No. 353 Feathered Serpent Temple (2)
The Feathered Serpent Altar and the Feathered Serpent Temple were dungeons linked by a continuous storyline — every choice I had made in the former carried over, great and small, into the latter. The High Priest remembering me was one of those consequences.
At this point, a quick recap of what I'd gotten up to in the previous dungeon: I stormed the village and turned the whole place upside down,
"Catch me if you can? You can't, can you?"
Then, until Go Hyeon-woo secured the Shamanic Dagger, I strung the priest along, needling him at every turn while dancing just out of his reach,
"Hey, maybe show a little concern for your own defense. Feels awfully sloppy to me."
"...I will not grant you a clean death."
And once I judged I'd stalled long enough, I finished things off with Inferno Fist.
"Do not think this is the end. Next time, I will surely—!"
"Sure. See you next time."
KWA-KWA-BOOM!
Such was the tempestuous history between us, yet the tone the priest took with me now could not have been gentler.
"I have been waiting for us to meet again. Waking or sleeping, you were all I thought of."
"Hearing that from a man doesn't exactly thrill me. Really, there was no need to pine so desperately."
The priest smiled benevolently once more.
Everything about him still looked serene, but his eyes alone glistened with a settled, oily bloodlust.
"You seem to have come to interfere again, but you are one step too late. A ritual once begun is beyond even my power to undo — how would you stop it?"
And just as he said, the ritual was advancing on its own, though the priest never lifted a finger.
Formless energy kept streaming out of the bodies lying there, only to be drawn into the priest. The frame that had seemed somewhat slight at our last meeting had bulked up solid, and his tattoos, drunk full of mana, glowed gold. Even the wrinkles on his face looked a little smoother. Impressive stuff, that ritual.
"If I offer you as a sacrifice — and that friend of yours raising havoc outside along with you — the advent could be hastened considerably. And while I am at it, I shall reclaim the Shamanic Dagger as well."
"Talking as if you've already caught us."
The smile on the priest's lips deepened, and little by little his killing intent began to seep through.
"Indeed. You will never leave this place alive."
"You said the same thing last time, and yet I made it back in one piece, didn't I?"
The priest briefly took his eyes off me and glanced behind — and the barbarians who had chased me in tightened the noose.
"If you are so confident, then struggle all you like."
"Sure, why not. Let's get started, shall we?"
The priest gripped the golden dagger in one hand and stretched his empty hand out to the side. At once, the staff standing in the corner of the chamber came gliding smoothly into his grasp.
He raised the staff and droned out an incantation, and several spheres of golden mana rose into the air, swelling larger by the moment.
Whiii—
I blended Twister into Wind Force and sent the vortex rippling outward. The barbarians who had closed in went sprawling in a heap.
In the meantime, the golden spheres, now grown to a decent size, came flying at me. They drifted along without a sound, gliding as if weightless — but they were fast.
I snatched up a barbarian within arm's reach and hurled him at them; he collided with a sphere in midair and was crushed flat.
Crunch.
That was attributeless magic — take a direct hit, and I'd be crushed just the same. Behind me, as my feet flew across the floor, the stone floor and walls caved in dent by dent.
The priest conjured fresh golden spheres; the barbarians kept coming. I ran for my life, fist clenched tight.
Dark-crimson flame blazed and crackled.
Inferno Fist
"Use it, if you dare."
He knew full well it was the skill that had sent him packing in one blow last dungeon, yet he showed hardly a flicker of alarm.
Not that I could blame him — he had his reasons to be confident.
Reason one: this fight was taking place in the central chamber at the very heart of the temple. If I swung Inferno Fist around carelessly, the building itself could come down, and I risked being buried in the rubble before I ever escaped.
So for now, I let Overheat swallow the flame and cranked my physical abilities up first.
Pop! Pop!
Dodging the incoming golden spheres by a hair's breadth, I kicked off the floor a few times and closed the distance in an instant. The priest shifted a sphere in front of himself to intercept,
Shff!
but I was faster, slipping past him — and leaving a cut across the nape of his neck.
A bit shallow, that one.
Root filled one hand; the other, at some point, had come up holding a sword. I'd clobbered barbarians on the way in and picked up a few of their weapons — E-Rank, if I had to grade them. A little lacking against a D-Rank boss, but serviceable enough in a pinch.
"..."
Even with his throat cut, the priest's face still overflowed with composure. Better yet, not a single drop of blood fell from the wound.
Before long, the body of a barbarian I'd pounded nearly flat — barely clinging to breath — heaved violently, then withered to a mummy in seconds. The priest's severed neck, meanwhile, healed over cleanly in an instant.
The priest's second confidence.
For as long as the ritual continued, he drained the life around him without pause to restore his own. The sacrifices, the barbarians — and me too, if I lingered too close. Stack the buffs he'd gained from the ritual on top of that, and even a clean hit from Inferno Fist was something he could tank two or three times over. And if the fight moved outside the temple, there'd be health potions (barbarians) aplenty — the difficulty would only climb.
"Do you see it now? To fight on without a chance of victory is the height of folly. Give up even now, and I shall grant you a painless death."
"Give up? Things are going perfectly right now."
"If you insist on courting hardship..."
The battle resumed.
Barbarians straining with everything they had to plant even a single spearhead in me, spheres streaking through the air. Even so, I slipped past every attack with superior speed and control, closing in on the priest.
