บท 22: The Statue
Inside the cave...
"The smell in here is so horrible.", Allen put on his mask to cover the pungent smell.
"I know right.", Drake covered his nose and breathe through his mouth. "Bleh! I think I could taste the air!"
Even Kate had no choice to cover up her nose. "Where did this kind of smell come from?" However, Drake nor even Allen wasn't abke to answer her question.
A few moments later, Drake suddenly said, "I think I just stepped onto something."
Meanwhile, Allen directed his torch towards the wall and touched it with his hands, "Look, this wall is made from some sort of sticky substance."
Kate also touched the wall and said, "It's sticky here too."
Drake then used his torch to see what he just stepped on, "I just stepped on a spider web, and it's a very sticky spider web." He planted his torch on the ground and grabbed his foot stuck on the web to pull it out.
Kate narrowed her eyes and said, "Then, where are all the spiders?"
When Drake finally pulled his foot out of the web, he heard Kate's question and his eyelids twitched, "S-S-Spiders? Spider web... hey then where are the spiders?!"
"Wait, where's Allen?", Kate asked.
Drake turned around but didn't see Allen either, "Allen?! Allen...?!" He called out to Allen but there was no sign of the boy.
Kate suddenly lifted up her torch and checked the ceiling, there, she saw an uncountable number of eyes looking at them, those eyes belonged to none other than the spiders! Not just any kinds of spiders, but giant ones!
Drake also spitted the spiders. Seeing such a number of spiders, he felt his body became weaker due to surprise or fear or both.
After which, all the spiders suddenly shot out threads of web towards the two kids. However, Drake and Kate already took out their daggers and sent out dagger flashes to intercept the threads.
-sou- -whoosh-
The threads were sliced apart; however, more spiders appeared and shot out more threads of web, adding to their burden.
"Damn it, my arachnophobia's kicking in very fast!", Drake shouted in panic.
"There's too many!", Kate retreated back with Drake.
-swoosh-
A thread of web sticked at Kate's boots and pulled her up. However, Drake sliced it off with a dagger flash.
"Thanks.", Kate said.
"No problem.", Drake helped her up. Meanwhile, even if he was able to fight his legs started to shake due to his phobia.
"Where did that Allen gone to?", Kate continued to attack the spiders and intercept their threads..
"Hey, come here!", the two of them heard a familiar voice from the wall. Afterwards, Drake and Kate looked towards the voice and saw that it was Allen.
"Where have you been?!", Kate asked angrily.
"Just come here first! It's safe in here.", Allen urged.
Seeing that more spiders were appearing and they were running out of energy, they immediately followed Allen and entered an entrance covered by spider web.
After they went in, they saw that they were inside a tunnel; but this time, it was devoid of spiders and webs.
"How did you find this place?", Kate looked over to the entrance which they've gone through, and saw an near-invisible barrier, which was probably the one preventing the spiders from coming in.
"When I was touching the wall earlier, I accidentally slipped in here.", Allen explained.
"Lucky us." Drake chuckled. He was still nervously panting after battling all those arachnids.
"Come on, let's try to find an another exit." Kate went to their front, "I'm sorry for getting us all in this mess."
"It's not your fault tho, we didn't know that there were monsters inside this place.", Drake said.
...
The trio walked through the passageway smoothly, not meeting anything on the way.
"Look, there's light at the end of the tunnel.", Allen pointed out.
"Let's hurry, I want to get out of this place.", Drake said.
"Well all want to.", Kate added.
The three walked towards the end of the passageway, after which, they entered a chamber.
The chamber was extremely wide, there were some sort of white stones on the ceiling which lighted up the whole place.
In addition, grass and flowers were present everywhere on the ground; there were even fireflies flying low from the ground, and not just that, but also some hopping bunnies, jumping grasshoppers, noisy crickets; making this place look like a paradise.
"Whoa.", the trio was amazed by the sight.
"Wasn't this mountain cursed?", Drake asked.
"It was, but it looks like the curse didn't affect this place.", Allen said.
