No. 353 — The Feathered Serpent Temple (1)
A humid heat came riding in on the wind. The first thing to catch the eye was a long, somber avenue cutting straight through dense tropical jungle — and just as at the [Feathered Serpent Altar], it was blatantly obvious that this road, and this road alone, was the way forward.
Tracing the avenue with the eye, one found a massive pyramid-shaped structure rising at its end, and perched at its summit stood a building unmistakably a temple. A hemispherical barrier of translucent gold enclosed the temple, and though it gleamed with brilliant golden light, it stirred an inexplicable unease in all who beheld it.
And before the structure, a seething horde of barbarians. At a rough count, at least twice as many as at the Feathered Serpent Altar.
"Let's get moving. We're short on time."
The sheer size of the crowd might well have daunted anyone, but Kim Ho merely cast a brief glance at the temple and immediately set off running along the road. Go Hyeon-woo matched his pace at his side.
"You didn't show me the strategy guide this time. Any idea why?"
"Honestly, I could not say. But I trusted that you, Brother Kim, must have something in mind."
Day trip or not, this was a life-or-death raid on an underground dungeon, and he had done no preparation whatsoever. Measured against the meticulous thoroughness Kim Ho had shown until now, it felt strangely, almost unnaturally lax. Which could only mean it wasn't laxness at all — but the kind of absolute confidence that needed no preparation to be certain of success. That was the conclusion Go Hyeon-woo had reached. Even so, curiosity stirred within him, and he waited to hear what Kim Ho would say next.
Kim Ho answered with a grin.
"We just smash everything to pieces. No strategy required."
"Simplicity itself. I find that much to my liking."
Go Hyeon-woo grinned back all the same.
Kim Ho pointed Root up at the temple above.
"First, we punch a straight line to the top."
With that, he picked up the pace and took the lead. The avenue ended, and the moment the two stepped before the altar, the gazes of the swarming barbarians converged on them all at once. Hundreds of hostile stares pressed in until their very skin prickled.
"What are these things?"
"Sacrifices?"
"Just kill them!"
Barbarians charged from every direction. The one in the lead lunged with a wooden spear, aiming to skewer Kim Ho — but Kim Ho's footwork shifted in a smooth glide, slipping past the spearhead by a hair as he bored in. A fist wreathed in dark-crimson flame drove into the barbarian's chest.
— KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—!
A storm of flame swept the ground ahead. Kim Ho dove into the path where the embers had yet to die and kept running. Then he gave Root a light flick —
— WHOOOSH—!
— and wind whipped around him, fanning the flames out in every direction. He looked for all the world like a man commanding a whirlwind of living fire.
Go Hyeon-woo followed hard on his heels, swinging his ritual sword to mow down the oncoming enemies like so many sheaves of straw. Yet his gaze stayed fixed mostly on Kim Ho, studying his every movement with care.
'Brother Kim's skill is more astonishing the longer I watch.'
Felling barbarians was nothing remarkable in itself — it was the process that mattered. The sequence of evading a thrusting spear, slipping inside the man's guard, and driving a fist into his chest flowed together with astonishing smoothness. Kim Ho was a mage — a support-type mage, no less — but between this and what he had shown in the recent two-on-two PvP assessment, judged on his body alone he would pass for a seasoned martial artist without a hitch.
And then there was the move he had just unveiled. A single punch had unleashed a storm of flame across the vanguard. Its power was so overwhelming that Go Hyeon-woo doubted he could stop it even at full strength. Even as he told himself that could not be, the epithet of the ancient grandmaster — the Flame Tyrant — surfaced in his mind.
— KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—!
Another storm of flame came charging down. When Kim Ho flicked Root, the barbarians floated up off the ground, and the wind that followed sent them crashing down in a heap to one side. Having torn yet another gaping hole in the closing encirclement, the two kept running without slowing a step.
At last they reached the great structure and raced up its stairs. The barbarians gave chase for their very lives, but the moment they seemed about to catch up, Go Hyeon-woo cut them down with a single stroke, or they went tumbling head over heels, unable to withstand the wind laced with physical force.
Stopping right before the translucent golden barrier, Kim Ho abruptly spun around and dropped back down a few steps.
"Die!"
Once again he slipped lightly past the thrusting spear, seized the barbarian by the nape, and hurled him at the barrier.
— TWANG!
A fierce rebound erupted, and the man's body went flying far into the distance. Go Hyeon-woo, too, loosed a light sword qi as a test —
— KAGAGAGAK!
— but the barrier took only the faintest, barely visible scratch. Even that soon repaired itself, leaving the surface pristine once more.
'High defense, and regeneration on top of it... Breaking through will be no easy feat.'
Below, the barbarians clambered upward at every passing moment. Yet Kim Ho, betraying not a hint of urgency, casually raised Root and gestured at the barrier.
"This thing's about to come down. See that no one gets inside."
"It shall be done."
Go Hyeon-woo nodded without a moment's hesitation. He had no idea what "about to come down" meant, but he intended to do exactly as instructed.
Just then, the two of them abruptly kicked off the ground and sprang back —
— KU-BOOM!
— and a massive stone pillar slammed down where they had been standing.
"Not... letting... anyone... in."
A hulking giant of a man stood there, embracing the stone pillar. He was an old acquaintance of Go Hyeon-woo's.
'Fatty.'
One of the two vice-priests they had felled during the Feathered Serpent Altar raid. The difference from back then was that the tattoos etched across his body now glowed with golden light — and perhaps because of it, he seemed to brim with even greater strength.
— Fwip!
Kim Ho shifted half a step sideways, evading an incoming poison needle. Tracing its trajectory, one saw only ordinary barbarians. But sharpen one's eyes and look closer, and a gaunt shadow could be spotted weaving stealthily between them.
