Ancient Cavern II

"Right in front of us," Haro told the undead.

Fae tried squinting at the place that Haro indicated but couldn't see a thing. "I can't exactly see in the dark," he told the owl. "But I'll take your word for it that there is a magic restriction rune there. If that is the case, then we have a problem," he told everyone.

"Hoot, you don't have to worry about that," Haro told Fae. "That rune has already long lost its effect. Parts of it are damaged and it no longer works."

"Ah, so I was needlessly worrying. Now that that is out of the way, we better start moving."

The werewolves took the lead as they were able to see in the dark while the rest of them couldn't. Haro was tasked with keeping an eye behind them as they moved in case of an ambush or anything the werewolves may have missed that might be important.

Now that there was some light, Kies could see that the ground was indeed very smooth. There was some rubble along the way from the ground cracking opening from earlier but other than that, there was practically nothing down here. The entire place was empty as can be.

"We're getting close, I can feel him," said the witch. "I believe the Bone Whistler is just up ahead."

"Shouldn't we be careful about traps and other dangers?" Kies pointed out. The lady undead was adept at illusion magic, and so far, they had fallen for her traps every time. Now that they were in the dark, they were even more susceptible to fall into another one of her traps should she decide to do so.

"Hoot, actually..." Haro flew up to the front and shot a strong gust of wind from his wings and collided into an invisible barrier. "Well, what do you know, it looks like we're caught in a trap again," Haro told everyone.

"Hmm... It looks like we are caught up in more than one spell as well. From the impact of your spell colliding with the barrier, I sensed that there are multiple layers of magic surrounding us," Fae added.

"Can't we just break out of it like before?" Bloodmane asked. "I mean, can't you just use that power wind thingy again?" Bloodmane asked while looking at Kies.

"That is one possibility," Haro agreed. "I don't think that it would be powerful enough to tear a hole in that barrier, but there's only one way to find out. Kies?"

"I'm on it." Kies raised up his hand and chanted Wind Cannon. A fierce torrent of wind blasted out from his hand and into the invisible barrier trapping them. The entire place shook violently as the wind tore through the illusion, ripping a giant hole in it and causing the entire thing to shatter like glass.

"Hoot, did your magic get stronger?" Haro noticed that his Wind Cannon this time was considerably more powerful than the last time he used it.

"Hey, I don't think this is the time for chit-chat. Something's off," Fae interrupted Haro. Now that the illusion was gone, Kies saw that they were all in front of the strange altar room he found from before, but there was no one in sight. The Bone Whistler wasn't anywhere. Neither were the two undead and the other unknown enemy.

Despite there being an illusion being set up here, there was no one in sight. It was very unlikely that the Bone Whistler would be able to fit through the entrance to the altar room, so therefore, he had to be somewhere outside. But this wasn't the case. Did they somehow walk past him unknowingly while they were in the illusion? But since they weren't ambushed either, this didn't seem like the case either.

Everyone else was just as clueless as Kies. "There's nothing here," said Fae. "What's going on? It's nothing but a dead end."

"Yeah, I see nothing too," Bloodmane also said. The other werewolves also murmured in agreement that there was nothing here. The White Witch and Haro also looked around with confused expressions. For some reason, it looked like no one but Kies could see the entrance to the altar room which was right in front of them.

"Huh? Can you all not see the giant glowing door in front of us?" Kies asked everyone. Everyone turned to him with a look on his face as if he were crazy.

"What do you mean child?" Haro asked.

Kies pointed at the glowing walls and said, "It's right there at the entrance."

"I don't see anything," Fae told him.

"Neither do I." Bloodmane walked over to the place where Kies said the entrance was and put his hand against the wall. An unexpected flash of light blinded everyone as the werewolf was suddenly sent flying back across the ravine. The poor werewolf had not completely recovered from his injuries from fighting against the Bone Whistler and now he was here only to receive more of them.

"Boss!" Immediately upon regaining their sense of vision, the werewolves all ran over to their leader who was growling in pain on the floor. Everyone looked wide-eyed at the werewolf. They were shocked to witness what just happened.

"What in the world..." Fae walked over to the wall as well but kept his hands to himself, seeing what had happened to the werewolf. The undead looked at it from various angles but couldn't seem to see it at all. The witch also walked over to the wall to inspect it. "Be careful, your excellency," Fae told the witch.

"No worries, I will be careful." The witch stared at the wall for about a minute as Bloodmane recovered and got back up on his feet and went over to the wall again without fear despite what it had done to him.

"D*mn wall!" the werewolf grunted unhappily. He looked like he was about to give the wall a piece of his mind but refrained from doing so since it would do him more harm than good if he tried to hit it.

"Hm, I can sense traces of the Bone Whistler's magic here. It's quite strong and seems to be until very recently that he had been here," said the witch. "It doesn't look like he is here anymore."

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