The dense jungle air was humid and muggy, causing my clothes to stick to my skin as sweat poured down my face and neck. I wore only brown pants, boots, a white shirt, and a leather chestplate, but I still felt like I was dying. I wasn’t sure how Erica and her four companions were able to remain so calm. They were decked out in full battle regalia.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” asked one of them. She was a thin girl who looked quite young, but her bearing made her feel many times older than her actual age represented. I couldn’t remember her name. I thought it might be… Karen… or something like that.
“Yes,” Kari, who was in the lead, said as she thrust out her ranseur. The tip glowed with bright golden Spiritual Power as she impaled a Boa Snake Demon Beast with it. The creature wriggled on the tip of her blade. It wasn’t very big, maybe one meter or so, and it died quickly. “According to the tracks I found, those cultists took the people this way.”
“But this jungle is so large,” the girl argued. “How do you know we’re heading the right way?”
I sensed movement on my left, spun around, and slammed my foot into the jaw of a Black Panther Demon Beast. Lightning surged from my foot and fried the creature’s brain. It was dead before it struck the jungle floor.
These C-Rank Demon Beasts were quite weak, but there were so many of them. We had already been beset upon by at least a dozen in the last hour.
“Take a look ahead of us,” Kari directed the girl’s attention to something that could just be seen between the trees. It was a massive beast with no legs, covered in scales, and coated in a thick layer of blood. Big enough that it would have taken me standing on someone else’s shoulder to climb up, it wasn’t something that just anyone could defeat.
“That’s… a Giant Anaconda!” Karen exclaimed in shock. “Those are A-Rank Demon Beasts! And this one is so big…”
“It is also quite dead,” I said. “That thing is easily twenty meters long, and its hide is said to be almost as hard as Dragon scales, but someone sliced it clean open. That isn’t something a normal person could do.”
Kari nodded. “Those cultists and the villagers are the only people present on this peninsula. I doubt the villagers have anyone powerful enough to do this, so it must be the cultists. We’re on the right track.”
“I apologize for doubting you,” Karen muttered.
“It’s fine.” Kari smiled to show she wasn’t bothered by the somewhat younger girl. “Let’s just keep moving.
We continued traveling and eventually discovered the ruins, which were located near the foot of a mountain. These ruins were marked by a stone archway that had two statues on either side acting as guardians. The statues differed from the ones we had seen before. These ones featured not a pointy-eared man or a short-looking humanoid, but beings who looked almost human.
Both statues featured the same man—an old man wearing an eye-patch and holding an elegant spear in his right hand. His thick beard had cracks running through it, showing how time and the weather had eroded the stone. I think the fact that both statues still stood was a testament to their durability.
Behind the archway was a building made of stone. It looked old. The stones had cracks running through them, but the columns being used to support the roof remained sturdy even after several centuries. The roof of these ruins looked like a layered cake with a pointed tip. On either side of the building were a pair of waterfalls that flowed into two small streams.
“These are the ruins?” Erica murmured with a soft frown. “They do not look like much.”
“This is just the entrance,” Kari said as she walked up to the door and studied it. “My bet is the actual ruins are built inside of the mountain. Most ruins seem to either travel underground or they are built into something larger.”
“I see,” Erica said.
“What do you think?” I asked Kari as she frowned.
“It looks like this entrance was originally sealed shut.” She ran her hand along the edge. I could see there was something wedged inside. “These cultists managed to unseal it, which means they probably have someone with them who is knowledgeable about runes. There’s some Spiritual Residue on the entrance, though it doesn’t feel human... actually, it doesn’t even feel like Spiritual Power at all. How odd.”
“I can’t see those monsters knowing how runes work,” I muttered.
Kari gave me a smile tinged with uncertainty. “Me neither. That’s what makes this so worrisome.”
“Excuse me,” one of the other Valkyries said. She was a redhead with blue eyes and an intense demeanor. I hadn’t seen her smile once since we met. “What does any of this have to do with our mission? We need to head down and rescue those villagers.”
