Bear School Astartes

Chapter 926 - 908: The Dark Cemetery

As Lann got closer, he realized that the guy across from him had wrapped his head and shoulders in burlap just like those pilgrims.

A bandage wrapped around his head completely obscured his face.

And then, when Lann was just four or five steps away, the Demon Hunter’s sharp eyes and experience suddenly noticed something unusual about the other man’s muscle movements.

However, the two short swords in the opponent’s hands were only forearm-length, and technically, they were not yet within the attack range.

This unusual situation made Lann prudently take a step back.

Since the opponent chose to act at a distance of four or five steps, I’ll keep a distance of six or seven steps.

And just as he finished taking that step back... ’Whoosh’!

From beneath the burlap wrapped around the other man’s head and shoulders, a long neck suddenly extended!

The neck connected to a large snake head in front, snapping shut with a ’click’ just a few centimeters from Lann’s face, the sound of teeth clashing together.

This wasn’t a person, or at least not a normal person.

It was a Snake-man!

His limbs weren’t much different from a human’s, especially in such a dire moment, where people didn’t have the time to clean the dark stains and blackened dirt off themselves.

As a result, the skin looked not much different from the Snake-man’s dirty scales.

The two short swords in the Snake-man’s hands, in the eyes of a warrior of Lann’s class, were pretty much showing off his combat style.

The two blades weren’t solid, instead, they were winding and twisting with branches protruding.

They were obviously nimble weapons capable of inflicting brutal wounds.

Thus, one of Lann’s eyes had already discreetly focused half his attention on the Snake-man’s feet.

Sure enough.

After a sudden bite into the air, the quickly approaching Snake-man did not attack Lann head-on.

Instead, he exhibited an agility rarely seen in the warriors of this world.

With a slight push off his leg, he floated to the side, horizontally covering a distance of four steps like a piece of paper.

If it were against some sturdy but not overly agile knights, such movement would surely be annoying.

But against Lann...

The Demon Hunter only lowered his body, and during the Snake-man’s lateral movement, kicked at his ankle.

With his exceptional vision, timing, and decisive execution, the Snake-man’s steps had just begun when Lann sent him tumbling with a single kick.

He then became a rolling gourd.

During the rolling, there were several ’puchi’ sounds of blades entering flesh.

It was the sound of his own odd-shaped short swords slicing into his body as he rolled.

These Snake-men seemed similar to the snakes in Lann’s impression; they didn’t roar or hiss, even in pain or near death, they remained silent and deadpan.

There was a sinister ferocity about them.

The odd-shaped dual swords had cut bloody gashes in his body, making his burlap attire wet and sticky.

Yet he still got back up and charged silently at Lann.

Lann could only frown, precisely maneuvering to avoid him when he suddenly extended his neck again, while thrusting the Lady of the Lake’s Sword sideways into his brain, pinning it to the wall.

The Snake-man’s body ceased struggling as his brain was pinned, yet his legs and feet scrambled on the stone floor a few times before slowly going limp.

He hadn’t gathered any useful information, but after inspecting the Snake-men’s bodies, Lann reached some conclusions.

There were calluses on their hands from long-term labor.

These were marks from using tools, not wielding weapons.

These Snake-men were likely the builders of this secret passage.

Upon hearing the commotion of his battle with Ausloes above, the Snake-men began cleansing themselves.

Similar to ancient craftsmen entombed with their work on an emperor’s mausoleum.

Except those craftsmen were forcibly ensconced in the tomb.

Yet in this secret passage, there were no signs of fierce combat, so Lann believed they were cleansing themselves.

Walking past the bodies of these loyal secret passage builders, Lann ventured into a room deeper inside.

There was a knight facing the entrance, eerily posed in a ’cross-legged’ sitting position.

This pose gave Lann a feeling of incongruity.

Because such poses were common in Eastern meditation scenes, now displayed in a Gothic structure by a fully armored knight’s corpse.

What made Lann frown even more was the layout of the room.

Priestess Emma had said to ’keep going forward’, yet this seemed to be a closed room.

"Priestess Emma has no reason to lie, sir."

Mentos analyzed the scene in his mind, reminding him.

"I agree." Lann glanced around, "So, could it be a Magic Gate?"

His cat-like eyes deepened.

[Spiritual Vision] on.

Sure enough.

Opposite the room’s entrance, behind that wall, was an extending path.

The originally solid wall didn’t even exist under [Spiritual Vision].

Lann walked over, leaned his shoulder slightly against the wall, and the entire wall vanished like a phantom.

