Symphonic Odyssey
: Vol. Three: Dark Sarcophagus: Verse One-Hundred and Thirty

The four of them dashed through the corridor as quickly as they could. Thanks to Cypher, none of the traps were activating, and it seemed, the entire corridor had been reset to an earlier state. There were no signs of wear and tear from the activation of the traps earlier.

Flipping that mechanism must have been responsible for this, but they had no time to wonder about that. The Undead creature had fully reformed at this point, and it had reduced itself to a corrosive liquid that was now sloshing its way after them, only the upper part of its torso remaining solid. The walls only suffered minor damage, and the traps were slowing it down as they activated in its wake.

Cypher and the others were protected by his veil, but his Zight was running out quickly and his Ark was only barely able to maintain the energy in his Orrium to keep it running. Still, it would flicker every now and then as they ran, and once or twice a trap would go off and they’d have to stop and avoid it.

The Undead beast, however, was growing more and more powerful each time it was destroyed. With each successive trap, its body would be rendered useless, but it would quickly reform even stronger than before. As it was, it was quickly reaching the peak of the fourth rank. All of the ambient Zight in the ruin was being pulled in by that monstrous creature through a hellish vortex and it made it even harder for Cypher’s Ark to function.

It was roaring in agony and anger as it continued after the four escaping Conductors. The shield-bearer had initially begun to gain control over its new form, and he would have posed a great threat to them. However, after so many successive destructions of its body, his mind had deteriorated into nothing more than mindless instinct.

It was now essentially a new class of undead being, and due to that, it was determined to consume the living prey within its sight. The four of them ran faster, dodging globs of flesh that the beast would hurl at them. At this point, the walls were even starting to deteriorate under that corrosive substance.

It roared again as it collapsed into a spike pit, and another rain of spikes slammed into it from the ceiling. It once again reformed and continued its chase, only now it had properly grown into the fifth rank.

The traps were still effective on it to a certain degree, but now it took multiple traps for it to stop and reform. Luckily Cypher and the others were almost back to the original chamber and they could see the light from the torches still burning.

“Something is seriously wrong with that thing!” yelled Alex as they ran.

“OH, YOU THINK?!” replied Melodi, the panic and annoyance obvious in her voice as she kept pace with the rest of them.

“Honestly it’s scary as fuck, but that power is impressive to say the very least!” huffed Cypher, the sweat dripping into his eyes as he focused on maintaining the Veil.

“Indeed, it is quite scary even for me! But can you feel that? It’s becoming more and more unstable as it advances through the ranks!” returned Alvin, and Cypher could feel what he was talking about.

Behind them, the world felt like a mass of darkness, an abyss that no one could escape from. It would fluctuate in power and then drop instantly to zero, only to return to the peak of the fifth rank and everywhere in between, it even flickered into the sixth rank a few times.

It had devolved into an uncontrollable loop of destruction, and reformation. Each time it reformed it would grow stronger and because of the power its body couldn’t contain, it would explode. Horror and fear seeped further into them as they felt the presence of the sixth rank and realized that this wouldn’t stop until it reached beyond what anyone could handle.

Something like this was unnatural without question, and Cypher wondered what kind of foul object that black oval had been. What kind of magick could elicit such a reaction in a Conductor? The initial gains were impressive to be sure. But to then become an amorphous blob of decaying flesh…

Was it really worth paying such a price for that kind of power?

Not to mention it was highly unstable. Even now its body was constantly exploding under the pressure of its immense power before the traps could even harm it, and that was only making the situation even worse.

If it hadn’t been exploding and stopping to reform it would have reached them by now and killed them instantly. Its speed had increased along with the corrosiveness of its liquid, and no doubt its strength was greater too.

They finally reached the doorway they had entered from, and all three of them vaulted into the chamber, and Cypher blasted the door with his elemental energy. It slammed shut with a thunderous, “BOOM”.

They didn’t stop there though, the four of them instantly ran towards the small gap that led out of this place. Their only chance now was to reach the Slingate and escape before this thing caught up to them.

A surge of energy slammed against the sealed door and another loud explosion could be heard followed by a deafening roar. Melodi hopped through the narrow gap to the outside first, followed by Alex, and Cypher. Alvin was the last to leave and just as he did, the doorway that had withstood every attack Alvin had thrown at it exploded outwards.

The sound of shattering glass filled the air as countless powerful wards were destroyed and rendered inert, while a cascade of stone and globs of flesh sprayed the area. Alvin ditched his outer robe as a glob landed on it and began to eat away at it with unnatural speed.

He managed to roll outside and avoid another spray of corrosive flesh as the undead abomination exploded again. It reformed quickly and thrashed around the room, having lost sight of its original targets.

Several explosions rang out and a harsh, wild aura filled the area as it finally broke into the sixth rank. It was now a Relic-ranked Undead creature, and that did not bode well for anyone who happened across it. Only the most powerful people in the world could handle it now and none of them were there.

Fear took hold of all four of them as they felt the pressure of the sixth rank. In another instant, the creature burst out of the ground and sent chunks of decaying flesh everywhere. They quickly continued their sprint toward the Slingate and didn’t dare to look back.

Cypher, on the other hand, watched as the creature flashed and glowed in an increasingly quick pattern. First white, then purple, and lastly black before it went back to white. The creature had stopped exploding at this point and all went quiet.

Alvin arrived at the Slingate first and began to input coordinates to a safe location. Melodi and Alex soon joined him. Cypher could only watch on in utter disbelief as a vortex of energy swirled inwards towards this pathetic creature. Dark clouds appeared, and lightning tore through the sky as Zight was forcefully pulled in from all directions to fuel this monstrous creature.

“CYPHER COME ON! IT’S GONNA BLOW!” Yelled Alex, and Cypher dashed towards the Slingate and dove through.