Chapter 76: Altar (2/2)
”This is… a dungeon.” Arthur studied the portal that stood in front of him. It was a dungeon, every bit of it suggested that.
”You should stay here, Dimon.”
”No!” Dimon refused as he grabbed Arthur's sleeve. In the end, Arthur simply sighed.
”Stay behind me then.” Dimon nodded when he heard those words. And just like this, Arthur, Dimon, and the goblins entered the dungeon.
It was always a nauseating feeling when he teleported, maybe it had something with the change in space. The group found themselves in an empty corridor. It was pitch black in here and the mana was quite abundant. However, there was also a distinct metallic smell of blood.
The goblins were growing restless with the mana that has been creepily seeping from the walls, but they still advanced under Arthur's command. In the end, there were no monsters for them to fight. If you dropped a pin in this place, you'd hear the sound by the dungeon's portal.
At the end of the tunnel, space grew bigger and they stepped inside a giant hall, with a single altar in the middle. In the middle of the altar, there was a single round shape that was leaking all of that mana. It was a black egg the size of a human head. All around the egg were skeletons of monsters and humans.
”Kaaa!” The goblins were frightened at this sight and retreated. Arthur stood there as he felt his heart get crushed at the sight of the human skeletons. Small ones and large ones, there were so many.
”So, it's true, I hoped it wasn't.” Arthur let go of a sigh he didn't know he was holding. ”Why did you do it, Dimon?”
The boy looked at him with a confused look. Arthur slashed at him with his sword before he could react and managed to injure his abdomen before he retreated.
”AAAAH!”
The boy screamed as he looked at the wound in his abdomen with horror. However, Arthur didn't care.
”I should've used detection earlier to realize the truth, I'm still too inexperienced,” Arthur mumbled to himself. When Dimon looked at Arthur with confusion, the latter simply sighed again.
”I already know it was you who killed them, Dimon. If that was your real name.”
When the boy heard those words, his terror-struck expression morphed into apathy as he stood up, letting the blood gush out.
”H..o..w?”
Each letter in the word sounded so different because of the change of Dimon's voice as his form changed from a young boy to a robe-wearing man. There was still a wound on his abdomen but it was not that deep now.
”How did I know? I didn't until we arrived here. I could barely stand in front of the cave yet you were fine. Can't be this dumb, man. Although you almost fooled me, I somehow managed to make it in the end.”
”Hahaha!” The man started laughing heartily as he heard Arthur. ”It's true, I've done it so many times that I took fooling people for granted. However, is that truly all?” He grinned at Arthur as mana began to emerge from his body.
”No, there were other signs.”
”Even still, you stepped into here. Fool!” The man mocked Arthur as he readied himself to attack.
”Well, I stepped here because, as I said, managed to make it.”
”What?”
”What makes a runes master so powerful?”
”What nonsense are you talking about? Die!” The man attacked suddenly and Arthur shook his head.
”Wrong, it's because of their control of runes.” With a snap of Arthur's fingers, the man staggered and fell to the ground. He had his hands on the ground as he vomited blood all over them.