Blood and Death. (14)

The wet grass of the night dew the pure air runs through the forest, I don't feel death. Okay, now I understand what Raven meant, I really was an idiot now.

This entire region doesn't even have a sign that would connect with the word death, it doesn't have that classic snow, smell of corpses, dead plants and the subtle cold that cemeteries have at night. But the large amount of death energy within the base that is insulated by runic arrangements and insulating materials, makes this area at great risk of developing these characteristics.

Using undead here would only speed up this process, each undead would be like a source to take the death element concentrated in the base out of it. Even wraith who do not have a truly physical body would carry the energy of the death element into this 'living' environment.

It would take a little longer than this healthy grass I'm walking on would start to die and the trees would start to lose their leaves, for a secret base it would be pretty bad for that to happen. It would be like signaling to anyone passing by that something has changed in the forest.

So, the only beings that have the element of death are mages and warriors who are able to keep it inside their body for a long period of time.

"By the look on your face I can tell you finally understand why they don't use undead here, Wolf."

"They spread the element of death too much into the environment."

"Yes, but it's also hard to hide his tractions when the place is cleansed. I'm pretty sure that one or two mages at that base who are good at purification, they should probably use light because it's the least altering the environment around them."

"But even then, the signals of this process will start to accumulate and destroy the concealment capability of this secret base."

"Looks like everyone is ready, Terra, you must have had enough time to get close to the exit tunnels. Lead the way as always, Wolf, but be careful to get out of the way when combat begins, today we will be fast and deadly."

Reven looks at the other team members and does something that is very unusual for her.

"Kill them all as fast as possible, if you find the user of the light of destruction run away as fast as possible. Don't try to keep him busy, run for your lives and activate the emergency signal to call me."

Usually, the order to flee in case of trouble or strong enemies is only given to me for obvious reasons, but now that we have a complicated enemy as well as strong everyone receives the same type of order to avoid risking combat with something as dangerous as the swordsman that wields the light of destruction in its blows.

Leading the team through the gaps and places with traps and weaker alarms we reach the cabin that is partially buried in the earth. Half of what would otherwise be the first floor is buried in the ground making the leaves and branches spread over the moss-covered ceiling make this cabin look like a part of the forest and not a construction created by someone.

We didn't alert anyone when we got to the door because the cultist who is guarding the first floor is on his back checking the other side of the forests, in that short space of time we got to the door and I unlatched it without making much noise, but when I opened the door, a draft entered the room alerting the back cultist.

The warrior looked back only to see a red arrow covering his view, the lifeless body of the green core warrior falling to his knees on the ground with a red arrow piercing his skull. I could barely hear the wind as this arrow passed within a few inches of my ear, despite not having the wind element Milena's aura arrow she is really silent and deadly.

With the minimal sound caused by the cultist's death I entered the base and went directly to the dead cultist's body to retrieve his locket that glowed blue and brown. It was a type of coin strapped to his leather armor that has bone decorating it, this token was used for him not to trigger either a trap or alarm when walking through their base.

Unfortunately, this token works for one or two people if they are very skinny and are very close together, so there is no way for it to hide our team, but it can still help us by opening the first and maybe the second door in case we are lucky not to activate even one trap or hidden alarm.

With the medal that has a pretty ugly eye carved on it I open it and use my aura to destroy the alarm that is mounted behind the door, this will only buy you a few seconds but I only need this to be able to jump towards the door at the end from the hallway and unlocking so that Milena and Raven who are right behind me can go through the door that will lead to the first layer of defense really in the secret base.

The two walked past me and headed straight for the cultists who were shocked by the presence of two masked women, but I don't think they could identify they were women. Unlike smugglers who panic when their base is invaded, these cultists seem to have a protocol for this type of event.

A defensive formation was assembled as Raven unleashes her tentacle-like shadows against the soldiers and mages who have assembled a battle formation. Surprisingly there wasn't even an element of death between them, the shield of aura and mana was covered in fire as a rain of wind arrows and fireballs were fired at Raven who didn't seem to have any intention of dodging.

Like a black arrow she pierced the cultists' defensive formation as Milena executed one cultist with each of her arrows. Anyone with power below the orange core and an easy prey to both.

As the cultists who tried to set the entire base on fire by shooting flames in all directions were killed by the deadly duo, I was able to identify the signals being sent to the entire base. It won't take even a few seconds for all the cultists to know we're here, ignoring the one-sided combat going on I headed straight for the door to keep it from being locked.

By the time I got to it, avoiding the two shattered bodies that were thrown in front of me, the side of the rune-studded door had started to turn red. As the cultists have a second and third exit from this base, they appear to have set traps to destroy the door to prevent intruders from easily advancing through their base.

Normally it wouldn't be a problem to get rid of an extremely solid metal wall like this, Volkan could easily move it without damaging the base frame too much, but since he's not here dealing with a solid block of sturdy metal isn't easy.

So, I have to stop the runes from melting the door, I directly inject my aura to destroy the runes that are starting to heat up the door. It doesn't take long to destroy the runes on this door, but the problem will be the other doors, until we get to them, they will be solid blocks of metal that are interconnected with the main structure of the base.

Destroying them carelessly can cause the entire base to crumble, as I was about to force the door open, I felt a chill run down my spine. I jumped away, propelling myself with my wind element only to find nothing weird.

There were no enemies near my position and Raven was already finishing killing the last cultists on this floor. But before I could use my sword to try to pierce the hinge of the metal door, a hand landed on my shoulder.

I look up and see Milena.

"You'd better leave that part to me; these doors are sturdier than they look."

"Using the fire element will not work."

"Ok, thanks for the tip, I'll just use my aura."

An aura blade formed from Milena's dagger and she pierced the metal hinge with great difficulty. She's right about the door being sturdy, but she's wrong when she thought I didn't know it.

When you can see the easiest cumin to cut between the metal alloy and the energy patterns of the runic arrangements, not so much force is needed. I think with my wind and aura element I could do a job almost as fast as Milena's, but I'm not going to argue with her about something like that.

She is really struggling to pierce the door; it took several minutes for her to finish breaking the hinge. Looking back, Melena not only saw me looking at her work, she saw the entire team waiting for her to open the door.

"Light and Lightning, you go ahead releasing light and rays in a concentrated destructive wave. The important materials will be in the side rooms and not in the main hall."

"After the first wave of exchanges I will lead the attack on their formation directly, stay behind my shadows to protect yourself from the onslaught of fire and death."

Like the very intelligent person that I am, I positioned myself at the back of the pack. Maybe I should stay here and have a look at something useful on this floor.