing from each pile to the next looking for something to take as a reward before everything melted.
As he reached the rear of the Vault he stopped in his tracks.
On the wall behind a quickly melting pile of gold trinkets was a large mirror that was slowly being revealed.
When it was fully revealed Akira saw that at the center of the mirror, there was a small piece of it that was missing…
Akira reached into his pack and pulled out the mirror piece that he had received from the mirror dungeon a while ago… and tried to place it into the empty slot.
Click! A perfect match!
Flash!
Akira was sucked into the mirror without warning!
“Damn it! I didn’t get to pick my reward!”
