by Nikita Thorn
Fallen Rishi [Level 25]. HP 3024/9650.
Even when the monk had managed to hold on to its staff, the fall had severely dropped its health below half, and Seiki wondered if leading enemies into the whirlwinds was in fact a viable strategy.
The monk recovered and shook its head as it picked itself up, its red eyes roaming around to orient itself. Seiki wished that they would remain unnoticed, but as soon as the demon found their tiny under-leveled group of soldiers at the edge of the wall, its lips parted in a snarl and its red eyes glowed with hungry delight.
Seiki cursed. He suddenly remembered a certain enemy mechanic that made them prioritize the easiest preys to kill. The demonic monk picked up its staff and started making its way toward them.
“We gotta go,” he cried.
Ippei’s unit had luckily reached the wall and the samurai was hastily drawing guides for them as to where to hoist the ladder.
Seiki had no doubt the bamboo ladder automatically adjusted to the height of whatever they were attempting to climb, as it turned out to be the perfect length for the task. The moment the hooks locked onto the top of the wall, Ippei waved to his unit. “Sweeping Blade, prepare.”
The men ran to intercept the demon monk, swords drawn.
“Come on, Seiki, let’s go,” cried the samurai as he scrambled up the ladder, turning to call out a Formation to his unit. “Now!”
Seiki ran past the troops and started making his way up after his friend.
The Level-15 unit was no match for the Fallen Rishi, but Ippei had aimed the Formation well, and the unit managed to land a hit and push the demon monk back, buying them a few more seconds.
Seiki was already a few feet off the ground. From above, Ippei shouted again. “Parry. Sweeping Blade. Now! Follow me!”
Giving them a last wave to direct their position, the samurai then disappeared over the top of the wall.
Seiki kept his eyes on the top of the wall as he scrambled up the ladder. Halfway up, he risked a glance back at the field. Below was a scene of chaotic destruction, a moving maze of deadly winds and troops fighting demonic monks between them. Riderless horses ran amok, and the Sorcerer continued to raise more enemies from the ground to keep the West Defenders fully engaged.
Seiki continued to climb, hands sweating, but his throat dry from the cold air, his heart beating fast as he moved higher up. Another glance downward showed one of Ippei’s men already dead from the encounter with the Fallen Rishi, while the rest, with the change in direction from their Unit Chief, were making a dash toward the ladder.
The ladder shook as the metal staff of the Fallen Rishi caught one of the troops trying to climb, but from the way the equipment wobbled, Seiki knew some of them had made it after him. He soon had no more time to observe the situation below him. His hand finally found the rough, dirt-covered top of the wall, as the main building of Hitsu Temple made a full appearance in front of his eyes.
Leaving behind the shrieking wind and the sounds of battle, he pulled himself over the last bit of the barrier.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ladders were meant to be used on walls with battlements, and Seiki realized at the last minute the extent of the rashness of Ippei’s plan when he discovered no platform at the top of the temple wall, only a sheer three-story drop into an inner empty courtyard.
At the bottom of the wall, Ippei had landed without sacrificing much health and was already picking himself up. Seeing no graceful way to descend, Seiki braced himself and took the plunge.
Knowing his current gear would allow him to survive a drop from that height, Seiki decided to save his Crimsonfire Tekko charge for direr situations. He instead gritted his teeth and rolled to lessen the impact. The brittle tiles cracked under his weight, sending icy feedback up his arms and legs, and for a moment made him feel as if he had jumped into thick snow. But the damage was minimal, leaving his health at nearly three quarters full.
Seiki stole a quick glance around as he scrambled to his feet. The shadowy courtyard showed no sign of hidden enemies, but he kept his eyes peeled just in case. Behind him, Ippei’s unit members who had managed to follow them up the ladder were making their unceremonious descent one by one, each surviving with about a quarter health left. Three men made it down in quick succession, and the fourth appeared over the top of the wall. Before he could pull himself over, the ladder jerked violently to the side, presumably as it was struck by the demon monk below. The unfortunate soldier managed to cling onto the teetering ladder for a brief second before losing his grip, and both man and equipment plummeted to the ground and disappeared from sight.
Ippei took quick notice of the remainder of his unit members, then turned to look at the rest of the temple, for a moment saying nothing, a slightly disbelieving look on his face. Seiki remembered that this was also the first time his friend had seen the interior.
They were definitely in uncharted territory. The quick journey across the top of the wall had given Seiki an elevated vantage point from where he had the first glimpse of the building complex that made up Hitsu Temple. The gigantic Main Hall stood at the center of the instance, its oversized black mass dwarfing everything in an almost surrealistic way. A respectful distance away from it were other mysterious shapes, which Seiki made out to be buildings and statues and leafless trees, all silhouetted within the dark purple mist that limited visibility to no more than a hundred feet.
The large rectangular courtyard they had landed in was bare. The closest structure was a single-storied building at the northern edge of the courtyard, more than a hundred feet away. The Main Hall occupied the whole northwestern corner of their vision, completely blocking the other side of the temple from view.
