Chapter 36 - Setting up a trap

Reya paced around boredly as she waited for Eo to finish.

Ever since she had met Eo, she felt alive again. Not necessarily in a good way, though.

It was just that wandering around for weeks by herself, wondering whether or not her companions died, was just something that made her feel like she was slowly dying on the inside. Now that Eo was being an annoyance, she at least had something to take her mind off of her past.

Reya's past was more dramatic and bloodied. Something fitting as a tragic backstory triggering an edgy character's path to darkness.

Wait, that's something Eo would say.

Reya blinked. She was slowly getting poisoned.

She cleared her head of random thoughts and then looked back at Eo and Seraph. Eo was still doing his weird wizardry while Seraph was closing her eyes listening to music.

After what seemed like forever, Eo yelled.

"FINALLY! I did it!"

"Good job," Reya responded. "It only took fifteen minutes and three centuries."

Eo ignored her and continued.

"Well, now that I've successfully tested each part independently, let's put it together now."

Seraph opened her eyes to watch. Reya leaned closer. Eo placed a large conductive ring in the middle, with the sections of the trap either touching tangent to the circle either inside or outside it. The whole formation started glowing a purplish-red. The essence shone so brightly until the metal it was covering could hardly be seen.

"Oh," interrupted Eo. "I forgot one more thing."

Eo took out another smaller rune formation.

"The concealment!"

Eo attached the segment to the entire thing. As soon as the part connected, the entire thing dimmed until it was barely noticeable.

"It works by bending light around it. If you get too close, however, you could probably see the shape. This part was too complex to memorize, so I just brought it with me. Also, since I had to purge all the former essence, it doesn't work perfectly…"

Seraph shrugged.

"Monsters wouldn't be able to tell the difference at this level. Plus, we don't have too much time left to improvise something else, so we'll just go with this."

Reya put a finger on her chin.

"Now, we have to lure the big bosses in…"

Eo jumped.

"I have an idea! Let's just present ourselves as juicy tasty targets!"

"You can do that, Eo."

"Oh, come on Reya, isn't my idea great?"

After waiting a couple more minutes the trio saw a dark cloud approaching. It sounded like a thunderstorm from the sheer number of footsteps. It was an enormous mob of monsters. Flanking off to either side were the last two Phase III monsters. In the middle was the very much anticipated Phase IV.

Reya pulled out her dual metal daggers.

"We're going to win this fight."

Seraph pulled out a strange glowing white bow.

"This'll be a piece of cake."

Eo pulled out his hands out of his pockets.

"I'm going to touch them."