Behind him, the rattling footsteps of the skeleton soldiers grew closer. Those monsters must have spotted him. Brand felt his blood freeze. What should he do? Below were six bone skeletons, any one of which could kill him in his current state.
Use the Wind Queen's Ring? No, the sound would attract trouble, and with the Wind Bullet's volume, hitting three skeletons would already be pretty good. What about the rest?
Brand felt his scalp grow increasingly numb. He constantly reminded himself to stay calm and think about what he would normally do in such a situation in the game. That's right, use every advantage. Every attribute point and skill could be used to escape from a desperate situation.
Just use your imagination.
He immediately thought of a possibility, but the crazy idea also scared him. This wasn't a game, Brand. Can you afford the cost? He couldn't help but ask himself. However, the skeleton soldiers were getting closer and closer. He had to make a choice.
He took a deep breath and immediately thrust his longsword into his abdomen.
A tearing pain radiated from his abdomen, an intense feeling a thousand times more severe than in the game. Brand groaned, nearly collapsing to the ground. He felt like he was going insane, large beads of sweat emerging from his forehead. But at the same moment, the clattering footsteps of the skeleton soldiers stopped.
It worked. The Unyielding Skill took effect, fooling those mindless bone skeletons.
Brand didn't dare to waste any time. He forcibly suppressed his dizziness and pulled out the sword. Though he deliberately avoided vital organs, blood still sprayed, covering the ground. The young man didn't dare to look, nearly breathing with difficulty, using the sword to pry up the square stone tablet, then quickly sliding down the hillside.
He had five minutes to save himself. His life hung by a thread.
The Soul Fire triggered by the Unyielding Skill sustained Brand as he staggered toward the village. But just as he entered the village, he was startled. Between the ruins of the buildings lay numerous patches of white bone skeletons—new skeletons, the work of the Corpse Witches. Influenced by Summoning, they crawled out from graveyards or tore out from flesh.
In the gradually darkening twilight, these white bone skeletons brought an enormous, oppressive feeling. Fortunately, Brand was knowledgeable; otherwise, he would have collapsed from fright.
He calmed himself and counted quickly. More than fifty skeletons were visible. This was no small number, indicating Madara's invading forces were growing stronger as they advanced. However, the only reassuring thing was that Brand knew these flimsy bone skeletons were no match in combat against their Dark Refined counterparts.
They were even slightly inferior to an ordinary adult man.
Brand advanced while observing. His goal was the village's small temple, which should be directly north—if his memory hadn't failed him. Despite the many disadvantages brought by death, one advantage was that the wandering undead on the streets viewed him as a fellow. Even if Brand bumped into these brainless creatures, they would at most adjust their balance and continue on.
This was a huge advantage.
With this advantage, he found the Karydas temple in just over three minutes—although it seemed Madara's undead did not respect this pottery god from the game, as they had already demolished one wall of the temple.
This provided Brand with a lot of convenience. He directly slipped in along the wall. Inside was pitch black, where one could not see their hand in front of them. Brand remembered that the temple was later rebuilt, but after fumbling around for a while, he found the internal layout was still quite similar. Using his memory, he quickly found the path leading to the Meditation Room.
Unexpectedly, there was a wandering skeleton in the Meditation Room. This sight in the dark gave Brand a big scare, but luckily his nerves were tough enough. He quickly calmed down, took a deep breath, and reassured himself it was just a mindless puppet.
But his breathing grew increasingly difficult, and his vision started to blur. He had less than a minute left.
Brand recalled that the secret passage entrance should be behind the podium. He groped around there and found the square recess. At that moment, he truly felt like calling upon Martha. Trembling, he pressed the stone tablet, fearing heaven might play another malicious trick on him.
Fortunately, it didn't. In the pitch-black silence came a faint click, then a second, followed by a rumbling from below. Finally, a rustling sound as a gentle breeze swept over his back.
Brand turned around to see a passageway leading downward—illuminated by the dim light of purple-glow crystals embedded in the corridor walls. These crystals weren't valuable but were not widely used due to their faint light.
He shook his head; the dizziness nearly took him down. In the Amber Sword game, during the five minutes Unyielding Skill was in effect, players wouldn't feel any discomfort. But once that time was up, even the toughest nerve couldn't hold them up.
Brand was relying almost solely on his willpower, driven by his desire to survive. He trudged forward, recalling the origins of this passageway. The Holy Temple Knight buried here was a famous NPC named Girande or something. A native of this place, he participated in Erune's War of Independence and lived a righteous life. After his death, people buried him in his hometown, as per his last wishes.
It was said this area used to be a forest. Later, a temple was built on it, and the Flame Temple people altered the Holy Temple Knight's passageway to let him rest eternally in the Divine Country's peace. Brand was seeking the treasure sword called Azure Light Piercing, the weapon used by the knight in his lifetime. The young man had no intention of disturbing the dead, but presumably, the knight wouldn't want the undead to run rampant over his homeland.
The young man began to falter. He labored to support himself against the passageway walls, advancing twenty or thirty meters. The end of his vision gradually brightened—a soft, enduring white glow likely produced by advanced micro-glow gems. Brand felt a renewed sense of vigor, knowing he was close to his goal.
But before he could even relax, a black shadow suddenly dropped from the ceiling. Steel claws seized his shoulders and yanked him upward.
Brand felt an immense force penetrate his limbs, like iron chains shackling him. He instantly understood the power disparity. This strength was at least four energy levels higher. Alarmed, his game experience told him what it was—a Stone Statue Ghost. The guy who previously completed the quest never mentioned there being a Stone Statue Ghost in the passageway.
The Stone Statue Ghost was a creation of a cloth processing craftsman wizard, a level 20 monster. Compared to it, a lower-level Corpse Witch was like a gentle baby.
Before Brand finished processing this, he felt himself being lifted—an ethereal sensation of flying. He felt himself cross a long distance before his back crashed heavily into the cold tomb wall. His bones groaned as though each one was breaking apart.
But our protagonist had no time to worry about that. He struggled to his feet, shaking his head, and saw the Stone Statue Ghost closing in like a shadow.
Is there still a chance?
...
(PS. Really, it's not that I don't want to burst out... Just a few hundred points short on the index.)