“This place is really unpleasant.”
Strabo muttered softly as he looked down at the parched and lifeless land. As a druid, he felt tormented by being in an environment where nature’s harmony was destroyed. His face, which always had a smile, was slightly hardened.
“I know, right?”
Kyle responded briefly and kicked a fist-sized stone at his feet. The stone easily crumbled, regardless of its size. The shattered pieces were swept away by the dry wind and disappeared without a sound.
Tarwen looked at the four bags of luggage hanging on the saddle of the black horse and said,
“Thank goodness we have Caliban. If we didn’t have him, this would have been a really tough march.”
The black horse, Caliban, snorted vigorously as if to tell the worried fairy not to worry.
He must really like his name.
Ruon chuckled. Thanks to Imrek, whom he met in the inner world, he learned the name of the black horse and started calling him Caliban instead of Nightmare. The horse was very happy with his name, which he found after thirty years. Maybe he was the most excited one among the group.
The group walked on the dry land and continued to move forward. Although they had to walk on two feet because the horses ran away, no one fell behind. In the first place, the heavy luggage was shared by Ruon and Caliban, and even if that wasn’t the case, everyone in the group was more used to walking on their own feet.
“I remember the old days. We also walked like this near the Cloransis Mountains.”
“You’ve been to the Cloransis Mountains? Why?”
At Tarwen’s question, Kyle scratched his neck and opened his mouth.
“Well, it’s a long story…”
During the dry march, the group entertained themselves with each other’s stories. The stories started from the recent past and gradually went back to the time when young Strabo accidentally set fire to the blacksmith’s shop.
As they killed time with various stories, they couldn’t believe that evil witches were waiting at the end of this march.
But they didn’t think about that for long.
In the afternoon of the sixth day after they left the slum. The sun hid its trace in the dull sky and the land, and a sharp spire that rose above the horizon of the land and the sky revealed its ominous appearance.
“Is that it?”
“Yeah. We finally see it. The damn cradle.”
At Igor’s question, Tarwen clenched her teeth and answered. Next to her, Kyle, who had drunk from the canteen, wiped his wet mouth with the back of his hand and muttered.
“There’s a reason why they call it the cradle of the dead, huh?”
Kee-ya-ah-ah-ah!
The stone wind that surrounded the spire screamed with a creepy shriek, and the hatred for the living was condensed, making the listeners lose their will to fight naturally. Of course, this didn’t apply to Ruon.
It’s so noisy.
Ruon looked at the spire with a blank expression and said, rubbing his ears with his index finger.
“Anyone need a break?”
Strabo raised his palm slightly.
“How about we leave Caliban and Toby here? It would be hard to fight on horseback in a limited space like a tower.”
Hee-hee-hee!
Caliban neighed harshly as if to tell him not to put him in the same line as this pony.
But Ruon, who had a similar idea to Strabo, gently stroked the black horse’s mane with pride and said,
“You’ll have plenty of places to show off.”
Caliban nodded his head lightly as if his anger had subsided by his master’s touch, and then sighed deeply as he saw the pony chewing something next to him.
Then Tarwen said,
“I need to prepare for the last time.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she recited a spell and her body sparkled like a rainbow as if it had passed through a prism. Soon, Tarwen regained her original complexion and added an explanation to the group’s eyes that looked at her blankly.
“I separated the essence of the magic circle that covered my body from the phenomenal world and tore it into several branches in multiple dimensions. Even if something happens to me, there won’t be any immediate consequences, so you can rest assured.”
Did she consider the worst-case scenario?
Ruon, who realized the meaning of her words, hesitated for a moment and then opened his mouth slowly.
“Let’s go as soon as you’re done.”
With his words as the end, the group moved their steps toward the spire without hesitation. As they walked briskly, the spire, which had been leaning on the horizon, also straightened its back and greeted the unwelcome guests.
Kee-ya-ah-ah-ah!
The shriek that grew louder and louder was accompanied by a faint curse, but it didn’t cause any direct damage to the group.
Ruon, who had a strong mental power, didn’t need to say anything, and the other three, who had received the blessing of the goddess and had once been a witch of the cradle, were also able to ignore this level of curse.
The fierce stone wind was like a wall protecting the inner wall, rotating fiercely around the spire. Kyle, who saw the stone that was thrown into it smashed without a shape, said,
“Wouldn’t we be torn to pieces if we got in there?”
“Move aside. I’ll try it.”
Tarwen stepped forward and reached out her hand.
“Del-Sauzio!”
Then, as if it were a lie, the windstorm settled down and soon an entrance large enough for one person to pass through appeared. She had a vein on her forehead as if it wasn’t easy to maintain this state.
“Hurry up and get in!”
The group quickly jumped into the entrance. Ruon, who was following behind them, noticed that the boundary of the artificial opening was shaking uneasily. He immediately stretched out his arm and grabbed the wrist of Tarwen, who was concentrating on the spell, and pulled her inside.
“Huh?”
The moment she fell into the entrance, a fierce gust of wind swallowed the boundary and filled the inside.
Strabo whistled.
“That was close, huh?”
Tarwen wiped the sweat beads on her forehead with the back of her hand and said.
“Thank you. Ruon.”
“I’m fine…”
Ruon didn’t finish his sentence before he drew his ego sword from his waist and slashed it down at the ground.
