They waited for a while. Nausica maintained her composed character just fine, and she could still talk while thinking rationally.
Angor saw more than a dozen illusion nodes ominously pulsing around her, yet they did not affect Nausica this time.
“It worked!” Angor smiled in relief.
“Fight poison with poison... Brilliant!” Shan exclaimed to herself.
“Well, I’d say Angor’s ‘poison’ is a LOT more potent than the other one,” Nausica hinted.
“Getting taken over by absolute calmness isn’t exactly a good thing... but it’s still better than falling for the harmful ones,” explained Angor. “If no one has any objections, I’ll go on and apply the effect to all of you.”
As they all wanted to leave this dangerous trap, no one protested.
Soon, everyone except Luna took on their brand new personality. Anyone else here to see them would get confused as to why so many people were imitating Keely’s character.
“It feels strange...” Shan spoke first. Her old innocent girl style was nowhere to be seen as if she matured too early.
“Yes, my mind is sharper now.” It was Keely next, who didn’t look so different than before as she was already distant and hard-hearted. “I can’t think of anything other than protecting my own profit now. Be careful, Angor. In this state, I may ditch you completely if it means surviving on my own, so don’t trust my words too much.
“But I don’t think that will happen. You’re the only one who can guide us out of here, so no one will abandon you. I think.”
Everyone knew the potential side-effect brought by Angor’s mind manipulation, while Keely chose to point it out. She was probably right about how they couldn’t fully trust each other from now on.
“But I already see a good way of using your skill. You know, you can force apprentices to stay calm and learn meditation better or study faster without getting distracted by stuff. Maybe you can use this to get rich!” Shan attempted to tell a joke like how she usually did, but her unnecessarily serious voice only made Angor uncomfortable.
“He’s already rich as an alchemist. Your tactic will probably keep him broke for his entire life,” said Nausica.
“Okay, stop. Since your minds are protected, let’s move on and find a way out of here,” Angor said. He considered for a second before he continued, “The effect will wear off in about an hour.”
“Well, we’re dead anyway if we can’t get out in 20 minutes,” Nausica said as she moved toward one direction. “Follow me, I sensed where the Meraid’s Sword is.”
Everyone complied. Nausica had a scale in hand; what she detected was the previous woman who took her sword away. They all believed that finding the culprit was the foremost task.
While they walked, Keely summoned a number of embers to help them see. The area was full of branching paths and small chambers that led to even more routes and caves.
“Is this an underground maze?” Keely commented.
Shan put a hand on the cave wall and rubbed some broken sand off it. “Or maybe the Duons built this thing. But why are there illusions here? Do Duons know how to use illusions?”
“Remember that strange image we saw earlier? That’s a wizard-level Duon,” Nausica replied while she also checked the walls. “Maybe that thing created this place. Hey... Shan? Didn’t you feel something pulsing on this wall?”
“Huh? No.”
“I think there’s a rhythm.” Nausica switched to her “healthy” arm but didn’t feel anything this time. She then asked everyone to try, yet nobody could sense anything.
“It’s a sensation block.” Angor frowned. “There are illusion nodes around here that activate when you check the wall, but they soon shut off again when you give up. Nausica’s machine arm cannot trigger the illusion nodes, so she can tell something we cannot.”
“So what exactly is this ‘pulsing rhythm’ she said?”
They quickly reached a possible conclusion.
“Are we perhaps... inside the stomach of a monster?”
...
They spent five minutes walking, and under Nausica’s guidance, they reached a wide plaza-like area.
Using Keely’s firelight, they saw the same mist barrier still above their heads.
“There!” Shan suddenly pointed to a dark corner.
The others followed her direction and saw a black silhouette whose face was completely obscured behind shadows.
Angor was already going after the mysterious figure, but his target dodged his attack with a quick jump-away.
“Angor?!” The shadow looked back and spoke in a woman’s voice.
“Who are you?”
Instead of answering, the figure laughed out madly. “HA! So it IS you! I’ve been staying here since earlier just so that I can see Nausica suffer. But you! You’ll do better. Now die! Both of you shall die right here!”
Her voice was full of resentment.
“We’re asking again. Who are you?” Nausica joined Angor to confront the strange woman together.
“Does it matter? Hah! You’re all going to become fertilizer for the garden!” The shadow waved an arm that was followed by a number of shadows that materialized out of thin air. “Go! Kill every one of them!”
The shadows gathered. They resembled different creatures such as monster fish, humans, and Duons. But as far as Angor could see, they were all created out of pure energy and didn’t have actual bodies, just like the strange shark he met before.
Those emotionless, pale-white eyes did not belong to anything alive.
Are these souls? No. They’re... undead!
Upon realizing this, a theory suddenly flashed through Angor’s mind.
Don’t tell me that woman is—
But there was no time for him to confirm that idea now. They had to do something about the undead swarm.
Any other forms of monsters might cause great trouble with such a big number, but since they were undead...
Angor yelled at the others, “You all stay behind me. I’ll deal with them!”
He quickly took out a silver revolver with strange engravings on it—his Prelude to Rebirth handgun. Ever since he crafted this weapon back in Dark Castle, he had yet to have a chance to use it.
“Angor! Those things! You can’t kill them easily without any anti-undead spell, we should—”
Before Shan could even finish her words, she saw a cone-shaped energy wave leaving Angor’s gun.
In front of Angor, ten powerful undead creatures that were rushing in front of their army instantly had their negative energy broken apart while their forms shattered into nothingness.
As the energy wave traveled farther, the other undead creatures that were following closely behind them were also reverted to a form of pure and untainted energy, which returned to earth.
One single hit, and the undead army already had its size shrank by half.
“Angor has something to fight the undead creatures?! And it’s so effective—” Shan spoke out when she saw a shadowy figure sneaking away out of the corner of her eye. “Over there! There’s a Duon!”
Everyone heard her words and when they looked over, they saw a wounded Duon leaning against a wall corner. It was still moving slowly.
It can tell us how to get out! Everyone reached the same conclusion.
“Oh, not yet!” The black shadow began to rush toward the Duon with a knife in hand.
“She’s going to kill it!”
The others tried to intervene, but they were too far to reach there in time.
Another shadow suddenly moved in front of the Duon creature.
Clang!
The woman’s knife was kicked away by a swift attack before a second slash created a red arc in the air, which penetrated the woman’s chest.
It was Keely, who had turned into her beast form. Without giving her enemy any chance to retaliate, Keely picked up the Duon and jumped back to the group.
The wounded shadow slowly vanished from their view.
“Is she dead?” Shan asked.
“No,” Nausica shook her head and said, “she got away. I sense the Meraid’s Sword moving farther from us. That shadow might be her clone or something.”
“Yeah... Otherwise, she didn’t need to move so slowly to kill that Duon while Angor was busy.” Shan moaned in disappointment. She then asked, “This Duon is still alive, right? We have some questions for it then.”