Chapter 160: Chapter 160 Where are all the guards?

Jay sat cross-legged as a new instrument floated down before him.

A fresh bone dagger with a dark-grey streak through it floated down before him as he received a notification.

[Success – Recipe Upgraded]

“Oh?” Jay smiled, “Well then, let’s see the new dagger.”

[5 damage] (Slashing) (Piercing)

[1 stamina damage] (Drain)

[+50% damage from back-stab attacks]

[Lifespan – Requires essence to maintain it’s form]

[Current lifespan: 20 hours].

“Stamina drain? Cool… might be more useful against living enemies, but still useful. I’ll take it.” he nodded.

Jay crafted a few more to see if any stats were different, but they were all the same, so he simply stashed them in his inventory; they would turn back to raw bone after 20 hours, and then he would just add them back to his gauntlet.

“Alright, here’s your weapon” Jay handed it to his skeleton, “give it to Blue when its lifespan gets low.”

The skeleton grabbed the dagger, looked closely at the weapon and then gripped it firmly. It seemed quite content with its new tool.

“Off you go” Jay pointed at the other four skeletons waiting by the side.

He smiled seeing it slink over to join the formation and immediately incorporate into the group of skeletons – compared to the adventurers outside the dungeon, the skeletons made teamwork seem way too simple. It was like it had been fighting with them all along.

“I definitely prefer the undead,” Jay slowly nodded, scratching his chin.

With the skeletons ready there was nothing left to do now except to move on.

“Ready to go?” He turned to Anya. She was still fiddling around with the broken immortal throne.

“Oh – yep, so we’re going to the fourth pyramid today? Since you conquered this one” Anya asked as she walked over to the group.

“You guessed it.” Jay nodded as he took out his hammer.

“Awesome. Hopefully it will be better than the third…”

“Mm, hopefully.” he nodded.

It seemed that whatever passive fear effect was no longer plaguing Anya’s mind, she was normal again and back to her usual self.

They both began walking down the ramp out the back of the pyramid and Jay thought he should probably warn Anya about what happened.

“So, I should probably tell you – you know that level 133 centipede thing? Well you see… I accidentally let a whole bunch of them loose..” Jay chuckled, scratching his head.

“You didn’t….” Anya gasped, “How are we going to deal with them?”

“Well, I did… But don’t worry, they’re around our level and the skeletons can easily deal with them, so we should be fine.” Jay shrugged with a cheeky grin.

Anya could only sigh and shake her head as they descended into the city ruins once more.

As they walked closer to the pyramid, it seemed that the weather began to change. The overcast clouds above were getting harder to see as a thick mist rolled in out of nowhere.

“A heavy fog is moving in. I can’t see anything..” Anya said, sounding a little worried.

“Don’t worry, the skeletons can see through the fog. Just try not to accidentally hit them.”

“No promises.” she shrugged, returning Jay’s cheeky grin back to him.

Distant cries, shrieks and echoes of pain filled the dungeon as they walked through the thick fog, coming from some other places in the ruined city. It was a cursed land that had somehow become more dangerous now; it was tense now, as the dihexapedes were roaming around – quite different to the predictable behaviour of the stone soldiers.

It was hard to tell how many dihexapede’s were released, but they both felt like they were walking around in a nest of them – some cries were even coming from behind them now.

There was a chance they were somehow breeding or levelling themselves up by slaying the helvetian soldiers, fighting each other over the soul stones. Perhaps they were even eating each other.

Jay was only concerned about one thing: were they lone hunters, or did they work together and hunt as packs?

If the latter was true, things could get difficult. It would be troublesome to deal with many of them rather than one powerful one.

He still had to protect Anya too, and in this fog it was even getting hard to see her as she walked only a few meters alongside the party.

Sometimes Jay would still remember the tense feeling when Sullivan ordered him to protect her. It wasn’t explicitly a death threat, but it sure felt like one.

“Anya, stay close, within reaching distance.” Jay said as he pulled out the deathwalker’s sentry.

“Sure.”

The deathwalkers sentry was a useful addition; it was another pair of eyes that would be handy – especially one that could see through fog.

*scrii~~~*

Distant cries continued to sound out, coming from somewhere deep in the fog.

Soon enough, they came across some crumbled stone soldiers. Their bodies were decimated and completely broken down into small chunks.

“Was this slain by the skeletons?” Anya asked.

“No, I don’t think so. They wouldn’t waste time breaking them down like this.”

Jay crouched down as he looked at more of the stone bodies hidden in the fog, and he soon found some dark slime-like substance on part of a stone gauntlet. Four of the fingers were chewed off already.

“Hmm, seems like they’re not only eating soul stones… this could get troublesome.” Jay squinted into the fog as he stood up, waving his shield around in case this was a trap.

Thankfully, the shield gave no response.

“What’s wrong with that?” Anya whispered.

“The normal ones eat soul stones to get stronger, but there was another type which could eat body parts to get stronger…” he whispered back.

Anya suddenly became more vigilant and didn’t say anything, only gripping her crossbow a little more tightly as she stared into the fog and listened to more of the shrieking sounds; she immediately realised the implications of this.

“We should hurry and finish this dungeon, before they get too strong.” Jay suggested.

Anya nodded, and Jay commanded the skeletons to march a little faster. They made some extra noise now, but it would be worth getting to the fourth pyramid faster. It seemed like only a matter of time before this part of the dungeon would be off-limits.

***Hey, so we reached 1127 golden tickets, that means 6 bonus chapters 🙂 Nice work everyone. I already delivered one, so there’s 5 bonus chapters left to do. I’ll get those out asap! 1 week left of my holidays, sigh.

+Sorry there were no updates over the weekend, I’ve been lazy and I needed a break.