Sizzle-
The sound of boiling flesh and the sight of his feet stained red alerted the group to prepare for battle. They each uttered a word.
“What the?”
“I knew it was too quiet.”
“Merciful Mother.”
What is this?
Then Ruon felt a strange sensation in his palm through the sword that pierced the ground. He realized it was the movement of a huge creature, and at that moment,
Roar-
The soil on the ground was sucked in at an incredible speed, creating a huge cone-shaped hole. And from within, a monstrous mouth shot up towards Ruon with explosive force.
Crash-!
The monster that broke through the ground looked like a centipede that had been enlarged by hundreds of times, but the clear difference was that it was made of countless corpses.
Where there should have been long legs of an arthropod, there were adult men’s arms and legs densely lined up, and where there should have been a hard exoskeleton, there was a horrible sight of black skulls covering the body.
The most disgusting part was the head, which had a giant mouth that was half-mixed with a centipede and a human, and had dagger-like teeth that glittered, waiting for something new to bite.
And Ruon was standing between the monster’s mouth.
“Filthy bastard.”
He held the monster’s upper jaw with one hand and firmly fixed its lower jaw with his legs, preventing it from closing its mouth.
Creak-!
The monster, despite its fearsome bite force, couldn’t close its mouth, so it quickly tilted its head towards the ground and began to descend at a tremendous speed.
Bang!
“Ruon!”
A sound that shook the earth and a cloud of dust rose to the face. The group ran towards the collision point, ignoring the dust that blocked their sight, but a new monster centipede that came out of the ground blocked their way.
“Move-!”
Kyle, who had already grabbed Imrek’s hammer and the spell destroyer in both hands, roared and charged at the monster. The rest of the group followed him.
Meanwhile, Ruon, who had fallen to the ground with the monster’s head, ignored the pain that rose from his back and lifted his ego sword that was stuck in the monster’s mouth.
Splat-!
The monster’s head was split vertically from the inside, and it twisted its body and let out a scream that was close to its last breath. Ruon got out of the monster’s mouth and kicked its wriggling head roughly.
Then a huge amount of flesh and blood exploded like fireworks, staining the ground red.
He spat out the gritty saliva that was mixed with dust from his mouth, and glared at the front.
“What a rude welcome.”
Ruon’s gaze met a bent old woman, a middle-aged woman with a huge body, and a skinny girl with a skull-like face.
The oldest-looking old woman, who had only a few teeth left, smiled wickedly.
“You’re even more impressive in person. A solid skeleton, a strength that surpasses humans, and a steady gaze. The image in the crystal ball was just a drop of blood. If I had the time, I’d love to roll around with you. Don’t you agree, sisters?”
The old woman, who had a large hooked nose like a typical witch in a fairy tale, cackled evilly, and the two women behind her smiled back.
“Little sister, you have to wait your turn.”
“Or how about we let the man decide his turn? That would be fair, wouldn’t it?”
“Ah, that’s why you’re the big sister.”
What a bunch of nonsense.
Ruon frowned and threw a dagger from his chest. The dagger flew faster than an arrow and pierced the old woman’s forehead, tearing apart the soft tissue inside.
“Keh!”
The old witch’s eyes rolled back as if they were pulled by an invisible thread. She fell lifelessly, spitting out blood bubbles. The other two screamed as they saw her.
“Oh my! Little sister!”
“You bastard!”
The middle-aged woman pushed the screaming woman behind her and the girl with the skull-like face stretched out her arm.
Then a light flashed under her frail palm, and five snakes flew like rays of light and wrapped around Ruon’s limbs and neck.
“The wretch who deserves to die in filth… How dare he monopolize our sister’s love and even kill our youngest?” The girl clenched her fist tightly, and at her signal, the coiled snakes began to exert more strength into their bodies.
Hiss
“I’ve changed my mind. After tearing his limbs apart and toying with him to my heart’s content, when he begs for mercy… What?”
Her speech halted as her face contorted in shock. Luon, who was bound at the limbs, began to stride forward nonchalantly.
“Even steel crumples like paper before them, doesn’t it?”
Having reached her, Luon replied with an icy voice, “I suppose I’m tougher than that.”
With those words, Luon extended his left hand toward the fallen crone’s corpse. Accompanied by a deep hum, the returning dagger was sucked into the palm of his hand.
“Don’t get cocky—”
The girl tried to puff up her body and transform, but by then, her head was already rolling on the ground, having parted from her torso.
“Big sister!”
A corpulent woman screamed, her jowls quivering. However, it was merely a ruse, as she quickly turned her head towards Luon and opened her mouth wide.
Laughing hysterically as her opponent was engulfed in black flames pouring from her throat, the woman taunted, “Foolish boy! Got too careless, didn’t you?”
But her laughter was short-lived. A man cloaked in a red protective shield looked down at her with cold eyes.
“Gah!”
The middle-aged woman, gripped by a lid-like hand around her neck, struggled with all her might, but the more she flailed, the further her feet lifted from the ground. Overpowered and suspended in the air, she eventually succumbed to her own weight, her neck emitting a sickening crack.
Luon casually tossed the lifeless body to the ground and looked up at the towering spire.
“This isn’t even a warm-up.”
