Soon, by some miracle, they were able to defeat the last guard with ease once Rael and Dorm finished with their respective opponents.
But they alone weren't enough to actually kill him. The fact he was still standing up till now was a testament to his skill and strength. He was able to parry most of their attacks easily or outright slapping Rael's chained hook away, forcing him to switch to the dagger.
Seeing his comrades dead and the escapees more formidable than before made him hesitate and try to retreat after evaluating his odds.
They were not in his favour.
Pushing Maki back with a heavy shoulder bash before leaning back to parry another of Dorm's obsidian-cased strikes as well as a sweeping slash at his feet by Rael, he showed his prowess as someone that really knew how to use his body in combat.
He was good.
Slowly walking backward while keeping his eyes on the three in front of him,he tried to back off and escape but unfortunately...
SQUELCH~
A crude blade made of ice pierced through him from behind through a gap in the armour made by Rael.
Len leaned against the blade as she drove it deeper into his side with all the meager strength left in her body. The frost crept around her hand, making it somehow even paler. Blood seemed to spurt out of the wound before slowing and freezing in pale crimson lines.
"Argh! Y-you maggots!"
The grizzly man froze for a second before reversing his grip and raising his blade to cleave her in half.
Unfortunately, she dodged at the last moment with the blade only lightly grazing her arm and pulled out the blade sideways, widening the wound.
"Tch." He tried to back away but Dorm was suddenly behind him as if waiting for that exact moment.
SQUELCH~
The blade slid across his chest, leaving a deep gash, causing him to stable back into the centre of the group.
The situation resembles a beast caught in a snare, unable to escape.
"Like hell I'll fall against maggots like you!" He cursed with a hateful voice.
Right as he tried to escape the encirclement, another blade pierced him, forcing him to his knees as his sword fell to the ground, his arms growing numb.
Then another.
Then another.
And that was that.
Rael scratched the back of his head with a frown.
"Did I overdo it?"
Turning to Ema, he saw the girl looking at the corpse of the guard, still slumped in a kneeling position.
She had a complicated expression on her face as she looked at his once prideful eyes, now dead and hollow.
He had two jagged spears of ice stabbed through him, pinning him to the ground, making for a macabre sight.
Now she was wearing his cloak.
Rael sighed as he spotted the girl, right before he and Dorm header over to help Maki, she had seen another vision in which they had beaten the Lead guard but he had managed to attack them using some sort of dark magic in his sword after he was beheaded by Dorm.
This prompted Rael to have to use Len's ice to make sure he died in a way that would, if not prevent that, then at least allow them to hold him down a bit or slow him down.
Using ice would at least slow his movements, and at best make the magic, whatever it was, to not activate at all.
But at least he was dead now. As far as dead people go.
He really didn't want to go through the whole second-phase boss thing right now.
But just in case.
He picked up the greatsword, and after weighing it a bit, switched it out for Dorm's claymore which was at least a bit lighter.
Swinging it awkwardly to test the weight, he strapped it across his back.
Walking over to Ema and Remis, he handed them each one of the single-handed axes. They were a bit heavy for Remis but Ema managed to hold it with a resolute expression as she nodded at him.
He, on the other hand, picked up the dual daggers of one of his opponents, sheathing them on a leather whatever-it-was-called on his waist and tossed the others claymore to Len, who caught it awkwardly.
He and Len were not exactly masters of combat, but at least, she should be able to defend herself in close combat now without having to expend her mana...magic energy...magicules... whatever served as energy in this world.
He wanted to conserve their overall power as he still didn't know what defences the Duke Velkmeir would have in place.
But unfortunately, some jobs still needed to be done.
With Maki and Dorm watching the corridor for any approaching enemies, he signalled to Remis, who awkwardly walked over to the pile of bodies.
They had stripped them of their cloaks and gear, leaving them near naked and grotesquely piles against each other, some wounds especially gruesome.
The girl seemed a little green as she covered her nose in disgust.
As Ema dragged the body of the large guard over to the pile, he nodded towards Remis with a blank expression.
"Do it."
The girl closed her eyes, muttering something under her breath. He tried to catch whatever she was saying but it was again slipping out of his grasp, like fog at the edge of his vision.
Suddenly, moisture began to gather around her outstretched hands, forming another blob-like ball of water.
