"Shit!"
No one knew who those words had escaped from but it perfectly described how they all felt at the moment. The interior of the cave had been in complete darkness due to the entrance being sealed up by the sand.
That had changed when the group had decided to dig themselves in. The light from the scorching sun illuminated part of the outer cave but for some reason, it failed to penetrate deep into the cavern.
However, as awakened Rifters, everyone's sight had easily adjusted to the dark so they were able to see a few meters ahead of them and what they saw had taken them by surprise.
Around 30 undead skeletons clad in rusty metal armor, wielding similar-looking blades and spears stood at the entrance of one of the three tunnels at the other end of the cave.
Their heads— some clad in metal helmets, others visible and devoid completely of their flesh— all simultaneously turned to face them as the small red flames dancing in the empty sockets within their eyes suddenly flared up.
"Fuck! Everyone, back out! We're retreating now!"
Without even a shred of hesitation, Ryan roared his orders as his group immediately turned around to run out of the cave they had only just dug themselves into.
While retreating was their priority, they were all professional enough to know not to carelessly turn their backs on an enemy, especially in a situation like this.
While the melee fighters ran out of the cave with all their might, the ranges, and mages in the party didn't hastily move as they readied their weapons and aimed them at the undead squad.
"KIEIUUU!"
In the next moment, an unearthly, bone-chilling shrill escaped the open mouths of the undead knight commanding the squad as they charged at them.
Although their rusted equipment seemed heavy and clunky, it did little to slow down their movement speed as they rapidly closed the distance between them and the Rifters.
"Fire!"
Val commanded the archers and mages as they let loose their arrows and spells at the approaching horde. Due to the limited space the cavern provides, it didn't allow much room for the undead creatures to avoid their attacks but they also couldn't be reckless with their spells as any miscalculation could bring the entire cave down on them.
However, none of them was currently even powerful enough to be worried about such a thing as it already took all they had to stay alive.
Fireballs, Water bullets, Air cannons, Flaming arrows, etc. A multitude of spells and arrows imbued with skills came flying at the horde of undead and some of them were even knocked back.
Their attacks shattered the bones of the skeleton it struck and even pierced through the rusted metal armor they wore, yet, the undead did not waver. They felt no fear and did not hesitate nor did they halt their charge.
None of the skeletons had even bothered to defend them from the barrage of attacks raing down on them from above.
However, none of their attacks was strong enough to destroy even the lowest-level undead in one hit and thus, they couldn't stop the horde's approach.
"Darn it!"
Ryan cursed in annoyance as he watched most of the skeletons shrug off their attacks while maintaining their current pace toward them.
This wasn't supposed to be part of the plan and the reason for that was simple. The appearance of the undead race.
For a desert-based Rift like this, there were only supposed to be certain monsters that should be found in such a habitant.
After almost half a century of doing this, Rifters had documented how the monsters within the Rifts operate. They behaved somewhat like normal animals and could not be found outside their designated habitat, zones or in this case, Rifts.
For instance, if they were to encounter a water-based Rift, they would only face aquatic monsters and if they were in a first, they would only encounter Forest monsters that usually shared a resemblance to normal animals.
So naturally, they had not expected to encounter Undead creatures in a Desert Rift. Such a thing was unprecedented and in the 50 years since Rifts were first explored, nothing like this had ever happened before.
However, the problem didn't lie in the fact that this was surprisingly a double Rift masquerading as one. The problem came in the fact that the unfortunate second area within this double rift was an undead cave or labyrinth.
The Undead were unholy creatures that could not be destroyed by any normal means and possessed strength far superior to the average Rifter.
Hence why Rifts that contained Undead creatures were usually ranked as Grade 5 Rifts and above. However, for some reason, the organization had assigned such a dangerous Rift to them as a Grade 6.
'Is this their idea of a joke? Or is the organization truly trying to get rid of us.'
Ryan tightened the grip on his spear as those thoughts ran through his mind. However, he quickly shook the distraction out of his mind as most of his team had finally made it out of the cave entrance.
"Alright mages, your turn. Move!"
The spells from the mages were doing the least damage to the charging undead as only the fire mages could do any damage to them with Magic.
The undead were typically only vulnerable to light or holy elements but they were also weak to fire and lightning. However, they didn't have any strong fire or lightning mages with them so their best option was for the archers knock them back with their arrows.
This plan was delaying the horde of undead except one. The undead knight leading the fray was easily blocking their attacks, blocking the arrows with his rounded shield and dodging the fireballs and lightning bolt spells.
"Alright archers, move it, I'll hold them back! Y'all get out of here immediately!"
The one who spoke this time was Gean who had rushed ahead of the group before anyone could protest his decision and activated his skill.
Mass Imbuement.
The gravity being applied to the bodies of the undead was instantly multiplied by several folds and some of them had even dropped to the group unable to adjust in time.
Normally, he could only target one opponent at a time for his ability to work properly but that didn't mean he was completely limited to one target. However, whenever he targeted multiple opponents at once, his ability would only last for a single second.
Still, whenever he needed to use his ability on more than one opponent at a time, one second was more than enough.
However, his ability had failed to even slow down the undead knight at all as it still charged at them with increased vigor and a menacing glare. The aura that oozed off it's bony body sent chills down Gean's spine.
"What an arse."
Finding the attitude of the skeleton knight to be displeasing, Val mumbled as she laced her longbow with two arrows and pulled back as hard as she could.
"Loose."
With a swoosh, both arrows crossed the short distance and targeted the skeleton knight's head faster than the eyes could see.
However, the skeleton knight simply moved his head to the side and avoided both arrows easily, the light behind its metal helmet flashed slightly as it let out a mocking sound, the flames in its eyes dancing with an hint of intelligence.
The creature seemed to have been fascinated by the weak attack and was about to swing it's blade at the stunned Gean when Val suddenly smirked.
"What a moron."
*Whoosh... Bang! Boom!
Naturally, Val wasn't arrogant enough to believe such a simple attack would take down a monster not even all of them combined would be able to defeat if they faced it head-on.
However, that didn't mean she couldn't win against such a beast as evidenced by the shattered head of the undead knight.
She had only used all her might in firing those arrows as a distraction. Throughout this encounter with the undead, she had yet to use her ability even once and had been saving it for exactly such an event.
Her arrows had only missed because she allowed it as they shattered the heads of two skeletons behind the skeleton knight and came flying back at the skeleton knight from behind.
At the same time, one of the arrows slowed down to trail behind the other before they both suddenly picked up speed at once. The first arrow had caused a crack in the skeleton knight's rusted armor and the second had completely shattered it along with its head.
This was the power of a true D Rank Rifter. It was something none of the others could even compare to. Despite the fact that her arrows weren't enhanced by skills or spells from the mages, it had still shattered the skull of a Skeleton on the same level as an E Ranker.