The final core just made all of the monsters in the vicinity no longer care whether there are walls or trees on the way. They smash through all of them and they are now chasing me to wherever I am going. I have to do some parkour moves from all the obstacles that have been constantly blocking my way. It's already quite painful to see as most enemies keep on throwing obstacles at me and sometimes, they themselves will be blocking me. They are not something hard to kill but they become so annoying the more they appear before.
After I raided the last underground laboratory, the Dark Cores that I collected that should have accumulated into four pieces started to fuse together into one, and right now, it cannot be put back inside my Inventory and I had to manually carry it with me all around. I am lugging this round and dark item that looked very similar to a bowling ball minus the weight as this one is not as heavy as the former one. The only thing is that this thing is quite annoying to have around as I am forced to use only one hand fighting enemies.
Because it's annoying to carry the Versatile Weapon while traversing different obstacles and fighting enemies, I sheathed the Versatile Weapon back to its sheath and went to using magic spells. I have plenty of mana potions in my inventory and my mana pool is huge. What's the use of my mana if I don't use them, right?
RAWR!
A beast that looks like a hybrid of a pig and a deer suddenly charges with its mouth dripping in saliva. Before it can approach, I blast it off with a Fireball before running away. It doesn't matter if I kill the monster or not. What's important is to run away from the monsters and reach the Altar of Demise, the place where the cult leader should be waiting in the final battle. Although I don't know whether the cult leader has the ability to teleport, there will be a chance that she will appear there, waiting for me, and will try to take back the Dark Core from my hands.
A few monsters that carry weapons started to line up to interrupt me from moving forward. They are too adamant for me to be stopped there but I am not just someone who can be stopped so easily. I pulled out the Versatile Weapon and changed it to a hook and chain, throws the hook to the tree in the distance, just behind the monsters, and swung on it. While on the way, I kicked the f*ckers that are still blocking before landing on the ground and resuming my run.
It took me a few minutes of running, evading, and jumping from obstacle to obstacle around the ruins before I managed to get away from the ruins. Now, I have to continue running a few more kilometers until I reach the camp of the cult where the base is located. Thanks to my previous endeavor of taking my chances to run without consuming stamina, I didn't need any kind of potion, skill, or item to recover my stamina as I have an unlimited amount of it.
The monsters are still chasing me but whenever they get close, I started blasting them with magic spells, or sometimes, I delay them by creating a [Kekkai] that would stall them for a few seconds before it disappears and they will continue to chase me. The further I go, the more monsters chase me.
Nove l B(in).C OM
However, that didn't stop me from running. This is just a minor problem and if I reached the cult's base, all of this will end. It's not that hard.
And so, by jumping, evading, attacking, and smacking through monsters and obstacles, I managed to reach the base of the cult. It's a very high spire that towers in the sky. It's not visible in the distance and in the air but once you reach the base of the place, the tower will appear before them and that is what exactly happened to me. As I reached the vicinity of the cult's tower, a message popped up before me.
[Due to your arrival in the vicinity of the Spire of Darkness, the effects of the Dark Core are now nullified. All of the monsters that are attracted due to the effects of the Dark Core will return to where they came from peacefully.]
I looked behind me and all of the monsters that were chasing me seems like they got brainwashed, stopped from their tracks and turned around and went away like they didn't have any wish to get any kind of attention from me. I am kind of grateful that this effect appeared but I am a little bit disappointed as I can't use the monster attacks as an easy getaway from the cult members. It would have been much easier to reach the top of the spire by just letting the monsters go rampage as I make my way to the top of the spire, leaving the cult members do their job at fending themselves from the attack of the beasts.
"My first plan to wreck them kind of falls apart with all of the monsters turning back after chasing me this far. But f*ck it. If they have the ability to cancel this core's ability then fine, I guess I will have to do it by myself. Lucia, is Cotton awake right now?"
"Cotton? Yeah. She is currently messing with Cath Palug right now."
"Alright, can you let Cotton spit out a web on this core right here?"
"Okay, Master. Wait a little bit, I will have to stop these two from fighting for a bit."
It took a bit of time before the Summon's Area's portal entrance opened and Cotton poked out from it being held by Lucia.
"Can you give a little web on this core, Cotton? Something that would allow me to hang it on my side?"
Cotton didn't hesitate and shoot out a web and covered the core with it. She then cut it off while leaving a bit of a longer string attached to it that you will think this looks like the traditional looking bomb that needed to be ignited using a match or lighter on its string.
"Thanks, Cotton. I will reward you later after this."
Cotton is happy after I pat her head before she retreated back to the summon's area. I attached the dark core in my waist and made sure that it wasn't obstructing much in my movement. Now that we are almost to the final part of the first phase, it is time to head in and face all of the enemies. The cult members, the monsters that the cult might have added to act as guards, the cult leader herself, and then there's the monster that used the curse of the cult leader to fulfill his wishes. It's time to end this.