WHAM!
I smashed Root into the priest's face with one hand and swung the sword in the other to cut him down.
Shff!
A long gash now ran diagonally across the priest's chest, but he paid it no mind, steering his spheres to catch me. At point-blank range I dodged by a whisker, swung the sword again, hammered him with Root, and slashed him to ribbons.
Shrrrrk!
Until, at some point, the sword snapped clean in two. Clicking my tongue, I tossed the bare hilt aside.
This is why you never settle for cheap junk.
A weapon really ought to be made of at least Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron. Besides, without any swordsman-class skills or traits, I hadn't been able to deal all that much damage with it anyway. For what was lacking, I'd just have to keep contorting my body to make up the difference.
I put a little distance between us and checked on the priest.
"Ngh... agh..."
His whole body was covered in blade wounds. The composure of moments ago was gone; he glared at me with a face twisted grotesquely.
But he soon drained the life from a few living sacrifices and a few barbarians sprawled across the floor, healed his wounds, and his expression settled back into ease.
"Do you still not understand? However many times you try, it is all for nothing."
"I wouldn't be so sure. Your food supply keeps shrinking, after all."
"Your own situation hardly looks rosy either. You dodge admirably — but how long can that last?"
It came down to a race: would the living sacrifices run dry first, or would I let a single attack through before they did? And the priest, it seemed, believed that if he dragged things into a long war of attrition, I was bound to slip up once.
If I fumbled here, I'd deserve to bite my own tongue off.
A mistake I hadn't made even in A-Rank or S-Rank dungeons — in a D-Rank one? I'd have to hand in my veteran-gamer title on the spot.
Of course, there was no need to broadcast any of that, so I silently squared my stance and kicked off the ground. The priest loosed a prepared sphere at me as I closed in fast — naturally, there was no chance it would land.
And just as I reached him, about to swing Root and the scavenged E-Rank sword once more, the priest broke into a smile of pure triumph.
"You took the bait."
FLASH!
The dagger flared with light, and massive spheres came bursting out. A spell that, until moments ago, had demanded considerable time and focused concentration to cast had manifested without the slightest warning.
But I had already put a wide stretch of distance between us — before the spheres ever flew, before the dagger had even begun to shine. With his trump card bursting like a soap bubble, the priest's face froze solid.
"...How did you dodge that?"
"You watch carefully, and then you dodge. Simple as that."
In truth, it was less a matter of watching and dodging than of psychological warfare. I'd known exactly what that dagger was from the start, and I could tell that if I kept pressing him, this was the moment he'd play it.
The priest's third confidence: the Shamanic Dagger. Also the hidden piece I'd come to this dungeon to claim.
The magic imbued in it was Memorize — a utility-type magic that let him store spells with long cast times in advance and unleash them instantaneously. As the gentleman had just demonstrated firsthand, it was a favorite 'hidden trump card.'
The drop conditions for the Shamanic Dagger were to fell the priest 'in the central chamber,' 'after all the living sacrifices had been used up.' The priest must not leave the central chamber by any means, and I must not attack the sacrifices to hurry things along. On top of that, the temple had to be completely cut off from the outside, so that no new living sacrifices could be added.
The barrier was handling that duty for now — but once it came down,
Go Hyeon-woo would be the one holding the line.
That was why I'd left him outside the barrier. And, as a bonus, he'd get to test his mettle against the mid-bosses.
Pop!
Once more I compressed the space between us and came surging in before the priest. Judging it was time to change tactics, he set his spheres orbiting around him and leveled his staff straight at me.
A pillar of golden mana shot out like a beam of light,
This one's even easier.
It had been his signature spell in the last dungeon, so dodging it was no trouble at all. Weaving this way and that around the spheres, I whipped Root and sword about freely, piling damage onto the priest. Then I darted back out to reset. Then closed in tight again, unleashed a wild barrage, and pulled away once more.
How many times did I repeat that strike-and-retreat rhythm?
"Th-this can't be..."
Before I knew it, the barbarians and sacrifices around us had thinned to a number I could count at a glance. And contrary to the priest's expectations, I hadn't made even the tiniest mistake.
"You're starting to look a little anxious there."
"...Silence."
The priest ground his teeth. Before long he raised the dagger and began murmuring an incantation under his breath — and the pressure that had weighed on the whole area seemed to ease a notch.
The barrier around the temple had finally been released.
Which meant the barbarians who had been locked out would come flooding in like a tide. Which also meant a glut of fresh living sacrifices to drain.
The priest regained his composure and let out a low chuckle.
"Heh heh... Did I not tell you it was all for nothing? It is too late for surrender now. I shall grant you a most agonizing death."
"Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. Anyway — go on, finish what you were doing."
"...As you wish."
The battle began anew.
Wounds were carved into the priest's body here and there, healed over, carved again; the count of sacrifices dwindled. Perhaps because he expected a massive reinforcement of sacrifices any moment, his defense actually seemed to grow sloppier.
But...
"Wh-what is the meaning of...?!"
Even with the remaining sacrifices down to single digits, the temple stayed utterly silent. Far from anyone entering the central chamber, there wasn't even the faintest sign of anyone prowling the temple.
The priest pressed desperately against the door and shouted through it.
"Why... why do you not come!"
"You're telling me."
Looks like Go Hyeon-woo was doing his job well.
[Next Chapter — 105: The Support Ate It All]