The air was damp, and the ambient mist gloomed the atmosphere to a murky dimness.
So this is the graveyard, huh? I don't remember the Paradise District having a place like this around here…
That was the impression Snapper internally delivered upon reaching this obscured burial site.
The only thing that he recognized from the time that he spent at this district years ago was the tall mausoleum. The only difference was that it no longer had the giant raven statue perched on its roof.
That must've been the bird that attacked May and Amber, he deduced.
Stepping forward into the graveyard, he scanned the area for the same blue glow that surrounded the ice hat in the previous round.
The soil was slightly clammy underfoot due to the wet snowfall. While sauntering past the numerous graves–some decorated with beautiful flowers and ornaments of various kinds–Snapper eventually noticed a blue glow above one of the epitaphs in the distance.
"So the princess wasn't lying after all…" he mumbled.
All he had to do now was secure it, and Amber would be released from her frozen state.
Better hurry before that clown, Jude, shows up.
As Snapper quickened his pace, an uneasiness began to envelop him.
"Huh, what the hell? How come there aren't any names on these things." His gaze was drawn to the surrounding epitaphs, which had no inscriptions on them.
However, as Snapper got closer to the one under the ice hat, words gradually came into view upon its surface.
Snapper, now cautious, came to an abrupt halt upon reading the new words inscribed.
"'Here lies a Vengeful Voltaire of the North: Snapper, the Unhinged Nightmare'..."
"What the fuck...?"
Snapper paused for a moment, unable to believe what he was seeing.
I don't understand… Why is my name on a gravestone? Could this be a trap?!
Alert, Snapper shifted toward his surroundings. There was no one else present and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
He then took a moment to breathe.
That clown's playing tricks on me again, isn't he? I'm probably just overthinking things.
Snapper was still cautious, but he couldn't just ignore the ice hat when it was right in front of him.
I'll just claim it quickly and then get my ass outta here…
That was his plan, but unfortunately, the moment Snapper was about to reach the ice hat, something unprecedented hindered his movements.
"You've got to be kidding me! This is the second time now!" Snapper complained as he looked down at his feet to assess his situation.
Currently, something had taken possession of his right ankle with a tight grasp.
Snapper initially thought that it might have been caught on something, however, what he saw wasn't a usual trap or restraint, but long skeletal fingers that emerged from the soil and held him in place.
"What the–!?" As he exclaimed in alarm, another hand grew out of the grave soil, pushing the rest of its body out from under the earth.
"Dammit!"
As Snapper was forced to the ground, the body of a tall skeleton was now fully visible before him.
The hell is a dungeon beast doing here?!
Snapper tried desperately to free his leg from its grasp, but to no avail; even when he kicked with his other leg, its grip wouldn't loosen.
The skeleton–its bones rattling with each movement–began to drag Snapper's body closer to it as though it were intending to lead him away from the ice hat.
Snapper quickly slid his arm across the ground, searching for anything he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing–no sticks, no rocks, just wet soil.
"Dammit, this'll have to do!"
In a moment of desperation, Snapper clawed at the ground, squeezing a handful of mushy dirt in his palm.
With as much force as he could muster, he launched the dirt at the skeleton's skull, causing it to recoil.
For a moment, Snapper felt its grip loosen, which he instantly took advantage of.
With his free leg, he deftly kicked away the skeleton's hand, completely detaching it from the rest of its body.
Snapper wasted no time when picking himself up, charging at the skeleton before punching its skull so hard that it flew right off its body in the same way.
What remained of the skeleton fell backward and slumped itself on the ground, completely inanimate.
"Eat that, you brainless bastard!"
Snapper, in a moment of frustration, wanted to crush each of the skeleton's bones into ash, but he quickly regained his composure.
He was then stunned the moment he turned to his side and saw multiple skeletal figures standing in front of the ice hat as if they were guarding it.
