Awakening: I Ascend As A Legendary Ranked Necromancer-Chapter 62: Puzzle

"Honestly, what I want to do now is find somewhere soft to sleep for three days straight," I said. I was dripping wet, and the numerous cuts on me were just starting to heal.

I wasn’t the only one, though. After clearing four stages of the game, we were all battered and weak, added to our previous walk through the zone, and things weren’t looking good.

Even the potions weren’t working as they should, and we were now relying on our natural body healing. The stage we just cleared was particularly tricky, in which we had to navigate a large bowl full of water and find the door while the water slowly boiled.

I had lost two of my goblins to the stage before that when they fell into lava while they saved their master.

"No sleep for you yet," Litha said; her eyes were red, and the circles around them darker. Even our mana felt raw, as if we were dragging it through a bleeding body.

We were in the hallway between stages and it was also a place for us to rest before we continued. The stages themselves might be easily cleared with time, but every stage has a minimum time we must clear it, or we’ll be thrown out.

"Let this next stage be a puzzle of sorts! Something we don’t have to use our powers and physical strength," Cele said.

The door to the fifth stage opened, and light flooded the hallway; we stood and walked towards it, covering our eyes from the harsh light.

"Welcome to the fifth stage! I am the Gamemaster here!" A small translucent spirit said. It was the same spirit that explained what we needed to do for all the other stages as well.

The stage here was a big arena, and standing in the middle of it was a monster. I groaned. "We are fighting?" The monster was a scaled horse with a dragon’s tail.

The spirit began speaking. "What you have to do is defeat the Hardhoof here, but the problem is, you can’t! Hardhoof is under the protection of heaven’s law, and only things of heaven can affect it. Your goal is to find it in this arena and defeat it. You have ten minutes, and the penalty of not clearing this stage is Death!!"

We flinched. Death? We had never heard of this in any of the stages we cleared so far. And what does it mean that the monster can’t be defeated?

I looked at the others and saw the doubts in their eyes. I felt the same way; although I was confident in my skills, the penalty was not something to joke about with that amount of time.

The spirit drew closer to us. "But you can wish to stop playing now, and you will be naturally returned outside, never to play King Solomon’s game again.

"Also, you can be given a hint if you let two of your teammates out of this stage. They will not participate. Randomly chosen."

We shared glances, confusion showing on our facesmay

"Hint about what exactly?" I asked cautiously.

The spirit seemed to grin. "I will show you where the instrument of heaven is. It’s the only thing that can defeat Hardhoof."

I did the calculations as I looked around the arena. Within ten minutes, we can’t find such an instrument with the amount of objects scattered around, and losing two members isn’t going to hurt that much. Probably.

The others had come to the same conclusion as well. "We agree. You can select two members to stay behind."

The spirit zipped around happily and then zoomed in front of me. "You! I have watched you during the previous stages, and you have an army; stay behind!"

It turned to Litha next. "You are their shield, you will stay behind as well! That’s it!"

We groaned. The spirit had just chosen two very important members. Temur would have been happy if it was him that was left behind, but there’s nothing he could do now other than face the spirit and demand the last question. "Where is the object?"

"Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes!" The smaller spirit rubbed its hands together and turned; it pointed at the back of the monster, above a small altar glowed a sword. "It’s right there!"

Come on! Why would you place it behind the monster? It surely won’t let us pass, Temur frowned and began to climb down with the others. "Dile, your job is to sneak behind the monster while we keep it busy. We will create an opening."

He raised his new artifact, and it turned into a longsword with broad edges. "Let’s show this thing how it’s done."

The spirit stood between us and the monster. "Remember it’s ten minutes. Now.....start!"

Immediately, the monster jerked in place, and its eyes shone red, the scales on its body ripped like the surface of a pound, and it clawed the floor with its hoofs, effortlessly peeling back the hard ground.

"Cele," Temur said and began to run forward. His sword glowed when he was within striking distance, and he sent an aura blade arc.

The monster didn’t even move because the attack just washed over it as if it was a splash of water. Temur danced to the side, and Cele took his place.

Her hands glowed like molten metal, and between her and the monster, a fire explosion rocked. Fire melted stones past the monster, but she might as well have thrown a paper ball for all the damage it did to the Hardhoof.

The monster bellowed, sounding like a horse and some strange monster. It pounced on her, and she rolled away, but the monster was too fast, and its hoof nearly stepped on her, if not for Temur pulling her back.

We finally knew why it was called Hardhoof because the place it struck shattered like glass, and a small crater formed. The monster’s eyes turned sideways and locked on Dile.

It let out another bellow.