Chapter 235: The Hidden Passage
"This place sure smells familiar..." Azarex sighed as he looked at the bits and pieces of flesh around them. Slowly but surely, the grey stone of the cave began to get painted in a hue of crimson.
"Forgot about them, are you sure you are alright..." Dhruv asked for an unknown number of times. Even though he had witnessed it all, he couldn’t believe it.
"Yes, master, I’m alright. See, this is the greatness of being undead. I will be truly unkillable unless someone destroys my core, or the crystal embedded in my skull..." Azarex proudly declared the secret that he should’ve protected with his life?
"If you say so..." Believing him, Dhruv began to look around the cave.
As Azarex has mentioned, this place truly smells of death. There were corpses all around them ranging from tier 3 to even tier 1.
After his badass entry with a bang, there were still many lower-tier monsters, which was a strange thing as monsters couldn’t truly settle peacefully... Or at least that’s the impression Dhruv had on them.
Craackk!
Boooomm!
Chugging a mana bottle, Dhruv began to walk toward the entrance to survey the thunderstorm. He didn’t even reach ten meters close to the entrance, and it was already apparent that there was no way he could go out in this weather.
Coming back into the cave, Dhruv looked toward Azarex and remarked, "Uhhh! I don’t think it will stop anytime soon."
Azarex nodded, totally agreeing with his master.
Looking his way, Dhruv asked, "How many of your undead have survived?"
Instead of answering, Azarex closed his eyes and tried to connect with his undead. Within five seconds, he looked at Dhruv with disappointment and stated, "None, master. All of them have died beside this one..."
Azarex stated while pointing near the entrance of the cave. Dhruv was surprised to see that the eagle had survived and was calmly chowing down on bits of meat as if nothing had happened.
"So, none of them survived... hmmm, no surprise there." Saying these words, Dhruv began to move around the cave to collect the monster’s cores along with their flesh.
"Twenty... twenty-one... Twenty-two..." Counting the last core, Dhruv placed all of them inside his inventory. He had managed to get another four tier III cores here.
Even after fusing the monster’s flesh, he had begun to run out of space in his inventory. If this continued like this, then he would have to throw the lower-tier monster items.
This fact was truly hurting him as he was the type of guy to hoard even the basics of his loot until the endgame.
Cracccckkk!
Boooomm!
Everything had changed inside the cave, but the outside... the outside was still the same. The thundersnow storm was still at its peak with no sign of stopping anytime soon.
While warming himself up by sitting beside a fire pillar, Dhruv commented, "I don’t think we would be able to get out of here tonight."
"Yes, master. I think the same... the thunder isn’t in the mood to stop," Azarex responded as he looked toward the cave entrance.
Nodding his head, Dhruv brought out some slices of meat and shared them with the undead lord. It had been some time, and he felt like he could fuse another one or two slices.
Looking at one of the pieces, he whispered, "Fusion." A second after whispering, the notification appeared in front of him.
[You have gained 10 essence points.]
’10, Well, that’s quite good...’ With a smile, he looked toward the other slice and decided to fuse with it as well.
From this slice, he got 8 essences, which was good as well. After fusing his own, Dhruv looked toward Azarex.
’He can eat five slices in one go. I really have to buy a stomach mutation in the next evolution...’ Dhruv thought as he counted the slices left in front of Azarex... which were none.
"You need more, Azarex?" he asked, willing to share more of the loot.
"No, master. That was enough."
****
One hour later...
"Man, I’m so bored," Dhruv exclaimed as he got up from his seat and began to walk to the entrance for God knows how many times. No matter how many times it has happened, the results are always the same.
Craacck!
Boooom!
The thundersnow storm was still at its peak with no sign of stopping. On the contrary, it even looked like it was getting worse.
****
Another hour later...
Crackkk!!
Booooom!!
’Why can’t this thing be shut up for a second...’ Dhruv hissed as he began to find the sound of lightning frustrating. Looking toward the entrance, he sighed in defeat.
Seeing that there was nothing to do, Dhruv had tried to practice some spells. Because he couldn’t practice metal magic here, he had decided to strengthen his illusion capabilities.
But he couldn’t do even that... every time he tried to perfect the blueprint, a flash of lightning would strike and break his focus. He hadn’t been able to achieve anything in the last hour.
To calm himself, Dhruv began to walk around the cave. While he was walking around the cave, he found something interesting.
He had discovered a hidden passage—or to be precise, it wasn’t exactly a hidden passage. The illusion of it being hidden arose from the fact that the area beyond the passage was shrouded in complete darkness, creating the impression of it being a wall.
Looking at the area in front of him with excitement, Dhruv exclaimed, "Azarex, look! There is something here."
Hearing his words, Azarex quickly got up from his seat and ran toward his master. Looking at the passage with a surprised expression, he asked, "Huh! Where could this lead to, master?"
"Who knows... let’s find out..." Dhruv muttered as he looked at the hole with excitement. He was so bored that he was ready to even venture into the passage that was screaming of being something bad...
Not daring to disobey his master, Azarex nodded as well.
Checking that his mana is fully regenerated, Dhruv muttered, "Let’s gooo..."