"Tch, I kinda figured it wouldn't be that easy, but still…"
While Snapper stared at the bony creatures, they ominously stared back with the empty pair of holes in each of their skulls.
I've killed all sorts of people, but I never thought I'd actually have to deal with ones that are already dead. Snapper sighed while trying to digest this unusual predicament.
"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter though–"
He hit his fist against his palm and cracked his knuckles.
"–Cuz even the undead can still die, right?"
…
In the presence of the three imposing golems, normal-sized people seemed almost miniscule in comparison.
Their humanoid bodies, molded by dense rocks, towered over Wolf and the others like those of the giant race, each one reaching a height of nearly 20 feet.
"H-How are we supposed to defeat those things? They're huge…!" May said nervously.
"I'm not sure," Wolf replied, turning to the voiceless assassin standing beside him.
Viper remained silent, observing the sentient shield with restrained vexation.
It seemed that in order to get to Jude, they would have to deal with the golems and the talking shield first.
"Tch, how annoying." The Viper's irritation was so pronounced that neither Wolf nor May could help but feel slightly intimidated.
"M-Mr. Viper?" May attempted to get his attention.
Once the Viper turned his head, her body grew rigid, as his mask only seemed to accentuate the sharpness of his anguine eyes.
"I-I–umm… I was just wondering… W-what do you think we should do? I-I mean, you've probably faced monsters like these before, right?"
The Viper continued to stare at her in silence before turning away.
"For now, just stay back. You two will only get in the way."
"O-oh…"
Inadequacy now accompanied May's sense of fright as her desire for assistance was firmly ignored.
But Wolf, despite feeling frustrated by his arrogance, chose to comply with the Viper's demands.
He agreed to a truce, but he never actually agreed to fight alongside us, so it's probably best to do as he says for now.
"He's right, May," Wolf said to her. "The only monsters I've encountered so far are the Black Tigers, and compared to them, these things are on a whole other level. I don't think we're ready for something like this."
"Yeah, but even so… There must be something we can do to help out," she muttered in response.
Catching those diffident breaths like an infectious disease, the Viper's head snapped in he direction, ready to make his statement more abundantly clear.
"What are you doing!?" Wolf yelled, as the Viper aggressively took hold of May's neck, lifting her up with one hand.
"Ngh!" she groaned while struggling to breathe.
Wolf helplessly watched as the Viper began to point the muzzle of his rifle at May's forehead.
"STOP IT–!"
"Stay put!"
Wolf was immediately silenced, unable to make a move against him.
The Viper turned his attention to May once more, who continued choking under his grasp.
"Don't get any funny ideas, girl," he began, his gruff tone scraping against her eardrums like sandpaper. "I've agreed to postpone the deaths of you and your friends, but that doesn't make us allies." He pressed the muzzle of his rifle against her cheek, the application of strength in that gesture devoid of mercy. "If you so much as think about getting in my way again, I'll sever our agreement before any of you have the chance to beg for your lives."
May, in her restrained position, barely managed a single nod before her body was thrown backward.
"May!" Wolf cried, while crouching beside her.
With her eyes red and watered, May started coughing while gasping for air.
"I-I'm fine," she said, while steadily recovering her breathing.
Wolf then turned to Viper with a stern glare, his hand creeping toward his dagger.
"Wolf, don't!" May warned, grabbing hold of his arm.
"But he–"
"It's fine," she assured. "This is going to sound strange, but I think he's actually trying to protect us…"
"... That may be true, but he has a funny way of showing it." Wolf continued to glare at the Viper begrudgingly while his back was turned to them.
He knew the true identity of the person hidden under the mask, so he was more than aware of his intentions, but…
Does he really need to go that far to keep her safe? Or is that just the kind of person he is…
As reality began to sink in, Wolf was soon reminded that the sinister entity before them was no silent hero. He was a voiceless villain whom they fortunately shared a common interest with.
He turned his head back once more. "I'll remind you for the last time… Don't get in my way."
