Chapter 1144 (1/2)

Twenty-six hours later, Rejt spat out a heavy mouthful of blood and heaved himself out of the broken stone wall. “So… this is why no scouts returned from beyond the 30th floor.”

Lazareth Armgrast grimaced and pulled a thick obsidian spike out of his side. Then he did his best to use his wide hand to stem the gush of blood out of the wound. “Well, we survived the first strike of this fucker. The rest is downhill from here, right?”

“You fool,” Wendy hissed. Although she had stayed toward the back as they encountered the sinister monster in the long tunnel of the 31st floor, she now hurried forward and pressed her hands to Lazareth’s wound. After a few seconds, a warm light from her fingers began to knit together his corroded flesh. “Don’t just rip it out!”

“I don’t think we have the time for me to leave it in,” Lazareth grunted as he turned to face the towering specter that barred their path.

It was almost four meters tall, its head brushing against the roof of the spacious stone tunnel. Its body seemed to be made of an interlocking series of dark grey pieces of metal, a strange shifting motion of body parts that looked less like the clockwork of machinery and more like a surreal approximation of that ordered machinery. It was shaped like a humanoid, with extremely thin arms and legs and heavy armor around its torso.

And at the thing's core was a dense ball of black energy that seemed to be the solidified version of miasma. As the three figures watched, thin tendrils of blue stretched out from that core and manipulated the piecemeal body to pull another one of its obsidian spikes from its heavy shoulder pauldrons.

“And also…” Rejt grimaced and glanced upward. Although it was faint, he could already feel a steady stirring amongst the miasma in this place. Even as they struggled against this foe here, something terrible was coming. There had been a change in the Hell Labyrinth. Miasma was beginning to sluggishly roll outward.

Such a change would not bode well for the forces trying to explore this place.

And of course, emphasizing their need to proceed, the crimson footsteps left by Azriel led straight forward through this monster, as though she hadn’t even needed to alter her gait in order to bypass it.

The lines around Rejt’s eyes tightened. Which seems impossible, considering its strength. Which makes me wonder… was this guardian here when Azriel went forward? Based on the timeline, she likely came while the Hell Labyrinth was still inert. And if she is the one that reached the core and activated it…

“Get back, it’s coming,” Lazareth growled as he used his long and muscular limb to physically shove Wendy backward. Although the woman hissed in ire, no sooner had she be forced back than the guardian surged forward with an obsidian spike in each of its hands.

It didn’t appear to use any Skills, but that just meant that it was so impossibly fast that it made their Skills inadequate. Even with his Level 112 Elusive Crimson Steps, Rejt barely had time to roll to the side as a hand holding an obsidian spike cut downward toward his skull like a woodsman’s ax.

As he twisted away, he raised his arm and smashed his palm forward toward the guardian’s waist. Wind quickly gathered around his hand and empowered the blow. But the guardian shifted its stance slightly at the last moment so the blow that should have smashed against its thin limbed legs hit against the heavy armor of its torso. Just as it had during their prior exchange, the guardian’s leg flitted outward to strike Rejt in retaliation.

Unlike the previous time where Rejt had assumed that the leg would be relatively weak, Rejt forced his body into one more roll to the side to avoid it. Losing a chunk of Health due to his foolish assumption was a mistake that he only planned on making once.

Grimacing, Rejt recovered his footing and gathered the sharp-edged wind that existed even here tunnel. His will sharpened and steadied the air currents around him to strike.

But Lazareth was slightly faster than he was, taking advantage of the opening that Rejt had created.

“Primal Smash!” Lazareth roared, not even aiming for the guardian’s thin limbs and instead just aiming to impact that vulnerable seeming core that it held in its chest. Then the guardian’s hands blurred into motion and brought all of their plans to nothing.

It was only due to his Blessing of the Vast Wind that Rejt was able to track the movements as the guardian used only the strength and elasticity of its hands in order to shoot the two obsidian spikes toward them. And even with that warning, the obsidian spike cut a half circle out of the edge of Rejt’s stony thigh.

Lazareth Armgrast took his spike through the left side of his chest. It exited out of his back with a clean spray of blood.

Still, those two strikes from the guardian gave Rejt the time he needed to gather the wind he needed to himself. And with that wind, he cut.

The metallic guardian released a jarring chime as it staggered backward with a huge gash cut out of its inky black core. The metal pieces around it spun listlessly. Yet Rejt gritted his teeth when it was able to steady its stance and the other parts of the core began to flow around it and heal the wound he had cut into the heart of the bastard.