Chương 89: Chapter 86: The Sunken Catacombs

The transition from the cool night air to the interior of the Vance mausoleum was instantaneous and suffocating. The doors slammed shut behind us with a heavy, final thud, cutting off the rhythmic crackle of the brush fires outside. Behind us, Zack and Tony's teams were maintaining a strict security perimeter, tending to the wounded, and policing up the fallen undead to burn the corpses before infection could spread.

Inside, the noise of the surface died, replaced by the hollow echo of five pairs of boots on damp stone. I rolled my shoulders, feeling the subtle, rhythmic pulse of my new wyvern leather armor. The black, scaled material was lighter than steel but incredibly resilient, perfectly tailored for moving through the dark. I glanced at my status bar, watching my mana pool sit at a comfortable 100%.

I needed to keep it there; the speed, strength, and dexterity runes woven into the leather by Pete and Jace could drain my reserves in minutes if I kept them constantly active.

"Rings check," I muttered. I looked down at my left hand. On one finger sat my gunmetal grey wedding band; on my other hand sat the newly forged, dark-runed Ring of Holding Henry had distributed before the raid. The band was perfectly calibrated to link directly to my soulbound wyvern armor, anchoring a forty-square-meter dimensional pocket.

"Two weeks of rations, spare water bladders, and six hundred rounds of 5. 56 and. 40 SW," Joe grunted, adjusting his tower shield.

"Plenty of room left in the dimensional pocket if we find something worth hauling out."

"Let's hope we do," Mike said, his form shifting slightly as he activated his rogue passives. He slipped past Joe, his black wyvern leather blending seamlessly into the shadows of the descending stairwell.

"I'm taking point. Keep it tight." Floor 1: The Crypt of Whispers Status: Depleted (Horde Vacated) The first floor was a labyrinth of stone alcoves, most of the burial shelves shattered and empty where TJ's summons had crawled out. The air was thick with dust, but the lack of movement made the silence even more nerve-wracking.

Twenty minutes of cautious advancing brought us to the end of the floor—a wide, circular chamber containing a massive stone staircase leading down, and a glowing, iron-banded chest resting in the center of the room. [Floor 1 Cleared. Loot Chest Generated.]"Hold up," Mike called out, raising a hand as we approached. He knelt a few feet away from the chest, his eyes shimmering with a faint, blue arcane light. [Skill Activated: Detect Trap (Journeyman 2)] A tense silence fell over the room.

After a few seconds, Mike pointed a dagger at the base of the chest.

"Pressure plate underneath the front lip. Pulling the latch manually triggers a localized poison gas cloud."

"Can you disarm it?" Sue asked, her short sword lowered but her holy aura still pulsing faintly to keep the darkness at bay.

"Why risk the fingers?" Mike smirked. He held out his left hand, focusing a minuscule amount of mana. A translucent, glowing blue hand materialized in the air, floating over the chest. [Spell Cast: Mage Hand (Journeyman 3)]"Everyone take three steps back," I ordered. We backed off, raising our weapons just in case. Mike gestured with his fingers, and the spectral hand gripped the iron latch of the chest, lifting it forcefully. CLICK.

A sharp, hissing sound echoed through the chamber as a cloud of sickly purple gas erupted from the base of the chest, instantly dissolving into the damp air. Once the air cleared, Mike walked up and peered inside. [Loot Identified] 1x Greater Mana Potion (Restores 150 MP) 1x Box of Incendiary. 45 ACP Ammunition (20 Rounds - +15 Fire Damage)"Hand the ammo to Derrick," Joe said, walking past the chest toward the stairs.

I caught the box of incendiary rounds, stashing them into my enchanted storage ring with a flick of my wrist. I unholstered my sidearm—a heavy, dependable H&K USP. 45 ACP. Gripping the frame securely in my dominant right hand, I slotted the specialized magazine into the magwell with a satisfying click.

"Check your bars. Keep your runes dark until we hit a wall. Let's move." As we descended the stairs to the second floor, the temperature plummeted drastically. The air grew so cold our breath plumed into thick white clouds, and a brittle, glistening layer of hoarfrost began to coat the stone walls. The theme of the dungeon was becoming clear: it was as cold as death itself.

