Zectas Volume IV: The Salubrious City of Centzo (7 page)

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ROOOOAARRRR
The massive red Werebear roared as she led the charge. Two Lioumereans on stag moose accompanied by Werewolves and Tikbalangs speedily followed after her, while a single winged Tikbalang flew above them.
After five minutes of uneventful running and making as much noise as possible, Sierra decided to slow down. She stopped and turned to the other Vigilantez. "Looks like there’s no enemies this far out."
At a vigilant pace, they carefully hiked their way up Mount Foudre. As they climbed, they could feel the wind getting colder and the lightning bolts striking the mountain getting closer.
After an hour and thirty minutes, Sierra and her group finally saw the main gate of the black mansion.
ROOOOAARRRR
She roared once more. A few seconds passed and nothing happened. Thinking that the guards were probably inside, she led her group towards the gate.
Suddenly, her Animal Instinct picked up a hundred hostile creatures around them, but she couldn't see anything there except for the black and silver metallic boulders.
Sierra stopped running and others stopped behind her. "There are enemies nearby."
As soon as she finished talking, the black and silver boulders started to move and take shape. They turned into two-meter-tall golems.
With sixty-two Werewolves and ninety-six Tikbalangs at her side, Sierra still had the upper hand in numbers. All of them scattered and paired up to fight the metallic golems.
Werewolves and Tikbalangs alike battled hand-in-hand as they faced the mansion’s guardians. One of the Tikbalangs pounded its hooves on a silver golem's chest, but it only did 2,500 points of damage and left a light imprint of its hooves.
On the other hand, the partnered Werewolf used its claws and aimed for the joints. However, its claws were met with a strong metal covering that repelled its attack. After being pounced on by the two Vigilantez, the golem countered with a telegraphed one-two-punch aimed at them.
The golem's retaliation was extremely slow, which enabled the Vigilantez members to dodge the counterattack with ease.
Despite their combined efforts, the two of them only damaged the silver golem for 9,000 points and its life bar displayed (191,000/200,000 HP).
The two friendly monsters gave each other a knowing nod and took in a deep breath. They steeled themselves to fight the silver metallic monster in a drawn-out battle of endurance.
While her subordinates were struggling to inflict damage, Sierra had no trouble fighting a black metallic monster. Her strikes were inflicting 3,000 points of damage despite not penetrating through its hard armor.
As the golem's slow punch came at her, she decided to block it with her shoulder in order to gauge the actual damage of these monsters. It only dealt a small amount and revealed her life bar to be at (471,733/473,733 HP). She smirked as her claws resumed the onslaught on the golem.
At the same time, Laernea and Gandiva released their fire arrows at the golems in front of them. Both of them then discovered that their ranged attacks did little damage to the black and silver monsters.
With four Durcules beetles flying at the sides of their stag moose, they charged at one golem each. Laernea chose a black one, while Gandiva chose a silver one.
Bilis and Tulin, the Lioumereans’ stag moose, used their antlers and stabbed the bodies of the metallic monsters. After they bucked their heads and pulled out their antlers, a bright blue light emanated from the monsters’ bodies.
The Durcules beetles speedily followed their lead and rammed their horns into the arms of the golems, quickly pulling them out and exposing the same blue light.
Sierra, who had just knocked back a golem with her claws, saw the Lioumereans' skirmish. It made her recall a story Smoke told her one morning at the diner, about how he had to deal with Darius’ “problematic” creation.
"Aim for the power source inside their bodies!" she yelled at them.
At once, Laernea and Gandiva struck the holes in the golems with fire arrows. They smirked as soon as they saw them take damage of 7,000 points on each attack. They kept firing their arrows until the monsters’ life bars were completely depleted.
They were about to hunt down their next pair of golems when four metallic monsters rushed them from the sides. The mansion's guardians hurriedly went after Bilis’ and Tulin's antlers.
CRAACK CRAACK CRAACK CRAACK
Two of them ganged up on each antler and used their tremendous strength to break them off. Bilis and Tulin were instantly brought down and made a loud dull sound upon hitting the ground. Laernea and Gandiva had to jump off their beloved mounts, otherwise they would have been crushed by their heavy bodies.
Each of the Durcules beetles flew behind the golems surrounding their masters and pierced the backs of the metallic monsters with their horns. Yet despite their attack, the golems still continued pummeling Bilis and Tulin.
Laernea and Gandiva desperately tried to draw their attention by attacking the eyes of the golems, but their arrows would only bounce off and do almost no damage at all. A bright purple flame then appeared, shining directly above them, and fired four fireballs into the holes in the golems' backs.