“The fact that someone among the cultist’s ranks knows about runes is a serious issue,” I said to the woman. “Some of these ruins have traps that can be activated or deactivated with runes. It’s very likely we’ll have to deal with a number of traps. Knowing that means we can prepare for them.”
“You really should trust these two more,” Erica told her companions. “I wouldn’t have hired them if I didn’t have confidence in their abilities.”
“My apologies,” the woman muttered with a frown.
“Please forgive Janet.” Erica gave us an apologetic smile. “She is anxious to rescue those villagers. The longer we wait, the less likely it is they are alive.”
“You are right, of course.” Kari sighed as she stared at the entrance—which she clearly wished to study longer—with intense desire. “Let’s go. The villagers come first.”
We journeyed into the ruins, which grew dark after we had traveled for about fifteen meters. Kari created a light sphere to illuminate our path. The sound of our feet tapping against the stone floor echoed down the hallway we were in. While Kari watched the floor, I watched the walls and ceiling for any potential traps. The Battling Valkyries traveled behind us.
“This place is a little creepy,” Karen muttered.
“It’s not creepy,” Kari pouted. “It’s magnificent and ancient. Just look at this architecture. Nothing in our society has the ability to withstand the test of time like these ruins do.”
“Hmph!” Karen huffed.
I smiled. “Is this your first time visiting ancient ruins?”
“Yes,” the girl answered.
I would have said more, but at that moment, Kari and I spotted something and forced everyone to stop. We stared at the walls with a hard look. Erica and her group stared at us, then at the wall, but it was clear from their confused expressions that they didn’t see anything.
“What is it?” asked Erica.
“A trap,” I said as Kari walked up to the wall. She extended a single index finger and moved it in a figure eight, causing it to glow white as she dragged it across the wall, revealing a runic pattern that lit up the moment she touched it. I’d seen enough rune arrays to know what this one was. A trap rune array.
Not even a second after she touched the runes did a strange Woosh! Woosh! Woosh! sound echo through the tunnel. The sound was followed by something cracking apart. I followed the noises to their source and discovered several arrows embedded into the wall. The arrows were quite thick. The fact that they had been able to penetrate the wall also spoke of how powerful they were.
“So that’s the trap?” Erica muttered. “Nice job spotting it.”
“That was only the first trap.” Kari leaned down and placed a hand on a stone panel on the floor that was a little elevated compared to the rest. “This is another trap right here. The moment someone steps on this tile, it will activate the next trap. I suspect either the walls or ceiling will try to squash us, or a trapdoor will open beneath our feet and drop us into a spike-filled pit.” The Battling Valkyries gulped, but Kari ignored them as she stood back up. “Come on.”
With Kari and I leading the way, we managed to avoid the traps that hadn’t been activated. Our journey led us deeper into the mountain. It didn’t look like there
were any stairs in these ruins, just a bunch of side passages that led to more dead ends, which were also traps. There were also a number of rooms. Most of the rooms were empty save for the many coffins lying around, but a few looked like they’d been the sight of a large battle. These rooms often featured destroyed golems and several cloaked corpses.
“At least now we know the cultists really are here,” Erica murmured as she stared at one of the corpses. Its cloak had been torn to shreds, which meant she could see the ugly creature it had hidden. It was the same pale-faced, red-eyed, pointy-eared creature from before. “Though I can’t for the life of me tell what this thing is. It doesn’t look like a Demon Beast, but it is very far from being human. It’s not one of the other races known to us either.”
“We won’t get any answers by standing here. Let’s keep moving,” I suggested.
We left the room and continued on, traveling through hallways, avoiding traps, and running into several more corpses. A few were obviously those cultists, but there were also villagers mixed among them. It seemed some of the villagers had died and been left to rot.
“These cultists are disgusting.” Karen wrinkled her nose and gritted her teeth.