Seiki could see no movement. The place was dead, and he guessed the area must be surrounded by some kind of sound barrier. The roar of the raging battle in front of the gate had been dampened to a low, continuous hum, just loud enough to be an oppressive audio layer hanging in the atmosphere, further highlighting the eerie silence within the temple.
From where they were, they could only see about a tenth of the whole temple. The overall vague shapes of the secondary buildings now appeared on the mental map, from what they had glimpsed from the top of the wall, but the spaces between them remained blank, hidden within the nondescript gray areas.
“So we now try to map?” said Seiki. He had no idea how they would go about it, and going blind into an unknown temple of this size did not seem like the smartest idea.
A small smile crept up on Ippei’s face. “First we check something out.” He nodded to his left and beckoned to his unit to follow.
“So you do have a plan,” said Seiki, slightly relieved.
“Not quite a plan yet,” said Ippei. “More like a… lead.”
Anything more than absolutely clueless was indeed heartening. They made their way left, toward the front gate, running as noiselessly as possible and sticking close to the wall. Ippei’s three surviving unit members followed closely behind. Seiki wished he had his unit with him, but was too late at this point, and they would not have had enough time to make it over the wall anyway.
If they were too low-leveled for the encounter out the front gate, they were most likely so within the temple as well, and any encounter with an enemy would quickly end their exploration. The temple grounds, however, appeared completely empty. Seiki strained his ears to listen for any unusual cues, but heard nothing except their own muffled footsteps. Once or twice he thought he glimpsed something moving in the murky shadows to his right, deeper within the instance, but whenever he turned to look there would be nothing but the overall gloom.
“Is it strange there aren’t any enemies inside?” Seiki asked.
“I have no idea,” said Ippei. “Maybe they haven’t… loaded.” The samurai chuckled at his choice of word. “Maybe the trigger point is somewhere through the front gate. Or…” He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, raising his hand as a signal for Seiki and
his men to do the same. “Or… maybe this is really designed to be a stealth operation,” he finished breathily, his eyes fixed on something ahead.
Ahead of them at the edge of the courtyard, a small purple light had come into view. The atmosphere was too misty to make out anything surrounding it, but judging from what Seiki had seen so far, it was too large and too bright to be some kind of a special tano-shrine. Ippei shook his head to signal he had no idea what it was either, although he looked hopeful.
They crept forward toward the light, still keeping close to the wall. The noise from the battle outside grew louder again as they drew closer to the front gate. Soon they found themselves at the exact middle bottom edge of the temple. Ahead of them was a tile-paved path that led from the temple entrance to the massive central Main Hall in a single straight line.
The source of the light turned out to be a purple flame burning in a large rectangular brass incense burner, set right in the middle of the path between the front gate and the Main Hall. Approximately the shape and size of a coffin, the burner had metal legs that raised it to the height of a person’s chest. It was filled to the brim with crooked sticks, an herb of some sort, which twisted in agony as they were consumed by the flame. From all four sides of the burner, thick heavy smoke spilled over like a ghostly waterfall, filling the area with haze.
Facing the mysterious contraption, the front gate was to their left, and taking up nearly the whole doorway was the shadowy robed figure of the Youkakufuu Sorcerer, who had his back to them, his massive body blocking view of the field outside. The demon was engrossed in raising more deformed monks from the ground to counter the West Defenders’ army out in the field and appeared to take no notice of the two intruders.
“Give up, Shinshioka!” the Sorcerer was shouting at the passing troops outside the gate. “There is no chance of victory!”
The demon swept up his arm, and a column of wind shot up from the ground in front of him. At the same time, the purple flame within the burner exploded upward, burning brighter for a second, before settling back to its normal size as the demon sent the wind forward towards the army.
“I think that’s the source of his power,” whispered Ippei. “If we put out the fire, it will weaken him.”
Taking note of his friend’s confidence, Seiki was starting to suspect something. “It wasn’t purely a guess, was it, to come into the temple?”
“No,” Ippei admitted. “You see, after eight runs and lots of Cards and not being close, you start to think you’re doing something wrong. All these times running by the boss, I kept craning my neck to see what’s inside the temple, and every single time my view was blocked by something: the edge of the robe, some mysterious smoke, the boss himself. I never actually put it together until today that there’s a spot directly behind the Sorcerer that you can never see from the field.”
Seiki stared at his friend. “You based your guess on… something you couldn’t see?”
“What better place to hide a secret than a blind spot?” Ippei smiled. “Not to mention that I’ve had over a year to think about what else doesn’t work. I can’t believe it took me this long.”
“Okay, that makes sense. So what do we do now?” Seiki turned his attention back to the purple flame. He doubted it would be as simple as dousing water on it or knocking the whole setup over, not to consider the fact that there was no sign of a water source in sight and that the burner looked like it weighed a great deal. “You think we can… wait,” he paused as he squinted at the side of the metal burner, which was not entirely smooth. “I think there’s text on it.”
“You’re right,” said Ippei.
Much of the engraving was obscured by waves of thick smoke spilling from the purple flame, and after a few seconds it was clear they would not be able to read any of it without getting closer.
“Will Upslash do the trick? Since… it’s technically wind?” said Seiki, wondering how ridiculous his idea was.