Floor 2: The Frost-Bitten Descent Status: Partially Depleted"Keep your eyes peeled," I warned, my right hand wrapped tight around the textured grip of my USP.

"The dungeon listed TJ as having emptied most of the floors, but he couldn't have cleared everything. Watch the floor." Mike moved ahead, his boots making no sound against the frost-covered stone. He kept his eyes locked on the floor and walls, searching for the telltale signs of structural anomalies. Suddenly, he froze, extending an arm back to signal us to stop. He knelt, brushing away a layer of hoarfrost with the flat of his dagger. Beneath the white crystals, a hairline fracture ran across the stone tile.

"Simple mechanical trap," Mike whispered, tracing the line.

"Tripwire-activated wall scythes. Standard pressure plate mechanism, but the frost has made the mechanism brittle. If we step on this, the tension will snap the cables and swing four heavy steel blades right at waist height."

"Can we bypass it?" Joe asked, his heavy armor already straining against the sudden, unnatural cold.

"Yeah. Just step over this exact tile," Mike said, marking the spot with a small splash of glowing blue mana ink.

"One by one. Don't crowd the space." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I went first, carefully stepping over the marked stone, my eyes scanning the dark corridors ahead. One by one, the team filtered past the hazard, our coordination flawless from months of surviving the system together. We pushed deeper into the sub-zero temperatures, the walls narrowing until we reached a choke point.

The path forward was entirely blocked by a thick, opaque wall of solid hoarfrost and jagged ice spears blocking the door to the third floor. From within the ice, the frozen, pale faces of a few trapped zombies stared out at us like a macabre wall display.

"The frost is too thick," Sue said, shivering slightly as she touched the barrier.

"My holy cleanses won't pierce solid ice like this." Erick stepped forward, the cold seemingly melting away from his skin as his eyes flared with a deep, molten orange light. He rubbed his hands together, a low rumble shaking the stone floor beneath our boots as he tapped into his newly elevated tier of fire magic.

"Move back," Erick said, a confident grin breaking through the frost on his lips.

"Time to turn up the heat." [Skill Activated: Magma Torrent (Journeyman 1)] Erick slammed his palms against the frozen floor. The stone cracked open, and instead of water or dust, a glowing, viscous wave of liquid magma erupted from the fissure. The molten rock flooded the icy pathway, hissing violently as it met the hoarfrost.

Enormous clouds of steam billowed toward the ceiling as the absolute heat of the magma chewed through the ice barrier in seconds, dissolving the frozen zombies into ash and clearing a glowing, steaming path straight to the Floor 2 exit. As the steam cleared, a second iron-banded chest materialized near the staircase leading down. [Floor 2 Cleared. Loot Chest Generated.] Mike didn't even wait to be asked. He activated his Detect Trap and smiled when his eyes registered a clean, trap-free blue aura around the latch.

"No traps on this one. The System's feeling lazy."He popped the lid, pulling out our rewards and tallying them aloud. [Loot Identified] 150x Gold Coins (System Minted) 2x Low-Grade Mana Crystals 1x Magical Tome: [Flame Ward]"Erick, this one's yours," Mike said, tossing the leather-bound book to the mage, who caught it eagerly. The tome hummed with warmth, disappearing into Erick's inventory to be studied later. The gold was split evenly, automatically registering in our respective storage rings.

"Alright, that's two down. Let's see what floor three has waiting." Floor 3: The Hall of the Wight Status: Active Defense If the second floor was cold, the third floor was absolute zero. The hoarfrost here thickened into sheets of blue glacial ice, and the air carried a heavy, choking density that signaled active magical corruption. [Warning: Elite Undead Presence Detected] The moment our boots hit the floor, the shadows at the end of the long, arched corridor began to writhe.

From the darkness stepped three towering figures, far different from the shambling corpses on the surface. These were armored Wights—Level 35 elite undead warriors gripping massive, rusted greatswords, their hollow eye sockets burning with a frozen blue intelligence.

"Intruders..." the lead Wight hissed, the sound like grinding stones. With a burst of unnatural speed, the three elites charged, their heavy blades trailing a wake of freezing frost.

"Joe, anchor!" I shouted, raising my bow momentarily before realizing the tight corridor demanded closer quarters.

