The lightning slash skill was one that Reign had managed to create after his sword proficiency hit rank S. It was of course the evolution of the [ Severing, Second Sword ] skill and
As the final Tier I Tainted fell down, Reign and the others switched their focus on the horde of monsters and the hundreds of Tainted who were fighting against them.
Thanks to the array, the Tainted had been able to fight against the horde of monsters without losing too many of their own, after the array fell, however, they were in a bad spot as the horde entered the base.
Only about 100 monsters remained while the Tainted numbered 200. Even though the numbers were fairly large, both the Tainted and the monsters were tired and wounded and they wouldn't be able to resist the attacks of Reign and the others.
"Should we wait?" Asked Tank as he stared at the battle that was going on in the base.
"No need, they're scattered, tired, and wounded, there's basically no danger for us, you should wait with Laura in the back, however, Aelrinder." Said Wolf as the elf nodded at him in agreement.
That was something they had discussed earlier, and the main reason why they didn't just go full force in the base. They didn't know just how many enemies there would be and if there was a Transcendent that would guard them.
Upon seeing the result of the monster attack, however, they were able to guess that there probably wasn't a Transcendent being inside as someone like that wouldn't let all of his people get massacred like this.
Still, to play it completely safe, Laura and Aelrinder, two people that had no marks, would stay back while Reign and the others were going to go inside the base and deal with the rest of the enemies.
As the six people entered the base, chaos descended. Not only were the Tainted too weak to go against Reign and the others even when they were at their peak state, but when wounded and tired, they were simply unable to pose any resistance.
They did, however, try their best. The Tainted fought with everything they had in order to survive, but after the fall of the five Tier I Tainted who were the leaders of the base, they were simply unable to do anything.
The monsters were easier to deal with since the item had made them all enraged, the monsters cared little for defending themselves, and the bloodbath that took place in front and inside the base further changed them and made them even more aggressive.
Against enemies of a similar level, such monsters were harder to deal with compared to normal ones as they would do everything they could to kill the enemy. For Reign and the others, however, they were nothing more than target practice. Even the elite monsters were unable to withstand a single attack and would die immediately.
The mud houses got pulverized as the massive bodies of the monsters ran through them in order to fight against the Tainted, the attacks of Reign and the others also did some big damage to the base as each of their attacks was much more powerful than any they could unleash.
It only took Reign and the others some 30 minutes to clean up the base, their speed, and efficiency when killing was simply too fast and even the strongest of the monsters and Tainted could watch in horror as they got slaughtered.
The base, once a place that was filled with houses of mud, stones, and wood, was now in ruins. Blood flowed through the base, joining together to form a small river that flowed down as bits of flesh and bones littered the place. The bodies of the Tainted and monsters were rarely seen whole as even those that died quickly in one attack would get smashed to pieces by other attacks or the monsters that ran around the place.
The bigger buildings that were close to the houses also collapsed and fell down on the Tainted and the monsters. There were many that got squashed by the heavy rocks as they didn't have enough time during the chaos to dodge.
"Are we sure that's all of them?" Asked Shadow as the six grouped together.
"There's probably some more that managed to survive, but without the base and being so few in numbers, they will be forced to live in the forest as even the array got damaged during the fight, let them be, there's no need to waste time on them." Said Wolf as the others nodded in agreement.
Even if there were survivors, with their low numbers and meager strength, simply surviving in the forest would be incredibly difficult, of course, they could always go to a lower-leveled area and live there.
Of course, the problem was the fact that the base was quite deep inside the Ironbark Woods and getting to a low-leveled area would take a lot of time, especially since the Tainted probably didn't even know the way. If they made a mistake and somehow entered an area that had Tier I monsters inside, they would simply be forfeiting their lives.
There were also the elves that waited outside the array together with Aelrinder and Laura, if any Tainted tried to escape that way, they would get hunted down by them and killed.
"But still, I would have preferred it if we had taken one of the Tier I enemies alive and interrogated them before moving forward," Wolf said as he glanced at Reign.
"What's the worry, Aelrinder said it himself, no Transcendent would risk offending multiple gods by killing us, even those that are parts of powerful organizations wouldn't do it as a simple base in a new world wasn't worth making so many powerful enemies." Reign said as they walked towards the largest building in the base.
The building was shaped like a pyramid and Reign and the others guessed that this was probably the main building.
They wanted to see if they could find anything inside, any blueprints on how the item was created or some sort of map or plans of the area if the Tainted had such things.
Upon reaching the building, Reign and the others had to marvel at it. It was incredibly similar to the ziggurats ( pyramids with a flat top ) that the ancient Aztecs built and were made of stones. The one in front of them was some 20 meters high and made Reign and the others raise their eyebrows in surprise as they could feel a strange aura around it.
They slowly made their way up the pyramid and examined it closely. It truly was just rocks, there were no runes drawn on it or anything like that, the whole building was simply made of rocks.
Without looking inside, it would be hard to tell exactly how the Tainted had created the building, but it was clear that it was different compared to the Aztec pyramids which had rubble as a core that was held in place by walls that were further faced with adobe bricks and covered in limestone.
Reign slashed at a stone, wanting to find out what lay below it, only to be shocked to see his sword bouncing off the stone without damaging it in the slightest.
The others looked in shock as Reign's sword was after all a rank SS sword and could cut through normal rocks like they were made of paper. For such a sword to be unable to leave a single mark on the building made them aware that there was definitely something going on.
As the party reached the top of the pyramid, they stood in a circle that was drawn on it. The moment they stepped on the circle, it glowed before it started to go down, similar to the platform that the territory had back when they were living under the warehouse.
The surroundings weren't dark as there were stones that glowed put on the walls and ceiling inside the pyramid. Reign and the others were shocked to find that there was nothing inside, the whole building was completely hollow inside.
"How is this place even standing?" Asked Reign as he looked around, for a building to be created like this was simply impossible.
"Well, magic I guess?" Shadow said as everybody looked at him with straight faces as he shrugged his shoulders.
"There's some kind of altar there." Tank said as everybody looked in the direction he was pointing at.
There truly was an altar and judging from the fresh blood that could be seen on it, it was definitely not something that the Tainted didn't take care of.
As the platform finally came all the way down, Reign and the others got off and made their way toward the altar. They could sense that the weird aura that enveloped the whole building was coming from the altar and they wanted to see what it truly was.
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