74 2.29 Climbing up - Part 4

A big black dog with red glowing eyes awaited us at the entrance of the upper region. The way it was looking at us and growling was a giveaway that it wasn't here to get along. It moved its claws and started walking towards us while still trying to maintain its distance. It was probably waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike just like a tiger looking for an opportunity to jump on its prey.

"Nara, that looks like a hellhound. Be careful they are fast," Princess Eliane, who was behind me, said.

"Okay, you guys just stay there. I will deal with it," I said as I took out my sword.

I walked forward carefully while observing its movement. Normally, I would have preferred a long-ranged attack considering how dangerous it looked. But at that distance, it would easily be able to dodge it. So, the best option was to move forward and wait for it to attack.

When I moved forward, it became more and more cautious. And because of that, I had to come up with a way to provoke it. At this point, our distance was almost 10 meters but none of us had taken an initiative to attack.

I created a small fire javelin using my left hand and shot it at the hellhound. As I expected, it dodged that and used the opportunity to jump on me. But that left the hellhound wide open as it had no means to dodge midair. So, I grabbed the opportunity and attacked it with a vertical wind slash using my sword.

Blood gushed out of its chest as the vertical wind slash sent the hellhound flying backward. But as soon as it landed it started recovering itself just like Fenrir.

'Man, they are practically immortal like this,' I thought as I realized this battle would never end like this. So, in this case, our only option was to move forward before it could recover. This was a viable method of escape because most of the creatures above the central region were territorial.

"Everyone, let's through the passage quickly. This one doesn't look as friendly as Fenrir," I said after which all of us rushed towards the passage.

The upper region as the name suggests was the topmost region. The mana concentration here was significantly higher and I could sense several strong presences around. But strangely none of those presences were showing any sign of movement.

By what I could sense, we would need to face a creature on our way before we get to the top. Its presence looked powerful, but like most of the other entities in the upper region, it wasn't showing any signs of movement.

When I entered the floor, the mana around felt purer than before. Some part of me wanted to call Flare here, but then, she was looking after Drake and Billy in the trial region.

The door led us to a large room with walls embedded with light stones. The beautiful lights those stones were illuminating looked exactly like stars in the night sky.

I looked at her cute face as she was carefully staring at the ceiling above. "You mean the stars that you can see from the capital?"

"Yes, this looks exactly like the sky there."

'Interesting,' I thought, but before I could think of possible causes of this similarity, a weird voice echoed through the room.

"HUMANS HAVE COME TO COLLECT OUR TREASURE."

"HUMANS HAVE COME TO COLLECT OUR TREASURE."

"THEY SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR THIS SIN."

"THEY SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR THIS SIN."

"It's coming from that passage," Arica said pointing towards one of the passages.

"Guys, that's the passage we need to take to reach the top," I said since that passage directly led to the source of mana in the labyrinth.

"Nara, aren't there any other ways? I have a bad feeling about this," Princess Anna asked in a worried tone.

"No, all the passages here are tangled up, but at the end all of them will lead to that same place," I replied.

"Well, there is a possibility that these strange voices could be a trap," Princess Eliane said looking towards me. I understood what she was trying to say, so I closed my eyes and tried sensing the surrounding mana.

'Oh damn!'

"Guys, there is a slight problem. All the creatures in the upper region are coming towards us."

All the presence that I could sense before were now moving, and by the looks of it, they were all coming towards us. Their presence was odd, but same could be said for any labyrinth dwellers in the labyrinth. One interesting fact that I noticed during all this was how similar their presence was to one another.

"What!" Princess Anna said with a shocked look on her face.

"Shouldn't we pass through one of the passages quickly then?" Princess Eliane asked. Even though her voice sounded calm, she had a worried expression on her face.

"No, that would be bad. The passages are narrow, so we won't be able to use any large-scale magic. And if the others start following us, we will need to face the enemies from both sides. Our best option is to face them here and now."

"Okay"—Princess Eliane looked towards the passages in front of us—"so, how many of them are we facing."

"I think they are 16 in total," I replied.

"Wow, that's a lot," Arica said while taking her sword out of its sheath.

Our eyes were fixed on the eight passages in front of us. Our weapons were in our hands as all of us prepared ourselves for what's about to come.

"SUCH INDISCRETION! YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR YOUR IMPRUDENCE."

"HOW DARE YOU POLLUTE THIS HOLY PILGRIMAGE WITH YOUR FILTHY PRESENCE."

Nothing could be felt in the air, no footsteps were heard. But even without those, I could sense them drawing closer.

"THE GODS SHALL PUNISH YOU."

'What! God?'

For others, those words may not hold much weight. But for me, who had died once and met someone who claimed to be God, it was certainly something of interest.

While we were looking, one after another, 16 similar looking golden statues entered the room. All of them were floating just above the ground and had an angry look on their faces. When I looked closer, I realized something about these statues looked familiar.

'Big horns, long canine teeth...'

"Hey, doesn't she look like the goddess Maha from the village temple?"

: Fountain of Immortality