Effie and Caster quickly threw the few undead creatures remaining in front of them over the edge of the chasm. Finally safe from their constant attacks, most of the cohort took a chance to quickly catch their breath.
Only Nephis, Lucien, and the Stone Saint were still fighting. In fact, the overwhelming pressure of the pursuing horde had grown so heavy that they were barely holding on.
The three figures–one shrouded in shadows, one drowned in pure white light, and one engulfed in violent lightning—were slowly buckling under the furious onslaught of the army of the dead.
Sunny gritted his teeth.
…If nothing changed, they were going to be the ones being thrown into the dark abyss very soon.
With a grim expression on his face, he glanced at Effie and said:
"Go."
Leaning on her spear, the huntress weakly shook her head.
"Someone will have to hold them off long enough for everyone to get to the other side. You should…"
Sunny interrupted her.
"I'll be the last one to cross. Don't worry… I have a plan."
Giving him a long look, Effie hesitated for a few seconds, then nodded.
"Alright. Stay alive, Sunny."
He quietly chuckled.
"Aww. I didn't know you cared."
She stared at him for a bit, and then calmly said:
"No, it's just that if you die, pretty soon I'll have to fight your scrawny corpse. So… don't do that. Okay?"
With that, Effie beckoned others to follow her and stepped on the rickety bridge.
Sunny blinked a couple of times, watched her go, then turned his back to the chasm and sighed.
Brandishing the Midnight Shard, he dashed forward and joined Changing Star, Hour of Calamity, and the Shadow Saint in their desperate fight.
Dispatching a couple of skeletons, Sunny briefly turned to Nephis and said:
"Retreat to the bridge. Saint and I will hold them off!"
Her eyes shone with white flames through the visor of the Starlight Legion Armor's helmet. A moment later, he heard a hoarse voice:
"Are you sure?"
He dodged the claws of an especially menacing monster, bashed it away with the pommel of the tachi, and yelled:
"Yes! But…"
Another undead creature fell to the Midnight Shard.
"...when you get to the other side, you need to destroy the supports of the bridge. Do you understand?"
Changing Star hesitated, almost missing the timing of her attack. Then, she asked:
"What about you?"
Sunny laughed.
"Don't worry about it. I have a way to get across!"
Nephis didn't answer for a while. Finally, she simply said:
"Alright."
Not one to waste words, Changing Star didn't say anything else. When the opportunity presented itself, she silently retreated, letting Sunny take her place.
Sunny glanced at the only remaining companion.
"You should go too."
Lucien frowned; he wanted to protest. He was the fastest one there; he should've been the last one to leave. But in the chaos of the fight, he chose to listen to Sunny and retreated.
In an instant, he zapped across the bridge and began sawing through the bridge's supports beside Nephis.
It only took a few seconds, but to Sunny it might as well have been a lifetime. When the thunderous boom of the bridge hitting the cliff wall reached his ears, he smiled.
'Finally.'
Turning his back to the undead creatures, Sunny peered into the darkness. Seeing the cohort waiting for him on the other side of the dark abyss, he lingered for a moment, sighed, and ran to its edge.
They watched as Stone Saint dissolved into darkness and the flood of skeletons lunged towards Sunny, stretching their deadly claws to tear him apart.
Approaching the abyssal chasm, Sunny briefly glanced into the impenetrable darkness that filled it and jumped off the edge.
Their faces contorted to one of horror, then shock, then astonishment as they stared at the edge of the cliff.
Had he really jumped to his death?
Lucien sighed, "He's still alive, look down, you idiots."
Sure enough, there he was. Hanging onto what seemed like a piece of thread. A memory.
"Need a hand?" He asked and went to grab the rope.
"No," Sunny said, and the rope began shrinking, "I can do it myself."
A few seconds later, he climbed over the edge of the cliff and sprawled on the cold ground, breathing heavily.
After confirming that everyone was alive, Lucien sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. He winced as one of his cuts caught on the edge of a rock.
Sometime during the fight, his armour had been destroyed. He didn't even realize when it happened. As a result, his body suffered much more grievous injuries. He was drenched, head to toe, in his own blood, and it didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.
The others were talking about something, but he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. He needed to rest, preferably for a few days. But that was a luxury he could not afford.
For now, all he could do was patch up his wounds to the best of his abilities.
With a loud sigh, Effie plopped down beside him. Her white chiton had been dyed red by her own blood, and her spear looked on the verge of breaking down.
"You've certainly seen better days." She glanced at Lucien, "Want me to help you with that?"
"No," Lucien spoke through his teeth while bandaging the gash on his bicep, "I don't need your hands roaming around my body."
