Chapter 223: If
After much deliberation, they decided to enter through the hole. There was not much they could do at that point anyway, with no platform to return them and no way but forward.
Stallus sent her light into the hole, illuminating what appeared to be a room. They waited, but no monster jumped at them, so they slowly entered.
The room was big and must once have been a glorious hall, but now most of it was rotted away. The floor and the walls still stood firm, but every other thing had crumbled, even the bodies that were piled at each end of the wall.
"Great, more skeletons," Alex grunted.
They looked around, walking slowly. There were a lot of doors leading out of the hall, but the one directly in front that had been torn away seemed the most promising.
Dust covered everything in thick layers, and everything that was not metal or enchanted had rotted away. Azaroth suddenly stopped, and his eyes narrowed. He looked back at the trail he and his team had just passed to reach the door, and he paused. If everything here was covered in dust, then why was there a trail through the ground that was worn?
There was no dust from the gate to the door at the end, but there was dust on both sides. Azaroth blinked. "We are not the first to be here in years."
The others stopped to look at him in confusion, and he gestured. Stallus's eyes lit up. "People have been using the way! See the way it's clean and the floor well worn."
Catena rubbed his chin. "This is not a crypt, and it's not under the Crypt Master's control as far as I can tell. And we might not be the only ones here. So what are we going to do?"
What else? Azaroth continued, pausing briefly before he entered a hallway of gleaming metal. Just like the other time, they saw lots of rooms, each serving a different purpose, but nothing of worth was really inside.
But Azaroth warned them to remain cautious. If there were people here, then they might run into someone who would fight them and possibly want to kill them.
Before long, they reached the end of the hallway, but instead of leading into another room, they entered directly into what looked like a desert.
"What?" Alex demanded. "What's this again?"
Azaroth was just as surprised, but nothing showed on his face. He stepped into the loose sand and looked up to see three suns shining down on them with gentle light, but with three suns, there was enough heat that all the moisture in the air remained dried.
The dry wind blew into tall dunes in the distance, forming waves of its own.
"Look at this," Stallus said. She had walked further in and now turned to them, gesturing at them.
Azaroth and the others went toward her and then turned.
The door they had just passed through hung in midair. They walked toward it and around it. There was nothing behind the door; it was like a mirror hanging in the middle of nowhere.
Azaroth had never seen a portal like this before. "Interesting."
Alex's eyes turned flat. "I can't deal with anything like this again. I just want to know where we are!"
Azaroth shook his head, and his eyes furrowed slightly as something nagged at his mind. Finally, he got it, and he raised his brows. The essence in the air was thick, thicker than any crypt he had ever been to. It was like it had its own weight in the air, and if Azaroth looked closely enough, he could see it.
This was a perfect place to cultivate raw essence without getting it from monsters. Azaroth looked back at the door that was disappearing with each step they took inside this new place of dry, hot sands. The people who built this place—was it because of the essence in the air here?
They began their journey into the desert after Alex told them that no matter where they went from there, he would trace their location. Just then, Stallus stopped and blinked. "Does anyone notice that there's a lot of essence right here in the air?"
Alex and Catena paused, frowning, and then their eyes widened. "You're right! How did I not feel this? You are right, there's a lot of it just floating around. This will allow almost endless cultivation! Just find a spot to sit and cultivate!"
They understood why Alex's idea was a bad plan a moment later when the ground in front of them ripped apart, sands shifting before something erupted out of the ground in a shower of sand. Something lashed forward before the sand settled, flashing out in dull red, but it caught nothing as they dodged.
The dust settled, and they finally saw the monster. It was spider-like but with a long tail at the end, sharp tips gleaming with a red liquid that dripped and burned the sand.
The monster watched them with a head full of small black eyes.
Azaroth quickly studied the monster. It was Acolyte-rank, low like them, but its defense was strong. Every inch of its body was covered in a dull red shell.
He said, "This isn't going to be easy. Alex and I will distract it, and Catena and Stallus will find a way to pierce that body and deal deadly damage."
Alex joined him, and they inched forward. "Try to cut that tail if possible," Azaroth breathed.
The monster gave them no chance to walk toward it. The spider monster pounced, jumping forward with such speed that it reached them almost immediately. Stinger and legs came together to slash at them.
The monster was impossibly fast for its size, moving nimbly and fighting them with all its legs, stinger, and fangs. Azaroth and Alex distracted it, but most of their attacks were simply shrugged away.
But their job of distracting the monster had been done as a black, hardened earth spear blurred forward and pierced one of the monster's eyes, leaving it twitching.
But they had no time to celebrate as the ground boiled, erupted, and more of the monsters climbed out of the sand.