Chapter 282 The Caves Of Amydon (1/2)

The first few hours he spent in the tunnel, Arran encountered nothing even the least bit interesting

The tunnel wound slowly doard, ever deeper into theit Whenever this happened Arran left s the stone walls with his sword and setting Shadoards that only he could see

Yet although the tunnel was clearly n of either its creators or any others who had passed through

The rough stone walls were bare, with no marks other than the ones Arran left behind And while the air wasnone of the scents and stenches that would suggest people had passed here

Arran pressed on, however, descending further into the depths beneath the e environed his curiosity As far as he could tell, no others had passed here in centuries, and he was eager to see what secrets lay buried here

But so far, there was no sign of secrets Or anything else, for that matter

Arran illumined the ith a ht and Sense were enough to guide hihly at that To s, he would still need to rely on his eyes

Toward evening — or so Arran guessed, since there was no sky to tell hiht Arran's eye He hurried over, and when he exah diamond, embedded in the rock

Perhaps the tunnel's creators had overlooked it, or perhaps they siem But either way, Arran would not follow their example — a treasure like this, he would not leave behind

He cut the diaees, a treasure like this was rare — rare enough to be worth at least a few Essence Crystals And although Arran had no shortage of those, gemstones would certainly be easier to trade with commoners, should he need to trade

As Arran traveled deeper into the tunnel, he soon discovered that finding the dia the next few days, he encountered dozens of gems — diamonds, rubies, eh rock walls, along with large nuggets of gold and silver

The discoveries filled Arran with exciteh he carefully collected all of thenored such treasures, they er prizes

But eager though he was to find whatever treasures lay at the end of the tunnel, he did not advance carelessly If, as he suspected, this was the site of A to find it

Wary of traps and seals, Arran advanced at a slow pace, his Sense alert for any sign of danger And for several days, he continued onward like this, looting treasure where he found it while constantly watching out for traps

Yet when danger came, he still found hiht stretch of the tunnel that was little different from all the parts before it But here, Arran suddenly Sensed a hint of Essence, almost too small to notice

He stopped in his tracks, but in an instant, he realized that it wasn't the trap he had Sensed, but its triggering

There wasn't any tiht or brace himself for the attack Even as he realized what happened, a sickeningly powerful wave of Essence rushed through the tunnel, its full force s into Arran before he could even curse

The wave of Essence hit hi hi a hundred paces backward through the tunnel, then crashed into its wall and collapsed to the ground like a rag doll cast aside by an angry child

It took him several minutes to recover froain, he could feel that his body was bruised all over, as if he had just fallen off a one, burned away by the Essence And if he hadn't already shaved off his beard and hair, he had little doubt that he would have lost those, as well

Only his star remained, and he felt more than a little relief that he had stored the Matriarch's protective treasure within his void ring Faced with a raw force like this, he feared it ht not have survived

Because that hat the trap had triggered — a wave of raw force, unfocused but overwhelly powerful That Arran had survived it at all was because ed past him, further up into the tunnels behind hiic, he would have been ground to dust if the attack had actually been focused on him And if anyone without such a resistance was hit by a power like this, he doubted even dust would remain of them

But Arran had survived, and for the next hour, he sat on the cold ground, eating dragonhis body ti around and leaving the tunnels Although his injuries weren't too serious, the presence of a trap like this h hebackhireat, he would accept failure, but not before he was certain there was no way forward

When his injuries had healed, he slowlyforward as he focused his Sense to detect a sign of it

It was no use Again, he only Sensed the trap when he triggered it, and an instant later he was flung a hundred paces back again, his freshly healed body once more covered in bruises

He tried several hed deeply when he realized his Sense was simply too weak to detect the trap — or perhaps it was merely hidden too well

But either way, he could not advance without setting off the trap And so far, the source of the Essence showed no sign of weakening, either

The attacks would have been a good way to train his resistance to Essence if he hadthe point where he could force his way through the avalanche of poould take years or even decades