“Aye,” Erica agreed.
Our journey eventually took us to a large room that was two stories. However, the different floors were more like walkways than actual floors. Even the floor that we were on was a walkway hovering above a deep chasm. There was a steep drop on either side of us. When I peered down to see how deep it was, all I could see was an unfathomable darkness.
At the end of this walkway was a door, which was larger than anything we’d seen so far. It looked like a giant slab of stone that had been carved into the shape of a door, then decorated with hieroglyphs that depicted the same human-like figure from the statues at the entrance. In this, it looked like he was leading the charge against creatures that resembled humans but had odd protrusions like spikes jutting from their shoulders, elbows, knees, and heads. With spear in hand and a valiant look on his face, he seemed very much like a hero from ancient myth.
Kari stood in front of the massive door and placed her hand against it. I stood behind her alongside the four members of the Battling Valkyries. Finally, Kari turned around and searched the room.
“There’s no way this thing can be pushed open,” she declared. “This type of door needs a kind of leverage system to account for its massive weight, which is normally activated by applying pressure to several platforms.” She looked around the room, and then looked up. “There. There. There. And there. If four people can stand in those spots, the door should open.”
The areas that Kari had pointed out looked like parts of the walkway several dozen meters above us at first glance. It was only after I studied them further that I realized these sections, which just sort of stopped as though the walkway had crumbled away, were actually being held aloft by sturdy-looking chains. Furthermore, I finally noticed that the walkways on the first and second floor vaguely resembled the shape of an E—if an E had an extra “L” at the bottom.
“It doesn’t look like we can climb up from here,” I said, glancing to our left and pointing. “But there is a passage over there, which I bet leads to the second floor.”
“Then let’s go,” Erica said. “Karen, I want you to remain here with Kari. Myself, Janet, Luka, and Eryk will head up there.”
“Ma’am.” Karen saluted.
“Be careful,” Kari added.
“We will,” I said before leading the three women off.
We walked down the hallway, on the lookout for traps, of which there were several. All of them were rune-based traps that activated after you passed them. I wasn’t as talented with runes as Kari, who had studied them far more extensively than me, but I knew enough to deactivate them using Rune Writing. It didn’t take more than half an hour to find a staircase that led to the second floor. After which, we wandered down another hall that led to the room where Kari and Karen were waiting by the large door.
“I guess these platforms are what we need to stand on,” Erica said as she glanced at one of the platforms, which only appeared like part of the walkway at first glance. There were a pair of chains coming down from the ceiling, forming a V-shape as they attached to either side of the platform.
“Looks like it,” I said. “You take the first one, I’ll take the second, and Janet and Luka can take the third and fourth platforms.”
Everyone agreed and we walked over to our respective platforms. As I walked, I was completely aware of how this walkway was not only old, but also of how there didn’t seem to be anything holding it up. I wasn’t sure how this architecture worked, but it seemed to stand in defiance of several natural laws. I did notice the rune arrays written along the surface and wondered if maybe they were somehow responsible for this seeming defiance of gravity.
I walked onto the platform at the same time that Erica, Janet, and Luka walked onto theirs. A loud cranking sound like metal chains being unraveled echoed around the room. The platform shifted beneath my feet. Then it began descending. The cranking noise increased in volume as I looked at it. These chains were attached to another chain, which was extending from a hole in the ceiling.
The platforms lowered to the first floor. When they did, a loud noise like rumbling thunder resounded throughout the chamber. All of us turned toward the door, which had begun shaking as it slowly but surely opened. Little by little, the chamber on the other side was revealed. I couldn’t see much, but from what I could see, I could already tell that this chamber was even bigger than the one we were in.
“Let’s go,” Erica said, about to step off.
“Wait!” Kari shouted, causing everyone to stop. “If you four step off now, I think the door will close. You’ll need to run the moment you four get off those platforms, so be ready.”