The Viper's body shot forward at a speed unaltered by card abilities, but driven only by sheer determination. His prime days of athletic prowess had long passed, but he was still able to close the distance in a short enough time frame to cause a disorientation.
"Hmm? My master informed me that your physical capabilities had significantly diminished over the past decade or so, but it appears you have retained much more of your youthful vigor than presumed…" The shield stated this as he witnessed the Viper's brisk movements.
While in front of the center golem, Viper received an immediate attack, which he evaded without issue.
The fist that dug into the ground beside him shuddered the earth slightly, but the Viper still managed to maintain balance.
A similar attack from the leftmost golem soon followed, but again, the Viper dodged.
Their movements were heavily telegraphed and thus avoidable if timed correctly. It was a typical weakness of golems: in exchange for insane strength, their bodies were painfully sluggish.
The main issue with these creatures usually stemmed from fighting against more than one, where co-ordinated attacks would be harder to follow.
However, those with enough skill and experience were untroubled by such dilemmas.
The center golem swung its thick leg forward in an attempt to punt the Viper into the next day, however, he leapt into the air in anticipation and used the body of his rifle to block the attack.
With his unbreakable weapon pressed against the golem's shin, the Viper utilized the force of the attack and his 'Dash' ability to launch himself upward, scoping into his rifle from above.
Much like typical dungeon beasts–level three or above–the key to defeating golems was locating their cores. Attacks that are effective against their stone bodies can reveal the cores hidden inside them, however, until they are destroyed, their bodies will only continue to regenerate.
Knowing this, the Viper waited for the moment when at least one of the unintelligent creatures would tilt their head upward to face him.
… Morons.
Just like he anticipated, all three golems looked to the sky, leaving their cores exposed from a high angle view.
Bang!
The Viper didn't waste even a second before pulling the trigger.
A void bolt flew into the gaped mouth of the center golem, then the leftmost golem, and lastly the one on the right.
After landing on the ground, the Viper used his Manifest card: 'Earth Wall', stomping the ground to activate it.
Taking cover behind the wall that grew from the ground in front of him, he sat down, silently awaiting the very moment the cores reacted to the penetration of the bolts.
The world seemed to grow silent, but after a moment of short delay, the cores finally bursted.
BOOM!!!
Huge chunks of stone flew violently in all directions as the golems were simultaneously blown apart.
One large piece of golem crashed into the Viper's wall, destroying the top half just above his head.
"Hmm… that was quite close…" he muttered, not expecting to have been nearly crushed to death as an aftermath of his own attack.
Wolf and May stared at him in amazement, practically dumbfounded by how quickly he was able to take those large monsters down while making it look so easy.
However, there was just one issue, which the Viper soon realized upon peeking his head over the wall.
"I must say, that was certainly an impressive performance, but it appears you were unable to defeat all three targets."
Just like the shield mentioned, the Viper's attacks hadn't destroyed all three; there was still one golem left standing.
"W-what's going on? How come that one's still standing?"
"I'm not sure…"
May and Wolf were both puzzled by this, however, the Viper who had anticipated the matter seemed less concerned.
As I thought… It must've used 'that' card.
The Viper's conclusion was that the 'Self Conjure' ability Jude used earlier must've wound up in the shield's possession. A Vision Mist would've been an initial giveaway, considering it was now a six-star card, however, there wasn't a single one surrounding any of its unreadable cards.
The Viper couldn't figure out an explanation for this effect, but could at least partially guess the kind of Manifesto that Jude created for that card.
Perhaps the effect of the card is no longer limited to the user.
What the Viper meant by this was that the 9:1 ratio could now also be applied to 'external objects' instead, such as the summoned golems. But, of course, there had to be a condition to this rule.
Only one of the golems was invulnerable to the Viper's attacks, so he deduced that the condition potentially stated: 'only one object can be affected by Self Conjure at a time'.
This was only a theory, but there was sufficient enough evidence to back it.
The only question now was…
"How am I supposed to kill this thing?"