Chapter 321: Separation (2/2)

”If you don't want to fight, go home!” said Tia. ”Stop burning forest!”

The fire giants stepped back at Tia's reproach, and yet, Li felt a little uneasy. These giants, it seemed, were normal.

But the other ones. The other host of fire giants led by the remaining greatsword wielder were different.

The other greatsword giant was quite a distance away and on an elevated mound of ground, taking a viewing vantage point. His host of ten giants were positioned in a neat, semi-circular formation in front of him with such precise positioning that they almost seemed to have been placed there by someone.

Li had expected to sense fighting intent from these giants, or fear that the rest of the giants that had taken the charge were now so easily scattered, but there was nothing.

No emotion.

Instead, the greatsword giant raised its blade towards Li, and so too did the ten giants around it, all of them projecting flaming blades. Then, they turned the blades towards themselves, stabbing themselves through the hearts.

All of them collapsed down to their knees, the flames around their bodies, a sign of a fire giant's life force, flickering down rapidly.

Li was left confused, and at the same time, he started to understand.

”No-,” Li began, understanding that this was a kind of spell, a ritual akin to spells like [Life Pact] or [Ritual Sacrifice]. He had a delayed reaction because it was not a spell he was at all familiar, and that delay proved crucial.

Li charged forwards, attempting to break the semicircle ritual formation, but the moment his feet left the ground at hyperspeed, the world around him shifted, the colors and space distorting. The burning forest and all the fire giants around Li completely disappeared.

Replacing that was instead more fire. More burning. A pure and proper hellscape.

Li stood in the middle of what seemed to be a lake of lava and flame. Splashes of lava and fire rose all around him, washing over him, but they could not burn even a single stand of his hair, being as ineffectual as water.

Li shook his head to flick off droplets of lava as he took note of his surroundings.

Dark clouds of sulfur clogged the skies, and tornadoes of fire whirled in the distance. Past the lake, he could see huge dark mountains and volcanoes rise up into the skies, belching out ash and flame.

This was almost exactly similar to Musphel, the home of the fire giants in Elden World. He had been forcefully teleported.

”Tia-,” Li began with a start before realizing that Tia was there, tugging at his coat tail behind him. She was looking around with confusion in her eyes.

”Where…where we?” said Tia.

Li scooped her up in his arms in relief and she laughed in happiness at the sudden gesture.

”It looks like I am not the only one capable of forging spells,” said Li. Both Tia and Li looked around to the rising spouts of lava, hearing the distant rumble of eruptions, and feeling the ash gather at their skin.

He took in a breath of ash and heat, feeling the magical energy and sensing it similar in wavelength to that from the forest. In other words, this was still the dungeon. Another layer. The layer of the fire giants, most likely.

”We go back? Friends back there!” said Tia.

”If this had been an ordinary spell to force teleportation on us, then yes,” said Li. ”But this is not. This is…quite clever. We will have to get back on our own.”

Li pondered the nature of this spell. It thoroughly utilized Elden World game mechanics to its advantage.

Players, no matter how strong they were, were bound by certain game mechanics. One of these being that they could not simply just teleport to the end of a dungeon. Even if a level 100+ player cleared a level 10 dungeon, he would still have to go through all the layers the proper way.

There were, however, dungeon traps that could teleport party members elsewhere. In some cases, certain dungeon mobs or bosses could do the same.

These, Li were completely familiar with, and many of them were easily noticeable or had tell-tale windups. But it was completely out of the ream of Li's knowledge for a spell to exist wherein fire giants could transport others.

No, this was not a fire giant spell. Some other entity had created it, and, highly likely, fashioned it directly in preparation to use against a single powerful entity. The vast majority of transporting dungeon traps were area of effect, and so one counter to them was parties could just pile on the trap and be transported all together, thus highly incentivizing parties from sticking together.

In this case, however, the transportation spell was purely single target, and seemingly tailor made for Li, having modifiers against stronger entities and forestborn beings.

In other words, there was an entity here that knew of Li and had prepared for him.