Free Web NovelChapter 563: Undead
The bodies were spread across the chamber in broken groups, but Gabriel noticed something strange before anything else. He raised one hand before anyone from ChaosKnight could step past the entrance.
"Do not enter."
VV’s boot hung over the stone line for a moment before they pulled it back. ChaosCleric swallowed, and the small blue light at the tip of his staff shook slightly with his hand.
The Tianlan cultivators had not died while running in every direction. Most of them lay facing the entrance, while the rest were turned toward the far door with their weapons still in their hands.
IceQueen stepped closer to Gabriel’s side and looked across the room without crossing the boundary. Her eyes moved over the bodies, and her fingers clenched around the hilt of her sword.
"This was not a normal fight. They were trapped between two exits," she said in a low tone.
Gabriel gave a small nod. "No one killed this many people without leaving signs of movement. The chamber did most of the work."
ChaosCleric stared at the floor near the first body. His face looked pale behind the helmet, and his mouth opened once before he spoke.
"Those Tianlan cultivators were arrogant, but they were not weak enough to die like this without making noise."
Gabriel crouched near the boundary and studied the nearest corpse from a safe distance. The armor over the chest had a fist sized hole through it, and the same hole passed cleanly through flesh and bone.
No claw marks surrounded the wound. The edge was too clean, and the blood around it had dried in a thin ring instead of spreading across the stone.
"Do not use detection skills," Gabriel said without looking back. "Do not release mana into the room unless I tell you."
ChaosCleric froze with his staff already half raised. The blue light at the crystal tip pulsed once, and a small thread of mana escaped before he could pull it back.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed behind the mask in annoyance. The dried blood lines under the bodies twitched as the faint mana touched the air inside the chamber.
HUMM!
The sound passed through the stone floor, and several ChaosKnight members stepped back at the same time. Red black lines lit beneath the dust, connecting the corpses in a wide net across the chamber.
"I said do not use mana," Gabriel repeated in a firmer tone. His fingers moved toward his sword as the glowing lines spread farther.
ChaosCleric’s shoulders stiffened. "I heard you after my hand already slipped."
Right at that moment, something even more shocking happened.
The bodies moved.
"Wait did it... did it just move?"
Several ChaosKnight members pulled back without needing orders.
Before the shocked eyes of everyone, thin black nails pushed out from the backs of the corpses, and each corpse lifted a few inches from the floor as the formation pulled them into place.
IceQueen’s expression turned colder.
Flicking her hand, a wall of ice rose from her hand and sealed the entrance before Gabriel had to ask.
The first wave came from the left side. Gabriel saw the nails turn a breath before they fired.
Dozens of black needles shot out of the dead bodies with a dry ripping sound. They crossed the chamber within a breath and struck the ice wall in a tight spread no wider than two meters.
CRACK!!!
The ice wall split across the middle, and thumb sized holes punched through its surface. One needle slipped through within a millimeter of ChaosCleric’s cheek and buried itself halfway into the corridor wall.
ChaosCleric stopped breathing for a second. His eyes moved toward the needle near his face, and his fingers slowly tightened around his staff again.
"I deserved that," he whispered, barely moving his mouth. His cheek had gone pale where the needle had passed, and if not for the thickness of the ice wall, he would have been stabbed.
"Later," IceQueen said while raising her other hand. A second layer of ice formed over the first, thicker than before and pressed close to the doorway.
Gabriel watched the glowing lines instead of the needles. The trap had not aimed at random; it had targeted the mana source first, which meant it was looking for active qi and mana flow.
It gave him an idea of what had happened here.
Suddenly, the bodies facing the far door twisted toward the entrance, and the black nails in their backs pointed forward together.
"VV," Gabriel said. "Hold the front if the wall breaks. Do not swing unless something crosses the doorway."
VV planted their sword into the stone and lowered their body behind it. The other ChaosKnight members moved behind the armored figure, and several injured players backed away with stiff steps.
"What are we dealing with?" IceQueen asked, her breathing even but slower than before.
Gabriel’s gaze moved to the far side of the chamber, and after a brief silence he spoke. "A death formation using corpses as anchors. Someone turned Tianlan into fuel after they died."
The answer made the group go silent, their faces showing that they understood the meaning behind the words. freewebnøvel.com
This was not a tomb trap left untouched for years. Someone had changed the chamber recently, and the Tianlan guild had only become the latest material.
The black lines pulsed again, and the floor vibrated under their boots. A pressure built inside the room, and the bodies in the center began pulling inward. The nails under their skin turned toward one point, forming a rough circle no more than four meters wide. frёewebnoѵēl.com
"Move back three steps," Gabriel ordered. "Now."
The group did not need to be told twice as they stepped back. IceQueen pulled her ice wall backward in layers as she stepped.
Gabriel remained at the entrance for half a breath longer, watching the exact point where the formation gathered its force.
...
While the group was trying to figure out how to navigate this chamber behind them, the guide had a small smirk on his face.
