C9 Heretic

Even if Carrion Ants were social magical creatures, it was unthinkable for tens of thousands to swarm at once. Initially, Macleay had dismissed it as bad luck, but upon seeing Ralph, how could he not realize that this was all his doing?

"Who is he?" Egerton quietly asked Ngoh.

"We're not sure, but he seems to be an enemy of the Adventure Team, doesn't he?" Ngoh responded in a hushed tone.

"It looks like the Sunstriders have indeed recruited some impressive new members. A Star with the Holy Light trait and a kid with such keen observation and judgment skills—I must admit, I'm quite envious," Ralph said with a chilling grin.

He was cloaked in a long black robe, shrouded in a thin mist that made it impossible to discern his features.

"What's it to you?" Macleay asked, striding to the front of the group, his grip tightening on the golden axe.

"If I engage him in battle, run to the back immediately. Do not split up!"

"Deputy Captain, we should stay and help you. Even if we're not much use, Verl and Egerton could still be of some assistance!" Bran interjected.

"It's pointless. He's a Class 5 Mist Reaper. You won't be able to follow our fight and would only get in the way. Go now, and Egerton, take care of the four of them!" Macleay instructed without looking back.

Egerton fully understood the veiled warning in his words. If these people could lay a Carrion Ant trap and even strike first, they might have other measures to thwart their escape.

Glancing back at the darkened tunnel, Egerton felt as if unseen eyes were watching them.

"Move out!" As the silent fog crept before them, Macleay's golden axe burst into countless beams of light, weaving mysterious patterns in the air that converged from all directions, forming a unique realm that instantly scattered the thick fog. It was the hallmark skill of an exorcist, the Exorcism Circle.

"A few months since our last encounter, I'm curious to see if you've improved your mastery of the exorcism circle," Ralph said, unconcerned with the group's escape. With a grand gesture, he summoned the fog to shroud the space once more, causing Macleay to brace himself.

He wasn't cowed by Ralph's techniques; rather, it was the opponent's unnerving composure that unsettled him. If Macleay had previously harbored suspicions that Ralph had a trap in store for the five of them, now he was utterly convinced.

"Watch out!" Egerton shouted as he ran, catching a glimpse of a pale bone claw reaching out from a dark corner. Ahead in the tunnel, a vivid blue venomous snake lay coiled, capturing the full attention of Ngoh and the others.

However, he had overestimated the rookies' ability to react on the fly. When the Level D skeleton warrior burst from around the corner, neither Ngoh and Hankamer, who were already engaging the Level D blue venomous snake, nor Bran, who was in the midst of casting a spell, could muster any response. Helplessly, they watched as Verl was seized by the ghastly bone claw.

"Ah!" A blood-curdling scream pierced the air, leaving Egerton white-faced and fighting the urge to unleash a stream of curses.

"Are you okay?" Verl asked, her own face ashen as she looked at Egerton's nearly severed left hand.

"Don't just stand there! Hankamer, take on that blue venomous snake. Ngoh, Bran, stay alert—there's a Howlerfiend nearby. And you, could you do something other than talk? How about some Healing Magic?" Egerton barked out the commands at breakneck speed. With a fierce shake of his long blade, he parried the skeleton warrior's bone claw, spun around, and plunged his sword into the crevices of the creature's skull, cleaving its head in two. The skeleton crumbled into dust.

"Not that hand, this one!" Egerton snapped, nearly ready to throw a punch as Verl moved to cast light magic on the wrong hand. He extended his right hand, which was teetering on the brink of collapse.

Though his left hand appeared gravely injured after blocking a claw for Verl, Egerton had managed to avoid any critical damage in the moment of impact—it was merely a superficial wound that could be easily treated with a Healing Potion. However, his right hand, which had been used to deflect the skeleton warrior and deliver a fatal blow, was pushed to its limits. The meridians in his entire arm were shattered, rendering the Healing Potion ineffective.

Without the aid of Healing Magic, Egerton would have become a one-armed hero within minutes.

"Right, I'm so sorry!" Verl gasped, taken aback by Egerton's swollen, nearly bursting right arm. Realizing that Egerton had been injured trying to save her, and that she had nearly targeted the wrong person for healing, she was overwhelmed with guilt.

"It's my own fault for not wearing armor on my left arm," Egerton remarked, glancing at the now-stabilized battle.

