An hour had passed by as they were left standing in the palm of the giant hand, with everything around them was filled with boiling, hot magma. If one were to describe this place, it was a literal hell found on the world, that is if this was the actual world that they lived in.
There was nothing else to do, so everyone was bored while waiting for the sun to go down and maybe the magma would recede to the ground, just like when they have first reached the barren wasteland with nothing else existing but dirt and rocks only.
"Maybe we could take a rest for now? There are no enemies here anyway. I'm getting thirsty."
Ray sat down and reached out for his last bottle of water in his spatial ring. He was quite thirsty as the area they were in was scorching so much that it left the air so dry and hot. It wasn't only him, but also the rest of them.
"We barely have enough water left. I doubt we would last until sunset like this."
Shane said while panting. His throat was pretty dried up from running and from the scorching heat which made his voice sounded raspy.
"Klaudia, take out the vase." Lloyd turned to her and called.
She nodded and opened her spatial ring to take out a blue vase with intricate decorative patterns. They could see the others raising their eyebrows as they were curious as to why she took out a vase.
"Everyone, give me your empty bottles." She said, stretching her hand to them.
"Why?" Shane asked.
"Just give it and you'll know." Lloyd promptly said.
They then took out their empty bottles and gave it to her. A few seconds later, their grim expressions were now replaced by a surprised look with a hint of interest upon seeing what she was doing. She held the vase and poured the contents to the bottle. They were bewildered that such a small vase could hold so much water even though their drinking bottles were larger than it.
"How is it possible? It should not be able to contain that much water!" Shane's highly enthusiastic voice echoed.
"You should know that I am able to craft anything, right? Fortunately, I happened to acquire a strange metal which I refined into a random tool and then, there you go: A vase with endless supply of water!" Lloyd explained while having a smug grin on his face.
"Wow! So, does that mean we won't have to worry about water supply anymore?" Stanley also joined in the conversation. While pausing for a few seconds, he then added:
"If it's endless, does it not really run out of water if turned upside down? Can it cause a flood and wash out all of the magma in this wasteland?"
Lloyd vehemently shook his head in disagreement. Although its ability allows it to generate an endless supply of water, it didn't mean that it would be able to produce a great flood just by turning the vase upside down. He tried it last night and it would indeed run out of water for a while but quickly refill after waiting for a minute or two.
"Unfortunately, it cannot cause a flood. How would a rank one tool be able to do that? The best thing it could do is just give us infinite water to drink and wash ourselves."
"I see…" He went silent afterwards.
As their thirst was fully quenched, they once again sat on the palm of the giant hand silently, looking around for any changes to the area. It will take some hours before the sun goes down. Lloyd was also a little bit troubled by the words written just near the tips of the fingers of hand.
'Burning dead? What could it be?'
He was still pondering upon it when Klaudia stiffened and made a startled 'Aah!' sound which made them fully alert.
"What's wrong?" Luna asked worriedly.
"We're in great danger!" Her body was quivering and she looked so terrified as she was staring in the distance.
Luna looked in the same direction but couldn't spot anything else. So, it was probably something that only she could see or it was very far for her eyesight to reach. She knew that Klaudia's abilities can reach around 3 kilometers of distance away.
"What do you see?"
"I see… the dead returning to life." A short break filled her voice before continuing with a startled expression. "Oh no! There are a lot of them and they are heading this way. They don't have souls so they're probably weak, but the numbers exceed a thousand!"
A horrified expression finally made its way to Luna's face. Even she could not handle a horde this large. This was the burning dead referred in the written words on the giant hand.
"Blast it! More than a thousand? We won't be able to fight that." Lloyd spat.
"Is this it? Are we gonna die here?" Ray weakly slumped to the ground, feeling despair.
"No! There's also no way to hide. This is so unfair." Klaudia cried out loud, with tears forming in her eyes.
"Damn it! There must be something else in here…" Lloyd gritted his teeth and quickly looked for other clues that might help them. The hordes of burning dead were approaching them at a very fast pace. They could now see those things made of skeletons and torn, rotting fleshes of dead humans. To be precise, they looked a lot like zombies from horror movies that were popular back in Asteria.
"It's over. We can't return home and we'll die miserably in this place."
Shane was about to let go of his weapon, but Luna slapped his face hard which stung painfully and brought him back to his senses. This girl didn't pull punches at all.
"Don't give up yet! We should be able to hold on until the sunset comes." Although aggrieved, Luna still looked so composed as she scolded them.
"Found it! There are also words written here. Hey, Ray! Come here and lend me a hand." Lloyd shouted.
He was looking below, to the opposite side of the palm of the giant hand while the burning fleshes and skeletons of the dead were taking their time as they started to climb the giant hand. He kept on looking around and he spotted a bunch of scribbled words written in an ugly handwriting near in one of the bulging base knuckles.
