The way the corpsefire died reminded Abel of something. When he saw corpsefire dying in the game, he would always see some newbies running towards it for the loot. Next time they knew, they got blown up by its suicide attack.
With that in mind, Abel knew that he had to cover himself with something. After hiding behind a rock somewhere, the falling pieces of the corpsefire splattered across the cavern near him. When the remaining hit the wall, small holes were punched out, and a very bad stench was starting to spread. He could even see some blue frosts that were on the rocks.
“That’s a little too much, isn’t it?” Abel sighed as he said to himself. That was one explosion, but it was also a combination of a variety of attacks. If he wasn’t fast enough, he would’ve had a lot of trouble defending against that.
Suddenly, a dark shadow came and flew straight into the Horadric Cube. Abel wasn’t surprised. He knew it was the corpsefire’s soul. It was finally defeated.
He didn’t expect what’s coming next, though. After the dark shadow was absorbed, a golden essence followed and entered the Horadric Cube as well. That’s really weird. If the dark stuff was the corpsefire’s soul, just what could this golden stuff be?
Abel looked into his Horadric Cube with his power of the Will. From its inside, he could see two new potions. One of them was a dark gold “soul potion,” which, for some reason, had the corpsefire’s soul on the surface of the bottle. The other bottle was a golden potion, which had a text to it that read “ability potion.” It was described as an ability that could be obtained randomly from a corpsefire. “Just for summoned beings,” it also said in the text.
For the “ability potion:”
The corpsefire had three abilities: spectral hit, immunity to freezing effect, and freezing enhancement. To be honest, any of them was pretty neat to Abel.
But “only for summoned beings?” Just what could that mean? Abel could only summon Rib Bone right now, and to be fair, he didn’t have a lot of confidence in trying to buff it. Since it was so weak against the hell creatures, it might be a waste to strengthen it with potions.
That being said, Rib Bone was pretty brave when it tried to block that spectral hit for Abel. After contemplating for a bit, Abel decided to give it the ability potion at the end.
One out of three. If Abel fed Rib Bone the ability potion right, it would obtain one out of three new abilities. Obviously, he wasn’t sure if he should do it now. He wasn’t very lucky today. Both Rib Bone and he almost got annihilated back there. Based on his experiences just then, maybe it’s a good idea if he waited for a few days.
Despite all that struggle in his mind, Abel took out Rib Bone from its dimension. It was having a hard time standing on its two legs, so it just fell flat right in front of Abel.
Abel felt sorry for it. It was in a state because of him, after all. Slowly and carefully, he took the ability to potion and tried to feed it. He wasn’t sure where he should pour it, though. Rib Bone was a skeleton, so it’s not like it had a mouth that could consume things.
Rib Bone seemed to know what’s going on, however. When Abel was approaching it with the ability potion, its body started closing in on his hand. It must’ve known how important this potion was. Abel wasn’t sure what to do, so he just let it sort it out itself.
When Abel passed the ability potion Rib Bone’s hand (its only hand), it just smashed the entire bottle on its own skull. The cap wasn’t even opened, and the liquid just poured down and into its entire body.
Immediately, the bones that were broken were starting to repair themselves. Even the missing arm was starting to shape itself back together.
The light that was deep inside the Den of Evil was starting to shine brighter. Eventually, everything that was in the cavern was covered in white light. Everything was starting to go bright, and all the frost and rotting smell were vanishing when they were being purified by this strange phenomenon.
Slowly but steadily, the white light started gathering up. Eventually, it became this ball of light that was floating in midair.
Abel was speechless to see this. The only thing he was thinking was to protect Rib Bone. If Rib Bone got in contact with this light, it would probably be destroyed on the spot.
Just when Abel was about to take a few steps forward, the white ball started flying straight at him. It was so fast that he didn’t even have the time to think about dodging it.
A message appeared when the ball went inside: “Congratulations, challenger. You are the only living creature inside the Den of Evil. As a reward for your efforts, you will be granted some mana points.”
Both heaven and hell have given up on this world, but from this message, Abel could see that the existing rules were still intact. He was seen as a regular challenger, at least.
After receiving the message, Abel tried to find the light ball that was inside his mind. When he touched it with his power of the Will, he realized that it was a tool to improve the rank of his spells. It’d be a waste if he used it now, so he decided to wait until he was in a higher rank.
If there was a reward like this in the Den of Evil, there might be some other rewards that could be found in the mission map. Abel wasn’t sure what they were, but he knew he was going to try looking for them.
Abel took another look at Rib Bone. It had been ten something minutes after it took the ability potion. Not only were its injuries completely recovered, but it also looked a lot stronger now. Since he wasn’t sure what ability it got, he decided to command it with his power of the Will.
After the command was sent, a frozen armor appeared around Rib Bone. The ground around it was layered with frost. Abel was very close to it, but since summoned beings couldn’t attack their master, he didn’t take any damage from this frost.
So this was what the freezing enhancement ability could do. Abel was really happy now. The freezing enhancement was one of the four strengthening techniques amongst hell creatures, which were what separated the regular hell creatures from the elite ones.
The freezing enhancement could slow down a horde of enemies. The fire enhancement could kill anything in one shot. The poison enhancement could continuously reduce its target’s health point. Lastly, lightning enhancement could attack multiple enemies with a lightning arc.
Now that Rib Bone possessed one of these abilities, it was now one of the top elite summoned beings. Abel decided to give it the shield and the ice magic sword. With the means to attack and defend, it could now do a lot of fighting for him.
Now that the Den of Evil had been cleared, Abel took some time to walk out and head towards the Blood Moor. For the next three days, after sweeping through countless troops of hell creatures, he finally found himself another human infrastructure.
It was a wall that was made with chiseled stones. In the middle, there was a pathway that was wide enough for two chariots. This must be the end of Blood Moor because of how simple and practical its design was, it was still standing after so many years.
When Abel entered through the pathway, something caught his attention. It was a dead body that was half-buried in the ground. Despite being in a half-fossilized state, he could tell that it belonged to a female human. Strangely, the hand that was not buried was grabbing a bow.
“Flavie!” Abel called out as soon as he realized. Flavie was a rogue bowwoman. She used to do patrols between Blood Moor and the Cold Plains. Even in her death, she refused to let go of her signature weapon.
Abel said as he gave a deep bow, “O Flavie, the brave rogue archer, your loyalty has won my utmost respect. May your soul have the eternal rest that it deserves right here.”
As though influenced by Abel’s words, Flavie’s body started eroding into a part of the earth. It’s almost like her body became one with the land that she once protected.