"Then, that barrier that prevents those spiders form entering the tunnel, must be the thing that prevented the curse.", Kate said.
"But what could block a curse of nearly a thousand powerful necromancers?", Allen wondered.
After which, they saw a statue on the middle of the chamber.
From the figure of the statue, it looked like a human wearing robes while its head was bowing down on the ground, holding a sword with both hands which was planted on the pedestal.
However, that wasn't the most attracting thing from the statue, but the wings on it's back!
The Erchian Dagger inside Allen's consciousness shook violently while the devil screeched in horror.
Suddenly, formless energy came out of the statue and scanned the trio, when it reached Allen, it suddenly made a mental attack, making him kneel to the ground while holding his head in pain.
"Gahhh...", Allen screamed while grasping his head.
"Allen!" Both Drake and Kate immediately tried to calm the other down, they didn't know that a formless energy suddenly came from the statue because their senses were too weak.
The devil screeched more violently while trying to defend itself from the energy, which was also the same for the Erchian Dagger.
As Allen was about to faint due to the pain, the holy energy which came from Lord Levine reacted and connected itself to the formless energy from the statue.
The formless energy halted its actions against him and returned back to the statue, the pain that Allen was feeling subsided, though he was still a bit dizzy, it was nothing serious.
"Are you okay?", Kate rubbed Allen's back to try on soothing him from the pain.
"Yes.", Allen exhaustedly nodded.
"Phew.", Drake heaved a sigh of relief and looked at the statue. "I have a feeling that statue did something, but what kind of a statue is it?"
"It's a... huff... statue of a... huff... Warrior Angel.", Allen said.
"Warrior Angel? Aren't those only in myths? And even if they're real, won't they only attack sinful people?", Kate seemed to know something about them.
After a pause, she continued to ask, "Why did it only attack you? I mean, we killed more people than you did."
"I... don't know.", Allen pretended to not know anything and inwardly said, 'They must not find out about it, Mr. Sanchez and Lord Levine warned me already.'
"Should we leave this place? You might get attacked again.", Drake asked.
"No, it won't probably attack me again.", Allen steadily stood up. "Plus, we need to find a new way to exit this place."
"Then, alright.", Drake supported Allen up. "And this is actually the second time I'm supporting you. Hahaha..."
Allen also laughed back and accepted being supported by Drake.
Kate didn't say anything else, she only gave out a suspicious look towards Allen to what he told them.
'What is this guy hiding?', Kate narrowed her eyes in suspicion; however, she placed the issue at the back of her mind, because their main goal right now was to find a new exit.
They got closer to the statue because it was in the middle of the chamber, they would most likely spot another way out from its location.
When they got to a certain distance, the holy energy inside Allen suddenly reacted and flowed through his eyes, then the mist that shrouded face of the Warrior Angel was removed.
When Allen saw the face of the statue, he was shocked that his knees almost fell to the ground, because, the face of the statue resembled that of Lord Levine!
"Hey, are you really okay?", Drake worriedly asked. Not a long time passed Allen almost stumbled to the ground.
"I am.", Allen calmly answered. He was hiding the shock that he got from the statue.
Allen inwardly then speculated, 'Is Lord Levine a Warrior Angel?! If he really is, why couldn't he destroy the Devil Incarnate in my consciousness?'
Allen knew that Devil Incarnates were either clones of True Devils or were born from the sins of many people in one location. Warrior Angels on the other hand, just either their clones or 'holy statue', would always be more powerful than Devil Incarnates!
'If a holy statue couldn't destroy the Devil Incarnate, then what's in my consciousness isn't a Devil Incarnate, but probably a False Devil!' Allen felt more worried as he speculated even more.
'But then, why would Lord Levine give us a treasure map for us to explore the mountain? It doesn't connect, if he wanted for us to find this, couldn't he just guide us? I'm sure this is more important than the territorial affairs that he's saying? Or... does he even want us to find this place?' More and more questions popped up from Allen's mind.
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