With a teasing glint in her eyes, she smiled at him, "What, you don't like beautiful women touching you? Don't tell me…"
A look of fake surprise passed by her face, "Are you g-"
"No," Lucien interrupted her with a glare, "I like women-Wait, why the spell are we talking about this at a time like this?"
Effie grinned and then said loudly:
"You tell me, you just started talking about liking women outta nowhere. Are you concerned we'll assume otherwise? Don't worry, you don't need to be insecure about your preferences with us."
Lucien blinked and slowly got up. "We should leave, this place is going to be flooded once the dark sea returns at night. We don't want to be here when that happens."
Sunny looked at him in pity. He knew how hard it was to stay near Effie firsthand. It was not something he wanted to experience again.
A few moments later, Nephis rose to her feet and glanced at the members of the cohort. Her pale face was calm and composed.
"Time to go. Gather your strength."
With sighs and groans of pain, everyone stood up. Lucien quietly sighed in relief.
As the cohort headed deeper into the tunnel, Lucien kept his storm sense confined to a smaller area. He knew what was coming after all, so he only had to watch out for any ambushes.
After a while, the tunnels started angling down. With each minute, the cohort was descending deeper and deeper underground.
"Hey," Sunny whispered beside him. "Do you know where all the skeletons came from?"
Lucien waited for a moment before saying:
"They…are the people that used to live in the dark city, and the hunters that died in these catacombs. If you die here, you'll meet the same fate."
Turning to Sunny, he smiled, "So, try not to die here, unless you fancy being an immortal skeleton."
Sunny shuddered at the mere thought. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by Effie, who suddenly gestured for the cohort to stop.
After discussing something with Nephis, she gave her a nod and turned to the rest of them:
"Listen up. We're close to the central chamber of this maze. The exit to the surface is right ahead. However, getting to it won't be easy."
The tall huntress hesitated, and then said:
"If we want to make it outside, we will have to act fast. There's a big fat bastard of a Nightmare Creature that lives in that chamber. However, it takes time for it to fully wake up. So… don't stop to look at it, don't panic, don't lose your cool. It might look scary, but if you follow Neph and do what she tells you to do, you should be alright."
She waited for a bit to make sure that everyone understood her meaning, and then grinned.
"Alright. If everyone is ready, let's go meet the Lord of the Dead."
With a silent sigh, Lucien summoned his armour. The stone armour had started mending inside his soul sea, but it was still far from being repaired.
…Soon, they entered a giant underground chamber.
The chamber was circular in shape and as immense as the grand hall of the Bright Castle. Its walls were built out of the same grey stone slabs as the mighty walls of the Dark City, but unlike them, the walls of the chamber were covered with whispering streams of cold, nebulous black water.
In the center of it, a vast mountain of human bones rose from the ground, reaching almost halfway to the distant ceiling. Hundreds of thousands had died to create it.
Veins of crimson coral grew from the harrowing hill of white bones, almost like the muscle tissue of some colossal creature. The coral pillars reached up into the dome of the immense chamber, which was broken. Pale sunlight streamed through the opening and eerily lit up the ghastly visage below.
A giant stone hand was reaching down through the broken dome, its palm open, as though trying to caress the mountain formed from the bones of those people who had once populated this dark, forsaken land.
Lucien glared at the mountain of bones, which had already started moving.
'We need to get out of here now.'
In front of him, Nephis was passing the golden rope to Kai. Before the beautiful archer could take it, though, the mountainous creature suddenly rippled.
A moment later, a twisted pillar of bones shot from its body, flying in their direction with the force of a siege ram.
Nephis and Kai dove away, and the massive pillar of bone shot past them. A purple glow encompassed Lucien's body, and he saw the pillar crash against the wall of the chamber and immediately start moving again.
Effie and Caster fell to the ground in an admirable show of speed, allowing the terrifying limb of the gargantuan creature to fly above their heads.
Rising from the stone floor, the huntress screamed:
"It's just thrashing in its sleep! Move! We need to get out of here before the bastard wakes up!"
The Lord of the Dead was slowly coming to its senses. The bones constituting its repulsive body moved and rippled, unfurling from within the white mass like giant, twisting limbs. It seemed to be slowly turning from a shapeless hill into some semblance of a creature.
Lucien dashed towards Nephis and grabbed one end of the golden rope, before he ran to Kai and handed it to him. In the next moment, the archer soared into the air, flying to his destination with incredible speed.
With a terrifying scraping sound, the whole white mountain rippled once again, and several devastating pillars of bone shot to intercept him.