Three Level D magical creatures, especially ones that appeared by design, spelled certain doom for a fledgling Adventure Team. Egerton had every reason to believe that their adversaries had exhausted their preparations.

After all, even a Class 5 expert would find it challenging to handle the sheer number of magical creatures in Skyreach Spire. Egerton and his team had been inside for less than an hour; locating them and drawing such a multitude of creatures was no small feat.

Egerton's knowledge that Ralph was a Class 5 powerhouse came from the analytical prowess of the Penetrator.

Ralph's abilities were tied to the mist, marking him as a believer of the Lost Faith. Had he been a Class 6 deceiver, Egerton's group would have had no chance of escape. Conversely, if Ralph were Class 4, there would be no need to flee, as Macleay, an exorcist of Class 5, possessed considerable combat strength, making it nearly impossible to defeat him at that level, let alone by a Class 4 adversary.

"That was close! Thank goodness you spotted that skeleton warrior, Egerton. If it had attacked us alongside the Howlerfiend, we probably wouldn't have made it!" After dispatching the Howlerfiend, Ngoh and the others approached Egerton, visibly relieved.

Even without Egerton and Verl, the trio could have handled the three magical creatures. However, actually securing victory is a different story altogether. Had Verl been successfully ambushed, the shock of her potential death would have prevented Ngoh and the others from fighting effectively. The Howlerfiend's piercing howl alone could have shattered their morale and consciousness in an instant.

"Let's go!" Egerton said, rising to his feet without a word.

"Why do we need to collect the corpses of these magical creatures?" Quintana, with her long brown hair, tentatively asked from the other side of Skyreach Spire's 100th floor, eyeing the trail of magical creature corpses that stretched behind her for several meters.

"Magical creatures have an acute sense of smell for blood, and they react the same to the blood of their own kind. The number of magical creatures on the 100th floor has significantly decreased from before. To hunt as many as possible, we need to use these corpses to lure them in," the captain of the Adventure Team explained patiently, a sharp glint passing through his deep-set eyes.

"Oh," Quintana nodded, signaling her understanding, albeit with lingering doubts.

However, recalling the nearly overpowering strength her teammates had shown in the recent skirmish, her skepticism vanished.

But soon after, Quintana realized her error—and it was a grave one.

As the pile of magical creature corpses grew, so did the number of creatures that appeared each time. What started as one or two escalated to groups of three to five, and eventually, hordes of over a dozen emerged at once.

The team members, once unscathed, were now stained with blood, and more crucially, their stamina seemed to be waning.

"How will we get back if this continues?" Quintana wondered aloud.

"It's about time," the vice-captain announced, approaching the captain in Quintana's presence.

"So we're finally heading back? It's about time. Continuing like this would be far too perilous!" Quintana breathed a sigh of relief.

But before a smile of relief could grace her face, a cold, merciless hand seized her. Dizzied and disoriented, she felt as though she'd been hurled into a swamp. When her senses slowly returned, she was horrified to find herself amidst a heap of magical creature corpses, her body coated in a foul mix of sticky fluids and blood.

"Captain, help, please help me!" Quintana pleaded desperately, not understanding what had happened. But her cries for help went unanswered by the captain. Instead, she was met with a chilling declaration: "I hope this offering pleases you."

Was she actually the sacrifice?

Quintana's realization dawned on her suddenly, along with the recollection of rumors that had circulated in the slums. Within the Skyreach Spire, there were whispers of heretics who gathered the corpses of magical creatures. They would use these remains as a macabre covering for innocent girls, then set them ablaze with dark flames as an offering to their deity, all to curry favor with the Evil God.

They were heretics!

Quintana tried to scream, but despair gripped her as she found herself enveloped in layers of congealing bloodskin, leaving not even a sliver of air. Screaming was out of the question; she struggled to even keep her mind clear. Gradually, she was sinking into an abyss of darkness.

"Hey, wake up. Do you really enjoy sleeping in places like this?" A voice, languid and teasing, broke through, pulling Quintana from the brink. Her eyes snapped open to find that the grotesque flesh that had imprisoned her was gone. Standing before her was a man who, while not particularly handsome, exuded a distinct charisma. His one hand was wrapped in a bandage, and in the other, he held a nondescript knife.

In that instant, Quintana, as if returning from another lifetime, was utterly dumbfounded.