Can a Frankenstein's monster be an adventurer?

Chapter 61 Blood Sacrifice in the Dark Chamber

After clearing out a flesh slime, they encountered no further obstacles and quickly walked out of the dimly lit stone steps.

The moment you step out of the stone steps, the stone wall suddenly widens from both sides.

The entire third level of the Rift Ruins is a massive, dilapidated underground palace that makes one lose all sense of space. Its scale far exceeds that of the first two levels, and its depth extends into the darkness beyond the reach of sight.

The dome is high and far, with rows of huge kerosene lanterns hanging above it, rusted but still recognizable as magnificent.

The dilapidated murals in the stone staircase passageway stretched upwards along the rough stone walls until they merged into the darkness of the dome.

It was an extremely vast underground palace. Yet, there wasn't a breath of wind in the air, and apart from the dim lighting, there was only a suffocating, deathly stillness.

Swan emerged from Roland's left, lowering his voice:

"Hey bro, watch out. That was just an appetizer on the stairs. There are these things everywhere here, and even higher-level ones."

Luo Lan nodded:

"Hmm. So, isn't this why I asked you to lead the way? You've been deep inside before, so you must have scouted the route, right?"

Swan's lips twitched, forcing a bitter smile:

"If we encounter slimes on the road, I'll leave them to you, brother... Of course, if we encounter other native monsters, I won't stand idly by either."

Without much conversation, Swann acted swiftly and decisively, immediately switching into combat stealth mode the moment he finished speaking.

As he leaned into the shadows, his outline immediately began to blur, and a gray veil, like ink wash painting, once again draped over his body.

Swann's [Killing Intent Sensing] specialty proved remarkably effective in this desolate dungeon.

He was like a human radar that could sense danger in advance, leading Luo Lan through the intricate and dilapidated corridors.

Swan walked quickly and silently from then on, never looking back. He would only use two fingers to indicate which direction might be dangerous and which was safe at corners or forks in the road.

Occasionally, he would encounter a few lone flesh slimes that he couldn't avoid, but they were all cleanly and neatly cleaved in two by Roland's broadsword, which was enchanted with pale holy light, disintegrating and drying out.

This godforsaken place not only has these mutated slimes, but you can also occasionally encounter a few skeletons dressed in ancient, tattered clothes.

These skeleton soldiers are more like the fantasy style that the undead in this world should have, unlike the unique style of the [Star Undead] to which Victor belongs.

Clearly, these lone skeletons are the original monsters of this third underground level.

However, now that most of their territory has been occupied by flesh slimes, their numbers have become extremely scarce.

Whenever these skeletons blocked his way, Swann took on his responsibility quite well.

The blurry figure swept across the ground like a ghost, the scimitar in its hand carrying a cold, sharp whistling sound, shredding the skeletons' fragile white cervical vertebrae before they could even react.

As the skeleton fell, Swann still had the strength to support the skull with his other hand and slowly lower it to the ground without making any noise that would attract more monsters. The whole process was faster than the blink of an eye for a normal person.

The underground palace's pathways were more complex than Luo Lan had imagined, with the main corridor branching irregularly into two sides.

Every so often, there appears a wooden door that has rotted so much that only iron nails remain of its frame, or a completely collapsed archway, piled up into a rubble slope.

The terrible road conditions made Luo Lan realize that it was absolutely right of her to force Swann to stay behind and lead the way.

Even with the assistance of thermal vision, ultrasonic sensing, and Victor's data vision, it's hard to say how long it would take to explore on his own.

They continued their journey, stopping and starting, for several miles, penetrating deeper into the third level of the rift. The light from the kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling had weakened considerably, becoming almost useless.

Seeing this, Luo Lan flipped her wrist and took out the empty shell of the portable magic lamp that she had bought in advance at the prop shop in the town from the storage space of the cross pendant.

"clatter."

With a snap of his fingers, [Pale Light Crystal Cluster lv.1] was activated, and a crystal emitting a faint white light appeared out of thin air in the empty shell of the hanging lamp.

The soft, white crystalline light, amplified by runes inscribed on the magical lamp that amplify the light intensity, illuminated a radius of several dozen meters around Luo Lan.

Swann was much more convenient than Roland. In the dim light, the thief's eyes gleamed with a faint light, similar to that of a feline hunting at night.

When the visual field is compressed, hearing instinctively becomes more acute.

The dull thuds, the bubbling of boiling liquid, and the continuous grinding of bones mingled together, echoing down the empty corridor.

The sound was coming from a huge, dark room several hundred meters away.

Luo Lan and his group immediately became alert, slowing their pace. The two of them, along with a skeleton dog, crept silently into the dark room, hugging the edge of the stone pillar.

In the dim light, the scene before one's eyes was nothing short of a chaotic dance of demons.

In the very center of the dark room stood a towering circular altar.

Around the altar, twelve tall skeletons clad in tattered, ancient priestly robes, braving raging fel energy flames, stood in a standard circular formation, leaning on bone staffs.

[Name: Mourning Priest]

[Rank: Silver]

Specialties: Soul-capturing chants, communication with the dead

[Skills: Curse of the Dead Lv.4, Fel Impact Lv.3, Fel Chains Lv.2...]

[Status: Firmly Believing in Falsehoods]

At the center of the circle surrounded by the skeleton priests, a giant, crimson slime, as large as a mountain of flesh, was bound to the center of the altar by several energy chains that shimmered with a ghostly fel energy.

The jawbones of the skeletal priests were rapidly opening and closing, and bursts of fanatical, eerie, and divine chanting shook the air.

"Flesh and blood are illusions...suffering is the ladder..."

"Steal the source of chaos...wash away the decaying shell..."

"Offering to chaos and disorder...ascending to great divinity!"

The twelve skeletons spoke in turn, each response more precise than the last, like a damaged hymn being forcibly repeated.

"The Supper... the Return... offered to the Mother of Sorrow..."

As the skeleton priests chanted, the eerie light on the altar suddenly intensified.

"Bang!"

With a loud bang, the giant slime that was bound by the glowing chains erupted into a violent boiling sound, and its huge semi-liquid body exploded into a pool of dark red blood that flowed with a foul odor.

The blood flowed down the strange etched grooves on the altar's surface and into the blood channel beneath it.

"Blasphemy...dedicated to Him..."

The chanting of the skeleton priests, towards the end, almost lost its form of words, leaving only a single syllable that continued to vibrate within the skeletal cavity:

"Dedicated to Him, dedicated to Him. Dedicated to Him!"

As the slime's blood filled the blood bar, something invisible to the naked eye floated upwards and into the runic markings on the altar. The markings emitted a dark red light, and the surrounding air began to subtly distort.

Outside the altar, dozens of flesh slimes of various sizes were surging like a tide, trying to interrupt the sacrifice, rescue their kind, or devour the skeletons.

Hordes of skeleton soldiers wielding rusty iron swords and skeleton mages brandishing bone staffs were locked in a fierce battle with these semi-liquid monsters.

The slime, relying on its physical resistance, devoured the skeleton soldiers, turning them into nutrients to proliferate itself.

The skeleton mages, in turn, used eerie green beams of evil magic to bind the slimes' soft bodies, forcibly dragging them into the altar array to serve as fuel.

"Damn it! Besides the slimes thrown by those lunatics from the [Flesh-Splattering Rotting Nest], how come these skeletons are also corrupted and eroded by the evil god's faith from [Blasphemy and False Faith]?"

Swan stared at the altar, spitting out a few curses through clenched teeth.

"Holy shit, is this Rift cursed by the goddess of misfortune?"