Ambushed

Eric had his doubts. Even though he was checking the map pretty frequently, the distance between them and the cathedral seemed to be shortening.

When he asked Aria, she said it didn't feel like they were getting any closer.

It was concerning, but he didn't think much of it—until now.

He suddenly realized the map the three of them were using had a fatal flaw. It was two-dimensional. This meant that even if the map showed them getting closer, they might actually be much farther away than they thought. The map didn't account for the difference in elevation.

Glancing down at the volcano—or at least what he thought was a volcano—he couldn't help but curse.

The cathedral was somewhere within the volcano, or rather, what had once been a volcano. The magma had long since cooled, making it possible to enter. However, the dormant volcano had become home to a new, thriving ecosystem.

Eric recalled the Saint's words, while the guardian protecting the cathedral was relatively weak, the surrounding monsters were far stronger than normal.

As Aria and Olivia joined him in looking down at the volcano, they grimaced.

"How much would we have to descend to reach the cathedral?" Eric asked, turning to Aria.

She took a moment to consider her answer before replying, "At least ten kilometers."

"Shit," Olivia muttered under her breath.

'Ten kilometers of difference in elevation? This is absurd!' Eric thought.

He turned back to the girls. "I still can't quite get a feel for it—how strong are the creatures living in the volcano?"

"The weakest are Grade-4, at least," Olivia responded, summoning her sword and gripping it tightly. "Is liberating the cathedral a pipe dream after all?" she murmured, to herself.

"I don't think so," Eric replied immediately. "We've come this far already, so there's no turning back now."

Without hesitation, he began descending into the volcano, effectively entering its depths.

"So we're really doing this, huh?" Olivia muttered.

"You've known from the beginning," Aria said, turning her head to face her, "that we'd be risking our lives. Up until now, it's been the warm-up. Now, the real challenge begins."

Olivia grinned at her words. "Ah, princess, you're as fearless as ever."

With that, the three of them descended into the volcano.

Eric had seen bizarre places before, but this one took the cake.

First, he was walking on cooled-off magma that glowed with a faint purple light, but despite being solid rock, trees were growing from the ground. Though they seemed alive, they were made of some kind of hard black stone.

The only thing that illuminated the surroundings was the cooled-off magma that gave off a weak purple light, the sun and the sky were nowhere to be seen.

Eric felt in constant danger as he cautiously descended into the volcano but didn't dare to summon his sword, fearing his side effects would affect him too much.

Suddenly, Aria's foot dug deeper into the ground, and she dashed past Eric. Her sword seemed to glow in blinding light as she lashed out and produced an arc made of pure gold that continued to fly forward.

The next second, the arc collided with one of the trees and cut it in half. A menacing scream followed as it began to bleed like a living being and fell to the ground.

'Was this a creature camouflaged as a tree?' Eric wondered. After a moment passed, he realized he was right as the trees began to change shape and turned into what looked like the body of a large fish that had been cut in two.

"Don't relax!" Aria commanded. "We are surrounded!"

"What? When?" Eric muttered instinctively, summoning his sword, ready for combat. The second his sword appeared in his hand, a skeleton found itself facing him.

As the skeleton slashed with its greatsword, Eric raised his sword to defend. As the two swords collided, he felt himself being pushed back and was sent a few steps back.

It seemed, even though the skeleton didn't have any muscles, it was much stronger than Eric himself, which didn't make any sense. But to be honest, nothing in this place did.

Before he could move, the skeleton took another step forward, ready to deal a finishing blow, only for its head to fall to the ground.

Shifting his gaze, he saw Olivia standing behind the skeleton with her black sword in hand.

"Get it together!" she commanded as she dashed into the distance.

Eric quickly observed his surroundings—they were being surrounded by countless skeletons, and each one of these creatures was at least Grade-4, something he should have no business fighting.

How did this happen? How did we get surrounded so quickly without us noticing? He didn't have time to wonder, as another skeleton found itself before him.

He gritted his teeth. "Well, I hope these traits come in handy," he muttered as his foot dug into the ground and he exploded towards the skeleton.

His opponent slashed vertically. Eric now knew he was physically weaker than the creature, so rather than trying to parry it, he ducked under the skeleton's sword and brought his own sword down on its head, cracking it into endless pieces.

The skeleton's body collapsed, unable to move.

But Eric didn't have time to relax as there were now two skeletons upon him.

He quickly shifted his gaze towards the girls.

Aria was glowing with her blinding light as she tore through the creatures one by one. Her mesmerizing blue eyes shone brilliantly, making her look like a star cast into a the mortal realm.

While he couldn't see Olivia, the countless skeleton corpses littering the ground made it seem as if they had been consumed by darkness itself. Both of them appeared to have already killed dozens of skeletons.

"These two... I sometimes forget how strong they really are," he muttered under his breath.

"All right then! I better not fall behind!" he shouted, springing at his new opponents.

It was time to get serious.