I glanced at Erica, who set her foot back on the platform and looked at me. She nodded. Then I looked at Janet and Luka, who both nodded back to me as well.
The four of us took a deep breath. I counted down to three, and then we rushed off our respective platforms.
Just like Kari had said, the moment we stepped off the platforms, they began ascending back up, and the large doorway began closing. Karen and Kari were already on the other side, but the four of us had to rush across the walkway and burst through before it closed. Fortunately, the Battling Valkyries were really fast for a group of women decked in full-body armor. We made it just before the door shut completely.
“Well, we made it,” I said.
“We did.” Erica nodded, her lips curving into a frown. “Though now I am wondering how we’re going to get out of here.”
“There’s probably a mechanism to open the door from this side.” Kari shrugged. “Anyway, let’s keep going.”
We found ourselves at the foot of a large staircase, which explained why I couldn’t see anything when the door opened. Our group traveled down the stairs. Below us was a gigantic room that seemed to span for at least a couple hundred meters. Like a good portion of these ruins, this place was marked by numerous archways and columns.
As we walked past the columns and archways, we finally came to the end. It wasn’t a true end. What we found was a steep drop into a steaming pit of boiling water. Steam rose from the surface. I couldn’t tell how deep or hot it was, but I was fairly positive that anyone who touched it would be scalded.
Several meters away from us was an island. It was shaped like a circle, there was an elevated platform with runes carved into it, and on that platform were the villagers who’d been kidnapped. They weren’t alone. Several other figures were with them. These figures wore the black cloaks I’d grown familiar with. They were surrounding the terrified villagers, all of whom were tied up and screaming into their gags.
Among those cloaked figures was one person who wasn’t wearing a cloak. He was taller than the others. Dull armor the color of rust covered every inch of his body. His skin was a pale green, and not the vibrant emeral
d kind either, but puke-colored green. He had no hair on his head, nor did he have any eyebrows. His thick brow ridges and square jaw were covered in wrinkles and scars, and his wide nostrils with no nose made me wonder if it hadn’t been burnt off. As the four of us stood there in shock, he raised his hands.
“Begin the ritual,” he said in a deep voice.
As one, the cloaked individuals knelt on the ground and pressed their hands onto the elevated platform. The runes lit up. Muffled screams erupted seconds later from all of the villagers, who fell to the floor and began writhing as though they were experiencing excruciating pain.
“Stop what you are doing right now and release those villagers!” Erica demanded.
The man—creature—turned his head and stared at her. His eyes were the color of blood and surrounded by darkness. He snorted.
“Little girl, I do not know how you found this place, but do not interfere in my business!”
His words caused Erica to gnash her teeth, but he ignored her and made another hand signal. As if that was a cue of some kind, several cloaked figures suddenly leapt down from where they’d hidden themselves on the archways and attacked us with jagged-looking swords covered in rust.
“Damn it!” Erica cursed as she unsheathed her claymore and performed a graceful pirouette. Fire gushed from her blade like a torrent and overtook several of the cloaked figures, igniting them. The humanoid fireballs shrieked as they were lit ablaze. Several ran and fell into the boiling water below, which caused them to suffer terribly before they died from being boiled alive.
I did not have a sword on me. I hadn’t found a weapon that really suited me yet. However, I was quite good with my hands and Spiritual Powers.
Using the Flash Step, I appeared next to one of the cloaked figures and slammed my lightning-encased fist into their hooded face. An explosion of pale electricity burst from my fist and fried the creature’s brains. As the smoking carcass landed on the ground, my left leg ignited with electricity that I launched in a wide arc by kicking the air. Several of the cloaked figures were struck and sent flying. Their bodies hit the ground as they jerked around like they were having seizures. I then spread the fingers of my left hand wide. Several beams of lightning shot out and penetrated each of the spasming figures, putting them out of their misery.
WIEDERGEBURT: Legend of the Reincarnated Warrior: Volume 4 Page 9