At the same time, two more pillars shot towards Lucien. Even with his enhanced speed, where everything slowed down to a crawl, the pillars of bone moved at normal speed.
Still, it was slowed down enough for Lucien to move out of the way with minimal effort.
But with each second that passed, the Lord of the Dead was slowly coming to its senses. More bone tentacles appeared from the mass of corpses, each moving with growing precision.
But Kai was already standing on the palm of the giant stone hand, the golden rope looped around one of its fingers.
Cassie was the first one to climb up. With the flying rapier loyally hovering over her shoulder, the blind girl effortlessly moved up the rope, reaching the distant ceiling of the underground chamber less than ten seconds later. It was easy to forget that she had absorbed as much soul essence as the rest of them. Her delicate arms hid much more power than one would assume.
…However, back on the ground, those seconds were a real hell. The mountainous creature was waking up, making it hard for the rest of them to stay away from its blindly thrashing limbs.
They needed to get out of here fast.
Effie was the next one to take the rope. The huntress practically flew up, pushing herself with agility and herculean strength worthy of an ancient hero.
Then, it was Caster's turn. Effortlessly dodging a pillar of bone with his incredible speed, the Legacy grabbed the rope… and turned into a barely visible blur. A second later, he was already landing on the giant stone palm.
"Both of you go!" Lucien yelled; he had the best chance of surviving the encounter out of the three of them. He should've been the one to go last.
Nephis nodded and began climbing up the rope. However, Sunny did not respond.
A second later, he looked at Lucien and said:
"You go. I'll be just behind you."
With that, Sunny turned around and dashed toward the Lord of the Dead.
'What the hell is he thinking?' Lucien screamed internally. A part of him wanted to run after Sunny and drag him back, but he had already made his choice. Lucien could do nothing but trust him.
While Sunny distracted the monster, Lucien grabbed the rope, turning into a streak of purple. In the next moment, he was already with the cohort.
Leaning down, he watched as Sunny used his grappling hook memory to close in on the monster and jab his hand inside it.
"He's insane!"
The rest of the cohort nodded in agreement. Below, Sunny stood frozen, his sword raised above his arm, as if he was about to cut it off.
"Say, you wouldn't happen to be able to regrow limbs, would you?" He asked Nephis.
"..." She did not respond. Her gaze was fixed on Sunny.
Just when it seemed like Sunny had committed to cutting off his arm, he stopped. Something fell from his arm, but it was too small to make out from all the way up here.
A moment later, he turned and sprinted towards the golden rope. Dodging a bone tentacle that burst from the body of the gargantuan tyrant to pursue him, Sunny rolled on the ground, jumped over a pile of broken bones, and finally reached his destination.
As soon as he grabbed the rope, Kai started pulling. When Sunny was nearly reaching the hand of the stone goddess, a deafening roar thundered from below, washing over his body in an almost palpable wave.
The Lord of the Dead was finally awake.
But it was already too late. His prey had escaped.
A while later, they were resting in the shadow of the giant statue. Every member of the cohort looked nothing short of terrible; however, beneath the bloodied сlothes and broken armor, their bodies were whole and sound.
Changing Star had healed them all, and now, she was the only one who was weak and exhausted. Using the white flame so much had taken a heavy toll on her.
Sadly, the cohort did not get a lot of time to rest. Despite the fact that it wasn't even noon yet, they had a lot of ground to cover before sunset
The plan they had made at the start of the day was to leave the Dark City from the south by climbing the wall near the grandiose Main Gates and then travel through the Labyrinth to the next safe height, which was about ten kilometers away.
However, due to the fact that they had ended up in the catacombs instead and had to escape through the chamber belonging to the Lord of the Dead, the party was now to the east of the ruins, near the beautiful statue of the faceless woman.
Not only did they have to circle around the city now, but there was also less time to reach safety before the flood of darkness devoured the Forgotten Shore once again.
Standing up in a chorus of disappointed groans, the cohort assumed the marching formation and set out south. Walking through the mud of the colossal crater was not easy, but for the time being, they had no other choice… unless they wanted to scale the monumental stone wall and return to the Dark City, of course.
Luckily, with Sunny's shadow, Lucien's storm sense, and Kai scouting the way ahead, they didn't have to worry about being ambushed by monsters. So, for the time being, the only thing the party had to struggle with was moving their feet through the wet dirt.
The monotonous silence was broken only by laborious breathing and slurping of mud.
…A while later, the impregnable and seemingly endless grey wall that loomed some distance away and above them slowly twisted, drifting away from the edge of the crater.
They were finally leaving the cursed ruins behind.