"The tricks of casters, sometimes they really have universal traits across worlds."

The Demon Hunter quipped with a smirk.

A phantom wall that blends into the environment; he had seen descriptions of such a trick in the libraries of Airetusa.

Warlocks often use it to hide their laboratories or safe houses.

As he moved forward, the ground beneath him lost even its stone paving, turning into bare earth and rock.

This also meant that Lann had finally reached the other side of the mountains where Losric City was situated.

At the end of the path was a drop of around five to six meters.

After cautiously checking and ensuring he could easily return, Lann jumped down.

Here, without any buildings obstructing, he could see the sky once more.

But after glancing at the sky, Lann felt the situation was even less optimistic.

The sky had grown darker.

Flames were growing weaker.

This seemed to be a cemetery, with various stone coffins placed around.

Lann continued onward according to the descriptions given by Priestess Emma.

Along the way, he encountered two Gravekeepers identical to those at the cemetery in front of the Profound Church.

After showing the small flag received from the Priestess, the two Gravekeepers, who still retained some sanity, sheathed their dual blades meant for bleeding the undead.

"But... the escort team with that... prisoner has passed by a long time ago."

Though not yet mindless ghouls or wandering souls, the words and thoughts of the two Gravekeepers were already muddled.

Stuttering through Lann’s inquiries, they laboriously tried to recall.

"A long time ago?" Lann furrowed his brow slightly, "How long is long? Can you specify in days?"

"Days?" One Gravekeeper, with hollowed cheeks, repeated the word as if straining to remember what ’days’ meant.

In the end, he could only shake his head helplessly, his tattered hood swaying with the motion.

"Can’t, can’t remember, already... don’t remember anything."

"I just saw, the Prince’s... Firekeeper, she’s a woman practicing Crystal Magic. She, she led a group and took... that prisoner forward."

Firekeeper, seemingly a protector against the flames.

But actually, this is a title and position of high status within this world’s religion.

This status relates to their duty: when a candidate for the Lord of Cinder appears, the Firekeeper provides all the help needed to support the hero in becoming the Lord of Cinder.

The true meaning of Firekeeper is ’the woman who prevents the flame from extinguishing’.

Becoming a Firekeeper is the ultimate ideal and goal for the saintesses of the sect.

Prince Losric was naturally a candidate for the Lord of Cinder, and of course, he had his own Firekeeper.

But the Prince’s Firekeeper led the hostage hero away, and nothing was heard thereafter.

These factors combined, giving Lann a bad premonition.

"Thank you." Lann thanked them and offered his blessings.

"Hold on a little longer, hopefully you can still bask in the fire."

The two Gravekeepers nodded numbly; they were also keeping a few dogs, but as the flames weakened, those dogs had undergone varying degrees of mutation.

Their souls were fading, manifesting physical abnormalities.

"Go and do what you must, sir. Just be cautious of the fork ahead; not long ago they say? A long time ago?... Ah, I can’t distinguish time, anyway, a Crystal Lizard emerged from there."

While grooming his mutated large dog, the Gravekeeper said to Lann.

"As long as you don’t provoke it, it won’t provoke you."

"Thanks for the warning."

Lann nodded to them and continued onward along the path.

Along the way, it was still evident that this cemetery, connected to the Fire Transmission Altar, originally had caretakers.

But as the First Flame waned and the Curse of the Undead proliferated, most caretakers became undead, eventually turning into wandering souls, aimlessly roaming the patrol paths they once traversed.

Lann speculated on this from the undead along the path, those corpses that had not yet revived.

Yes, corpses.

Before Lann arrived here, someone had already cleared this path violently.

"The blade was thin, the edge familiar. Precise execution, habitually bypassing defenses to slice directly through flesh..."

Lann’s fingers traced the cuts on the neck of a wandering soul, murmuring as he gathered information.

"A knife expert, even worthy of being called ’expert’. And it’s... a Tachi?"

Lann gazed down the road into the distance.

The sky was too dark now, forcing Lann to light a small glass lantern at his waist.

Behind the crouching Demon Hunter, examining the wandering soul’s corpse, a small blood-red vortex appeared on the ground, slowly rotating and raising a humanoid shadow, equally blood-red.

The shadow was a conservatively dressed, tall woman holding a Magic Staff with a large spherical crystal at its head.

Silently rising from the blood-red vortex, her expression was calm, footsteps subdued, slowly approaching behind the Demon Hunter.

In her left hand, she clutched a sharp dagger.