Author note:
Hey guys! Sorry for the sudden, and very long, hiatus.
Got caught up in the holiday season and then stuff happened at work... And before I knew it, it was suddenly the start of February and I was off to America for a couple of weeks to celebrate my Birthday.
Alright, enjoy the chapter!
I'm sorry it took so long!~
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"Right, so when you're done showing off, there are still zombies to deal with," Typhoeus remarked while staring at a new group of undead closing in on their position.
"Let's push back through where we came from, make a rush for the temple, and deal with any undead that gets in our way," Merlin ordered while hopping off the monster he had just slain.
The group did as ordered, they began clearing out the zombies in their immediate area, as Merlin charged down the alleyway in the direction of where he came from.
Several quick strikes were more than enough to deal with the zombies that had wandered into the alley. each rotten husk fell lifelessly, one after the other, as Merlin charged through them.
The rest of the group caught up as Merlin pushed out from the alley and back into the street, where a fight quickly broke out between Merlin's group and the remaining zombies.
"Everyone alright?" Merlin asked once it seemed the fighting had ended for now.
"We've got a couple wounded from the big guy's appearance, but other than that, just a few scratches," Snowbunny said.
Merlin distributed the last of his healing potions, which were crucial for healing Tiny and Alvira especially.
Once the team had successfully restored as much health as they could, they began their journey towards the temple once more.
Merlin decided to lead the group this time around, rather than letting his three strikers do all the work, and as he was cutting undead down with ease, his quests were finally starting to show progress.
「You have completed the quest, "Rotten Flesh.", visit the wizard college to receive your rewards.」
Harvesting the rotten flesh that dropped as he traversed quickly completed one of the quests he acquired from the wizard college. As he continued down the path, he eventually got a lucky drop.
「You have completed the quest, "Give me a hand.", visit the wizard college to receive your rewards.」
'That's two quests down, now I just need skeleton bones, ectoplasm and vampire fangs.' Merlin thought to himself while cutting down yet another zombie, 'That shouldn't be too hard.'
The group eventually arrived near the outer walls of a large temple-like structure, the closer they got to the building, the colder the air surrounding them seemed to become.
The eerie dense fog that hung around the temple's location caused visibility to drop somewhat, but Merlin could still make out the architecture.
The group found themselves face-to-face with a stylised temple wall, made of stone and wood, with various greek runes etched into the stone. Thorned vines and moss appeared to make themselves at home in the various cracks and crevices of the wall.
The group moved towards one of the entrances within the walls.
Wispy tendrils seemed to form within the fog, they appeared to gently caress the skin of those who walked past. The group was unsure if it was just due to the moisture in the air and the sudden temperature drop, but they all found that their hair began standing on end as goosebumps formed on their arms.
Finding themselves in the courtyard, it was clear that the necrotic energies had perverted what was once a beautifully maintained garden. Flower beds that had once blossomed had wilted, and rose bushes were reduced to nothing but thorned bramble.
The remains of a statue stood in the middle of the courtyard, a statue of what Merlin could only assume was of one of the gods. This statue had the top half of its torso shattered into tiny pieces that had been scattered on the ground beneath it, leaving only the exposed bottom half of the gentleman standing.
The temple stood before the group, appearing to follow more victorian-era architecture than the standard greek-styled temples that other areas had used. Although the temple had clearly seen better days.
The stone bricks that formed the building's foundation were severely cracked, mostly due to the corrupted plant life attempting to burrow into the gaps between the bricks.
The wood elements of the building, such as the supporting and decorative beams, were showing signs of rotting, with the rot appearing more prevalent the closer the wood was to the ground.
"Well, this isn't creepy at all," Zankoku muttered as he walked towards the shattered statue, bending down to pick up a piece of stone.
"At least there aren't any undead in here, surprisingly enough," Alvira said.
"That's probably because all of them are in there, right?" Typhoeus asked
With a slightly feminine-sounding yelp, Zankoku dropped the piece of stone and stumbled back, falling onto his rear end.
"What's the matter with you?" Snowbunny asked, but before Zankoku could answer, ethereal wispy lights began appearing around the courtyard.
"Ah crap, will-o'-wisps," Merlin muttered.
"What the hell are these?" Alvira asked as the group readied their weapons.
"Will-o'-wisps, don't let them touch you," Merlin shouted, "If you don't have magic attacks or a magic weapon, you won't be able to hurt them."
A will-o'-wisp that was hiding within the shattered stone statue had moved towards Zankoku, while the latter began trying to swat it away, but his hand was phasing through the creature. The ball of light flickered before lunging itself through Zankoku's chest and appearing on the opposite side.
Although there wasn't any form of entry or exit wound, Zankoku screamed out in agony, swearing and mentioning something about feeling like his insides were being torn apart.
The rest of the party took more defensive stances and actively began dodging the balls flying towards them, some more successful in their evasion attempts than others.
A wisp began flying towards Merlin, who swiftly split the creature in half with Ghostsaw's blade, causing it to disappear shortly after.
"Wait you can kill them?" Alvira asked, "I thought you said only magic weapons could? Is that a magic weapon?"
Merlin ran towards the ball of light that was coming back to finish Zankoku off, and mere moments before it touched him again, the ball was split in half and extinguished.
"No, my weapon isn't magical. One of the ingredients is refined soul steel, which means it can cut through ethereal creatures," Merlin explained while running towards Tiny.
"That's convenient," She said while trying to stab a wisp with her new blade. Unfortunately, it seemed as though her attacks were ultimately useless, the wisp didn't seem fazed by her wild attacks, rather it barely flickered.
"Shouldn't my blade be able to damage them? It was once a holy blade, and we've also got the cleric passive." Alvira shouted.
Merlin sliced through yet another wisp, this particular one was kind enough to drop ectoplasm, which Merlin quickly pocketed before moving on.
「You have completed the quest, "Ghost Goo.", visit the wizard college to receive your rewards.」
"Your blade lost any holy power when it was corrupted, and the passive is just a damage bonus, you still need to hit them to apply it," Merlin explained.
Merlin quickly cleared the rest of the wisps, fortunately, not many of his group took any damage, and the damage that had been taken wasn't that severe.
"Ghost creatures everyone, aren't they fun?" Merlin exclaimed, "We need to work towards magic items pretty quickly, especially if we plan on fighting more ghosts."
"You said soul steel, right?" Tiny asked, "I'll check what level of mining and smithing skills you'd need for it when we get back."
"Alright, how is everyone doing?" Merlin asked, "We've got the vampires inside, do we feel prepared?"
"Hell yes!" Alvira roared. She was clearly the most excited of all of them, especially after that, most likely due to her wanting her vampire soul at long last.
Everyone else took a few seconds to catch their breath, but each nodded and prepared their weapons.
"Alright, let's go..." Merlin ordered.
