Scene 3 - Horde

After killing a few more lizards along the path with ease, the two quickly gained another five talismans each. They kept a good pace and had long since left behind the body of Sid and the Lizardman. That’s what Jao had called it for the inexperienced Nena, who asked him. They walked and talked along the narrow path set before them, ever wary.

Jao stopped in his tracks, midway through his conversation, “And that’s how I beat the living daylights out of… Hey, do you feel that?”

Nena had already recovered from Sid’s untimely death, thanks to Jao cheering her up, the two made progress through the ruins. Unnoticeably, the air pressure and heat around the area was getting hotter and hotter.

The changes noticed by Jao were too late though.

Turning the corner, they came upon a large room filled with red stones. Covering the walls and floor, they pulsated heat rhythmically. Terrifyingly, forty Lizardmen littered the grounds of the room, along with clean white bones and the scent of shit.

Jao had told Nena earlier that if they’d ever walk into a good sized nest of Lizardmen at their current power, they would most likely perish. Even with Nena’s monstrous swing, how many could she kill?

They stood in shock and didn’t even need to talk. When they turned around, the path behind them was closed off by another wall. Unbeknownst to them, their path of escape had been blocked off and the two were knocked off their feet, for in fact, the room was starting to move!

Jao’s face changed ugly, cursing under his breath, “FUCK! It’s a random Labyrinth!”

Jao had heard about these before, from a passing Tomb Taoist, that he had once met in a bar. The drunken man told the people, willing to listen to his woes, that a random Labyrinth had killed his entire party except for him, just a few days ago. For dozens of days, they were trapped inside and only by luck did he manage to escape from it.

He said that a random Labyrinth seemingly had no set time in its change pattern and was able to move its parts around at any given moment. This particular Labyrinth type was designed to take all its rooms and turn them into puzzle pieces and then randomly put them together without any sense of order.

‘Thankfully, we only have to survive for two weeks. If we had to find our way out it would have been ten times harder, thought Jao.

The rumbling sound stopped soon after and unfortunately the passageway was still blocked behind them. Jao motioned Nena not to make a sound by placing his finger over his lips. It seemed luck was on their side that these Lizardmen were used to the movement and didn't wake up.

Scanning the home of the Lizardmen, Jao started to formulate a plan, to have them escape with their lives. He saw that the door was opened on the other side of them, about forty meters away. Forty Lizardmen were blocking their path and he wasn’t confident in killing all of them, even with Nena’s powerful sword strike.

He tapped on Nena’s shoulder, motioning her to come closer, so he could whisper his plan, “I’m still new to my magic, Nena… So it’ll take me a little preparation for what I want to do. I’ll cast two large spiky walls on both of our sides and make a pathway for us to escape. Don’t get greedy and collect the talismans, we can just get more along the way.”

Nena thought about it and added, “I shall unleash a sword strike down the middle, to increase our chances. Is that alright?”

“Sounds good! Let’s begin!”

Jao placed both of his hands on the ground and two magic formations appeared underneath. The design was strange to her and Nena had never seen this type of formation before. Instantly, she thought about a unique-type!

Jao took thirty seconds to complete and as soon as he completed it, he opened his eyes and yelled, “Now!”

Instantly, two massive glass walls appeared, shining brightly along the forty meter room. It opened a bloody pathway with his magic, piercing a good amount of Lizardmen. The blood shined brightly, dyeing the room a deeper crimson color as thousands of glass spikes pierced outward from the path.

The magic was as beautiful as it was deadly. Roars could be heard from both sides, filled with pain and anger. The majority of the lizards that were directly hit, were pierced by the glass or heavily injured. However, those on the side only received minor wounds.

Its power was simply shocking. However, such a great magic came at a great cost, making Jao almost completely expel all his mana.

Nena didn’t hold back in the slightest, gripping her sword tightly, she swung Solitude to the fullest of her current ability in a vertical manner. The air distorted slightly, as a blade of air swept forward, cleaving bodies into pieces and clearing the path of all enemies.

Relief watched over Jao’s face glad Nena didn’t hesitate to kill what was in front of her; he felt more at ease being her partner. Nena ran forward, taking point; her boots made splattering and crunching sounds from the flesh, guts, and bones. The sounds didn’t deter her, as she ran at the highest speed she could muster.

Jao followed after her while thinking to himself that glass wasn’t the strongest thing to make a wall out of; the only thing that would stop the Lizardmen would be the sharp spikes from the outer glass. Although, with their claws, it wouldn’t be long before they broke through.

As soon as they got to the five-meter mark, something occurred that Jao didn’t expect would happen. He noticed a Lizardman’s shadow, looming above them. Surprisingly, the creature had climbed up onto one of its dead companions and was targeting Nena!

With the narrow space, Nena couldn’t dodge at all! She didn’t even know she was being attacked! Jao roared madly as he pushed Nena forward without hesitation. Instead of the attack landing on Nena, the claws dug deeply into his shoulder blade.

Nena rolled forward in the air, somehow landing perfectly on her feet. She turned around in anger that swiftly changed into a feeling of shock. A startling image of a Lizardman stepping on Jao’s back, raising a hand above its own head, the creature was about to pierce Jaos though his brain!

Madness exploded out from within in her eyes, as Nena’s sword size increased to the size of its original greatsword-form.

The only thought on her mind thundered greatly within her head, ‘Let my blade reach!’