Somewhere in a distant part of the castle, a muscular old man and a woman watched the being in front of them tensely. A large skeleton, almost three meters tall, wearing a toga and holding a staff in its hand, stared at them with a red light inside its eye sockets.
Around him were strewn about a dozen lifeless bodies, most had puncture wounds while others had black skin on various areas of their bodies.
The old man had blood running down his face and the woman was holding her arm in pain, even with her long sleeves, patches of black skin could be seen near her wrist.
In contrast, the skeleton in front of them showed no emotion... it was difficult for a skeleton to do so.
The calamity's movements were clumsy and slow, as if it was tired.
'Damn... even after so long it's still standing' The old man grumbled internally as he clenched his fists tightly.
Suddenly the woman behind him spat black blood and fell to her knees, the man looked at her and clicked his tongue before looking back at the giant skeleton.
'We can't go on like this... Damn it! Why did I have to go along with that bitch's idea?!'
The skeleton suddenly began to raise its staff and several dark circles began to appear in the air behind it. The circles were strange shapes, like mandalas interwoven with strange symbols and runes.
The man growled in annoyance and began to gather all the essence left in his body knowing that this would be the last attack where either side would be victorious.
The man finished gathering essence in his arms and punched his two fists creating a light barrier in front of him of pure essence.
'If I get out of here... I'm retiring'
The dark circles began to slowly light up until they reached a peak, then a second later, the ceiling cracked and then collapsed on top of them.
'What the hell?!'
The old man widened the barrier in front of him protecting him and the woman behind him and watched as the place lit up with the red light of the sun.
The entire roof collapsed on top of the large skeleton, sending it to the ground with no time to react. The floating circles disappeared with the blow and soon the mysterious light that shone in the skeleton's eyes vanished.
The collapse of the ceiling generated a large cloud of dust, so the man had to wait almost a minute for the cloud to vanish, allowing him to see what had happened and what was the fate of the skeletal calamity.
The man had to scratch his eyes to see if what he was seeing was true and not just an illusion.
On top of the skeletal corpse, there was a body full of lifeless black tentacles, while above it was a young man in a demonic mask holding a sword that was firmly stuck in the corpse's chest.
Nathan stood still, breathing heavily while his whole body trembled fiercely.
He looked down at his hands and no matter how hard he tried to control it, he could not stop the trembling. He had to lean on his sword to keep from losing his balance, then he looked around and noticed that two people were staring at him.
In an instant he recognized the man behind the ethereal shield, it was the muscular old man who had been fighting Faye outside the rift.
Nathan ignored the man after looking at him for a couple of seconds, then looked up and paled.
'Ah... I'm fucked'
***
Minutes earlier, Nathan, Herfir and Jean were facing Seinor... or what was left of him.
As much as the man kept his conscience, all he could do was whisper nonsense words, as well as desperately calling for help.
Behind them was the destroyed lift, while in front was Seinor, leaving them little room to move and act.
In short, they were locked in and with no way out.
Seinor did not stop his pace and continued to approach them, meanwhile the tentacles protruding from his open stomach moved erratically looking for the perfect moment to attack and finish them off.
Jean realized the plan of the calamity inside Seinor, so she quickly approached and tried to stab Seinor's stomach with her spear.
Several tentacles flew towards her as soon as they saw her approach, so Jean deflected some of them while dodging the others with agile and effective movements.
Nathan did not stand still, knowing that if he did nothing they would not be able to defeat him, so he also ran forward before swinging his sword horizontally at Seinor's torso.
Despite the pressure of their attacks, the tentacles were enough to receive them both, so they were forced to retreat as soon as the tentacles explored like spikes towards them again.
Nathan frowned as he saw that their attacks were simply pointless, so he increased the expenditure of essence on the greatsword to make it lighter.
At the same time, Herfir moved past him and approached Seinor with his sword held high and pointed at the side of his body. Jean took advantage of this and moved behind the furniture and tried to reach Seinor's back.
Nathan stared at the tentacles and smiled nervously.
'Ah yes, leave it to me'
Then, he ran towards Seinor with his sword touching the ground and attacked him with a vertical attack from below.
The three attacks were enough to take care of several tentacles that tried to block his weapons, then they fell to the ground twitching like the sliced tails of lizards before lying lifelessly still.
Seinor's body couldn't seem to withstand the pressure of the parasite hiding inside him, so he gathered his body slightly as if to protect himself from its attacks and began to tremble.
Seinor's body was already big and resistant thanks to the fact that he was a second rank, his skin was more resistant than that of a first rank, plus he still seemed to have some essence inside his body, essence that the parasite was controlling to boost his defenses.
The combined attacks of the three of them managed to finish off the tentacles that kept appearing from inside Seinor's body, but they couldn't finish off the man.
It was then that Seinor's body tensed, and he opened his arms and screamed gutturally, stopping the three of them.
His scream seemed to contain some essence, so that Nathan was slightly stunned. But that small moment was enough for him to see Seinor charging towards him when he reacted again.
"Huh?!"
Nathan tried to defend himself from Seinor's onslaught with his sword, but it was too late, and he was pushed and charged backwards.
Nathan felt the blow to his body and immediately strengthened it even more with essence to resist Seinor's full onslaught.
His body was dragged backwards, then Nathan felt a big blow on his back, which made him spit out his saliva, feeling the air escaping from his lungs.
His body was trapped between the wall and Seinor's big body for a few moments, just before the whole wall began to crack. Suddenly, because of Seinor's onslaught the crack in the wall widened and in less than a couple of seconds the wall collapsed completely.
Nathan suddenly felt his body very light as he stopped feeling the pressure in his body from the two forces that were imprisoning them.
It was then that he realized that he was looking up at the red sky above him... as he began to fall into the void.