"I am the wall!" Joe bellowed. He triggered his wyvern leather armor's strength runes, a brief flash of red light rippling across his pitch-black gear as his mana pool dipped slightly. He slammed his tower shield down, locking it into the glacial floor just as the three Wights smashed into him simultaneously. BOOM. The impact echoed like artillery. The ice beneath Joe's boots shattered, and the high physical force strained his armor, but his high damage resistance held.

The Wights' greatswords bounced off the reinforced magical surface of the shield with a shower of sparks, their frost magic freezing the outer metal but failing to pierce his defenses.

"They're bunching up! Sue, burn 'em!" Joe grunted through gritted teeth, using his weight to shove the elites back a crucial few inches. Sue stepped out from behind Joe's shoulder, her kite shield locked tightly against her arm. Her short sword rose toward the vaulted ceiling, glowing with a pure, white-hot solar brilliance that pushed back the deathly chill of the room.

[Skill Activated: Turn Undead (Apprentice 7)] [Passive Synergy Triggered: Purifying Flame] A blinding, holy shockwave erupted from Sue's blade, washing over the three Wights trapped against Joe's shield. The elite undead shrieked as the holy light struck them, their heavy armor smoking as the purification dissolved the necrotic energy binding their bones. The lead Wight's health bar plummeted straight into the red, its glowing blue eyes flickering violently.

"Finish it!" Sue cried. Joe didn't hesitate. Swinging his single-bitted battleaxe over the top of his shield, he brought it down in a devastating cleave. Imbued with the momentum of his tank passives, the heavy steel blade shattered the lead Wight into a cloud of bone dust and corrupted ice. I stepped into the pocket. Though I hadn't relied heavily on firearms since the apocalypse began, my years of law enforcement and military service overrode the strange magic of the System.

My right hand snapped up, locking into a flawless, rigid stance. My sight alignment was instantaneous, my muscle memory tracking the remaining two staggered Wights. I squeezed the trigger. My H&K USP barked in a disciplined, rapid cadence. The heavy, incendiary. 45 ACP rounds punched sequentially into the center-mass and heads of the targets. The raw kinetic force combined with the elemental fire damage completely disrupted the undead biology.

Seeing an expert executing a masterclass of pre-System firearm proficiency, the System's algorithms whirred to calculate my true status. [System Integration Update] Past training history and active combat proficiency analyzed. Skill Initialized: Sidearm Mastery (Journeyman 1) Note: Pre-System baseline competency recognized. Attribute bonuses applied retroactively.

The heavy kinetic impact, reinforced by my newly recognized mastery and Sue's lingering holy aura, turned the remaining elite defenders into nothing more than gray ash on the cold floor. The heavy iron doors at the end of the hall groaned and swung open, revealing the passage to the fourth floor. [Floor 3 Cleared. Loot Chest Generated.] Mike slipped forward, his eyes scanning the ornate, silver-trimmed chest that materialized in the center of the room.

He knelt, checking for strings, magical runes, or hidden seams.

"Hold on... got a mana-wire trap laced into the lock mechanism. Open this normally, and it triggers an ice spike explosion." Stepping back, Mike extended his left hand. The translucent blue Mage Hand conjured into the freezing air, hovering over the silver latch. Mike flicked his wrist. The spectral hand lifted the latch, immediately snapping the delicate mana-wire. CRACK. A jagged cluster of sharp ice spikes erupted violently from the sides of the chest, shattering against the stone walls harmlessly.

Once the trap spent itself, Mike grinned and walked over to peer into the loot pool.

"Oh, now we're talking. Sue, Joe, you guys earned this one." [Loot Identified] 300x Gold Coins (Split applied) 4x High-Grade Mana Crystals 1x Vanguard's Aegis (Rare Tier Shield Buff Rune) 1x Magical Tome: [Sacred Bastion] Sue took the heavy, gold-lettered tome, a bright smile breaking through her exhaustion as she integrated the new Paladin skill into her interface. Joe took the shield rune, immediately crushing it over his tower shield to permanently upgrade its magic resistance.

I looked down the dark staircase leading to Floor 4, the air growing even heavier. Three floors down, seven to go.

"Don't get comfortable," I said, checking the magazine of my USP, my stance relaxed but ready.

"We're pushing deeper."