Infinite Journey: Dark Souls

"Ugh, it's really effective, but it's still disgusting!"

With another slide, she dodged another monster; the rustling of human heads sent chills down her spine.

"So what? We still have to give it our all!"

The remaining villagers also gathered around, and the chaos had entered an unpredictable situation. Any small mistake could send the two of them back to the campfire.

Wounds began to appear on his body, and sweat soaked his clothes, mixing with his own and the enemy's blood, sticking the fabric together in pieces.

The arms that wielded the swords grew heavier and heavier, and in the gradually blurring vision, only the falling figures remained.

They have pushed themselves to the limit.

The magic bullets always manage to interrupt the enemy's attacks at the most dangerous moments. Time reversal allows Xiao Yan to linger like a ghost beside the two mentors, leaving wounds on their obese bodies before finally sending them back to hell to await their next resurrection.

With an enormous amount of blood loss, she bled one of the monsters to death. Meanwhile, under attack from the other two, she simply led them in circles, clearing out the surrounding villagers. After Xiao Yan Teng intervened, the two monsters also howled and turned into pus and blood.

"Ha...ha...did you kill all the executioners?"

"Yeah... ugh... I used up all my elemental bottles in the cabin just to get there and meet you... ugh..."

Due to a severe headache and the mental pollution from hunting strange creatures, Zhi was currently lying to one side vomiting.

Xiaoyan's condition wasn't much better. She had also used up all her elemental ash bottles, and her magic was depleted. Her vision was also spinning, but at least she wasn't vomiting like Zhi.

"That means we're safe for now. Ah, here's the elemental fragment. Hehe, the capacity of the elemental ash bottle can be increased again."

Perhaps she was truly dizzy, for Xiao Yan actually started grinning foolishly after obtaining the elemental fragment.

"Ugh... ugh..."

However, this rare expression was not something that Zhi, who was vomiting terribly, could enjoy.

And so, after the commotion, only two ashes remained in the desolate Undead Settlement Square.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Plan B!

It took Xiao Yan a long time to recover before she was able to move normally again.

She rummaged through the large tree in the center of the square, looking at the unusual magic arrays, seemingly deep in thought.

"Ugh... Xiaoyan, what are you looking at?"

Zhi has vomited up almost everything she could—but then again, they don't need to eat in this world, so where did she vomit from? Has the Ashen Ones' digestive system degenerated to the point that they can't even digest what they ate in the Intermittent World?

That's not right either. Ashes can't bring back anything from outside, which means that what they ate was ultimately wasted.

Ahem, let's skip this weird topic. Anyway, Zhi is just dry heaving now, and she can stand up unsteadily while holding onto her knees.

"It's nothing, just some traces of rituals. What's strange is that after looking at them, I found even more strange traces nearby, as if something had grown."

"Huh? What's that strange thing? Let me take a look... Hmm, there's nothing here."

Zhi leaned closer, rested his chin on his hand, and looked at it seriously for a while, but in the end, he came to a conclusion that made people both laugh and cry.

"Are you kidding me? These eerie symbols are so clear, and you're telling me you can't see them?"

Xiao Yan, with dead fish eyes, slapped Zhi on the head with a knife.

"Hahaha... I really didn't see anything, even with my Demon Eye activated... My head hurts!"

Frowning as she stared at the mess that had probably burned her brain due to overuse of the Demon Eye, Xiaoyan looked at the marks on the ground with some confusion.

It looked like ripples were etched on the stone wall, or perhaps it was a tadpole symbol, twisted where she picked up the elemental fragments, yet it was like a scene from a dream, somewhat hazy and unclear.

Shaking her head, she snapped out of the strange vision, looked at Zhi lying on the ground again, and then at the ruins of the wooden house. Suddenly, she noticed something.

“I was saying… it seems like the campfire we had in the cabin is ruined…”

"Huh? Does that mean we don't even have a place to recover?"

"Well, now that we've finally made it through here, even if you want to go back to the original campfire to recover, I won't agree."

"Then why are you still bringing this up?"

Have you ever seen a campfire destroyed before?

"……No."

"That settles it then. Let's go. The most important thing right now is to find the next campfire so that our hard work won't be in vain."

The two of them took a moment to compose themselves... Actually, there wasn't much to compose themselves; they had used up all their recovery items, but they had a bunch of firebombs and the like left over.

Finally, on Zhi's advice, they decided to head towards the bridge next to the central square, even though it was covered in bloody tire tracks, indicating that the vehicles transporting the corpses were heading this way. They were likely to encounter another convoy of executioners and villagers along the way.

"This is the shortest route to the next campfire... assuming the campfire's location hasn't changed. Although it's uncertain whether there will be one, the other direction is farther from the campfire. If we're going to gamble, we should gamble on the one with the higher probability."

With insufficient information, Xiaoyan could only trust Zhi's judgment, and they cautiously stepped onto the bridge.

What they feared most came to pass. In the middle of the bridge, they happened to encounter a convoy on its way to transport corpses. Fortunately, the convoy was led by only one executioner, so it wasn't the worst-case scenario.

"Kicking is very useful in situations like this!"

