Burning Soul - Chapter 181

Each strike of his blade was precise and held a considerable amount of force. Theo had to defend against it with the handicap. Even though he was trained to fight, since he lost his arm, even balancing himself while walking was a thing, let alone fighting.

The fierce strikes were nothing much if he had not been injured.

“What, are you just all talk?” The latter mocked his immobility.

Theo, on the other hand, was observing his movements, with each strike he received, his experience grew.

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Overconfident in his strength, the latter jumped in the air to strike down Theo for good, “It’s over!”

‘Opening!” Theo showed a grin on his face as he prepared to counterattack. Mid-air, the later guy was unable to do much, taking this to advantage Theo jumped after him, using Accel he was able to catch up to him quicker, but reaching wasn’t enough.

He then struck him with a normal attack disturbing his stance and balance, though Theo, using his skills manoeuvred mid-air in such a way he was right above the latter guy, “How?” He had nothing else to say as it all happened too quickly for him to comprehend.

Before landing on the ground, Theo made sure to knock him out with the dull side of his blade, all over in just under a minute.

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“Who is all talk now!” Theo showed a confident smile on his face.

“For a moment I thought I’d need to step in!” Milot walked out of the shadow.

Theo dusted off his coat and walked close to the guy he sparred with to check on him, “If I couldn’t even take him on, moving any further was out of the question.”

Milot agreed to this, “Yeah, that’d be dangerous!”

Theo then remembers what he heard, “Milot! There’s something I heard about!”

Theo then goes on to tell him about everything he heard from the mob of bandits, about the boss and the talk about the relation between the royal family and their boss.

“Hmm,

Looks like we just found ourselves a gem here!” Milot’s eyes shone with confidence.

“How come?” Theo asked as didn’t understand his intention.

“Look, we came here to get that crystal for Naomi, but then there’s that shard that you are looking for and now, this!

We just hit ourselves a jackpot!” Milot replied with a smug face.

Theo couldn’t help but look at him and wonder, ‘Did he just realise it?’ Hiding his questioned look he stood up and advised, “Shouldn’t we head in and deal with this quickly?

Now that I am discovered, they’ll be at alert if we return here later. We can’t let them know!”

Theo had a point, once this mob wakes up, they’d alert everyone else about the infiltration. That way it’d become even more difficult to head in once they all arrived together. Right then, right there, they couldn’t let this chance go and thus had to continue heading deeper.

“Well, we can and by the looks, as this was a worshipping site, there’s no maze-like structure. The whole structure looks simple to me, just we have to follow the hallway while staying alert!” Milot, who had explored a bit deeper, replied.

Theo gave it a thought and agreed on moving in right away, they both agreed on speeding up the exploration. The boss that the earlier mob talked about sounded like some big deal and crashing into him un-prepared wouldn’t be the best.

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Moving through the hallway they weren’t being careless, Theo was constantly using Mana Sense skill while Milot would use his vision and instincts to detect if Theo missed anyone. For the next 20 mins they continued dealing with over 4 such big mobs and many patrolling bandits, it was an unusually high number of bandits. As they kept on moving, they were getting worried about the situation.

The thing about these bandits being related to the attack on Arnor’s capital made more sense now. The number of these bandits was enough to relate them to the event. Although when confronted in such small mobs, they held no chance against both Theo and Milot, if there was a huge number of them in the depths, that’d prove difficult to deal with on their own.

“Theo, we must stay alert and try to deal with this quickly. If we spend more than necessary time here, we might be walking into something difficult to handle!” Milot expressed his concern.

Theo couldn’t agree any less, “You are right!

If both of us got cornered, it’d get tough! We should deal with this quickly and return without running into their boss on our own.

Once we return to camp we can gather all of us and head back ASAP. That way we’ll have a considerable number to launch an attack.” Theo’s suggestion made sense,

“Meanwhile we can deal with this boss of theirs. The chaos ensued by the clash of both groups will provide cover for us to launch a sneak attack onto him.” Milot looked excited as he suggested,

Theo nodded in agreement; he had no reason to oppose his suggestion.

“Let’s keep moving and get that gem first, we will have one or two of our main goals achieved, then we can worry about the fight and all!” Milot sped up excitedly.

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…

After making a few turns, now they were in the innermost hallway, which led straight to the innermost chamber. They couldn’t see it yet but from the look of it, they were closing in.

This hallway looked a bit different. There were small chambers around the hallway, each had a door and were not too far away from each other. From the positions of the door, they figured the chambers to be small.

“Shhhhh!” Theo shushed Milot and halted him midway.

“Anyone around?” Milot understood the meaning of his action right away!

“Only one! But not too strong aura!

Might be a trap.” Theo suggested.

“Trap or not, we can’t leave any stone unturned right now!” Milot was ready to head in.

Theo pointed towards a door just a few steps away from them. He was hesitant about it. The reason was a certain smell.

“Theo! You sure there’s someone inside, ever from this far, I can smell the stench of rotten flesh!

I really don’t have any hopes!

Is it a person or an animal that you just sensed?” Milot pinched his nose trying to avoid the smell.

Theo tried using his skill, again and again, to make sure, but there definitely was a person behind the doors. Theo had a bad feeling about this. If it was a trap, they’d walk into some unknown thing and if not, they’d be confronted with something horrible. He had such a gut feeling.

Theo nodded and said, “it’s a person Milot. I can bet!

Besides I’m not sure if it’s a trap or not. But if we leave someone unchecked, that’d end up alerting the enemy.

Both hesitantly approached the door. Theo got a whim of smell as he closed in, his nose wasn’t as sharp as Milot’s. Theo had to rely on his skills and mana sense to explore in darkness, unlike Milot who could clearly see and smell as well.

Both hesitantly open the door, each one holding one side of the door.. What they saw left both of them in shock.