Right in front of Skullius was a terrifying figure.
It was eerily similar to the creature with the odachi that he had seen at the beginning when he had entered the labyrinth with Denille.
A large creature with its head hung low, its upper torso uncovered while it donned some dark, old pants on lower body was what he saw.
Half of the creature’s arm was a bunch of yellowish, dirty bones that looked to have accumulated a unreal amount of dust while the other was covered in dry flesh that looked to be millennia old!
Its head was akin to that of a mummy, hollowed eyes and the outline of a skull was visible through the thin layer of flesh that covered its face.
As it sat down, visible waves of horrid energy radiated from its body, causing the surroundings to look like they were twisting around it.
It released a burst of hot air from its mouth, and uttered incomprehensible words.
“Ah… ah… ukhufaijei….huesajipaa….Ah..Ah…”
Skullius didn’t dare approach any closer. He didn’t even dare speak out loud.
What was with facing powerful creatures at every turn?!
Where was the slow progression?!
Where was the hero’s journey?!
This monstrosity was beyond powerful!
He took a few steps back and shuddered.
‘What… the… hell?!’ Skullius thought.
He had expected to see a powerful enemy but this was ridiculous!.
With his especially flimsy level of mana discerning, all he sensed was the mash of power that threatened to explode from this thing.
What made it worse was that while he couldn’t sense the exact tangling of mana that formed the strength of this individual, he sensed the terrible powerful amount of [Evil Darkness] and [Just Light] that oozed from its body!
‘What’s going on? Why does it have such a large concentration of both elements? Is it a challenger who has both of them like me? No, that can’t be. It must be something else!’
As Skullius backtracked, he stepped on a pile of bones that cracked under his feet.
His vision shifted to the remains of the challenger he had stepped on. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁
In the remains of the challenger’s fingers was a key!
The same kind of key as his own was in its possession!
Skullius looked around with the ball of light to search the other skeletons and found some of them to be in possession of the same key!
‘Just as I thought! These guys probably found the key like I did, but under different circumstances! I guess having the two elements gives you a big advantage after all,’ Skullius couldn’t help but have an ‘I was right’ moment even in the middle of this situation.
The creature that stood before Skullius suddenly raised its head and gazed at him with its hollow eyes, a chilling sensation running through Skullius and for a moment, he felt like he had been shredded to pieces!
His mind gave him the impression that he had finally met his end for a split second but his senses told him otherwise!
The creature didn’t do anything other stare at him, but this was enough for the Discount Human to remained glued to his position and he began to pant incessantly!
A few minutes passed with Skullius stuck in this state.
He only tore himself out of it when the creature once again spoke incomprehensible words and hung its head.
‘What the hell was that?! I couldn’t even do anything for a few moments!’ Skullius thought as he took the chance when the creature was not paying attention to him to rush a few meters away from it.
It was only when he was far that he breathed out, a sigh of relief from his fake body and stumbled to a fall.
‘Am I really going to have to fight that?!’ Skullius thought. ‘Wait! Why is that creature just sitting there? Won’t it attack? Did I miss something?’ Skullius thought.
The moment he had seen the creature, his full attention had been on it and it alone.
He hadn’t checked if there was something else of note.
Was the creature guarding something?
There was a high possibility. Skullius turned to look at the remains of the many various warriors.
‘If they all wished to find this place by using the key there must be something here for sure. Maybe that thing isn’t attacking me because I haven’t shown any desire to take whatever it is that its guarding,’ Skullius assumed. ‘I should…’
Skullius took one step forward.
When he tried to move the other one, he felt stuck. It just wouldn’t move.
He tried multiple times but his body just wouldn’t heed his command.
Even though he was a distance away, the ridiculous waves of power that the creature was releasing still reached him. His legs were as if made of stone!
In this situation, there didn’t seem to be something that would make his mission a little easier.
It really felt like the endgame.
And he was on the losing side.
Would he just stand here for eternity then?
‘I’ve come this far already. There’s no way to exit this place on my own and if I don’t do something, I’ll just be doomed anyway. I should at least try to see what the thing it is guarding is, right? Come on you sockethole! Move already!’ Skullius pushed himself, a milligram of courage added to his 10000 kilogram capacity tank.
His leg finally moved, but his cosmetic body started to released a rather loud sound from his chest.
BA-DUM! BA-DUM! BA-DUM!
Skullius ignored the noise and crept forward.
It was such a pity that the previous challengers’ weapons and armour weren’t things he could use anymore but he doubted they’d be much help.
His best bet was to use the new weapons in his arsenal.
In particular the Basic Evil skills.
As Skullius moved, inching his way towards a doom inducing terror, he activated [Basic Evil Weaving] and began to test it out.
The moment it became active, the darkness in his immediate surroundings began to shift aimlessly. They coiled, uncoiled, roiled and turned, these movements being strangely vivid to Skullius.
‘This skill really makes it easier for me to control this darkness. I wonder if this creature is weak to [Evil Darkness] and [Just Light] like the others.’
Skullius doubted the thought immediately.
The reason why, was the fact that this creature had a tremendous amount of both elements visible in its body unlike Sila or Dezrael.
As Skullius moved with the light he had made before, appearing before the creature’s presence again, he shuddered once more.
However, he didn’t tear his eyes away from it.
A discount man who had nothing and everything to lose at the same time was a terrifying existence with an atrociously good amount of mental tenacity after all.
His eyes started to see other details he had missed before.
Wisps of darkness that were darker and thicker than the darkness in the surroundings rose from the creature’s body.
Additionally, tiny spots of light were visible on the skin on its head and flesh arm!
Skullius was taken aback for a moment. Did this mean that it was similar to the individuals in the hall?!
Did it have some form of skill manipulating it?
Furthermore, on top of all this, Skullius finally found what this creature was guarding.
A massive double door was behind the creature after the short flight of stairs that it sat on!
The colour of the door and the walls matched to such a scary degree, making Skullius miss it the first time, especially when his mind was occupied with panicking from the sheer difference in strength between him and his opponent.
Spiral groves were dug into the door, spinning in a disorienting way until they reached a spherical hole in the centre.
Skullius moved the light with caution towards the door, and an important detail was revealed to him when the visibility was increased.
The groves had faint residuals of both [Evil Darkness] and [Just Light] barely noticeable to his perception of the elements.
‘Does this door lead to the legacy then?!’ Skullius thought.
He took another step forward after feeling a rather faint rush of excitement in the moment, but the guardian of this door raised its head and muttered another set of incomprehensible words with a choked and cracked voice.
“Mir… asira..dekim…arlot…”
Skullius stopped as he found the creature’s attention on him, its overbearing power beginning to crush him.
His body lowered and he felt weak to the point of kneeling.
He even felt the remains of the ArchLight Generation Keeper crack under the power and slowly tried to draw back.
Something that would answer one of his questions and provide him with a sense of overwhelming powerlessness.
Something began pouring out of Skullius, the Discount Human feeling a great sense of loss.
He didn’t understood what it was exactly at first and made several guesses.
But it was none of these!
The answer was revealed by the guidance field, dealing a rather lethal mental blow to Skullius.
[You have lost a portion of ‘Evil Darkness’ to a Higher level existence. ‘Evil Darkness’ has been demoted to D rank]
[You have lost a portion of ‘Just Light’ to a Higher level existence. ‘Just Light’ has been demoted, stripped of any rank]