Catacomb Pantheon, Part 3

The tremor shaking the entire catacombs lasted several seconds before stopping, unnaturally abrupt.

Azu, who'd been crouching with her arms over her head, stood and brushed off the dust.

"What was that just now? And what you were saying before…"

She turned toward Elza, but Elza was still gazing at the wall decorations as if nothing had happened.

"That was a surprise, huh, Azu-chan?"

The eerie quality from before was gone from Elza's smile.

But she showed no sign of being fazed by the shaking.

Azu didn't have the courage to press her further.

A whistle sounded from far away. They'd been told beforehand to regroup when the whistle blew.

The blue flames flickered and swayed just as they had before.

The undead had gone completely still. They weren't even looking this way.

Azu followed Elza toward the sound of the whistle.

Everyone must have been concerned about the tremor, because the group reassembled quickly.

No one was missing.

The male cleric who'd been leading the operation clapped his hands twice, loudly.

All eyes turned to him.

"Listen up. You all felt that earthquake. This is an underground catacomb. There's no telling what a quake could cause. Fortunately, I've confirmed there's no rubble blocking the entrance. I propose we wrap up here."

He scanned the assembled adventurers.

No objections. Nobody wanted to be buried alive and join the undead ranks.

Azu, too, had been desperate to leave ever since Elza's demeanor had shifted.

"Hey, Azu-chan."

"Wh-What is it?"

"You're the leader and I'm the support. Right, Azu-chan?"

"That's what Master told us to do."

"No objections from me. You're the senior one, after all. But can you promise me something? Just while we're in this place, follow my lead."

Azu noticed that the smile had vanished from Elza's lips.

Elza gripped both of Azu's arms. Firmly.

… She was trembling.

"All right. You are a priestess, after all, Elza-san."

"Good. It's a promise, then. Azu-chan, from this point on, this catacomb is going to become hell."

"Hell?"

"Yes. The exit is… look."

Several people tried to enter the passage leading out, only to be repelled. As if they'd hit an invisible wall.

"We can't get out anymore. We've already been marked as prey."

"Prey? For whom?"

"I told you, didn't I? The Apostle of the Sun God that became an undead is here. It just woke up, and it's starving. Being undead only makes the hunger worse."

"I don't understand. The Sun God… is a god, right? And almost everyone here is from the Church of the Sun God. Why would its Apostle become an undead and try to eat us?"

Elza kept glancing nervously in one direction.

That direction was… toward the castle.

"Undead have a habit of mimicking their living behaviors. Zombies bite because they want to eat. The Sun God's Apostle wanting to devour human souls is the same thing. The Sun God was never on humanity's side."

Azu couldn't make sense of what Elza was saying.

"Never mind the theology. What matters is that the Sun God's Apostle is about to resurrect in this catacomb, and once it does, the one who sensed it—"

A deafening crash drowned out Elza's voice.

Before she could finish, the ceiling of the catacombs split open.

The once-perfect architecture of Ruined Heim Catacombs was reduced to a mountain of rubble in an instant.

"… The Ash King is coming."

What descended through the gap was a towering figure, easily three meters tall.

Gray armor encased every part of its body except its face. It landed with a single sword in hand.

Its face was hidden behind black miasma.

A nearby adventurer screamed.

"It's the Ash King! The Ash King is here!"

The monster that had once reigned as king. The calamity known as the Ash King.

The Ash King didn't spare the adventurers a single glance. He raised his sword.

His right hand raised the sword high, tip pointed forward, left hand resting against the blade near the point.

Azu simply stared at that stance.

Elza grabbed her and pulled her behind a pile of rubble.

Then she erected another barrier. The other adventurers rushed to follow suit.

"Azu-chan. Do not go near the Ash King. You will die."

The undead gathered before the Ash King and, of all things, began devouring each other.

Skeletons, Zombies, it didn't matter.

The sickening sound of chewing echoed without end.

The undead kept massing together. The pile grew into a mountain, and still they cannibalized one another. It was a vision worthy of hell itself.

One of the female adventurers couldn't hold it in and vomited.

Azu's own stomach churned.

Then the feeding frenzy stopped abruptly, and the undead began to dissolve.

As they melted, they formed a single shape.

What emerged was a Skeleton that towered even above the Ash King, bearing four arms.

But this was nothing like an ordinary Skeleton.

It was adorned with ornaments across its entire body, and each of its four hands gripped a gleaming sword.

Blue fire ignited within its hollow eye sockets.

The same flame that had lit the wall hollows, Azu thought.

The Ash King and the Four-Arms faced each other. Their hostility was unmistakable.

Why the Ash King and what Elza called the Sun God's Apostle-turned-undead were at odds, Azu couldn't understand.

The Ash King moved first.

He thrust at the Four-Arms with speed Azu's eyes couldn't track.

The Four-Arms deftly stacked the spines of all four blades together and stopped the thrust cold.

What followed was a staggering exchange of blows.

The sheer force of their clash sent shockwaves rippling outward.

Every adventurer present could do nothing but watch this battle between beings from another dimension.

No matter who won, the future didn't look bright.

Logically, the Four-Arms, said to be the Sun God's Apostle, winning should have posed no problem, but Elza clearly didn't think so.

The Four-Arms clashed all four swords above its head, and undead erupted from the ground.

These were nothing like the rabble Azu and the others had been fighting.

Grotesque forms. Bloated, rotting muscle. An aura of pure malice.

How could a god's Apostle summon such things?

In response, the Ash King raised his sword to the sky.

The pale wisps that had startled Azu earlier converged, and a host of knights in full plate materialized. A legion of Spectral Knights.

They raised their swords in disciplined salute to the Ash King. They must have been his retainers in life, and remained so even now.

The two sides' forces clashed.

The Spectral Knights didn't attack the adventurers, but the monstrous undead had no such restraint.

The adventurers scrambled to fight back, but casualties began mounting.

With Elza's support, Azu engaged them too, but they were ferociously strong.

Not quite on par with the Giant Centipede, but a single hit from any of them would be more than enough to kill her.

Hell. Where on earth had they ended up?

Azu didn't know. Did Elza?

Ah, once again… why did this keep happening?