SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything-Chapter 36: The Black Castle
For a second Hideβs senses overwhelmed him, suddenly all of them, for some weird reason, became hyperactive and then went back to normal just as fast. ππ«πππ¨ππ―ππ πππ.ππΌπ
His first breath arrived as a gasp β not from pain, or physical exertion, but from the weird change that happened to his body that he couldnβt recall.
The cold hit him at the same moment, a deep penetrating cold that was not the cold of weather but the cold of a place that had never been warm, settling over him immediately and completely as if he had walked out of a closed room, only to be met with a snow storm.
He was outside, or maybe inside. Whatever it was... all he knew was that he now stood beyond the door.
Fuu was just besides him, still in shock of what happened and they both stood at the beginning of a courtyard that extended far enough ahead of him that its far edge was not clearly visible.
The stones of it were the same dark ancient flagstone as the road, cracked and uneven in places but continuous, spreading in both directions.
And at the end of it, stood eerily, the castle.
It rose from the ground as if it was not something built on a landscape, but it was the landscape itself.
It was made up entirely of Black stone, blacker than the deepest darkness, filling the hearts of all who saw it, with dread.
βThis looks so ominous and wrong...β Hide narrowed his eyes trying to peek farther.
The walls were vast and intimidating. Looking at them, one could imagine a certain scenario where the wall spoke and listened and ate what they could.
At this thought Hideβs pupil suddenly shrank. This was not his natural thought. βThe place effects the mind just by looking at it... such a vile thing. Its not a good sign, what rank is this dungeon?β
With an unsettling feeling in his heart, he smacked Fuu in the back of his head to bring him back to reality.
"Donβt just stand there like an idiot." he commented.
Fuu blinked a couple of times and looked all around. "Where are we? I thought I fell from that road."
Hide shook his head. "We are on the other side of the door, inside the actual Dungeon... and try to stay focused. This place effects your mind."
Fuu shivered the moment he heard that. He shook his head violently and summoned two gauntlets that appeared on his fists, covering up to his forearms.
βSo, he has a Storage artifact with him.β Hide noted and started moving forward towards the castle. Fuu followed behind him, their steps heavy on the stone road.
The castleβs body rose in sharp vertical lines ahead of them, the stonework buttressed and arched making the architecture beautiful and heinous at the same time.
Soon, Hide and Fuu reached an intersection of fork roads with the road dividing into three separate roads.
One went straight ahead to the main castle and two branched to opposite sides.
Two citadels flanked the main body β one on the left, one on the right, each one rising to a height that made the main walls look modest, their upper sections tapering into pointed spires that vanished into the overcast above.
The citadel towers had windows, tall and narrow, dark behind their arched frames, and the stonework around them was detailed with skull cornices at the transition points, carved relief along the arched entries.
Chain bridges connected the citadels to the main body at two heights, the lower ones intact, the upper ones broken in the middle, their severed ends hanging freely in the air.
And the central tower.
It rose from the castleβs heart and dwarfed everything around it, both in width as well as height, climbing above the citadels, above the castle body and even above the cloud layer that had settled at a certain altitude above the courtyard and sat there thick and dark, strobed periodically by the silent lightning that moved through it.
The towerβs peak was in the clouds. Hidden, never to be seen... somewhere above the cloud layer, the tower continued, but from where Hide was standing there was only the dark stone rising and then the clouds and then nothing visible beyond them.
The castle breathed cold.
That was the only way to describe what the air coming from it was. The cold winds moved, as if the castle were exhaling it, a slow and continuous breath.
Fuu was standing three steps ahead of him, staring upward.
"This is..." Fuu said.
He didnβt finish the sentence. There wasnβt an ending to it that was accurate.
Hide looked at the castle for a long moment, a cold feeling settling in his gut. βThis looks to me like a goddamn three or four star dungeon. The dungeon master would be a Calamity lord.. if I am correct.β
He thought about the things he could do, the things he had and some facts that he should keep in mind. βIt would be careless to just barge in straight... It has been more than 10 minutes since we came here, by now the other Exterminators must also have arrived at the gate. And there is only a 24 hour limit to complete a dungeon gate before it breaks.β
He gritted his teeth, he was in a very bad situation. He could not let himself be caught up with exterminators from other agencies, he was an independent individual and he could be charged for entering a gate without proper permission and squad.
Though, in a way. He did have a squad... Fuu.
He sighed, he didnβt have any choice, but to move forward. He looked at his fat companion and at the castle that looked like it had been built to absorb the ambitions of armies.
He was going to have to be creative.
While he was drowned in his thoughts, the clatter came from both sides simultaneously.
The sound of bones clattering against a hard surface at a speed. Hide turned left and saw that from the branching road on this side, several figures were moving.
Soon, actual skeletons could be seen moving fast toward them along the wall, their bodies upright and wrong, it was only bone and the mana that held bone together.
There were almost twenty of them.
From the right side, another ten approached at the same speed. They were fast, and covered the distance very quickly.
Hide brought the Carapace up... "Get ready, fatass."
