The Kingdom of the Malaise (16)

'So this is what that monolith was for'

Currently I was standing besides a few dozen monster corpses and was now staring at the monolith I had the chance of seeing in the middle of the toxic sewers.

Well... before I fought the Elite Slasher, received the Teleportation rune and nearly died due to unknown causes.

But nevertheless.

After waking up from my second fainting spree, I could visibly see and feel that time had passed.

The baking of skin was an indicator of that fact.

So after cooling myself down and making sure that I wasn't sun burned in any ways.

I came down the wooden platform and was immediately met with the inhabitants of the Promenade of the Condemned.

And I must say.

I would like to condemn them again as well.

Besides the general scattering of zombies that were apparently all over the island a few smatterings of the general grenadiers.

There were three different new enemies in this place.

And they were all incredibly annoying.

For one, upon landing on the ground.

I was immediately assaulted by a group of [bats] that were alerted by my descent down to the ground.

And they definitely were changed by the malaise as they looked nothing like bats.

Their segmented purple exoskeleton covered their fleshy insides while connecting themselves to red bat wings.

A sharp pair of mandibles more commonly found on insects clacked together as the one inverse black eye would look at me.

These little critters also had the annoying property of being able to go through physical objects.

Luckily they were incredibly fragile and a good punch to the face crushed their entire body.

Besides the bats the other two were also annoying.

The [Runner], most probably the previous guards of this place, their corpses still were strong and probably were even stronger now that they had been infected.

The red clothes and armored monsters also wielded a pair of glowing orange blades that could easily cut through stone without problem welded to their hands.

Their annoying property was that they could run through space incredibly fast and appear from out of nowhere.

I could still recall the surprise when I found out that the bastard teleported behind me while I was pelting it with a series of arrows.

Thank goodness that dodge rolling was a thing and I would take zero damage from the monster.

However, it was the last... monster? I hesitate to call it a monster but it was annoying nonetheless.

The [Protector].

It was an inanimate being made of wood and looked like a training dummy of sorts, having a wooden helmet and a okay quality shield.

It was covered in a series of strange runes from top to bottom, creating giant arcs of light before landing on any of the nearby monsters.

Granting a shield that was positively impossible to break.

The protector probably had the job of making sure that the condemned people couldn't assault and kill the guards.

But now they were protecting what was left of the guards, which was enough cause for me to destroy them.

I made sure to lure the monsters away from the range of the protector and kill them before destroying it so that I could record the runes on top of the protector.

I didn't know the principle behind it but I saw the sync rate of Dead Cells rise a bit so I guess I was doing something right.

So besides the new enemies that I now was able to slaughter, I found the strange runic monolith again.

And by touching it on accident when my back was against the wall from a slasher.

I teleported to some place else.

I quickly returned to tear apart the slasher, and now all I was doing was observing it.

Taking a stone slate out of my inventory, I started to carve the runic scheme on it to look over later.

So right now, I was just looking at the purple monolith with a dazed expression while carving some lines onto stone.

This went on for a while.

A very long while.

Finishing my job of carving the rune scheme onto the rock slate, it went back to my inventory and I touched the Monolith to bring me back to the place I was before.

And I must admit.

Nothing happened.

'...Well this is awkward'

Putting both hands on the monolith to see what was wrong with it, the purplish monolith activated and I was transported through space.

Now somewhere else I awkwardly placed my hands back on my side.

'...This is a lot more awkward than I thought'

Ignoring the recurring awkwardness that was in my movements, I was now standing in the middle of a room that was previously hidden in the map.

And according to the map I was rather deep in the ground.

Looking at the impenetratable darkness ahead of me, without hesitation I took out a torch from my inventory and held it in my hand.

Basking my surrounding area in orange light, the shadows dancing along the walls.

Raising the arm holding the torch above my head, I without hesitation threw the torch like a throwing axe.

And just like that, the light activated some sort of mechanism and flooded the dark room with light.

