Chapter 19: Perilous Descent

’Shit...’

The situation was pretty bad...

Unless one was Anchored, their spawn was entirely random. Still, unmoored Divers tended to be transported near the Convergence Zone, a safe zone of sorts. Peace had been sort of banking on being one of those lucky people.

Of course, he’d been prepared to be summoned into harsh conditions as well...

’But right next to the Bone Temple?’

’Seriously?’

Peace grimaced as he looked at his bare feet.

’Eugh. Not... ideal.’

But alas, he was broke.

At least he wasn’t in the Glass Desert. That would probably be the only predicament worse than his current one.

There was no time to waste. Skeletons began to populate the area, emerging from gashes in the ground that sealed behind them as if they’d never existed.

Knowing he didn’t have the liberty to wait around and risk being noticed, he stepped off the summit and began his perilous descent down the mountain of bones.

Each step was painful, with the round edges pressing into his skin, but thankfully, none were broken, and they were oddly smooth, almost to the point of looking soft.

Staring down at the path in front of him, Peace bore witness to the reason this area was rarely visited... even by higher-tier Divers.

There were virtually no terrain obstacles on the mountain, and down in the plains, the only ones were the gigantic ribs, knolls of bone here and there, the river, the desert, and the occasional remains of colossal creatures from a bygone era. For the most part, it was absolutely open.

Meaning, there was nowhere to hide...

Combined with the fact that skeletal beasts spawned at a terrifying rate, especially as one got closer to the Bone Temple, it became clear why this place was avoided.

For higher-ranked Divers, it was simply bothersome and tedious to climb the mountain while constantly fighting through endless undead. For weak adventurers, it was not only dangerous, but offered minimal benefits compared to a place like the Dark Forest.

The beasts here rarely dropped anything worthwhile and were inedible. The area itself also lacked a water source. So, if a Diver lost their rations, they were screwed.

Peace had only made it a couple of steps before the handful of skeletons in his path swelled into dozens... then hundreds, each armed with either a sword fashioned from bone or a bone bow strung with muscle fiber. Arrows shaved from humeri sat lodged between their ribs, their own bodies serving as quivers.

Slowing for a moment, Peace tossed his dagger into the bag on his back.

It was useless against creatures only affected by blunt force.

The bottom of the bone mountain seemed terribly far away and was soon swallowed from view by another wave of spawning skeletons.

’Shit!’

The only thing working in his favor was that the skeletons were not only all Tier 9 and probably weaker than him, but also blind. They could still sense the world somehow, though he knew not how.

In any case, they hadn’t sensed him just yet. But if the wrong one did, all hell would break loose.

Peace slowed his jog to a walk as bone clanked against bone around him and still more skeletons emerged.

He had two options. Hide and wait while praying that some group decided to come his way and use whatever path they cleared to escape... or attempt a daring escape on his own while the skeletons were still spawning.

’I don’t really have a choice, do I?’

Where would he hide anyway? It seemed like catching aggro at some point was inevitable. And what would happen to this body if his mind were ejected and returned to that of the monster?

That was another potential problem, but if Peace’s theory was correct, he should be safe from swapping while in the dungeon.

Looking around at the increasing number of skeletons, Peace broke into a dead sprint.

The mountain of bones was tall, but the slope wasn’t steep, allowing him to keep his footing even on such unstable ground.

Aiming his steps at the smoothest-looking bones, he bounded downhill at an impressive speed. Even if he was super weak, his slight buff from the night was enough to give him speed unattainable by the average mundane human back on Earth. Besides, he was running downhill.

Of course, he was still heavily lacking compared to a true athlete who had trained their body for speed, especially while running on uneven terrain...

’But I digress.’

Hope began to well within him.

After about two and a half minutes, he’d made it roughly a sixth of the way down the 3-kilometer mountain without incident, despite the vast number of repugnant beasts surrounding him.

’I can actually do this!’

A slight smile crossed Peace’s face at his accomplishment as he powered into his next step...

All of a sudden, a dull pain shot through his ankle, and he lost his footing.

[You have slain a Tier 9 E-Class, Skeleton Archer]

[+2 EXP]

Peace tumbled forward into the vast array of bones, their edges biting into his skin without puncturing his flesh. He slid downward, carving an indent in the ground and displacing a mound of bones, some of which began rolling down the mountain, clanking against those below.

Honing in on a couple of clinks, he snapped his head toward the sound just in time to watch the separated head of a skeleton bounce down the mountain and crack into the spine of another farther below. It immediately spun around and aggroed onto Peace.

Still flat on his stomach, Peace craned his neck and looked back to see the vertebrae of a skeleton jutting out of a newly formed rift in the ground...

A Skeleton Archer had started spawning right where he was about to take his next step, and he’d ended up kicking its head clean off.

He’d be thankful for the free kill if he’d gotten anything rewarding from it, but since it hadn’t even made it out of the ground, its body merely sank back into the sea of bones from whence it came, and the scar sealed up.

Turning his attention forward again, Peace locked eyes with empty sockets as the abomination barreled toward him. It crashed into another skeleton, which turned toward Peace and joined the pursuit. Then another followed. And another.

The single skeleton Peace accidentally killed had immediately resulted in four more clambering up the slope toward him, their murderous malice on full display.

Thankfully, they were all sword bearers... If he ticked off an archer, that would be the death of him. He had no defense against arrows, even if fired by a blind sack of bones.

Rolling onto his side, Peace got his feet below him, then used a nearby femur to push himself upright.

His ankle was bruised, but it didn’t seem to be broken or fractured. Once he was sure of that, he readied himself as the first skeleton nearly entered striking range.

’What did that guy do...’

While Peace would have loved to run, these skeletons wouldn’t stop chasing him and would just keep aggroing nearby ones until he had an entire army on his heels. So, he needed to kill these four before he had the right to continue.

Replaying Captain David’s swift execution of Lacan in his head, Peace emulated the strike on the first Skeleton Warrior.

Planting his foot, he kicked down and swung.

’Ah, I’m an idiot.’