The Pyramid's Last Guardian

Mummy warriors are monsters of tenacious vitality. Saturated with layered vengeful spirits and twisted loyalty, these creatures will not die easily unless struck by fire-attribute attacks. And there are a great many of them. These are not fodder to be taken lightly, even if they are the dungeon's rank-and-file.

We killed mummy warriors as they poured in from every direction, and then we killed more. Luna's Blade Dance and Sera's Rapid Claw tore through them without pause. But for every mummy we brought down, more emerged from the passages all around us.

"Ugh~! This really feels like it's never going to end! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Master! Just how many of these monsters are there?"

Sera asked, looking thoroughly fed up. Even I, who had known this was coming, found the numbers staggering.

"At least hundreds. Possibly thousands!"

Our stamina and mana would run dry long before every last mummy warrior was dead. I pulled a date from my inventory and chewed it. The candy-sweet juice eased my fatigue and accelerated mana recovery. We spent nearly an hour cutting down the mummy warriors that kept flooding in. The number we killed easily surpassed three hundred.

"Hah...! Hah...! Hah...! Hah...!"

Even Luna, who rarely tired, was panting hard from this fight. Sera was already a wreck — she sprawled across the floor in a heap and passed out cold.

This is fucking exhausting. Anyone who came here underprepared would be overwhelmed by the mummy warriors' sheer numbers and end up as one of the vengeful mummies guarding this place. But we had prepared thoroughly, and we'd barely spent any stamina in the trap section. Thanks to that, we were able to slaughter them all. The reward for the hunt was a massive haul of items.

After the battle, we collected ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the loot. The items dropped by mummy warriors were their rusted swords. Unfortunately, most of them were so corroded and broken they wouldn't even sell as scrap. The guild probably wouldn't take junk like this. A few were still intact, though, so we managed to gather about twenty rusted swords.

After collecting the items, we decided to rest here for a while. I pulled meals and snacks from my inventory. We each popped a few dates into our mouths, and in that way fully replenished our stamina and mana for the next zone.

"I believe I can move now."

Luna gave her dual blades a simple swing, checking her condition. Sera flexed her sharp claws this way and that.

"From the next zone onward, there will be mummy warriors and mummy shamans. The mummy shaman is a monster that uses troublesome curses — primarily binding, vision restriction, dizziness, and similar hexes."

The most troublesome thing about mummy shamans is their resurrection curse, which raises fallen mummy warriors. It is a terrifying hex that turns an already overwhelming mummy legion into an immortal army. However, mummy warriors revived this way die automatically if the shaman who cast the curse is destroyed. That is why mummy shamans must be killed as priority targets.

We continued exploring the interior of the pyramid. After passing through the wide chamber where the mummy warriors had swarmed, a narrow passage appeared. This was an ordinary corridor with no traps.

Beyond the long corridor, a wide chamber similar to the previous one opened up. The difference was the large stone statues standing all around — cryptic in form, like pieces of modern art.

"Watch those statues. The mummy shamans use them as mediums for large-scale curses."

The moment I finished speaking, mummy warriors poured from every passage like a swarm of bees. We assumed combat stances once more.

"Hyaaah!"

Luna slaughtered the mummy warrior legion with the fearless valor of Zhao Yun charging through an army. She seemed to have figured out how to handle mummy warriors from the previous fight. Sera's movements were just as swift and agile as Luna's. Experience really does make people stronger.

"Buhihit! That goes for me too!"

I cooked them with Fire Arrow, landing the shots efficiently wherever the enemies clustered. Slow-moving monsters are easy to read once you know their patterns — you can slaughter them as naturally as breathing. We cheerfully massacred the mummy warrior legion. But then, an unpleasant flute sound rang out.

"Mummy shamans!"

Unlike the mummy warriors, who had bandages wrapped around only parts of their bodies, these mummies were wrapped cleanly from head to toe. Instead of rusted swords, they carried golden scepters as tall as themselves.

"Attack the mummy shamans first!"

Killing them before they can cast their curses is best. Fortunately, they looked distinctly different from the other mummy warriors, so targeting them was easy.

Luna and Sera closed the distance at high speed and tore the shamans' limbs to shreds, while I burned them with Fire Arrow like a sniper. Even so, our swift assault couldn't take them all down. Quantity always wins in the end.

A mummy shaman ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠raised its golden scepter and slammed it into the floor with a thud. Then I felt as if a ghost were pressing down on my shoulders.