She carefully lowered it above the bodies before letting it rest above the topmost body.
Just as it was in position, Len started chanting her own magic, as a frigid breeze drifted from her hand into the water, turning it into solid ice.
Soon, a part of the mound of bodies was encased in ice.
Turning to Len, she briefly looked at her hands before giving him a thumbs up.
Rael smiled. It seemed it was working, freezing the water instead of having to actually manifest ice out of nothing was less draining.
Normally , this would be obvious.
But his recent situations have taught him to question the obvious.
"Again."
Remis and Len repeated the process several times until the entire pile was frozen solid, thereby preventing the smell of blood and rot from alerting any other guards nearby.
Unfortunately, they couldn't just make it disappear but had to settle for using one of the more shredded cloaks to cover the macabre heap.
Rael was already feeling uncomfortable waiting around here. Every second they spent here was another risking being found out.
Looking at the others, he sighed deeply.
Dorm had some somewhat shallow cuts across his body, already bandaged tightly by Ema using a clean strip of leather.
He had told her to not expend her magic to heal him yet but instead focus on Maki who had sustained the most damage fighting the strongest out of the occult guard.
He suddenly had a bad premonition.
'We need to move now.'
Nodding to Len and Remis, he signalled silently to the others, now all clad in the black cloaks of the cult, their hoods drawn up. Even Remis, though the oversized cloak made her look quite comical due to her small size.
"Let's go."
Soon, they gathered together in a loose formation.
Dorm was in front of the group, wielding a greatsword which he kept unsheathed. He walked stiffly, his eyes scanning the darkness for enemies. At the back was Maki, her eyes...drilling holes into his back for some reason.
And at the centre of the group were Ema and Remis, flanked on both sides by Rael and Len.
All wore tense expressions as they moved quickly and somewhat quietly through the path.
Through the dimly-lit corridor, there seemed to be no branching passages or extra rooms, just one long passage winding left and right occasionally.
Eventually, there were no lit torches on the walls anymore, causing them to have to carry one with them.
But they kept going forwards.
And going.
And going.
Meanwhile, the bad feeling only started to get worse.
'It has to have been like a kilometre or so by now.'
Rael frowned.
It was starting to seem less like a regular dungeon and more like someone just dug underground and planted a dark room there. Plus the fact that there was a hint of sky back in the cell even made it more confusing.
He looked at Remis uncomfortably.
'Was it a bad idea to leave the others back there?'
He wasn't a fan or a practitioner of a saintly ideology, but if the corridor somehow extended endlessly in both directions, he didn't want to have to deal with a sobbing child if he wasn't able to also save her brother.
Plus, he still had to get out himself.
'Annoying.'
Both this situation and this smell.
This overwhelmingly smell that seemed to permeate the entire path they had been walking for the past hour, growing stronger the further they walked, to the point it became simply too much for him to handle.
'This...damned smell.'
Suddenly he stopped walking, causing the others to pause, looking at him in confusion.
Maki furrowed her brows.
"What's wrong?"
He sighed deeply, his eyes turning cold as he suddenly turned towards a corner, his eyes cold.
After a moment, he spoke, his voice deceptively calm.
"Len, ice hammer, now."
The girl didn't question him and summoned the frigid wind, a vague shape forming above her hands.
Before it was fully formed, he grabbed it and stretched his hand back, twisting his body in n order to bring out the maximum force and slammed it against a certain spot on the wall.
SPLAT~
A sickening sound like a skull being smashed echoed though the corridor as a white liquid splattered across the wall followed by a sharp-
CRRCKKK-
Then another,
and another.
Until the sound of a glass shattering echoed all around them, causing them to grip their weapons tighter.
"W-what is this?" Len asked quietly, though a hint of fear found a way into her voice.
Rael smiled wistfully as he watched the cracking around them.
"You know, there was once a story of a band of knights sent to slay a dreadful witch, but unfortunately the passage they used was cursed by said which. Once entered, they were trapped in an endless loop that could only be released once they all died, or they...did the deed with someone."
He shrugged, not minding the looks on their faces ranging from disgusted to outright terrified.
Suddenly, the cracked passageway started to fade away like a mirage.
Soon, they saw the real face of the passage way.
"The moral of this story is..." he scowled in disgust as he saw what lay outside the illusion.
"This bitch is a fucking psycho."