Ippei glanced warily at the back of the demon Sorcerer, then back at the burner. “Not a bad idea. But there might be something else on the other sides as well, and I’m not sure if an ability is not going to aggro the boss.”
Seiki understood the concern. They would be out in the open, with nothing but forty feet of empty space between them and the Rank 5 Stage Boss. Unfortunately, they had no time for a more elaborate plan. “How about we just creep up to it instead?”
Ippei nodded. “You get this side and the one facing the Main Hall. I’ll get the other two. If we’re lucky, it will be a simple peek and the boss will only aggro if we try to destroy the thing.”
Seiki nodded, and with a simple signal between them, they stepped out onto the path.
An angry shriek filled the air, and the voice of the Youkakufuu Sorcerer boomed out. “Who goes behind my back!” The demon spun around, his eyes flaring with rage. “Vermin! You dare desecrate our Lord’s sacred ground with your filthy presence.”
“Run for it,” cried Ippei. “We just need to read all the clues.”
Since luck was not on their side anyway, Seiki gritted his teeth and stepped forward with Upslash, aiming the wind effect at the burner. It worked, to a certain extent, and the gust of wind that burst out as the sword cut through the air whisked the thick smoke away, temporarily clearing the area around the burner.
Seiki could now make out the engraved characters. “Upon the south-southwest edge,” he read aloud.
Ippei was dashing past the front of the container. “Thorough strikes of light,” he shouted.
The Sorcerer was already raising his arm as if about to lash out with a special ability. Nothing would save them from a Rank 5 Demon. Seiki reached for his shields anyway, as he ran to the other side, hoping they might buy them a few more seconds.
Before he could cast the protection, however, thick gray smoke burst all around them.
You are now under the effect of Torinoko Concealing Smoke. Your location and movement will be masked for a short period of time. 7 seconds remaining.
“Go, go, go,” cried a familiar voice from behind the Youkakufuu Sorcerer. Out beyond the temple, just visible through the gap between the demon Sorcerer’s massive body and the gigantic gate, was the West Defender ninja Kisho. His troops were behind him in some sort of a formation, their hands all clasped in front of their chest to activate the spell.
6 seconds remaining.
There was no time to thank the ninja for his aid. At the gate, the Sorcerer was preparing to unleash on the intruders, and a newly-conjured whirlwind started to form under his palm. The burner was once again exuding thick smoke, and Seiki waved his hand to clear away some of it.
5 seconds remaining.
Ippei had already reached the other side of the burner. “The auspicious number: eight.” He cried. “What does the other side say?”
4 seconds remaining.
Seiki at first thought the side facing the Main Hall was empty, until he saw a single character crafted right in the middle of it. “North!” he shouted. “It just says north!”
3 seconds remaining.
“Okay, that’s good,” cried Ippei as he started running back toward the direction they had come from. “Just run!”
Seiki dashed after his friend, placing trust in his own memory of the terrain and the odd knowledge that came from the mental map, since it was difficult to see where he was going amid the thick concealing smoke that clung to him like his own shadow. The ability timer was still ticking down somewhere in his consciousness, but he was no longer paying attention as he leapt over the small chained fence back into the tiled courtyard, trying to put as much distance between him and whatever the Sorcerer was planning to throw at them.
A familiar high-pitched shriek cut through the silence within the temple. Seiki did not have to look back to know that a fresh cone of wind was making its way toward them.
“Keep going!” cried Ippei. “That way.” Seiki was not sure if that was to him or the
troops, but the effect was the same and no one was wasting any second to observe the situation.
Behind them, the courtyard tiles started bursting in continuous crack-crack-crack as they were ripped out of the ground, and the whirlwind sprayed out terracotta bits sharp enough to leave shallow cuts on exposed skin. Seiki was quite certain that this icy hailstorm would be the end of their daring escapade.
“Can we outrun it?” he shouted to Ippei. Even if there were other monsters lurking in the shadows deeper in the temple, there was no way not to announce their presence now, but that was the last thing on their minds at the moment.
“If we’re lucky!” said Ippei. “And… we might be.”
A few seconds later, as the ninja’s concealing smoke started to clear, Seiki was surprised to notice that the falling tile fragments were actually thinning out.
They had reached the middle of the courtyard and could finally afford to slow down and catch their breath. Perhaps because of the benefit of the ninja’s timely concealing effect, the aim of the whirlwind had been off, and its erratic trajectory slowly led it toward the Main Hall.
Seiki wondered if it would be strong enough to tear the place apart, but on the steps leading to the building’s entrance, a shimmering wall of transparent dark purple appeared out of nowhere, and, upon impact, with a last writhing motion, the whirlwind dissolved without a sound.
“That’s probably what will happen to us if we try to go into the Main Hall without defeating the other bosses first,” Ippei noted. “And the instructions on the burner. I think you have to hit it on a certain spot for however many times it tells you to, with light weapons.”
Seiki glanced at his friend, impressed by how level-headed Ippei sounded after the ridiculous stunt they had pulled off. “That was…” Seiki was not sure what he wanted to say. He was sweating, out of breath, and his head was spinning from trying to take it all in at once.
“Wild?” Ippei grinned.
