NOVPUBThe group stood rooted in place, indecisive.
Approaching the ominous altar was akin to walking willingly into peril.
Yet, at this moment, it seemed they had no better alternatives.
Suddenly, a deep, murmurous chant emanated from the altar.
It sounded like an incomprehensible whisper, as if someone was rapidly murmuring right next to their ears. Their faces turned grave.
Daniel moved, his voice serene, "Let’s go. It seems the master of the altar is beckoning us."
Brooks glanced over.
The altar appeared desolate, void of any presence.
Annoyed, he retorted, "What are you playing at? It’s already creepy enough here. Can we not add to the dread with such comments?"
The group closely followed Daniel’s lead.
Following the deep murmurs, Daniel swiftly entered the heart of the altar.
From up close, the altar appeared significantly larger than it seemed from a distance, towering over three stories high, about ten meters.
Its entire body was painted in a bright red hue, emanating a pungent smell.
Much of its wood had splintered, crumbling to dust with the slightest touch, suggesting it had withstood the ravages of time.
Directly above the passage at the base of the altar was a mural of a deep green ghastly face.
Strangely, its mouth moved, opening and closing, and it seemed the murmurs emanated from it.
Flanking the passage were staircases leading to the top of the altar. With swift strides, Daniel ascended, reaching its summit.
The altar’s design was broader at the base and narrowed at the top, with its peak spanning less than twenty square meters.
At its center appeared to be a furnace, flames roaring within, casting light all around.
Most eerie of all, on each of the four sides of the furnace was a face, identical to the grotesque mural below, their mouths writhing and producing the unsettling sounds.
Suddenly, the murmuring ceased.
The sound of gears, a clattering cacophony, filled the air.
The furnace began to rotate in place.
After several rotations, one of the grimacing faces stopped directly in front of Daniel and his companions, its haunting eyes fixed intently on them.
Witnessing this spectacle, a tightness gripped everyone’s chest, making it hard to breathe, and a shiver of fear ran down their spines.
The furnace’s face contorted grotesquely, its eyes bulging like brass bells, and its mouth stretched sideways, revealing sharp, menacing fangs.
"Hee hee hee hee... Now that everyone is here, let’s play a game," it chimed in a tone distinctly different from the deep murmurs earlier.
The voice now was thin, piercing, reminiscent of nails scraping across metal, chilling them to the bone and making their skin crawl. 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"I absolutely love the game of dodgeball. Whoever isn’t hit by the ball, wins," it continued, a malicious glint in its eyes. "Only the victor earns the right to live!"
Without giving them a moment to react, the ghastly face rotated away with a series of clicks.
The entire altar began to sway, tossing Daniel and the others off balance.
Stabilizing himself, Daniel looked around cautiously, sensing impending danger.
At that moment, Brooks said, "Stay here. I’ll shatter that cauldron. Perhaps, that will get us past this challenge."
He stepped forward, radiating confidence in his own strength.
"Whirlwind Step!"
Activating his Oracle ability, a barely perceptible whirlwind materialized beneath his feet, propelling him forward with heightened speed, akin to a bullet being shot.
But as he was about to soar mid-air riding the wind,
"#&%$%*#! "
The deep murmuring voice echoed again.
Brooks’ expression shifted drastically.
He felt his muscles stiffening, his blood freezing at an alarming rate, as though he were plunged into a deep, icy cavern.
In the blink of an eye, he turned to ice, plummeting from the air.
With lightning reflexes, Alex rushed forward, catching Brooks in a princess carry, and retreated back to the group in a few swift strides.
A sinister voice emanated from the altar, "Please abide by the game rules. Otherwise, I won’t hesitate to devour you prematurely."
"Fuck!" Brooks cursed.
As the murmuring faded, he returned to normal.
Quickly extracting himself from Alex’s hold, he dusted off his clothes, saying, "That was close; nearly dirtied my clothes. This suit cost me tens of thousands of StellarCoins."
Julia rolled her eyes, "I’ve never seen an Evolver wear a suit on a mission."
Brooks combed his fingers through his hair, "What do you know? For a man, looking dapper is paramount."
Pausing, he shifted tones, "We can’t attack it directly. As soon as that murmuring began, it felt as if I was in an electrically charged ice vault. Half a minute longer, and I’d have been frozen solid."
A fate which, upon hitting the ground, would mean nothing less than being shattered to pieces.
Everyone furrowed their brows, their expressions increasingly somber.
Although unaware of the dodging patterns associated with the altar’s game, it surely related to their own agility.
If their bodies froze the moment that eerie voice sounded, how could they possibly play?
