Modern World Warlock-Chapter 242: The Underwater Cave
Right after Dante, Zac, and Laurent touched the enchanted skull, their bodies instantly disappeared out of the rest of the team’s sight.
In the blink of an eye, the trio found themselves inside a damp cave, where a few lanterns hung from the rocky walls and faintly illuminated their surroundings.
"An underwater cave?" Laurent pondered, seeing the only exit beside them filled with water.
Zac remembered hearing about the appearance of several caves at the ocean’s water level on the coast of Parton, and they used to be explored by experienced divers a few years ago.
Dante wondered why they stopped exploring, and Zac calmed down his doubts by explaining that they had already investigated all of the caves, so they didn’t have much else to do in there.
"The problem is leaving… We don’t have any diving gear," Zac commented.
"Let’s take a look around first and worry about our exit later," Dante replied, turning around and making his way deeper into the cave.
After taking a few steps, the warlock stopped in his tracks and sharpened his gaze forward, sensing a powerful presence ahead of them.
"H-hey Dante… What is this weird feeling I’m getting?" Zac pondered.
"So, you can feel it too…" Dante muttered.
While the warlock could see a clear and powerful aura emanating deeper inside the cave, Zac couldn’t ’see’ anything. However, thanks to his intuition, he sensed something dangerous ahead of them.
Laurent could also see traces of the foreboding aura, and he couldn’t recognize it from anything he had seen before, prompting the vampire to hesitantly follow the warlock.
The deeper they walked, the more shivers ran down their spines. Still, they didn’t stop until reaching a large room, with a scene that left Zac utterly perplexed and disgusted.
There was a small body of water in the center of the room, and the ceiling was riddled with stalactites of different sizes.
On the sides of the room, right beside the rocky walls, groups of people were chained from their arms and legs, recoiling back in fear when they spotted the trio entering the cave.
Zac counted at least thirty people inside. Some of them were wearing scuba diving suits, while others had their usual warm clothing on.
"Wh-why are all these people here? What is the cartel planning to do with them…?" Zac pondered, gazing at Dante and noticing the warlock had a stone-cold expression.
"It’s an undead farm…" Dante replied.
The warlock quickly explained that Netherius had done something similar in his past world, although on a much larger scale.
When a person willingly became an undead under the service of a necromancer, they were able to evolve into stronger beings. However, those people didn’t need to have any type of loyalty towards the necromancer.
In the world of Terra, Netherius held hostage an entire small town of 300 people, where he tortured them daily to coerce them into becoming undead for him.
Even when some of the captive citizens agreed, not everyone was able to endure the transformation, leaving them as mindless zombies.
In the end, out of the three hundred villagers, only five became high-ranking undead, while the others stayed as zombies.
"Dude, that’s like… Less than 2% success probability," Zac commented.
"Exactly," Dante followed up.
Since the chances of people becoming a high-ranking undead were low, Netherius decided to combat his awful odds by using more people.
’I guess you do have more probability of hitting the lottery if you buy more tickets…’ Zac thought.
"So, all these people here are fated to become an undead for the necromancer?" Laurent pondered.
"Well, they are still alive…" Dante replied, implying their fates could still be changed.
When Dante approached one of the chained captives, the man drew his legs back with fear, and the warlock noticed that there weren’t any visible injuries on him.
"Mental torture, huh?" Dante muttered.
"Isn’t all torture mental in some way?" Zac asked.
The warlock elaborated and said that he meant it in a way that no physical damage was being done to the people. Instead, Netherius was using illusions to torment them with their biggest fears.
"But… why?" the redhead inquired.
"Less chances of them dying… With his illusions, he guarantees their lives and breaks their minds," Dante replied.
The only way for the high-ranking undead to come into existence was by having the living person willingly accept the contract with the necromancer.
"That’s… ironic," Zac said, prompting Dante to nod in agreement.
The trio quickly used their earpieces to communicate with the girls’ team at the lighthouse, telling them about their findings and wondering how they could get all those people out of the cave.
After Megan answered and said she would call Camille, Dante and his group began taking off the chains of the captive citizens.
Even when their extremities were freed, the people didn’t move from their spots, trembling and hiding their faces in horror.
As Dante kept carefreely breaking the chains, he found a young couple, seemingly around eighteen years old, who were slightly less perturbed than the others.
The girl held tightly onto the boy’s hand, and none of them flinched when Dante stood before them to break their bindings.
"A-are we getting saved?" The girl hesitantly asked.
"We’ll try…" Dante honestly replied.
Witnessing their chains turning to dust, the boy’s eyes widened, perplexed at the warlock’s easiness.
"Th-there was a thing here not long ago… It was guarding the cave!" The boy exclaimed desperately.
"A thing? How did it look?" Dante calmly inquired.
When the young man reminisced about the frightening presence, his complexion turned pale, and his eyes caved in with horror.
"It had some kind of armor… Like a knight from a fantasy tale," the boy stammered.
Zac, hearing the word "fantasy" all the way from the other side of the room, approached the young couple with interest. However, when he noticed Dante’s serious gaze, he realized it was more severe than he expected.
"A knight, you say?" Dante muttered in a deep tone, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
’There is only one kind of undead that looks like a knight—and it’s also one of the most dangerous ones…’ the warlock thought, believing it was urgent to get the survivors to safety.
