When we finished resting for a few minutes, we quickly stood back up and ran into the direction where the Hydra was. Now that it was completely turned into ashes, there was nothing left for us to see, no Undead were left either, I couldn't sense a single moving thing at all.
"Everything's empty…" Erika said, as we reached an enormous an empty room, the ceiling being as high as three hundred meters.
"This place's enormous…" Chris said.
"Wait, I can feel something… demonic energy." Erdrich pointed out. "There!"
The half demon boy quickly led us to a certain corridor I had noticed seconds before him. I had felt the demonic energy as well, but for my senses, it felt like it was dispersed everywhere. However, as a half demon, Erdrich seemed capable of discerning specific smells between the demonic essence itself.
And whatever was in this corridor, it might be the one that created all Undead in here. However, I simply couldn't sense anybody. And as we walked further, we suddenly felt a chilly wind across the corridor. There was probably some sort of door open that led to the surface in there.
"Wait, there's nothing here…" Elizabeth said while crossing her arms. "Where's the bad necromancer at?"
The room we reached was small in comparison with the previous hall. But it was filled with bones, shattered crystals, spirit orbs in pieces, and corpses lying around. And of course, an entrance to the surface with a stair leading up. The size of the stairs were gigantic, even a Rotten Giant would had been able to climb to the surface easily through there, but not the Hydra we fought.
That monster might had been trapped in the underground and the Necromancer couldn't bring it outside, so he decided to throw it at us instead to make sure we would die. Well, it didn't worked as he intended.
"Just a lot of broken items and more corpses… Ugh, I think I am getting used to seeing corpses already." Sighed Eric while calming down a bit.
"This place, it reeks at a strong amount of demonic energy!" Said Erdrich. "Something I've never smelled before, it is too strong…"
"Too strong? More than the Demon General?" I wondered.
"Y-Yeah…" The half-demon boy said. "We have to hurry, this guy probably ran away and might be planning to attack the village or something!"
"Yeah, I guessed as much." I said, quickly grabbing everything of value I saw, even shattered crystals and spirit orbs were useful to me. And oddly enough, I found a chest as well.
"Hm? What's that?" Asked Erika wondered, running to open the chest.
I tried to stop her but the treasure chest opened itself the moment she touched it. In that instant, an enormous mass of black phantasmal tentacles, bones, and eyes emerged from within the treasure chest. The bones immediately shaping as countless legs.
"Wh-Wha…?!" Erika was startled, as the Undead monster took this opportunity to attack her.
Hundreds of sharp bones gathered together into an enormous arm, quickly attacking her. Erika instinctively parried the attack using her enormous sword, but the force of the attack made her fall over her the floor anyways.
"Ungh! What is this thing?!"
Without thinking it twice, I quickly reached up to Erika, infusing my Ki into my spear and unleashing a vertical attack against the monster's arm made of bones, easily shattering the many bones and breaking the enormous strength it held.
The monster quickly stepped back in shock, as I looked at the creature. This was perhaps the "last guardian" that necromancer left just in case we were to somehow survive. It wasn't a normal Mimic monster, but something made out of many wasted materials, I could easily call this thing a Phantasmal Mimic for now, which seems good enough.
"Some sort of makeshift undead made of bones and other cursed items. Let's call this thing a Phantasmal Mimic…" I said.
The monster immediately attacked, several bones emerged from the interior of the chest as they flew towards me like sharpened and rusty blades. I immediately began rotating my spear to protect myself, easily fending off every bone.
However, that was merely a distraction, as from within the phantasmal form of the monster, which seemed to be made of dozens of broken and shattered souls, a black flame emerged, firing dozens of black fireballs imbued with resentment and evil energies, which could cause severe curses into anybody it touched.
I swung my spear constantly as Eleanora appeared behind me to assist me. She touched the floor and then red crystals emerged from the blood, generating a wall that protected not only me but the rest of our party.
"Blood Crystal Wall!"
The enormous wall made of red crystals grew so fast it made a crashing sound by breaking the floor beneath. This was a Tier 2 Blood and Earth Magic Spell that combined Earth Wall and Blood Magic to create crystals made of the user's own blood which were incredibly hard the stronger the user's magical powers were.
The Black Fireballs began bombarding the crystal wall as the crystals resisted well enough to buy us some seconds to reorganize ourselves.
"Wh-What's that thing now?!" Eric cried. "Just how many damn monsters we have to fight today…?"
"Snap out of it!" Chris said, smacking Eric's head to bring him back to reality from his panic. "Blake, how do we kill that thing?!"
"It shouldn't be so hard but it is a strange Undead, it is made of only bones and cursed materials, so it is like an incredibly flexible golem-like entity." I said. "We have to either completely shatter every piece of its body, find a core which seems to not exist… or break its soul into even more pieces than it already is."
"Break… its soul?!" Elizabeth asked.
"Cover me, I'll do it myself."
I haven't been practicing soul magic for naught.