At a loss for what to do next, Mike proposed an idea.
"Why don’t we just stand here and outlast it? After all, we won’t die immediately."
Julia looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "Are you suggesting we outlive this altar?"
If that were the case, their bones might well turn to dust before the altar ever crumbled.
Daniel interjected calmly, "That won’t work. It won’t grant us that kind of time."
The others, clueless, gazed at him for explanation.
Daniel surveyed their surroundings and stated evenly, "The temporal turbulence in the darkness is gradually closing in on us. If we don’t pass the face’s game in time, we’ll be swallowed by the chaotic currents and torn to shreds."
Everyone hastily glanced around, realizing for the first time that the areas once illuminated by the altar’s fire were slowly being consumed by the encroaching darkness, exactly as Daniel had described.
The safe zone was shrinking!
In a matter of minutes, it would be completely enveloped by the void.
Mike gritted his teeth, "Damn it! I’ll go first. Death awaits us either way, might as well give it a shot!"
But after taking only two steps forward, he was abruptly pulled back. Turning around, he found it was Daniel.
Daniel positioned Mike behind him, his expression resolute, and took a step forward. "Stay here, I’ll handle this."
His words immediately bolstered the group’s spirits.
It felt like a weight had been lifted, a much-needed balm for their frayed nerves.
If Daniel was taking charge, they felt assured.
Of course, should things go awry, they’d be none the wiser.
Whoosh!
Like a sharpened blade, Daniel darted towards the altar.
The low, eerie murmur echoed once again.
Simultaneously, a burst of light erupted from the engulfing darkness above, followed by meteor-like fireballs that rained down thick and fast.
The group’s expressions turned to sheer horror.
It was only because Daniel led the charge that they could maintain even a semblance of calm.
The murmuring voice rumbled from all directions.
Daniel, noticing the fiery onslaught from above, attempted to surge forward.
But suddenly, his body went rigid. His muscles, as if in rebellion, refused to respond.
The sky full of fireballs loomed closer, threatening to crush everything in their path.
The group could even feel the searing heat, an intensity almost too much to bear.
Daniel’s expression remained unflinching.
The next moment, silk threads emerged from both of his hands, attaching to and intertwining with his body, taking over the role of his muscles, manipulating his movements.
He darted left and right, nimbly navigating through the rain of fireballs.
The murmuring voice deepened, growing more intense.
It vibrated with such force that it became physically painful to the ear.
As the sound spread, invisible sound waves pulsated outward.
Daniel immediately felt his actions stiffen even further.
A deep, soul-penetrating freeze swept over him, as if intending to completely encase him in ice.
Elsewhere, fireballs continued their rapid descent.
Many of them honed in on Daniel’s location, bearing down on him with unwavering intent.
Yet, Daniel’s expression remained unaltered.
He raised his right hand, and with a precise gesture using three slender, pale fingers, three stark white bones from his back pierced through his clothes and were exposed to the air.
Immediately after, they shot out with bullet-like speed.
Whiz, whiz, whiz!
As each bone spike was launched, new ones regenerated in its place.
One after another, they flew out.
These bone spikes, spanning about ten centimeters, acted like javelins, skewering the fireballs and pulling them into the swirling abyss of darkness.
Whiz, whiz, whiz!
Their speed was blinding, intercepting every fireball that threatened to crush him.
Looking up, the sky was densely populated with fireballs, but looking down, directly above Daniel, a radius of two meters was consistently cleared by the continuous firing of bone spikes, creating a vacuum amidst the chaos.
With no fireballs to obstruct him, Daniel moved as if in a realm devoid of others, his afterimage materializing in front of the grotesque face.
Click, click, click...
The furnace began to churn, as if the phantom face intended to converse with Daniel. Observing this, Daniel lifted his right foot.
Thud!
With a graceful roundhouse kick, he struck the furnace, causing it to spin on the spot like a top.
His fluid motion left those watching below in sheer astonishment.
Playing this damned game?
Is it fun?
Enjoyable?
I’ll kick you to oblivion!
Daniel delivered another kick, halting the furnace’s rotation, positioning himself before one of its ghoulish visages.
His right hand formed a weapon resembling Thor’s hammer from the silk threads, poised to smash the furnace into smithereens.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, the flames within the furnace extinguished.
In an instant, the surroundings were plunged into pitch-black darkness.
"What happened?" "Did Daniel just destroy it?"
One by one, the group switched on their flashlights, their beams scanning the area for any sign of Daniel.
"What the...?!"
"Holy crap!"
Everyone was utterly taken aback.
