As Layla moved, Bella, the green-haired woman, also moved determinedly, thinking of the possibility that one of her companions might still be alive.
When they arrived at the door on their way to an underground part of The Skull City, they looked at each other and prepared to use their powers if necessary.
Layla used her speed and quickly opened the door on her way to the inside of the underground building.
The moment they entered the place, they surprised the four zombies there, who were kneeling on the ground with their hands smeared with something red.
When they looked closer, they saw the remains of someone who had recently died, a body that was open with many internal parts missing.
One of the zombies there was holding the corpse's lifeless liver, while another was eating the dead man's brain like a dog eating its favorite food.
One of them turned around and stared with his opaque white eyes in the direction of the two women, who were momentarily shocked by the scene.
Gulp!
'Shit!' Layla saw this and cursed the creatures, but without running away since they were clearly weaker than her.
Leaving the immobile Bella aside, she walked forward into the room, not hesitating to deal with those four monstrosities.
Moving one of her arms like a sword, she easily severed the head of the first in her path before kicking the torso of her second target, breaking it in half.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtZombies only really died when their brains were completely destroyed, so the two zombies Layla attacked first didn't die, they just lost their normal fighting state.
Bella returned to reality and finally moved, aiming for the head of the creature Layla had already knocked down while using her powers to form a bow and arrow.
The two quickly exterminated all the creatures in the area until Bella had a chance to identify the corpse that was being devoured.
"It's one of my companions." She said regretfully after a few moments, feeling shame, disgust, fear, and remorse.
She wasn't sure if this was her companion who had died earlier or if it was the one Layla had said was still alive until a few minutes ago. But either way, this was an old acquaintance of hers who had died horribly.
Layla looked around and said. "There is no sign of any other bodies here... Maybe your companion escaped or was taken."
Bella looked at Layla, not knowing what to do but knowing what Layla meant by being taken.
The monsters of The Skull City devoured some of their victims, while others died in various ways, leaving intact bodies behind.
Even those that were devoured would eventually become ghosts or liches, whether or not they were devoured depended on the degree of gruesomeness of each victim's death.
Some would feed the zombies, but others would feed the ghosts with their souls or even the liches with their skeletons.
There were at least half a dozen macabre rituals in The Skull City that were useful for every type of local monster!
If Bella's last companion in The Skull City was still alive, he could be in great danger of dying at any moment from one of the local macabre rituals!
"If he's been taken, we don't have much time!" Bella said in a cold sweat.
"Where would we go? If he's just escaped, he could be anywhere in the city. But if he's been taken, he's probably in one of the city's central areas, where the strongest monsters are." Layla commented.
It was easy to find out where the strongest monsters were. After a short trip around the city, one could easily understand this from the frequency of powerful individuals in the different local areas.
Since there were stronger beings near the city center, that was the most interesting place to look for someone to be taken for a ritual.
"We can only continue to look for him in more dangerous places," Bella said as she looked at Layla strangely. "Will you help me? I'm afraid of the dangers ahead. I won't put you through it just because I warned you earlier."
Layla clenched her fists, feeling strange because of what she had just witnessed in that underground place.
To see a human being being devoured was disgusting!
Thinking about how the monsters in this city could violate her honor in so many different ways was enough to make her feel a strange sense of enmity and a desire to destroy those creatures.
Layla said. "I'll help you until it's too dangerous for us to continue. From then on, you either fall back with me or stay behind to deal with your own problems."
...
Minutes would pass, and the 4th stage lich searching for Vicente would finally notice some signs of its enemy.
Some of its men were running around looking for Layla and the other human who had escaped from a trap earlier, but it wasn't worried about them.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmVicente was a great danger to it and its ally who ruled this place, so it was worried about him and not those two.
After hearing distant signs of where those two should be, it hurried to catch up with Vicente.
Arriving at the spot where Vicente had ingested the pill that had awakened Torne, the lich saw what remained of the creatures the young man had destroyed and noticed he had arrived too late to have any trace of his target.
"Damn human!" It felt the number of skeletons and zombies under its control dwindle and imagined that somewhere, Vicente was doing shit.
Turning his skull back, it sensed where the last losses of its power had come from.
'I found you, you wretch!' It moved, not hesitating to cast a spell in the direction that had just noticed the deaths of its men.
As it did so, moving toward the area where it thought Vicente was, a purple bolt of lightning appeared in the sky, coming from a large magical circle created by the lich's spell.
A thunderous sound erupted from the purple bolt, which was not lightning but a special form of evil magic.
When the spell hit the ground, all the skeletons and shattered corpses were pulled together, quickly forming a large dead giant.
Vicente saw this from afar, as he had tricked his enemy into attacking in the direction where only ghosts operated.
'Wow, he's created a monster similar to Victor Frankenstein's creation!'
Vicente opened his mouth in surprise as he saw the hideous giant emerge from the lich's dark magic.
Meanwhile, Torne was absorbing a new resource hidden with Vicente in a 'quiet' area of the city.