When two armies meet on a narrow path, the brave shall prevail. Zhi shouted strange words and kicked a villager off the cliff.

Seeing this, Xiao Yan imitated him and kicked the executioner. However, he only swayed slightly before bringing the guillotine down on her.

"You liar!"

As she rolled away to dodge, she complained about some unreliable guy.

"To deal with an enemy this big, you have to break its legs!"

After dealing with the villagers, Zhi rolled over and severed the executioner's calf with a single stroke. Once the executioner lost his balance, Zhi kicked him off the bridge.

"Hehe, this is the correct way to use a kick."

"Okay, okay, I saw it."

As Xiao Yan spoke, she punched her in the stomach without any expression.

"Xiaoyan, if you keep being so violent, you'll never get married." QAQ

"I'm sorry, I have no plans to get married."

After laughing and joking for a while, they discovered another problem.

At the other end of the bridge, presumably due to their battle, a pile of wooden crates was destroyed, and a fork in the road could be seen along the slope behind the crates.

"Hey, what's going on here? Why didn't I notice this road before?"

"Never mind that, let's go whichever road leads to the campfire the fastest."

"Then let's go this way."

They followed the tracks of the carts, passed a stable-like building, and arrived at an open gate.

"Tsk tsk, although the trick we used at the stables is no longer effective, I think it's still best not to go out directly..."

Before Zhi could finish speaking, three thin slaves jumped down from above the gate, all of them carrying fire-type greatswords.

"I'm such a jinx! Anyway, we have to take the real 'plan B' now. Listen up, Xiaoyan, there's another bridge after you go out this door, but the campfire is under the bridge. When you're halfway across the bridge, just jump to the right."

"how about you?"

“It’s already called ‘plan B,’ so of course I’ll stay here and cover your retreat… Okay, I’ll rush up first to draw attention, and you can rush over while I’m at it!”

Without giving Homura a chance to refute, she assumed an iaido stance and charged straight at her.

Meanwhile, the slaves, wielding greatswords that were taller than themselves, comically swung them down at Zhi.

He swung his iaido sword, deflecting the attacks of the three weaker slaves simultaneously by exploiting the most vulnerable opening.

"Now!"

Taking advantage of the moment, Xiao Yan rushed out, leaped over the heads of the three slaves, rolled on the ground, and burst out of the gate.

A sudden chill ran down her spine, and she rolled away again.

The glint of the dagger grazed her back as it slashed away, and then, one after another, slaves fell from the top of the building.

She was too exhausted to complain about Zhi's unreliability anymore, so she immediately got up from the ground and rushed towards the bridge Zhi had mentioned.

As luck would have it, another convoy carrying corpses came from the front, and this time it was accompanied by an executioner.

She could already see the narrow path under the bridge.

The executioner from the convoy raised his guillotine and charged forward.

She managed to throw a few firebombs to halt the executioner's charge, then darted past him and leaped across the path to the other side of the bridge.

The feeling of weightlessness came suddenly and then disappeared just as suddenly. She felt her feet touch solid ground, and she quickly scrambled to get out of the way and tumbled towards the campfire that had come into view.

Boom-!

Whoosh—!

The heavy thud of the fall rang out along with the sound of the campfire being lit. Now that she had nothing left to worry about, Xiao Yan drew her longsword and charged toward the executioner.

————————————————————————————————————————

YOU DIED

In the basement below the cliff, where the campfire that Xiaoyan had lit earlier was located, Zhi sat down next to Xiaoyan with a bitter smile on her face.

"So it turns out that after we formed the Ash Pact, as long as one of us is still in battle, we can't sit by the campfire to rest."

"So that's why you sat here until my Demon Eyes were overexerted and I was taken care of by a bunch of slaves?"

"...I'm sorry, but I really can't go back to save you."

"Well, I was just joking. After all, I'm the one who has to cover the rear, so don't take it to heart."

Just now, after Xiaoyan lit the campfire, she successfully dealt with the executioners who jumped down after her. However, when she realized she couldn't sit by the campfire, she tried to go back to the other side of the basement. But it seemed that she was already very close to the end of the corpse transport vehicle, and the defense was quite strong. There were two mentors stationed on the gatehouse-like building, and the same number of executioners were lingering below. She had no choice but to go back and wait for Zhi.

However, none of these are excuses. In the end, it was still a matter of insufficient strength. She fiddled with the guns while reflecting on this lesson.

"So, what do we do next?"

After hearing Xiaoyan's description, Zhizhen felt like she had stumbled into the headquarters of some cult. The thought that all the enemies in the settlement square that she had finally managed to defeat would be resurrected gave her a headache.

"No matter what, we have to go out and take a look first."

After reloading the pistol, Xiaoyan led Zhi to the road she had been unable to travel before.

Strictly speaking, the heavily guarded gatehouse was directly above the basement where the campfire was located. They carefully went up a small path and arrived at the roof of a low house. Sure enough, in the passage next to it, they saw the two executioners that Xiao Yan had mentioned, as well as the two mentors on the gatehouse. To make matters worse, corpse transport vehicles would occasionally pass by here.