The Saga of Eden

Chapter 2, part 12

More than an hour passed, two more hordes of Undead poured down the tunnel as soon as the battle began, just as Eden feared. However, he didn’t decide to back off, believing he could take them on, and the plan continued relatively well. Right now, Astraka and Nara are lying on the ground, breathing heavily. Lela has stopped feeding them and is instead in the frontline, trying her best to stab through the thick skull of a Level 53 Undead. Eden is squatting down, eating his fifth sandwich; he’s resting. Harmani is right in front of him, punching one Undead after another; once in a while, one of his punches is strong enough to kill an enemy.

“Okay, let’s continue!” Eden says excitedly, having finished his meal, and stands up. “Pull back, I’ll handle it.”

Lela and Harmani don’t wait for Eden to say it again, they both jump back behind him. Without any warning, the two of them collapse headfirst to the ground, exhausted.

“Please wake me up when you’re done, Eden,” Lela says before falling into a deep slumber right then and there. 

There are about two dozens, more or less, Undead still standing, each with Level somewhere around 60. After their painfully long process of killing more than a hundred Undead, Fingers’ Levels have skyrocketed. Eden’s Level is now 65, which means he out levels them all, but their gap is not large.    

Eden stands defiantly in front of them in a defensive position, with his shield raised high and his sword right behind it. He’s waiting for them to attack him. The remaining Undead stands in front of him in a near perfect straight line. They want to attack him all at once, but the terrain prevents it. Despite being high Levels, these Undead have low intelligence, only retaining their fighting instincts. The Undead wizards and archers in the backline cannot do anything unless they want to cause massive collateral damage and destroy their own frontline and become sitting ducks. 

The Undead knight in the forefront charges at Eden. With all its might, the knight hits Eden’s shield, hoping to break it.

{Fortress.} This time, Eden says it out loud. He’s thinking saying out the skill’s name will make it more effective.

The mighty heater shield doesn’t break, and Eden counterattacks. He moves his right hand holding the shield in a clockwise arc, knocking the knight and making it stagger backward for a split second. Eden wastes no time and once again thrusts his left hand at its skull. This time, however, he fails to penetrate it, though he surely has damaged it.

It doesn’t matter, the Undead knight doesn’t know how else to attack, and he does the same move again. So does Eden. In the third attempt, Eden finally penetrates its skull, and the knight crumbles, its connection to curse magic ends.  

Eden slowly moves forward and fights the Undead one by one. Warriors, martial artists, berserkers, arcane warriors, rogues (no paladins, they cannot be turned into Undead as far as I can tell). One by one, Eden slays them all, slowly… very slowly. The rest can only hopelessly stare at him as he destroys their allies. 

Around a dozen backliners are left after the c*****e. Easy picking. At such a close range, the archers can’t do anything against Eden, while the wizards’ curse magic is ineffective thanks to Nara’s protection. Due to their high Levels, it takes Eden quite a while to hack them all down, but this isn’t even a challenge. 

None among the Undead horde is left alive. Eden slumps down and sits on the ground, his sword penetrates the earth to keep his balance. He breathes quickly, sweats all over his face. Eden is certainly very tired, but he can keep going. Not so much for the rest of his team, though.

“Is it… over?” Still lying and facing the ceiling, Astraka asks him from further back.

“...I think so,” Eden shouts back. “The necromancer is still alive, though, whoever he is.”

“Okay… come over here, Eden!” Astraka says.

Eden sits for another full minute before he finally stands up and walks toward Astraka. Walking past Lela, he can hear her snoring.

“Open my backpack, try to find a sewed-in hidden section in the back... and rip it open,” Astraka tells him.

Eden doesn’t know why the wizard told him to do that, but he does so anyway. Eden is too tired to question anything, nor to think straight. The young man rips that section open after a few seconds of struggle. What he finds inside are 5 small potions with green color. Eden isn’t too familiar with potions, but he can tell this is either some kind of stamina potion or a potion that cures diarrhea. 

Obviously, it’s for the second one, Astraka has eaten too many sandwiches and now has diarrhea. Just kidding.

“Buying them… wasn’t a waste of money after all.” Astraka chuckles. “Use it… We have to see this to the end.”

“Of course, to the very end...”

Eden takes one of the potions and drinks it first, testing to see how effective it is. It is more potent than he expected. Eden can feel his exhaustion is quickly fading away, a burst of energy is coming back to him, like how he felt when Nara cast her spells on him back then. Those are real quality potions, for sure, must be worth at least a few platinum coins.

Eden takes another potion from the remaining batch and walks over to Astraka. Eden gently pushes Astraka’s chin with his thumb and opens the wizard’s mouth, then he pours the potion into his throat. Astraka’s eyes are now fully opened, and he slowly begins to stand up. Eden runs over and does the same to Nara and Harmani.

Finally, Eden walks over to the sleeping Lela with the last potion in his hand. He turns her over so that they meet face to face. Eden gently slaps her shoulder repeatedly, trying to wake her up.

“You need to kiss her, that’ll surely wake her up.” Harmani jokes.

Eden blushes at the thought but quickly shakes his head. “I don’t want to go to jail for s****l assault.” He chuckles. “If Lela doesn’t kill me first, that is.”

“Ughhh… my entire body hurts.” Lela groans as she slowly wakes up thanks to the sound of her teammates speaking.

“You’re just in time.” Eden turns his attention to her and says happily. He then puts the remaining potion close to her mouth. “Drink up, that’ll make you feel better.” He says.

Lela tries to think up something witty in this situation to make Eden blush, but he’s too quick. Already, Lela is drinking from the potion with Eden’s help. His face is too close and his arm is holding her upper body. Instead, Lela is now the one who blushes, though sadly Eden doesn’t notice.

------

After fully regaining their stamina, Fingers continue in high spirit. The tunnel’s layout turns out to be quite simple, it’s almost a straight line with 4 empty rooms on the left, the first three were full of Undead smells while the last one is much less noticeable. It is likely the necromancy is in the process of filling the last room before Fingers’ unexpected intrusion.

At the end of the tunnel is the last room, blocked by an earth door and a demon undead guarding it. The demon has red skin, 2 horns on its head like those of a majestic ram, more than 2 meters tall, and wearing spotless steel plate armor. While it may look like a living demon, the pure blackness in its eye is a dead giveaway, literally. 

This undead demon is no less dangerous than any other living demon. Its Level is 76, even higher than Narila, whom Fingers had a hard time defeating not too long ago. Seeing Fingers approaching, the demon takes out a giant shield, almost as tall as itself, and an iron flail from its belt. 

“Master is busy!” It suddenly shouts at Fingers when they get near, they can feel the rage in its voice. “Come! Challenge me if you dare! You shall become replacements for what you have destroyed!”