"Heheheh……."
'Skinny,' lurking among the barbarians, biding his time.
Fatty and Skinny. The mid-bosses of this dungeon. On the previous raid, they had ambushed and picked the pair off one at a time to save time; now, before they could even attempt it, the two had gathered in a single place. Fully armed and prepared for battle, and further empowered by some unknown force seeping from within. And to carry out Kim Ho's order — see that no one gets inside — Go Hyeon-woo would have to face the two of them alone.
"You can manage that?"
"You need only leave it to me."
If anything, Go Hyeon-woo welcomed the situation. Back then, the divide-and-conquer tactics had been purely in service of the raid, and a trace of regret had lingered within him that he had never truly crossed blades with the two mid-bosses. Now the chance had returned — how could he not be glad of it?
So, leaving this ground to Go Hyeon-woo, Kim Ho walked up to the barrier and offered the assembled enemies a parting word.
"Well then, everyone — see you in a bit. I'll be off now."
His tone was as light as telling a friend, see you tomorrow.
From within the crowd drifted Skinny's snickering.
"Heheheh……."
A laugh that seemed to ask: a place even we cannot enter, and you think you can? But the mockery did not last long. Contrary to every expectation, Kim Ho's body slipped straight through the barrier without the slightest resistance. From beyond it, Kim Ho winked one eye — and vanished into the temple.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
"The sacrifice just passed through the barrier!"
The barbarians descended into chaos, scrambling in circles at the unforeseen development. Go Hyeon-woo was every bit as nonplussed. Could it be that anyone could simply walk through? With that question in mind, he drew his blade in a smooth arc —
— KAGAGAGAK!
— and the barrier flared with a violent rebound, hurling the blade back.
'So that's a no.'
Neither the barbarians nor the vice-priests could pass, yet Kim Ho alone apparently could — he must have made some arrangement in advance.
— THUD!
Fatty slammed his stone pillar down hard against the ground, commanding every eye. Then he singled out Go Hyeon-woo and spoke.
"You... first."
In an instant, everyone on the field readied themselves for battle once more. Go Hyeon-woo, too, set his many questions aside in a corner of his mind. Kim Ho had said the barrier would soon come down. He did not know how that would be accomplished, but his own role was clearly defined.
'Let no one through.'
So that whatever Kim Ho was doing inside, no one would dare interfere. Go Hyeon-woo turned to face Fatty and Skinny. The wind rushing past coiled itself around his blade.
Dungeon No. 353: the Feathered Serpent Temple. As one might infer from the similar names, it was a dungeon linked in story to No. 388, the Feathered Serpent Altar. The main objective, as before, was a [Raid]. Slay the Feathered Serpent High Priest, and the dungeon was cleared.
The difficulty was likewise D-rank; the difference was that the party size had grown to six. Everything else being much the same, why a six-person dungeon? Because the ritual was already in progress from the moment of entry. The High Priest began with several powerful buffs already bestowed upon him, and as the ritual advanced, their number only grew. Naturally, he became that much harder to bring down.
The textbook approach, then, was to halt the ritual first and only then kill the priest. 'But the road there is anything but smooth.' Compared to the [Feathered Serpent Altar], several times the number of barbarians. Push through the human-wave assault, and the next obstacle was Fatty and Skinny, empowered by their buffs. Cut down the mid-bosses and try to enter the temple, only to find it ringed by a barrier. Shatter the barrier somehow and step inside, and more barbarians lay entrenched within. By the time you had cleared them out and reached the boss room, far too much time had already bled away. In the end, you found yourself facing a High Priest draped head to toe in every buff in existence.
'That's how it goes by the book.'
They had brushed past the barbarians with minimal engagement, handed the two mid-bosses off to Go Hyeon-woo, and shaved the time to the temple down to the bare minimum. Next, the barrier. To break it, one would have to concentrate overwhelming firepower on a single point for the space of an instant, and even the workaround involved a fair amount of tedious effort. In this dungeon, exactly one being could cross the barrier freely: the High Priest.
'And I happen to be a priest myself.'
▷ Copied Traits [2/2]
1. Elemental Resistance(S)
2. Priest(D)
He had copied the trait long ago, after all. Humming a carefree tune, I strolled into the temple.
"Intruder!"
The barbarians wandering the interior reacted to me as if they had discovered a giant cockroach in the corner of the room. No wonder they were startled — they had likely never once imagined anyone crossing the barrier. All the more so given that it was a 'living sacrifice,' a creature they normally regarded as livestock.
Their next response, like everyone else's, was to jab their spears at me —
— BAM! BAM!
— and just like the rest, they took a blast of compressed air apiece and found themselves slammed into the temple wall.
"Mind stepping aside."
"Grab him!"
Barbarians came swarming from other quarters as well, but I kept walking, dodging and shoving in equal measure. The interior layout lived in my head in its entirety, so I made straight for the central chamber without a single wrong turn. The closer I drew, the more resplendent the golden light pouring out became, and the more the mana thickened in the air.
Stepping into the central chamber...
On stone beds arranged in a great circle lay people dressed in neat, clean clothes. A faint thread of life still flickered within them, but their eyes were as hollow as though their souls had drained away — for all purposes, corpses. The living sacrifices to be used for the ritual.
And at the very center of it all stood the High Priest, golden dagger in hand. He had been in the middle of splitting open a sacrifice's chest to pluck out the heart, but sensing a human presence, he slowly turned his body toward me.
"Ah, welcome, welcome. I've been waiting for you."
And as his eyes fell upon me, he broke into a benevolent smile — the smile of a grandfather welcoming a grandchild home after a long absence.
[104] The Support Ate It All