Chapter 173: Bone Pillar (1/2)

The interior of the Door of the Dead was almost the same as the outside; both mazes. Exactly like the Prison of the Dead, its hallways were 15 meters tall and 15 meters wide. In short, both of them felt the same to me.

At least it was so if you ignored the slight chilliness in here…and also the darker walls on the side.

Truthfully, the atmosphere within the Door felt oppressive to me though it might just be due to the overwhelming shade of black of around me. Upon entering the Door of the Dead, there was only one path laid open to us so we naturally took it.

For the next ten minutes or so, we didn’t encounter any enemies along the way as if this wasn’t the right way at all. Even so, we pushed onwards despite some lingering doubts. It was only at 30 minutes mark that something finally changed —we came upon a fork in the road.

On the wall in front of the fork, I noticed a wall of strange text that would have looked like ghost scrawlings had it not been for the fact that I recognized the some of the languages. In actuality, the wall consisted of all the languages used by the various races in the Prison of the Dead.

Because of the sheer amount of races, there was truly a wide variety of letters written in blood on the wall and just looking at them made my eyes swim. There was even a bunch of letters that looked like tiny crow’s feet mixed into the wall of text. Apparently, these letters belonged to the Abbadon Hellcats. However, because they were a rather uncommon race, I didn’t manage to encounter them at all.

Of all the languages scrawled on the wall, the devil letters were the easiest to spot because they were placed in the most conspicuous location.

Scrawled on the wall were the words [Solo] and [Team] for each of the paths. Both paths were different from each other in a number of ways but the most notable was that the [Solo] path was filled with an ominous black fog.

In a sense, the appearance of these two methods of advancement made sense. After all, there were two known ways of leaving the Door of the Dead, one was leaving by yourself when you reached four-stars and the other was barging into the Door of the Dead with a team.

Just to be thorough however, I had a three-star Abaddon Rodent proceed down the [Solo] path to test what would happen. Naturally, the poor rat that was chosen wasn’t the least bit enthusiastic about this idea. Paws shaking, it warily stepped onto the [Solo] path and to its delight…it was repelled. That’s right, that black fog actually blocked the rat from entering.

‘Did that mean that only the four-stars were able to proceed down that path? Either way, I can’t think of any other reason it would be rejected.’

“Hey, what are you all doing! Get back here!”

Just as I was mulling over the conditions for entry, Weslin yelled from behind me. Turning around to face the solo path, I found that three of the four-star rodents were actually trying to run into the solo path without my permission.

In the first place, they were positioned rather close to the solo path so the moment they sprinted for the path, no one was able to catch them in time. Most likely they felt that this was the one chance they had at freedom so they decided to ignore Weslin’s yelling and continue sprinting forward.

Right as those words left her mouth, the first four-star rodent caught up with that three-star lab rat and forcefully knocked it aside as it selfishly rushed into the path. The moment it stepped into the black fog however, it instantly vanished.

“Ah…” Almost at the same time it vanished, the sound of its panicked screams echoed down the bony hallways as if something had happened to it right at that instant. And yet, merely half a second later, that screaming stopped.

Next came the second ratman lieutenant. Just like the rodent before it, it rushed into the black fog after which we all heard a scream echo from within that only lasted for half a second. It was as if something had forcefully sealed its throat.

Just as the third lieutenant was about to step into the black fog as well, Weslin finally caught up to the deserter and with a vicious smack, sent the ratman who still had a delighted look on its face flying.

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“Damned rats, can’t you all be more obedient like the dogmen!?” Still annoyed, Weslin violently kicked the giant rodent who was just about to climb to its feet and knocked it down once more. Another punch and kick later, she still had that pissed off look on her face.

Turning towards Habona, she seemed to have a slightly wronged look on her face. Knowing her, she probably wanted to perform well in front of Habona but things ended up backfiring instead. Because she let her guard down for one moment, we ended up allowing two four-star rodents to escape.

However, Habona didn’t seem to pay any heed to her at all and merely stood quietly by my side with a cold expressionless look on her face.

Those two rodents who rushed into the black fog just now, did they scream because they discovered something shocking? Also, the fact that their screams only lasted half a second was suspicious as well.