Gnorlin was impressed by Kaizen's gesture of using himself as bait for the Gorgons, and having no time to discuss another plan, he took the shield and used it to peer into the corridor to see if the Gorgon was still there. The clear metallic surface inside the shield reflected the entrance to the huge chamber filled with statues, so he saw that the Gorgon was no longer there. Then Gnorlin breathed a sigh of relief.
"She's gone." he said in a low tone. "So what do we do now? Do you lead or do I?" Monk inquired.
"You'll have to make way for me. When I hear or see the Gorgons, we'll split up. At that point, you will look around the room for your friends while I distract you. It's the only way." Kaizen explained.
Gnorlin nodded and prepared to enter the room with one last look at Kaizen.
With the help of his shield, the monk began to carefully walk backwards, looking closely at the reflection in the hallway. Walking like this was very complicated, even for a person with good movement like Gnorlin, because not only did he have to pay attention to the path shown by the reflection he saw in the shield, but he also had to pay attention to where his feet stepped, not to mention everything around him.
Considering that the reflection provided a much smaller angle of vision than Gnorlin's normal peripheral vision, he had twice as much difficulty doing absolutely everything at this point.
As Gnorlin slowly made his way into the room with the sea of petrified humans, Kaizen followed closely, crouching down so as not to see anything above the statues. That way, nothing could see him unless it got in his way.
Being spotted by the Gorgons before he could even see them was basically asking to die, or at least that was Kaizen's conclusion, considering that the one he could catch a glimpse of moved extremely nimbly.
When Gnorlin arrived at what seemed to be the center of the room, he found someone in a state he had hoped not to see. Mirthor, the leader of the group, had become another petrified human among the hundreds of equally rigid statues around them.
'No, that can't be.' Gnorlin thought, his eyes widening as he recognized his companion in the reflection of the shield.
Mirthor's stony expression was one of surprise, just like all the other statues in this chamber.
The monk approached the statue and turned to look at it with his own eyes to make sure what he saw was real, then he touched Mirthor's chest and inquired:
"Are you still there, man?"
Though Mirthor's health bar had not yet reset, it was hard to believe that anyone could still be alive in a situation like this.
Kaizen, not expecting to find Mirthor so quickly, was standing next to Gnorlin when he found the warrior. Therefore, Kaizen decided to use the <Analyzing Eye> to check Mirthor's true situation.
[Player: Mirthor
Level: 75 | Race: Human | Gender: Male | Class: Warrior
Profession: Loyal Swordsman Apprentice, Fencing Instructor
HP: 190/600 | MP: 30/125
Attack: 97 | Defense: 77 | Speed: 61
Strength: 65 | Wisdom: 49 | Endurance: 73
Abilities:
- Warrior's Fury.
- Battle Command.
- Coordinated Attack.
- Field Invasion.
- Slash of Light.
- Obsessed Attack.
- Wave Repellent.
[Warning: This player is under the temporary state of 'Magical Petrification'. This effect lasts as long as the player is alive and can only be reversed by killing the creator of the effect].
With that in mind, Kaizen approached Gnorlin, placed his left hand on one of his shoulders, and said:
"Hey, it's no use talking to him. The thing that did this to him is still here, and we haven't found his other companion. They probably split up when they saw the Gorgon, or your leader sacrificed himself to save the Maga. Either way, it doesn't make sense for us to just stand here. We have to do something. Go find the Maga and I will go after the creature."
The Psyker's calm words in this complicated situation made the Monk breathe easier.
"Yes, it is not all over yet. He's right," Gnorlin thought, and then looked sternly at Kaizen. "All right, I can do this. But what about you? How are you going to fight the Gorgon without being able to look at her?"
"Don't worry about me. I'll go my own way." Kaizen turned his back on him and started walking in the direction of the path they had come from.
The truth was that when Kaizen had traveled to this crypt, he hadn't even imagined that he would lend his only shield, which he had deliberately put in his inventory to fight the jellyfish, to a completely strange man. That being the case, he had not yet come up with another plan to fight this creature in this situation.
The ideas that went through Psyker's mind as he crept through this maze of statues were foolish and inefficient. One of them was to burn out his own eyes so he couldn't see anything, now imagine what a blind man with no training would be like trying to fight a fast creature in a maze of statues. It was literally a death sentence.
However, Kaizen knew that he would have to use much more than just his sense of sight in this fight. His sense of smell and his sense of hearing would be two extremely important things, and as he thought about it, he had an idea.
After all, why would he try to find the Gorgon's nest if he could just lure them to where he wanted them?
It was a pretty basic logic, but one he hadn't thought through until now, because he hadn't considered that the Gorgons also had the basic senses of any other evolved living being.
After all, yes, Kaizen was a skilled player, but he was in a difficult situation, so it was understandable that he did not reason as he normally would. He was in an ancient crypt, completely alone now, in a room filled with statues, searching for a nest of Gorgons, a dangerous creature with the power to turn its targets to stone with a mere exchange of glances.
Kaizen knew that even he could not face a Gorgon directly, or he would risk being turned to stone. So he had an idea. Instead of searching for them, he decided that he could lure them to him, or at least close to him. Kaizen knew enough about himself to know that under the pressure of the impending battle, he would eventually come up with an efficient plan to fight the Gorgon without having to look her in the eye.
So he began dragging his boots on the ground as he walked casually, deliberately making noise to attract the Gorgon's attention. Meanwhile, he obviously kept his guard up, always looking to the side with the corners of his eyes, ready to act as soon as the creature appeared.
Kaizen moved slowly through the chamber, making noises with each step.
After a little over a minute, however, the Psyker had no sense that anything had changed.
The environment around him was quiet and, strangely, noisy at the same time, for the walls of the place were so old that it was possible to hear stones and sand palms falling every few minutes. He soon realized that this was the reason why he could not please the Gorgons. If these creatures were accustomed to the sounds of stones and earth falling from the ceiling, as well as the noisy footsteps of bugs in the corridors, their attention would not be so easily captured. So he had to think of a sure way to attract them, a sound that could not be confused with other sounds, a uniquely human sound, the sound of destruction.
So Kaizen looked at his right hand and then at the statues around him.
For normal people, it would be a dilemma to harm these statues that were once adventurers fearless enough to face this crypt and not run away just because they heard the Gorgon's poisonous sound.
However, for Kaizen, deciding whether or not to do such a thing for his own benefit was as easy as deciding what to have for dinner.
Without a sense of scruples to limit someone as determined as Kaizen, it stands to reason that he didn't think twice and lifted a bunch of statues into the air with his <Telekinesis> ability. Quickly, Kaizen smashed the statues, turning them to dust with a snap of his fingers. This caused a loud noise that echoed throughout the place, but it still wasn't enough, so Kaizen closed all the fingers of his hand tightly, forming a fist and simultaneously creating a stone ball with the pieces of the smashed statues.
'I am sorry, but there was no other more efficient way.' Kaizen said.
This time it was not with a smile on his face, in reality he was serious, for he understood that even though all those who were petrified more than 15 minutes ago were already dead, each of them probably had their own goals and dreams that they could not achieve, and he respected that.
...
Edited by: DrHitsuji
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