Luna and Sera's movements grew sluggish as well; they seemed to have been bound too. The silver lining was that we weren't completely immobilized.

"Kh! Luna! Those shaman bastards are pulling something!"

"It would be best to finish them as quickly as possible!"

Luna hurled the sword in her left hand toward a shaman.

The blade left her hand trailing blue light, spinning toward the shaman. The sharp ring of steel sliced clean through the shaman's neck, then curved back to Luna. Though she was a melee dealer, she had a few ranged skills. Boomerang Cutter was one of them.

"Wooooowl!"

Sera used a skill called Howling. It didn't particularly suit a cat beastkin, but it was extremely useful in the current situation.

Howling has a chance to dispel status ailments on herself and her party members, and can also inflict Fear on enemies. Since our opponents were the undead, the chance of inflicting a status ailment was slim — but she was able to dispel the curses the shamans had placed on us. With ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her cry, the crushing pressure on me vanished.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Sensing the situation turning against them, the mummy shamans initiated a group action. They struck the ground with their golden scepters in a steady tempo.

This was their large-scale curse: Devastation. It lays waste to a designated area, massively reducing the stats of every living thing within it. The mummies, already dead, are unaffected. In other words, it is the ultimate debuff, targeting only the invaders.

"Destroy the statues! They're the mediums for their curse! If the statues break, the shamans will collapse from the backlash!"

The weakness of that curse is that if the medium is destroyed, every shaman who participated in the ritual suffers the rebound. If you don't know this and try to stop the curse by attacking the shamans themselves, you'll fail under the overwhelming numbers. There were six statues visible around us. We each took one and destroyed them.

A sleek arrow of darkness pierced through a statue. Being carved from stone, it was reasonably hard, but it couldn't withstand the destructive power of Darkness Arrow. Luna and Sera used their skills as well, destroying the statues as thoroughly as they could.

When we destroyed the statues, the shamans mid-ritual crumpled as if struck by an invisible fist — neutralized by the curse's backlash. We didn't let that opening go to waste and pressed the slaughter. And so we held off the second endless mummy wave in its entirety.

"Ugh...! I'm exhausted! This is really too much."

There were even more of them than the first wave, and we broke a sweat. Still, because we'd known in advance how to deal with the mummy shamans, we took no serious injuries. We collected items from among the monster corpses once more. The mummy shamans' drop item was the golden scepter.

"Just how many mummies are even left?"

Sera asked as she gathered loot. In truth, the mummy waves ended here. All that remained now was the boss. The boss of this Shelter of Blades. The ruler of the pyramid that the mummy soldiers were trying to protect... no. The last guardian protecting it.

"Only the boss monster remains. That would be the Sphinx. The final guardian of this place."

"The Sphinx?"

"A chimera with the body of a lion, the head of a human, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of a snake. The reason they buried so many warriors and shamans alive in this massive pyramid was as a ritual to summon the Sphinx, the ultimate guardian."

"Oho... If they summoned it at the cost of so many human lives, it must be powerful."

"Buhihit! That's right. But it has a weakness too."

The Sphinx is a monster with a very unique skill. As a guardian summoned by devouring countless lives, it uses instant-death techniques as casually as breathing. What's more, unlike the Sand Eater, this instant-death skill sends the target to the afterlife regardless of level, which makes it all the more terrifying. In a certain sense, however, the Sphinx's technique is an instant-death skill even easier to evade than the Sand Eater's.

"During combat, it poses us a riddle. If we fail to answer correctly, it supposedly drags us to the underworld."

"The... the underworld!?"

Sera trembled, startled. Luna, on the other hand, remained composed.

"Master, did you perhaps see the riddle that monster poses through the Solar Medal?"

"Of course. And I know the answer as well. So its most powerful skill is as good as sealed. Even so, it's still a formidable monster. There are things you need to know in order to take it down."

I slowly explained the Sphinx's attack patterns. As befitting a dungeon boss, its patterns were incomparably more varied than the Sand Eater's. Grasping those patterns thoroughly was essential. Most important of all was its desperation move.

"Its desperation move is to bring this pyramid down. That's why, if it uses that move, we have to escape immediately. The traps will still be active then, so be especially careful of those."

"Yes, sir!"

The two maids answered with reassuring confidence. After replenishing our stamina and mana with a thorough rest, we approached the dungeon's final zone. A massive stone door appeared before us.

At the center of the stone door, covered in various paintings, was an image depicting the Sphinx, the last guardian of this place. What I wanted was sleeping beyond it.

"Let's go."