Ray's dramatic despair was cut off short as he heard him shouting. He quickly went to him and gripped unto his feet hard to prevent him from falling. Luna and Shane were already engaged in battle with the scorching zombies trying to climb in order to eat them alive while Stanley provided support from the back through his accurate shots from his rifle gun. Klaudia was also helping them fend off the abominations using her bow and arrows, but was trying hard not to shoot her teammates accidentally since she could not see after using her ability earlier.
"Hurry, Lloyd. I can't hold on for too long!" Ray shouted.
"I know. Almost there!"
He hurriedly read the words written there. Even though it was quite hard to read as the handwriting was so bad it was almost unreadable, he finally was able to grasp what it said.
'The burning dead were humans of this land that was once beautiful and abundant. However, they had invoked the wrath of the God of Flames after practicing abominable witchcraft of the Evil God. The wrathful god had cursed this land into a burning hell where no one can survive and the humans burned for eternity. During the day, the land burns and the dead return to life, feeling an immeasurable suffering, hunger, and thirst. To quench their immense thirst and painful suffering, water with maximum purity should be thrown at them. We didn't have purified water, so our group was eaten and ripped to shreds by the thousands of burning dead, one by one until only one remained and wrote this before his demise.'
"Hey, guys! I found a way. Pull me up quickly!" Lloyd commanded Ray to pull him up.
After returning to the top of the palm, he quickly went to reach out for the refilled bottles and looked at the pristine water stored inside. This was a kind of water with maximum purity.
He opened the bottle and splashed the contents of it to the burning dead that was able to climb the hand and was about to grab Shane. Startled, Shane wanted to dodge but it was too late. Fortunately, the water arrived faster than the burning dead. It screamed in agony and after a few moments, it had disintegrated into piles of ash. It was purified just by touching the water.
"See that? They can only be killed with this water. Now, quickly refill the empty ones through the vase."
"Alright. But I need to prevent them from climbing up here. I can't do it."
Shane was busy cutting off the arms of those who tried to climb so Lloyd had no choice but to do it himself. Klaudia also approached him and helped in refilling the bottles. Then Lloyd gave some of the fully refilled bottles to Stanley who was nearby and he took out the remaining ones and splashed it everywhere where the burning dead army was present.
"Just a bit more! Hold on!"
Lloyd screamed as he and the other two kept repeating the process of refilling and splashing the waters to the cursed abominations for about a few hours until the sun finally went down and the magma started to recede. The remaining armies of the dead were being sucked into the ground while they were squirming and screaming, still trying to reach out for the victims that they were supposed to consume.
Soon, the whole area returned to the peaceful and empty barren wasteland, with no signs of other lifeforms to be seen and the temperature went back to normal. They were quite tired of the whole ordeal. However, they needed to move immediately without resting before morning comes or else, they would encounter the same hell once again.
Lloyd was panting so hard, using his hands to support his thighs that were about to give up. He had been running back and forth for like more than three hours just to save the whole group from the predicament they were in a while ago.
"We have once again escaped death! See that? I am even harder to kill than your typical outskirts rat!" He exclaimed, a triumphant laugh escaping his lips.
"Heh, we barely escaped that one. That was lucky." Stanley also laughed. However, Ray was quite agitated as he retorted.
"Lucky? You call that lucky?! Screw you! We have almost died. How are you guys in the mood to laugh at? We haven't fully escaped this hell yet! Damn! Damn! Damn! What kind of unfair trial is this?! This is not the kind of trials I want to conquer." His voice sounded so hoarse and grimace could be clearly seen in his face.
They all went silent. No one dared to refute him. What they went through just now was no ordinary situation. This was definitely not a normal trial and they would be a fool if they still think that this was a normal place where people would be sent every year during the trial ceremonies. Although there was evidence that there were humans who had been here before, they all ended up dead anyway, so it was still irrelevant. The labyrinth of trials in other forts and cities might have sent some of their people here, with not a single one returning alive.
"That's enough." Luna interjected. "What matters is we're still alive. However, we don't have the time to keep arguing here. If you don't want to die here, get moving now."
She turned around and dragged the currently blind Klaudia once again. They started climbing down the giant hand and then waited for them at the bottom. The others clenched their fists and gritted their teeth.
"I'm sorry, Ray. I was just relieved that we're still in one piece." Stanley apologized.
"It's fine. Sorry for shouting at you just now."
Shane patted both of their shoulders and sighed. Then he said as he went past them.
"Let's go. They're waiting."
After they climbed down and felt the dry soil beneath their feet once again, they turned away from the giant hand, leaving it for good as they proceed to venture further south. This was a horrible day imprinted at the back of their minds which they wouldn't be able to forget for the rest of their lives.