Because the crater was too big, the bend of its edge was almost imperceptible. Only by looking far into the distance could one say that it was actually curved. Because of this, the cohort could have continued traveling through the crater for a long time without having to move farther away from the goal of today's journey, which lay to the southwest of their current position.
However, they had to leave the crater and return to the Labyrinth sooner or later — not only to escape the black water, but also because there was nothing to hide behind on this vast muddy plain. If any flying Nightmare Creature decided to attack them from above, the cohort would have no defense against it.
The Labyrinth, while hiding its own fair share of terrifying threats, at least offered some measure of protection.
That's why, at some point, Nephis led the party to the sharp slope of the crater, and the seven of them climbed out of it. With the help of Kai and the trusty golden rope, the task wasn't hard at all.
For some time after that, they walked on the ridge separating the crater from the Labyrinth proper, but then, finally, had to turn west and enter the maze of crimson coral.
The walls of the maze had been decorated by endless amounts of grey, incredibly sticky, cobwebs. Lucien knew these cobwebs, after all, that was what he had used to bind the stone blocks together to make the walls of his home. The webs were made of metal; they were incredibly tough and had often cut Lucien when he was using them.
The deeper into the Labyrinth they went, the more of these cobwebs surrounded them. It came to the point where they had to use Cassie's flying rapier to clear the path ahead every few minutes, slowing down the speed of the cohort to a crawl.
"Monsters incoming." Lucien warned and drew his spear, "There's four of them, awakened."
A moment after he said that, four massive spider-like creatures jumped out of the cracks in the coral and attacked them.
The spiders were about the size of a human, incredibly fast, and had plates of something that resembled iron covering parts of their repulsive bodies.
As soon as the spiders attacked, the members of the cohort reacted with the deadly calmness of experienced Dark City hunters. Weapons flashed in the air, severing limbs and piercing through iron as though it was paper. Effie straight up flattened one of the creatures with a devastating strike of her battered shield. The poor beast didn't even have time to understand what a huge mistake it had made.
Lucien's stone spear stabbed into the second spider, skewering it to the ground. A moment later, the spell whispered to him about his kill. Lucien scoffed and pulled his spear out. He had killed the Fallen version of these spiders; these were nothing.
The others were no less efficient. Sunny himself threw the Prowling Thorn and pulled on the invisible string as soon as it sunk into the flesh of one of the spiders, bringing its jump to an abrupt end and sending it crashing to the ground. Before the beast could stand up, Quiet Dancer streaked through the air and pierced its head clean through.
Just a few short seconds after the spiders had tried to ambush the group of humans, the battle was over. Three dead Nightmare Creatures were sprawled in the mud, while the fourth one ended up pinned to a coral wall with several arrows.
"That was all of them," Lucien announced as he kneeled down to start dressing the corpse.
Soon, soul shards, strips of meat, and other useful parts were cut, cleaned, and put into Effie's enchanted bag. Everything was done with efficient speed and professionalism that could only come from a lot of experience.
The cohort had grown strong enough to the point where awakened monsters posed little threat. Lucien smiled; their growth was nothing short of explosive. He surmised that with some luck and a lot of effort, they could actually kill the fallen abominations.
Finishing up with the dead spiders, the cohort indifferently left their eviscerated bodies behind and continued on their way.
After several more minor skirmishes with the iron spiders, they had finally reached their destination. Not too far away from them, colored pink by the evening sun, a magnificent arch of white marble rose high above the sea of crimson coral.
The giant structure was clearly created by the same people who had built the Bright Castle, and made from the same stone. It looked like a much larger sibling of the pristine arch that guarded the entrance to the white road, which climbed all the way to the outer settlement.
Only this one was much more weathered, bleak, and damaged. Signs of corrosion and deep cracks covered its surface, with one of its sides being partially collapsed.
Sunny studied the arch and looked at Nephis:
"This is our stop for the night?"
She gave him a simple nod and said after a short pause:
"We need to pick up our pace. The night is close, and we might have to fight to clear the top of it."
Lucien shook his head, "There's nothing there. Unless something approaches us, we won't need to fight."
Nephis nodded and walked forward. Soon, they reached the giant arch. Kai summoned his bow and flew up, just to be sure. After all, Lucien's ability wasn't perfect.
Kai returned a few minutes later and reported that no terrible monster was nesting on top of the ancient structure.
With sighs of relief, the members of the cohort climbed the golden rope one after another and were soon standing far above the Labyrinth, silently watching as the flood of black water drowned it in the lightless depths.
As the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, they were left on a rectangular island made out of white marble. All around it, there was nothing but the undulating waves of the dark sea.