Chapter 320: Ember’s Victim

Chapter 320: Chapter 320: Ember’s Victim

Lyra Lowell’s heart was still pounding, and his cheeks were slightly hot with embarrassment from his earlier loss of composure.

He steadied himself and forced his eyes back to the silent corpses.

Their shriveled skin clung tightly to their skeletons. Their cavernous, black eye sockets seemed to stare at the group of intruders, and their twisted limbs conveyed a gruesome, bone-chilling agony.

"They’re all dead... right?" Fayestar’s voice trembled slightly as they edged backward.

"They’re not moving now, at least," Alaric Hawthorn replied, taking two steps forward to stand beside Lyra Lowell.

The corpses were packed densely together, but a path, wide enough for a single person, had been left down the middle.

Like silent guards standing watch over the great door.

"We have to go take a look." Seraphina Sinclair finally spoke. She moved closer and used Insight on one of the corpses.

There was no reaction.

’That would suggest these things are harmless for now.’

’But anything can happen in a dungeon. The moment we step in, these things could spring back to life.’

Seraphina Sinclair glanced at Lyra Lowell, who met her gaze and instinctively took two steps back.

Seeing this, Alaric Hawthorn sneered, saying disdainfully, "Coward."

Lyra Lowell’s face flushed red, then went pale. Stung by Alaric Hawthorn’s words, he burned with anger but couldn’t deny the fact that he had just retreated. He gritted his teeth and, sticking his neck out, retorted, "If you’re so tough, you go! Talk is cheap!"

Alaric Hawthorn’s eyebrows shot up. He tightened his grip on his long spear, looking as if he really intended to just walk straight through.

The other three fell completely silent, watching Alaric Hawthorn’s every move with bated breath.

He first prodded the nearest corpse with his long spear. Other than a layer of dust puffing off, nothing unusual happened.

He turned to look at Seraphina Sinclair. Perhaps trusting that his teammate holding the unusually large Sunflower would cover him, or perhaps because he had a life-saving item on him, he took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his weapon, and stepped in.

One step, two steps...

The passageway was terrifyingly quiet. The only sounds were the faint scrape of Alaric Hawthorn’s boots on the Stone Tablet and his own suppressed breathing.

He moved very slowly, every muscle in his body tensed. His eyes and ears were on high alert, scanning in all directions. He kept his long spear pointed slightly forward, ready to counter an attack from any angle.

The metallic stench emanating from the corpses was thick enough to make one retch.

They were cold and stiff, frozen in the agonizing poses of their final moments, silently telling some unknown story.

Alaric Hawthorn could even make out the dry, cracked texture of some corpses’ skin and the residual despair deep within their hollow, black eye sockets.

He made it about halfway without incident, drawing closer and closer to the ancient, scratch-covered door.

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the corpses were just an empty threat—

"KRAK..."

An extremely faint, yet abnormally clear sound, like the grinding of bone, came from behind him and to his left!

Alaric Hawthorn froze, instantly spinning toward the source of the sound with his long spear held defensively across his chest!

The others behind him tensed up at the same time, weapons in hand, their sharp gazes sweeping across the forest of corpses.

The sound had come from a corpse near the entrance of the passageway.

Its head, which had been hanging low, was now lifting with an excruciating slowness, accompanied by a teeth-grinding "K-K-KRAK" sound! ℯℯ𝘭.

On its shriveled face, the pair of cavernous black eye sockets seemed to focus on Alaric Hawthorn.

Then, as if awakened by that first sound, more cracking noises erupted from all directions!

It was like a row of dominoes toppling over, or a slumbering legion that had just received its orders.

On both sides of the path, the corpses that had been as still as statues began to turn their stiff heads in unison, their twisted limbs making skin-crawling, scraping sounds.

A sinister, cold aura suddenly spread through the air, more bone-chilling than the metallic stench from before!

Seraphina Sinclair reacted in a flash. Before anyone else could, she used Insight on the reanimated monsters.

[Ember’s Victim (D-level)]

[Description: They were once human—miners, the diligent laborers of this land. That is, until the "Ember Fire" that ignited in the depths of the mines consumed them whole. Their flesh was incinerated, leaving only charred bones and undying resentment. They harbor an instinctual hostility toward any intruder and will tear apart all living things, dragging them into eternal darkness to suffer the agony of the flames alongside them.]

[Weakness: ???]

’Ember’s Victim?’

’The name itself reveals a few things.’

’But this isn’t the time to ponder that. If Alaric Hawthorn gets out on his own, my reward will be significantly smaller.’

Just as Alaric Hawthorn was losing hope, a ball of fire suddenly descended from the sky. Radiating intense heat, it clung to the corpse blocking his retreat like a flesh-eating disease and burst into flames.

The newly reanimated corpse was still stiff. When the fire ignited on it, it froze in place like a malfunctioning machine.

"Get out, now!"

Seraphina Sinclair’s sharp cry snapped the other three, who were still in a daze, back to their senses.

Lyra Lowell immediately rushed forward, raising his Short Spear high. Like Caleb in the watermelon patch, he thrust it fiercely at the corpse.

It was unclear how much damage he dealt, but the monster blocking the path was gone!

Alaric Hawthorn didn’t disappoint. Seizing the opportunity, he leaped over the flames and out of the passageway.

The moment he set foot on the stairs, the reanimated corpses seemed to lose their target. Their movements abruptly froze, and they all turned in unison toward the four people on the steps above.

Within those cavernous black eye sockets, residual embers of dark red fire flickered faintly, filled with pure, undisguised malice, as if silently asking: *Why did you run?*

But they didn’t immediately give chase. They simply stopped at the junction between the passageway and the stairs, returning to their previous state.

"They’re not coming after us." Fayestar, still shaken, hugged Mimi tightly and pressed against the cold stone wall.

Alaric Hawthorn, panting heavily, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. He stared down at the pack of "Ember’s Victims" watching them like predators, his brow furrowed. "Looks like the stairs are a safe zone, or their range of movement is limited."

He looked at Seraphina Sinclair. "What was that fire? How long does it last? Can it kill these monsters?"

"No," Seraphina Sinclair answered bluntly.

She had used an E-level rune, which could only have a minor effect on these D-level monsters.

’Besides, the main reason that monster froze was because it had just woken up. The fire wasn’t the biggest factor.’

Alaric Hawthorn wasn’t disappointed by the answer. Instead, his gaze toward Seraphina Sinclair held a hint of excitement, as if he was pleased that his judgment of her hadn’t been wrong.

Seraphina Sinclair wasn’t sure what had gotten into him. Her eyes fell on Lyra Lowell nearby, and, as expected, met a pair of eyes filled with shock and uncertainty.

’Now *that’s* the right attitude.’