“The battle of the Ethereals?” Arthur muttered the name with a dazed look on his face. ‘Did they bring me back to the time of some kind of war? Looking at the number of corpses around me, this battle should be already over, no?’
No matter where Arthur looked, there was nothing but dead people. He couldn’t see a single living thing. The battle was indeed over and it didn’t seem to have been an easy one either. The mingled and disfigured bodies were an indication that it was perhaps a horrifying nightmare rather than a battle.
It felt like Arthur was seeing the result of a beast ripping apart everything in its way. He couldn’t bear the sight and had to look away immediately.
“This is… disgusting.” Forcing his disgust down his throat, he sucked a deep breath again and then started walking through the silent battlefield. He could feel the solemn atmosphere around him of the horror that occurred here.
“Did these people fight for one of the towers? Or perhaps something else? What are the Ethereals even?” He muttered to himself. A lot of questions popped into Arthur’s head and he had no answer for them, or that was at least what was the case for the first few minutes.
As he moved through the battlefield, he slowly noticed some eerie details. Amongst the dead humans, there were massive lumps of flesh piled everywhere. The flesh looked black, slimy, and bloody but he was certain that it didn’t belong to humans as no human looked like that.
He was certain that whatever it belonged to, it wasn’t a human. Stopping next to one of them, he noticed flies moving over the flesh, eating away from it, making it smell even more horrid than before.
“Ugh, they really didn’t have to be this realistic with the smell mechanic.” He grunted as he stood up again and continued walking. “But, now that I’m here, what am I supposed to do? I can’t find anything worth doing?”
As he finished that sentence, something suddenly caught his eye. A few dozen feet away from him, something started moving. From within the dead corpses, a silhouette rose on its feet. Even from a distance, the monster was extremely tall, almost three times Arthur’s height.
However, its appearance was a whole different matter on its own.
‘Of course, you had to goddamn speak, Arthur. You never learn!’ He cursed as he realized the horrifying shape of this thing.
The creature was clad in a dark armor that seemed to absorb all light around it. A helmet covered its appearance and a comically large sword rested in its left hand. But, even though it had an intimidating appearance, the monster was struggling to stand on its two feet. Its body was arched forward as if it was a dead zombie and its movement was rigid and slow.
The reason for that was its shape which was beyond gruesome. Countless injuries riddled its body, including a particularly bad injury right in its chest. Then, there was the most interesting detail.
‘Is that… Is that a spear protruding out of its stomach or am I hallucinating?’ Blinking a few times, Arthur felt like he was seeing some kind of illusion. However, he was right, a spear was lunged into the monster’s stomach.
‘How… How is this thing still alive?! Did you bribe the soul reaper?!’ He mused as he clenched his sword.
Then, out of nowhere, the monster suddenly lifted its head up and stared at Arthur directly. Immediately, the boy felt a shudder run through his spine like an electric shock. His heart skipped a beat. All he could see for a moment were a pair of horrifying red eyes that seemed to shine from within the helmet.
“Grrrrr!!!!” The monster growled loudly, shaking the entire battlefield as its aura exploded everywhere, reaching Arthur very quickly. He felt his entire body being pushed back from its sheer power. He even unconsciously covered his face to stop the strong gush of power from blinding him.
“What… the hell… is this power?! He’s insane!” He grumbled as he held his ground. ‘It’s far stronger than the Fetus Orc. No, this thing is levels above it!’
Although the fetus orc was a very strong enemy, Arthur was certain that this thing would easily give it a run for its money if they fought against each other. To make his situation even worse, when the monster’s growl stopped it finally lifted its sword up in the air.
That was when Arthur noticed the horrible state of the weapon. With a cracked blade and a chipped tip, it was a miracle the thing didn’t crumble yet. Far from that, when the boy noticed how the sword started to gather energy as it changed color, he felt a horrible coldness in his heart.
The wind in the entire area grew more intense as the sword seemed to charge up.
“Shit! What is he about to do?!” Arthur felt the imminent danger and so he immediately tried to rushed toward the monster before he could do whatever he was about to do. However, he soon realized that it was a grave mistake… A very grave mistake.
*Swish*
When the sword’s light grew to a certain level, the monster suddenly swung it down with all its might.
*BOOOOOOOOM*
A wave of energy exploded everywhere upon contact with the ground.
“Wha-” Before he could even realize it, Arthur found himself face to face with a sword slash about to split him in half. It had appeared and approached him so quickly that he had no time to react.
But, his senses had already kicked in by that time and he immediately jumped to the side. His agility was high enough for him to make that sudden change in direction quickly. But, he was never in time.
“AGH!”
He felt pain assault his left thigh as he landed on the ground to the left. Meanwhile, the giant sword slash continued its path for a while longer before it eventually vanished.
‘That… That took almost half my health!’ Looking at his health bar, he cringed visibly. “Couldn’t you wait a second?! Make a goddamn entrance or something?!”
[Boss Detected!]
Hearing that awful ringing in his head, the monster’s health bar appeared in his vision, and above it was its name.
‘Weakened Ethereal.’ It said.
“Wait, weakened? Weakened?! This is a weakened monster?!” Arthur blurted out in shock as he quickly looked at the monster. The Ethereal was indeed injured heavily and near death, but the fact that this was supposed to be its weakened version made Arthur suck in a deep breath.
That single attack almost killed him instantly had he not dodged it.
“… *Gulp*”
“Grrrr!!!” The monster, on the other hand, was even more angry that its target hadn’t died from that attack and so, it stepped forward, crushing the skull of a dead human on its path. Then, another step, and one after that. The pace of its steps increased dramatically fast till it was charging at Arthur at full speed.
Seeing the behemoth of a creature rushing toward him made him want to run away. Instead, Arthur quickly stood up and drank a health potion before he summoned his claws and almost 7 arrows above his head.
“You’re on bad luck if you think I’m going to be intimidated by that! It takes more than…” free𝑤ebnovel.com
Like an outraged beast, the monster jumped in the air and lunged at Arthur with no hesitation.
A battle that was about to change Arthur’s path completely had begun.