87 The Ritual Part III

After the weird greeting, Reeve and Soren went inside the temple. So, what was the plan? It was simple. Reeve was going to snoop around the temple to find out what they were hiding, while Soren would try to get information out of the congregants. It sounded complicated, didn't it? Well, it was Reeve's idea.

"May the pranks of Lord Malum light out path", began a voice, as a figure stepped up to the podium.

"May the pranks of Lord Malum light our path", the rest of the voices echoed in unison, while replying to the greeting Reeve thought was totally stupid.

This was Reeve's cue. After throwing a sideways glance at Soren, he left towards one of the rooms which were located on the right side of the main hall. There was no one guarding the rooms, which caused Reeve's caution to go up a notch.

As quietly as possible, Reeve walked around, before going down the stairs which were unguarded … again. The room he had entered this time was quite different from the one he had entered in the afternoon. However, at the end, they all led to the stairs which went underground.

This temple was quite weird. Normally, there would be a lot of staff at the temple, in order to prevent scenarios like these, but it seemed as if, besides the staff at the entrance, there was no one else. This was suspicious point number two.

However, none of this stopped the undead zombie guy. Even if they were plotting something, would they even be able to kill him if they found out? As his thoughts reached here, he smirked. It felt good to be undead. The only problem was that his face drew a lot of unwanted attention, but other than that, he was immortal! What could go wrong?

Someone once said that, one should never ask the universe that question. This is because it will conspire to make sure that person sees the worst that could happen. Unfortunately, Reeve had already asked the question, and the universe was about to answer.

The stairs were lit dimly by torches, and at the end of the staircase, Reeve saw the entrance to an underground hall.

"Who goes there?" asked a nervous voice.

It seemed as if there was a guard.

Reeve hid at the corner of the staircase, while calmly observing what was going on. There was a soldier wearing a bronze armor, who was guarding the entrance to the underground hall. This soldier had drawn an iron sword from its sheath, but as far as Reeve was concerned, he might as well as be holding a wooden stick.

The soldier walked around, checking the perimeter. Once he had determined that everything was okay, he went to sit at a corner. It seemed as if he was asleep, which was why he shouted when he heard footsteps echoing in the empty passageway.

Reeve chuckled when he realized what was going on. However, now was not the time to be admiring people's stupidity.

Tiptoeing into the underground hall, Reeve marveled at the site he saw. Inside the massive underground hall, there was a giant stone statue. This statue depicted something which Reeve wasn't sure what it was. It had pointed ears, fangs, red eyes and the statue's hands were snakes.

Beside the eerie statue, there was a large altar, which had seven coffins surrounding it.

Reeve edged closer to the coffins to see what was inside, and when he saw, his face distorted into various colors. His heart, which usually beat normally despite dangerous situations, was now pounding. It took a full five minutes for him to calm down.

Inside the coffins, there were seven naked girls. Five of them were tattoos of intertwined snakes carved on their chests, while the other two were …

"Oh no! Rizaneth!" Reeve rushed towards one of the remaining two coffins. Inside it, there was a naked Rizaneth Wolfe. She looked like she was unconscious, which was a good thing. However, as he shook her, she didn't show any signs of waking up.

"That's enough! Who are you?" something cold and sharp grazed his neck, but of course, it didn't draw any blood.

Reeve turned to see the guard, who was pointing his iron sword. A mixture of emotions welled up inside him, which had never happened before. There was anger, extreme rage, embarrassment and hate.

This was the first time Reeve had ever felt like this. As he was thinking of how to kill this person, something weird happened.

The statue started glowing with an eerie red color. The color spread over the coffins, including the one Rizaneth was in. Before Reeve could respond, a bright pillar of red light rose up into the air, covering the entire altar, the statue and the coffins.

Reeve closed his eyes and turned away from the light. The guard also did the same. However, once the light subsided, Reeve punched the poor guy in the face. The guard staggered backwards, before Reeve kicked him in the jaw. He flew backwards, and crashed into a pile of rocks which was near the entrance to the hall.

The guard stood up, and picked a rock, which he threw at Reeve. It was unknown what he was thinking when he did this, however, he missed his target.

Reeve dashed towards the guard who was picking up another rock. When he arrived, he punched the poor guy in the stomach, before hitting him with a chop at the back of the neck. The guard dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Seeing that there were no more threats, Reeve rushed towards the coffin where Rizaneth was earlier. As he was rushing, he stumbled on something, and as he looked closely, he saw that he had stumbled on the sword which the guard had dropped earlier. Weird right? The universe was answering, and it wasn't pleasant.

Arriving at the coffins, Reeve found them all empty.

"What the f--" he didn't get to finish his sentence.

In front of him stood Rizaneth Wolfe, completely naked, but with glowing red eyes. She was looking at him with what seemed like disdain, before she released a creepy smile.