Chapter 56: Within the hallway
Hearing his words, everyone turned towards the reflection with furious expressions. Jamie was the first to open his mouth to hurl curses at the woman within the reflection, but right before he could do so, sounds of cracks filled the empty, dark room.
Crack... Crack... Crack...
The sound had no source as it came from all directions. A moment later, the mirror within the hand of the depiction of the moon god cracked, and the wide grin on the witch’s face receded a little.
The witch’s eyes shone with a strange light as she lifted her finger and put it on her lips, gesturing for silence. The cracks widened, and the mirror broke... the reflection within it faded without any indication.
"What just happened?" Jamie questioned with a raised eyebrow, but no one within the room knew what had happened, so all they could do was stare at the now broken mirror.
Suddenly, the tall, dark gate before them began to open by itself as if being pulled by some invisible hands.
Everyone took a step back, and Navin asked darkly.
"What now?"
Jaden looked at him with a frown and shrugged.
"We just try to stay alive, I guess," he added as he focused on what was beyond the gates.
The gates parted open, and a dark hallway of similarly humongous size came into view.
All of them continued to look at the hallway with vigilant eyes. Moments passed, turning into minutes, but nothing happened.
"Are we supposed to go there?" Selina suggested doubtfully; they didn’t know what kind of dangers lurked there, so it was reasonable not to go there, but it was the only path available to them.
Jaden stepped forward and removed his dark cloak as he muttered darkly.
"We have to."
Others followed behind and got their weapons ready as they walked towards the hallway. The hallway was just as tall as the room, but it was narrower and had more dim blue cracks.
As they walked, Jaden narrowed his eyes and flowed his mana into them. His vision became sharper, and his gaze fell on the next room at the end of the hallway... that room was similar to the previous one, but it was much brighter.
Jaden turned his head towards the five figures following behind him and spoke.
"There’s another room at the end."
Everyone nodded and called out to their grimoire before taking a formation, Navin, Selina, and Jaden at the front with Navin in the centre.
Jamie and Shelly at the end, and Arden between the two groups.
Just as they had finished walking half of the hallway, white mist began to seep out from the dim blue cracks of the dark walls.
Everyone stopped in their tracks and turned to look at the mist with focused eyes, but Jamie’s voice tore through all of them.
"What are you fucktards looking at? Get your shit together and move!"
They looked at him with an embarrassed look; he was right, after all. Their steps continued and quickened, and the white mist thickened as it clung to the floor.
A few moments later, they were just a couple of meters away from the next room; however, before they could continue moving, the mist rippled and began to rise at various places within the hallway.
The mist began to gather, and it turned harder before finally taking the form of mistwraiths.
"Shit!" Jaden cursed under his breath and looked back. Behind them stood over twenty mistwraiths, and they were making way towards them.
"What should we do now?" Navin questioned with a grave look on his face.
"We should continue moving.. There’s no point in needless battle," Selina suggested as she tightened her grip around the sword.
He looked at everyone with a sombre look before shouting.
"We will continue moving."
Jamie clicked his tongue before continuing on his steps.
"It was finally time for some blood, Tch."
’Knowing the sadistic nature of that witch, this is just going to get worse.’
Jaden clenched his fists and looked at the others who were walking beside him. He could enter he next room whenever he wanted with his [Gale Steps ★★], but he wasn’t using them; he didn’t want to leave others behind.
He was so deep in thought that he had failed to notice a wisp of white mist climbing his body.
Right then, a mistwraith appeared right before them, but before it could do anything, an arrow of yellowing lightning pierced right through its head.
"Headshot!" Jamie exclaimed with a wide grin on his face, and everyone shook their head.
Soon, more mistwraiths appeared near them, and Navin crushed one with his shield and pierced its head with his spear while Selina chopped off the head of another without even a blink of an eye.
Shelly dealt with the mistwraiths, catching up to them as the wind magic assisted her movements. Arden’s fire arrows and Jamie’s lightning arrows whistled through the hallway and pierced many of them.
However, more and more mistwraiths continued to appear, and they had to focus more on battle than on moving past the hallway.
Jaden’s expressions turned grave at the staggering increase in their numbers as he thought.
’Should I use my true strength? No, not yet.’
He decided against it; however, he had another plan as he thought for a second.
’How far can I summon them?’
He looked back at the swarm of the mistwraiths and focused all his mind on summoning his captures within the swarm. black sparks flooded out of his grimoire and moved to that place.
Soon, the black sparks gathered together and took the form of a mistwraith. The summoned mistwraith began to attack the other mistwraith and delath with several of them within a few moments.
Jaden then summoned his galewolves to make the battle as easy as possible. The wolves dashed from one mist wraith to another and ripped them apart; however, being F-ranked, they were not as fast as the captured mistwraith.
"What’s going on? Where did all these wolves come from?" Arden questioned with a puzzled look, to which Jamie answered loudly.
"Go ask them, you dumbfuck! We should be running towards that fucking room instead of asking such a stupid question. Don’t you know? Curiosity kills the bitch."