Orange flames lit on top of their stone holds in the walls, casting their flames around and brightening the area.

The area itself was also revealed to my eyes.

A series of retracting and extending spikes continuously thrusted in and out of the ground, coming out of brown floor, the noticeable holes within the ground providing an exit for the spikes.

Alongside the spikes floors, walls and ceiling were several swinging attachments that would definitely not end with a bruise if I touched them.

Giant axes, maces and other sharp objects were attached to the long metal chains.

Continuously swinging the blades as if it was the most energy efficient object in the world, the chains holding the sharp objects disappeared in small slits in the area before reappearing again.

Staring at the large sets of extremely obvious traps, I had no words to say.

'What the? I'm not going in there'

Furrowing my brows I turned back to the teleportation monolith and raised my hands to touch it's purple surface.

And just when my hands were barely an inch from the surface I paused.

Turning back to the series of traps, my eyes traced the traps that continued to be active and traced a pathway through it.

According to logic, why would there be a series of traps here? Why would the monolith bring me to this place? And why did the entire corridor light up when I threw a torch?

Well obviously because there would be something past the series of traps worth guarding of course.

Of course there could be nothing past the series of traps because it had already been completed, so it would just leave a bad taste in the mouth.

But on the off chance there wasn't...

I slowly moved away from the monolith.

'I should try anyways right? I have extra lives anyway'

And began to run towards the traps.

Activating as my feet stepped onto the brown tiles, spikes suddenly extended from all over as if sensing my presence.

Of course I was already far away from the first series of spike traps, but up ahead several more of similar kind were waiting.

And it seemed the room wasn't as simple as it looked, only being filled with rather sharp objects such as spikes, axes, maces and other things.

Arrow traps and fire traps were also mixed in with the normal spike and axe traps.

Upon reaching a certain point arrows began to fly in from all around, embedding themselves into the walls.

By now I was doubly confident of myself that there were still rewards past the traps.

The Gout of flame that was blocked by my shield also rose my confidence by a severe amount.

There were no signs that others had come through this place as there would be signs of traps being activated, and if they did, I doubted that they could slip past the series of traps.

So besides seeing no signs of other traps I stopped in a relatively safe area to catch my breath.

Even that supposed safe area was a lie as I had to quickly duck down to avoid a swinging axe that gave me a haircut.

'Noted' Catching my breath, I quickly tensed my legs and pushed myself forwards 'Nothing is safe here'

The corridor of traps was filled with malicious intent.

From all around, if one dodged the spikes from the grounds, you would be quickly met with a swinging axe carried by the chain.

And if that wasn't enough, to limit the amount of space you could move to, periodic bursts of flame burst out of the floor and blocked my sight.

At which point arrows would fly through the flames when I was focused on the fire itself and would barely dodge them.

There was also a section that could only be passed by rolling through it, if you crawled through...

Let's just say you would be skewered like a kebab.

Slightly sweating as spikes tried to pierce my everything, I quickly dodged several arrows.

Rolling one more time to dodge the giant axe that came out of nowhere and relying on the shield of Cthulhu to drag me out of the rising gout of flames.

I tripped over myself and collapsed onto the ground.

Tensing and bringing a shield up to protect my body, I mentally prepared myself to stop the monstrous horde of attacks that would no doubt land on me.

'...?'

Feeling none of the expected attacks, I slowly lowered my shield and saw as the series of traps had been deactivated completely.

'????'

Now extremely confused as the series of traps I was paying attention to that would definitely cause great harm to my body just like everything else in this world suddenly deactivated.

My tense mind couldn't understand the sudden change in situation.

That was until my rational took over.

"Oh, so it's ended than?' Quickly getting up from the ground and getting rid of the dust on my body.

I turned to the space behind me that was no doubt the source of my interests and curiosity.

And right in front of me was a rather strange item placed on top of a stone pedestal.

'What the?'

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