Chapter 8: Homunculi

The door made a creaking sound as it opened very slowly. 

What the–

The smell was so disgusting that it made me remember my time in the army. The smell of blood. Not just one, but many. I smelled this same scent countless times.

In the middle of a large room, there was a large stoop of corpse. Piles of corpses on top of each other. There were even corpses of children among them. Stood before the pile of corpses was someone performing some kind of ritual in his black robes. In front of him was Sakura, kneeling with some kind of green energy flowing out through her body.

"Koros zul vorken desh val'rak"

The lich who was covered in black robe was casting some spell. I clad my sword in mana and slashed at that man. As my slash traveled through the space and nearly reached that man's body–

Boom

A wall made of bones rose up from the ground, stopping my ranged attack in the way.

Suddenly the blood scattered here and there started to gather and take the shape of golems. This is bad…

I clenched my hands as I started to gather surrounding mana into my body with a deep breath. Since the air was filled with demonic energy more, my body ached as it made contact with that demonic energy.

After I could no longer gather any, I released all the mana I gathered in all directions, creating a huge explosion all around me. 

As the smoke cleared after the  explosion, I could see a large crater was made around me. The blood golems that started to form were no longer seen. Thankfully it worked–

!!!

The blood started to gather yet again. The golems which had been shattered were gathering again taking their previous shapes. Suddenly I sensed a golem leap at me from behind. I took a step to the side and slashed it in half. It had no effect. My sword simply passed through the golem.

"Shur'ath sathor nok-ra

Velk n'ethos zhaunen yar'nor"

I could still hear the lich's chant. My instinct screamed at me that I should finish this battle as soon as possible. I kept slashing every golem that leapt at me. The golems as well kept regenerating.

So it's like this?

The more I sliced the golems the faster their regeneration became. And the faster their regeneration became the smaller they became, making it harder to hit them.

"I don't have time for this"

I sheathed my sword and lowered my body while closing my eyes. I kept my hand on the sword's hilt, ignoring the incoming golems.

Swoosh

I took a deep breath and by strengthening certain muscles in my body, I slashed at each and every golem around me countless times in a matter of seconds.

Just as I thought, the golems could no longer regenerate.

"Shur'ath kain narken doth"

"Zhul'garoth yar lomen tor'shak"

"Koros zul vorken desh val'rak"

"Shur'ath sathor nok-ra"

As I was panting from the technique I just used I heard the lich's chanting again. Suddenly a pillar of red light shone on the pile of corpses. Sakura screamed so loud that it could burst my eardrums. 

The lich's robe started to flutter. My instincts kept telling me to run away. Demon energy was running rampant making it harder and harder to breathe. 

Suddenly all the corpses began to take a shape altogether. 

I only read about this in books, never thought I would see it in person.

It was homunculi. Fascinating creatures born from alchemy. Most of them look like humans, they even sound and smell like one as well. They are hard to distinguish from humans.

Other homunculi are simply disgusting monsters. They are like an emotionless machine. Just like the one in front of me.

As I was immersed in my thoughts, the corpses formed a white giant with an incredibly large mouth that revealed its teeth without any eyes, nose or ears. The giant's body structure was mostly like a human, except that it was ten meters long.

Roar

It's disgusting. Maybe the woman I met outside was also a homunculi.

The man in black robes then turned back at me. It was at that moment my suspicions became true. It was a lich.

Unlike normal skeletons, this lich's  bones were completely black. It had his front upper body exposed showing his rib cage. He removed his hood revealing mysterious glowing red markings on his face. Its eyes were hollow yet seemed to strike fear to anyone looking at it. 

I shifted my focus to Sakura. She was bleeding through eyes and nose. She was still breathing.

The lich raised his hand and stretched it towards me. The white giant behind him came running at me. As it was about to punch me, I tried rolling to the sides.

!!!

An extreme level of pain struck my back. Nevertheless, I still managed to dodge the punch. Seeing the large crater on the ground, I knew that I wouldn't survive a single punch.

As its hand was still on the ground, I went for its legs. As I slashed its legs, my sword simply slid from it as It was extremely slippery.

I looked at its body closely. It was shining from some liquid stuff all over its body. I glanced at the part of the sword that made contact with that white thing's leg.

It's… mucus?

Though I didn't participate in many sea battles, I thought only sea monsters had mucus on their bodies. Well.. since it's mucus, there's only one solution.

I hardened my grip on the sword and clad it with my fire attribute mana. Fire works really well against mucus. Naval seas carry barrels filled with oil because of this . 

As I pulled my sword back and leaned my body forward, the white giant again came after me. It was only big, it had no intelligence. I enchanted my leg with mana and dashed towards its legs and with a big slash, cut its right leg completely making it fall on the ground with face first.

Without wasting any time, instead of going after the giant again, I went towards the lich. The lich seemed to have sensed my intentions as it started casting.

I kept running towards the lich. Just as I was about to stab the orb that was shining through its rib cage, a flurry of fire came through the magic circle that the lich was casting.

I, with my sword clad in red flames, executed a vertical slash dividing up the flames from the lich to both sides. The lich who was surprised with this took a step back as I continued to dash towards it. I knew they were bad at close quarter combats.

This time just as I was about to start running again, I felt a killing intent behind me. As I looked back, it was an incoming punch from the giant. Did its leg already heal?

It was too late for me to dodge so I blocked it with my sword. I was dragged back by the force of the punch. I was pinned down on the ground and couldn't move.

As I sensed the increase in demonic energy from behind, I glanced back and found out that the lich was again casting magic. Though it didn't have any skin on it, I somehow felt its smug face.

I couldn't cast any magic nor could I dodge it. As the lich finished it's casting, a large fireball came from its magic circle aimed at me.