章 69: Last Hurdle

*Ting* *Ting* *Ting*

"Huhh… Where am I?" [Josep]

Josep found himself in the middle of a blurry desert. From his experience, he knows that he is in some kind of dream. However, his situation is kind of weird since he can't even wake himself using Envy technique.

*Ting* *Ting* *Ting*

He feels like inside the water and has no control of his own body. As he thought that, he begins to notice a hammering metal sound from far away.

While feeling a kind of heavy, he follows this sound. Time passed by as he follows the sound. While he walks in the middle of endless desert, he also hears whisper around. But if he stops walking, the whisper is also gone replaced by the sound of hammering metal.

*Ting* *Ting* *Ting*

Soon after Josep begins to forget about time and how far he walks. All he can see is dimmed endless desert with hammering metal sound and the whisper that become louder. Still, he can't get the meaning of the whisper as if it is some kind of gibberish.

Finally, the metal sound begins more clear, and before he realizes all the whispering sound already gone. From far away, he found a silhouette of a man hammering a sword on the top of an anvil.

As soon as he tries to approach the man, his sight begins blurry and realizes that this is not desert but an endless fragmentation of bones. From there he once again hears whispering sound around before hearing wailing sound from the man hammering sword direction. *AAAAAAA*

He hears the familiar wailing sound again, his sight begins to blurrier and turns to darkness. Before long Josep hear Alice voice, "Life condition change from critical to serious"

"Cough… Cough… What the hell just that? Ughh…" [Josep] He begins to groan as he found his body hurting a lot from just trying to moving it and breathing.

"Huft.. Huft… Alice how is my body condition?" [Josep]

"Ahh… master you finally awake. Well, nothing serious just some broken bone here and there with many internal bleeding in the various important organs. To summary, the master condition is already surpassing the record of the death condition itself. Yayy..." [Alice]

As Josep hears Alice antic he sees his data condition from the hologram in front of his eye.

"I see now… Luckily, the light mageforce here is so thick that can prevent me from death. Well, good job Alice since you manage to use healing rune with the help of nanobot" [Josep]

"Whaa… What are you talking about master? This isn't like you praising me like that? I am not happy you know? Not happy… Humpp…." [Alice]

Hearing this side of Alice, Josep can only smile. "Anyway, Alice how long did I pass out?"

"Around a week, master"

"Uhh… that long? How long time pass since I enter this dimension?"

"Around a month and a half."

"What??? Does it mean I fought seriously for an entire month against that monster? No wonder I am in a coma for a week. Damn… I don't want to do that again. It's too tiring. Alice warns me to avoid fighting a monster like that again. Damn it… It's a month… Just the hell…" [Josep]

"Luckily, there is a huge time difference in here than in the real world. If I am not wrong, It is only around 15 minutes past since I came into this dimension. But, Still… a month's time waste fighting against that stupid hydra." [Josep]

As Josep cursing around about the fight against Hydra, he begins to remember the last scene where the hydra still standing. But from his perception, he knows that the hydra already dead without any injuries.

"Alice, show me the last record after I fell unconsciousness." [Josep]

Then, he saw a view from his perception after he fell into a coma. What he saw puzzled him. He found that before the hydra attack there is a wailing sound with bright light come from his sword, Sound of the Dead.

Moreover, the wailing sound is similar to the one he hears in his dream. He begins to inspect his sword.

There is no change about the sword from the outer look and enchantment. However, when he inspects its spirit embryo. He was startled since the spirit embryo itself was already gone.

It leaving nothing but a pure void. Normally, if something like this happens then the sword itself will return to the normal sharp sword. But, the fact he can still feeling the enchantment that constantly improves means that it is still level five weapon-grade.

Starting from the level four weapon/equipment grade above, they have their spirit. As for newborn weapons like SOD (Sound of the Dead) it also has a small spirit-like embryo. This spirit is like a normal creature being that can grow.

The more it matures, the more ability it gains and improving its enhancement without limit. To put it simply a term, the weapon can evolve by itself as long as there is a spirit on it.

But right now, the spirit inside SOD turns into nothing but void. However, it is still different from a normal weapon without spirit since he can feel its aura. Moreover, it also improves the sword at a faster rate than before.

As he didn't find any problem except the spirit turn into nothing but a void, he left his sword for the time being. After some time he finally can move his body a little bit.

Because the thickness of mageforce in the air also contains the light element, his body healed at incredible speed.

He gives a glance look the giant hydra corpse before focusing on the altar in the middle of it. As the stupid persistence hydra summoned it also creates a protective layer toward the altar. Right now the only place that is not charred, freeze, or broken apart is only this altar.

