Chapter 116- The discovery with the skeletons.

Chapter 116: Chapter 116- The discovery with the skeletons.

The guardian’s words kept echoing through Leo’s mind, refusing to settle.

The undead are friends? And this place is only half the fortress? What exactly had she been trying to tell him? He turned the words over again and again, turning them this way and that, but no matter how he arranged them, none of it clicked into place. It simply didn’t make sense.

Leo trailed a few steps behind the rest of the party. They had already left the vault behind and were halfway down the corridor by the time he glanced back over his shoulder. The guardian was still there, standing beside the mana vein pond, the silver surface of the water reflecting its glow across her while threads of lightning crackled and flickered over her skin.

She noticed him looking. A smile crossed her face, and she lifted a hand in a small wave. Behind her, the vault door slid shut on its own, sealing the chamber away.

Leo turned back around and kept walking.

Ahead of him, Yuna walked just in front, with Elona at her side, one arm braced against her to help steady her steps. Yuna’s robes were still scorched black in places, burned clean through, marks of whatever she’d survived down in that trial. She kept one hand pressed against the tunnel wall to hold herself upright, while her other hand clutched the remains of her staff — or what little was left of it, snapped clean in two.

Elona watched her struggle for a few more steps before she spoke up again. "You really should rest for a while," she said — the third time she’d offered the same suggestion. And, as before, Yuna waved it off, insisting she wanted to get out of the tunnel first.

"I’ve rested plenty already," Yuna said. "Remember? I spent days inside that trial." She kept her gaze fixed on the notification still hovering at the edge of her vision: [Class change successful — Pyro Architect.]

Their conversation drifted back to Leo as they walked just ahead of him, close enough that their words carried, but he offered no comment. His attention had already wandered elsewhere — down to the broken staff in Yuna’s hand.

He ran a quick forge sight on it out of habit and found that it was, in fact, a rare-rank staff, though badly broken now. The break was clean, right at the grip. Good steel, good wood — craftsmanship, not junk. But from the way it had snapped, it looked like she’d used it to block something heavy, head-on, in a direct clash rather than at a safe distance.

Now that I think about it, he mused, I’ve never actually forged a staff before. Maybe I should try making her one.

The climb back up to the higher levels felt quiet, almost uneventful by comparison. They’d already cleared out every monster on the way down, and now that this section belonged to the guild, nothing would be able to respawn here — and without Leo’s express permission, nothing would be able to get in, either. Violet light pulsed steadily along the corridor walls as they moved, threading through charged particles that crackled faintly in the air. That charge thinned the further they climbed, the density dropping with every step away from the vault.

Still, the guardian’s words wouldn’t leave him alone. He could tell — could just feel — that she’d been hinting at something important. He simply couldn’t work out what.

Leo muttered under his breath, almost like he was reciting a list to himself, trying to see if he’d missed some obvious piece.

"One. The skeletons are friends."

"Two. The lightning vein vault is only the lower-center half of the fortress."

He trailed off, still thinking.

"What are you muttering about, brat?" Master Rook’s voice cut in suddenly from beside him, as though he’d simply materialized there.

Leo just shook his head, saying nothing.

If they’re friends, then what were they doing down in the tunnels in the first place? And why would undead even be wandering a fortress soaked in lightning to begin with?

He’d been so deep in thought that he hadn’t noticed Hugh and Rook fall into step on either side of him — and, apparently, they’d both caught enough of his muttering to piece something together.

"Undead, inside a lightning fortress," Hugh said from the side, shaking his head. "And the woman guarding the mana vein flat-out calls the skeletons her friends? Is she just out of her mind? Undead and lightning shouldn’t mix at all."

"She also said something else," Leo added. "That the vault we were just in only looks like the center of the fortress — but it’s actually only half of it."

Rook shrugged, unbothered. "Then where’s the other half?"

Leo went still.

At that, Elly’s hologram bloomed to life beside them, projecting a detailed 3D model of the fortress into the air. "Correct, Master. I’ve been cross-referencing the structure for symmetry ever since we entered." She traced a line down the center of the projection, splitting it neatly in two. "On the surface, this vault appears to sit at the center. But the deep structural map tells a different story — it actually sits west of the fortress’s true centerline. And given that the fortress as a whole is symmetrical, that means there should be a matching structure somewhere on the other side."

She adjusted the display, drawing the dividing line more sharply. "This half holds the Mana Well — the legacy of everything the Lightning General built here. But it only accounts for this side of the fortress." She gestured toward the untouched half of the model. "Over here, on the other side, there’s nothing. Which raises the question — what’s actually there?"

Leo, Hugh, Elona, and Master Rook all nodded slowly, each of them sensing that there had to be something more, some hidden space mirroring the vault they’d just left. The trouble was, none of them had yet found so much as an entry point leading anywhere near it.

