Chương 81: Escaping

When I returned to the threshold of the hidden passage, the sheer volume of stone walls breaking up the layout obstructed my x-ray vision, preventing me from getting a flawless read on the situation. I could only verify that the immediate vicinity was clear before poking my head out to scout. But the moment I breached the opening, an oppressive sensation of wrongness washed over me. The Halunar's Eye snapped awake, and my vision was instantly blanketed by a suffocating, dense purple fog.

I scrambled backward into the safety of the secret tunnel, slamming the partition shut. The cellar outside was entirely flooded with Miasma. Fortunately, I was still wearing the cultist's heavy mask on the head, but with the volume of toxic Miasma saturating the air out there, I doubted the makeshift respirator would offer much protection. It appeared the glass sphere containing the concentrated Miasma in the lower laboratory had shattered.

Had those robed fanatics successfully neutralized the ghouls, they would have carried that containment unit above ground before breaking it. Whether it was broken by accident or out of sheer malice no longer mattered; this was the absolute worst-case scenario for me. Now, I would have to charge through a lethal cloud of invisible poison while simultaneously dueling whatever ghouls remained down here to secure my escape.

If I inhaled a lethal payload of Miasma, I wouldn't have the endurance to make the trek down the mountain to secure backup. But I was fresh out of options. I could only hope that if the worst came to pass, Halunar would maintain enough divine oversight to distinguish whether I died human or turned into an ghoul, and trigger the regression accordingly. Steeling my resolve, I adjusted the mask, discarded the cumbersome robe, and crawled back out.

Without the Halunar's Eye active, the air down here looked entirely normal. But the most lethal hazards are always the ones hidden from the naked eye. Refusing to waste a single second, I bolted forward. Within the range of my left eye's tracking capability, I could pinpoint only five remaining "living" ghouls. Two of them were contentedly gorging themselves on the fresh harvest down in the lower laboratory, leaving three wandering the upper level.

The living specimens trapped behind the iron bars had avoided being torn apart by the ghoul, but they stood absolutely zero chance of surviving this concentration of airborne toxin. The kindest mercy left for them was that they would at least leave behind intact corpses. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Despite the abundance of fresh meat scattering the vicinity, the three stragglers immediately locked onto my position and lunged the moment I came into view. My adrenaline spiked. My senses sharpened to a razor edge, my physical reflexes overriding conscious thought. Slashing, parrying, ducking, executing a tight roll—every movement flowed seamlessly before my brain could register the mechanics.

I drove my blade straight through the core of the first ghoul, severed the neck of the second with a fluid follow-through, and sprinted cleanly toward the main exit. The heavy stone hatch had been opened. A robed cultist lay dead right beside the frame, pinned to the floor by three iron arrows protruding from his spine. The man must have been in such a blind panic to escape that he forgot the trap and stepped on a rigged tile, taking a barrage of deadly arrows but managing to open the hatch before he expired.

This sight forced me to check my momentum, paying meticulous attention to my footing. However, the final ghoul hot on my heels harbored no such reservations. Within two reckless strides, it stomped squarely onto a rigged tile. Five arrows hissed through the dark. Two buried themselves deep into the ghoul's spine and neck, two whistled harmlessly over my head, and one grazed my forearm, leaving a shallow laceration. The arrow severed the creature's spinal cord, dropping it instantly into a heap.

I lunged out through the exit frame. The exterior trigger mechanism to seal the hatch was completely broken. Fortunately, Miasma was heavier than ambient air, so the rate of evaporation from the basement into the ruins remained relatively low for now. But if left unsealed, the remaining ghouls idling below would eventually wander their way out.

I yanked off the suffocating metal mask to draw in a desperate breath of clean oxygen, then immediately began utilizing the discarded junk scattering the ruins to barricade the opening. The hatch was a square aperture flush with the stone floor, measuring roughly one and a half meters on each side. Luckily, the abandoned church was littered with weathered tarps and heavy canvas.

I selected the thickest piece of canvas available, draped it over the gap, and anchored the corners with heavy masonry to temporarily seal the toxic vapor inside. Next, I gathered long wooden beams and iron rods, laying them grid-wise across the frame to serve as a structural support system, before shoving a massive, near-rotted wooden wardrobe over the top. Layering a few more heavy tarps over the assembly, I deemed it secure.

This makeshift seal wouldn't hold if the ghouls mobilized their collective strength to bash through it. But the ghoul possessed virtually zero cognitive function; if they couldn't visually identify the frame as an exit, they wouldn't actively target it. I accomplished the entire frantic operation within ten short minutes. Praise be to adrenaline. But just as I allowed myself a fleeting moment of self-satisfaction, a wave of profound vertigo slammed into my consciousness.

This wasn't a mana vacuum; my status window confirmed my reserves were still abundant. This was full-blown Miasma poisoning. I stumbled toward the main entrance from memory, desperately closing every internal door I passed to compartmentalize the spreading toxin, even as the darkness in my head expanded. Sudden, violent tremors racked my limbs as a cold sweat broke across my skin. My heart was hammering at a frantic tempo, yet my body was entirely drained of physical strength.

The world blurred into a haze as I caught a fleeting glimpse of pale daylight ahead, before everything abruptly plunged into absolute blackness.