After looking at the surrounding who is turned into some kind of wasteland that is exposed to various natural disasters, Josep begins grateful to still survive after fighting this monster. Then, with a huge effort, he drags his body near the hydra corpse.

On closer inspection, he found that this hydra is in its best condition. Without any further thought, he stores the corpse inside his space storage. Somehow he just thought what happens if he releases this stupid hydra into the real world.

Then, he approaches the altar. There is still a protective layer that surrounds it. However, unlike before, the barrier allowing him to enter easily. To be more precise it allows living beings to come inside the protective barrier.

After some inspection, the barrier itself is the last trap to contain or detain anything that tries to come to outside. So basically it is a prison with the same strength barrier as before. For normal people, it was impossible to break this barrier even for the High-level Runemaster.

To crack the rune code of the barrier itself is easy but the rune itself changes its pattern every 0.01 second without decreasing the barrier power. Even for Josep with his enhanced brain, it is a very tedious task to break this barrier.

However, he got Alice who is a monstrous super AI. Alice's strength is not located in breaking complicated code. But it is located in her multitasking skill and her processed thinking speed.

It can be said she is the fastest thinker but somehow she is bounding by something to not try to begin self-independence by Greed.

With that thought, he touches the barrier using his index finger. *Prick* *Tring* *Tring* Instantly, the barrier turns fragmented and disappears. Then he begins to pondering because the altar still empties without anything on it.

He approached carefully and looking around the altar. He believes that the object he searches for is hidden somewhere on this altar. The altar itself is made of an unknown material with pure white color.

There is relief around the altar. However, the relief itself doesn't have any special meaning just looks like an abstract stone carving.

Then, Josep slowly touching the stone carving hopefully found any hidden mechanism around it. The moment he touched the relief he feels something familiar. It was like when he tries to learn the ancient language. But this is much more powerful.

Focusing his mind, he closes his eyes while touching the relief and walking around the altar. After a while, he opens his eyes. Although he cannot understand the full meaning behind the relief he still gets the gist of it.

Blasphemy to the gods. Godly power. Unforgiveable act. Cannot be destroyed. Cannot be restricted. Cannot be broken. Unquenchable thirst. Caused destruction. Consume Soul. First, a country. Second, a continent. Third, Half of the world. Never Release.

The relief is some kind of warning to not release the item into the real world. With the message left behind, it seems it will not give any clue to release the item. No matter what the item inside of it, it is too dangerous to let out into the world.

Just the word half of the world is too dreadful to think about it. Now it is explained why there is that stupid unbeatable undying hydra protecting this place.

Considering the fact that there is no level six people as the guardian member. He begins to doubt that they also don't know anything about the item or the hydra, let alone how to unseal the item

However, the item itself cannot be destroyed so the predecessor must seal it without leaving a way to unseal it. The worst case is the one that seals it killing himself to protect the way to unseal it.

Now, he begins to contemplate that if all the work he did until now is useless. Because he can't unseal the item. Greed only leaving behind the item information, location, and usage. He did not include the way to obtain the item.

After sighing and calm his mind, Josep once again looks around the altar not wanting to give up yet. However, he only got nothing but the same warning as before.

"Damn it… Must I go back empty-handed?? Alice how about your scanning? Did you find anything?" [Josep]

"Sorry master, but I found nothing other than the altar made of unknown material." [Alice]

"Huft… The fact that the altar is made of unknown material means it is sealed in the altar or maybe it is the door. Hmm… Wait for a second… it said cannot be restricted so that it may mean it also impossible to be sealed."

"However, the predecessor manages to seal it. That means the item somehow becomes inactive or in a dormant state. But how can I activate it if somehow I did not even find the item? No… No… if my guess is correct the item itself is sentient so like normal beings it must be interested in something."

Then, after contemplating a little bit Josep found the answer. "Hopefully, this is can lure it."

Josep stretches his hand above the altar and closes his eyes. After a moment, there is a strange aura in the surrounding Josep. Then, he slit his artery in his hand. Soon red blood starts to drip from his hand toward the altar.

Although only a little bit of blood that dripping but Josep's face already pale and sweating a lot. It because the blood that drops toward the altar is not his ordinary normal blood. The blood also contains part of his fragmented soul.

Josep believes that since the item consumes the soul he can lure it with the soul itself however just give his soul is also stupid. The only way to lure it safely is by using his blood as a medium to contain his soul.

After few minutes, Josep begins sluggish and can't hold on any longer. At this moment the blood that cumulates on the top of the altar somehow seeps into it. Then, the altar begins to tremble and cracking. Less than a second later, the trembling stop and the blood gone.

However, on the top of the altar, there is a blood-red crystal with a sinister aura around it. Looking at the blood-red crystal Josep begins to happily shout, "Finally, I found you, Heart of Immortality."