"The skeletons," Leo said after a moment. "I think we need to go and check that room properly."

The others nodded in agreement, and the whole party marched toward the chamber where they’d first crossed paths with the skeletons.

They reached the room soon enough. When they stepped inside, the skeletons were there again — the same three as before.

But this time, they didn’t lunge into an attack the way they had the first time. They simply stood there, silent and unmoving, showing no reaction at all.

Rook and Leo’s hands drifted instinctively to their sword hilts, ready to draw at the first sign of trouble. Still, nothing happened. The skeletons didn’t move, didn’t attack, didn’t so much as twitch. Leo and the rest of the party searched the room thoroughly but found nothing new — only the same exit leading back up toward the tunnel they’d already explored.

Having found nothing else of interest, they turned to head for the exit. Leo was the last to leave, and as he passed by the skeletons on his way out, he heard a faint, dry crackling sound.

He looked over and saw that one of the skulls had turned — slowly, deliberately — to face him.

Leo froze mid-step. He stared back at the skeleton for a long moment.

The others noticed him stop and turned back to see what had caught his attention. Rook came back as well.

All three skeletons were now looking directly at Leo.

Then, after a few seconds, all three skulls turned in unison, fixing their gaze on the exact same point somewhere off in the distance.

"They’re doing the staring-at-nothing thing again," Rook remarked, sounding unimpressed.

Shen walked over and waved a hand in front of one of the skeletons. No reaction whatsoever. He turned to follow the direction of their gaze, studying it carefully.

"I think they might be looking toward that other half you were talking about," Shen said, pointing.

The moment he said it, Leo realized the possibility.

"Elly, can you check — is the direction they’re looking really the direction of the other half?"

Elly ran a quick analysis. "Confirmed. They’re facing the exact direction opposite the lightning mana vein’s location."

"There’s nothing there but a wall," Rook said, rapping his knuckles against the stone to prove his point.

Leo frowned, unconvinced that was the whole story. "Maybe the skeletons are trying to point us in some direction, but—"

Shen was already moving. His eyes had gone half-closed, one hand hovering an inch above the wall’s surface, careful never to actually make contact with the stone. He moved his hand slowly across the wall, inch by inch, repeating the same slow motion for nearly a full minute.

"There’s a formation here," he finally said.

Everyone’s eyes lit up at once.

"It’s old — very old — and layered several times over. But it’s not a defensive formation." Shen studied it further, brow furrowed in concentration. "It looks like some kind of concealment formation," he muttered.

Hugh stepped forward and began tapping along the wall, starting from the edge of the room and working his way across. When he reached roughly the halfway point, a dull, hollow ring sounded beneath his knuckles.

"There," Hugh said, tapping the same spot again to confirm it. "Stone this thick doesn’t ring like that unless there’s empty space behind it." He ran his palm slowly across the surface. "And this section doesn’t feel like natural stone, either. It’s artificial. Built."

Rook let out a short, dismissive hmph. "Of course it’s artificial. What, did you think an ant dug this whole tunnel?"

A vein ticked visibly at Hugh’s temple, but he kept his voice calm. "What I mean...," he said gritting his teeth, "is that the rest of the stone here was clearly cut from the surrounding rock. This section was made to look the same — shaped to blend in — but it isn’t actually part of the natural stone the rest of the wall is made from."

Shen nodded slowly, already crouched down to examine the spot more closely. "He’s right. There’s a hidden formation layered over this section as well."

Shen set to work at once, carefully picking apart the formation piece by piece. After a few minutes of careful effort, the concealment finally gave way, peeling back like a curtain drawn aside.

Now they could all clearly see it — the section of wall that looked distinctly different from everything surrounding it.

Shen kept working at the formation on the wall, and after playing with it a little longer, he finally finished.

The room began to tremble faintly. The section of stone that stood apart from the rest let out a low groan and swung open like a door.

Another entry point had been discovered — a tunnel leading down to a staircase that descended into total darkness.

The three skeletons, which had been standing perfectly still like statues this whole time, suddenly moved. Two of them took up positions flanking the newly opened doorway, while the third stepped through into the darkness beyond.

It turned back toward the rest of the group and gestured for them to follow.

Everyone stood there in stunned silence, shocked not only to have discovered a hidden passage but to now find a skeleton — of all things — gesturing them inside.

"Why does this feel exactly like a skeleton offering candy to a kid, just so it can lure them into a van?" Rook muttered, only half joking.

"There really was a hidden pathway," Leo muttered to himself.

He followed close behind the skeleton as it led the way in. Shen entered right after him, then Hugh, then Rook, with the rest of the party filing in one after another. Seeing this, Elona turned to Yuna. "Yuna, go rest back at the guild hall," she said. "Ben — you’ve already got your class sorted, so you go with her. Take Cindy along too."

She quickly organized the small group to head back, then turned and, with the rest of the party, followed Leo down into the dark.