Chapter 167: A foolish/wise choice.

Chapter 167: A foolish/wise choice.

As I ran into the deeper parts of the ruins, I analysed my surroundings. I had been expecting an ancient quarry or underground village, but instead found myself within some kind of maze.

An endless stone brick corridor spread out before me, which occasionally turned into a crossroad. Other than that, there wasnt much to see. If it werent for this place having too few monsters and no system notifications, I would have thought it to be a dungeon instead, because its winding pathways seemed completely useless for any civilization.

In fact, my foremost theory was that this place had been a dungeon at some point, but wasnt anymore. I just made no sense for this place to be manmade at all.

Soon enough, I encountered my first monster. Conveniently, it was a golem of some sort, made of the same bricks that the rest of the ruins seemed to be made out of. The dull grey bricks slotted together to create a humanoid form lacking a head. Instead, a single red rectangle shone from the middle of their torso, which shone its sanguine light, illuminating the tunnel a bit. Thankfully, I never needed light to see anymore, so I didnt need to rely on the monsters to light up the area for me during battle. The golem stood at twice the height of an adult man, so his head? Torso? Just barely stayed clear of the ceiling.

Our encounter had happened spontaneously. I had been running along when suddenly, one of the bricks on the wall lit up and tore itself out of its place, the rest of the wall following it to create its body. From there, it had instantly decided to attack me, leaving me no choice but to defend myself. The creature was remarkably tough, but it was hard to assign it a tier, because while it could boast of its strength and endurance, it was slow and uncoordinated, its movements not meant for battle. My overloaded orbs were rather effective and destroyed the creature in a few volleys, a testament to the golems durability. Even after the creature finally fell, the bricks that it had used were more or less still intact, making me theorize that my orbs hadnt destroyed the creature so much as disturbed its mana with the overloaded property, which tended to upset mana it came into contact with.

All that was left of the wall that had come to life were more bricks, somehow Even where the wall had come out, more bricks laid in weight. Had all dirt turned into stone bricks around here?

Ignoring the morbid thought, I carried on and found a few more monsters as I traveled. All were made of stone, conveniently. Golems, gargoyles, and statues formed themselves out of the walls occasionally, always coming out one at a time. The battles became lengthier the more bricks the monsters used to create their bodies and attack me, but none could really touch me as long as I paid attention. It helped that they didnt have ranged attacks. It was easy to see that even a group of ordinary classers could have issues with having to deal with repeated ambushes, though. If it werent for my endurance, I would need to take occasional breaks in this hostile environment. Thankfully, my efforts were rewarded by a level.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 69!

For some reason, I instinctually felt that that was a nice number. Nonetheless, I had to continue delving.

Either I could leave and search for treasure elsewhere in the ruins, or I could attempt to get past the gate. Emeri had warned me that something fishy was going on with these ruins, and this curse seemed to be an indication of what lay in store if I chose to push on.

A part of me felt stubborn, however. Giving up now would be the same as admitting that Emeri was right and I shouldnt have come here. For all I knew, a great artifact lay in wait beyond that gate! One that perfectly suited my affinity! The gate was probably what had led to the city opening up the ruins anyway. They were searching for the key by sending others to scour the labyrinth on their behalf!

That might be a bit of a reach, but still. Everything seemed too convenient to be explained otherwise. If I could just get passed that gate without needing to spend weeks, possibly months searching for that blasted key, only to lose it to high-tiered classers the moment I found it.

It was then that a dangerous idea came to mind. I had the ability to teleport, of a kind. With [Ghost apparition], I could just reappear on the other side of that gate without any trouble. There was just one issue with that, though. The creator of such a powerful curse would have countermeasures for sure

Was it even a risk worth taking?

I imagined the conversation I would be having with Emeri if I turned back now. Yeah, I found the spot with all the treasure, but it seemed too dangerous for me despite my pseudo-immortality, so I left

Helios, that sounded even worse out loud than in my head.

I huffed. The curses creator had already failed to kill me once with his trap and that was when he caught me by surprise. Who was to say he would succeed this time? The intangibility that the skill momentarily gave me would probably protect me anyway

With my mind made up, I activated my skill and disappeared into a black tuft of mana.

Do your worst