Thanks to Igniz providing them with covering fire, Laernea and Gandiva hurriedly helped their stag moose up and moved them away from the heat of battle.
Sierra, who just saw their situation, roared loudly and ordered her Werewolves to protect their backs and help the Lioumereans escape.
While the Lioumereans fled, Ledur was astute enough to notice the metallic golems’ weakness. He used his Earth Manipulation to create earth spikes from the ground and attacked a golem’s torso, revealing its power core.
With the monster impaled, he then shoved both his hooves into the golem’s body. After feeling up the power core, he smashed it by joining his two hooves together. The golem slumped down, lifeless. Slowly, its body began to fade.
The winged Tikbalang then went on to fight two golems at once and continued using earth spikes to impale them.
Sierra quickly scanned the situation around her. Aside from the injured stag moose, most of the Vigilantez still had more than 70% of their life bars. She then observed odd movement near the gate and realized that Smoke and his team had just discarded their camouflage and entered the mansion. Although there were still eighty golems to deal with, Sierra knew that they could easily handle them and catch up to Smoke soon.

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Smoke and his men got through the gate without a hitch. He observed Sierra's battle with the golems while holding the door open for his team to enter the mansion. He assessed that she got it covered even without him sending Igniz over, but he felt more at ease with sending his dark ember sprite over to her for backup. Even though she wasn't looking, he smiled at her and then joined the rest of his team.
Once inside, they were greeted by a large stairway leading to the second floor and two doorways on opposite sides of the lobby. Smoke's Cunning of the Dire Fox detected many monsters confined to the rooms of the mansion. The only room without enemies in it was in the direction of the west wing.
"Alright, I think we're still undetected, since none of the monsters are rushing towards us. Let's take the stairs and turn left," said Smoke in a hushed voice.
The four-legged Centaurs scrambled on the stairs, as their legs couldn’t properly move between the small steps. The Condortlian Warriors helped them by holding their horse halves from the sides and stabilized their balance.
Smoke led the way as he dashed towards the door. He opened it and was taken aback by what he saw. Human, Lioumerean and Centaur children were tied up in chains and forced to lie on the floor, inside black casting circles.
Their life bars were below 50% and there were numerous runes carved into their skin. He counted twenty of them in total being tormented inside the vastly expansive room.
The room had several windows, each one with metal bars on it and a lightning rod sticking outside. Smoke saw that these things were connected to several black wires that traveled to the ceiling.
Suddenly, a lightning bolt came crashing down on the mansion. The eyes of everyone in Smoke’s group followed the sparks that the black wires emitted as electricity flowed through them. They looked up only to see that the wires were attached to another casting circle directly above the children, which had been gathering the lightning's energy.
After a few seconds, the casting circle on the ceiling lit up. It sent several smaller bolts of lightning towards the casting circle below it and created a tube-like barrier. The children cried out heart-shattering screams of agony as they were encased in the lightning bolt's energy.
Instantly, the children's bodies began to transform. For the Humans and Lioumereans, their bodies grew three times their sizes and fur covered them completely, while the Centaur children instantly lost their lower horse halves and gained a horse’s head instead.
Then, the children's screams died out. The lightning bolt's energy finally dissipated. Smoke and his men saw the children slowly revert back into their original forms as the tube-like barrier faded out of existence.
Without waiting for orders, Adder and the rest of Smoke's men immediately started freeing the children from their their chains. Smoke took out his weighted chain and sickle and cut the wires that were connected to the iron rods. His men angrily bashed their weapons against the metal that bound the children.
Smoke then went to one of the bound children currently being freed. While they were removing the metal chains, the young Condortlian girl with black hair spoke to him, even though she obviously had a difficult time breathing.
"I knew it. I knew you'd come save us." she said in between breaths.
Smoke took out a water canteen made of clay from his backpack window and helped the girl get a sip. "You should rest now."
Despite being told to regain her strength, she still continued talking. "Tracas always said you'd come save us no matter what...." She paused as she seemed to recall the tragedies that befell her after she was captured. "Although he kept saying you abandoned us once he changed, I knew that it was just the monster inside him talking."
Smoke held the girl's hand. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner, but I'll put my life on the stake to keep all of you safe from now on."
She smiled at him gratefully and involuntarily closed her eyes. Fatigue had overcome her and her body forced her to rest.
Smoke looked at the other children and found that most of them were already sleeping from exhaustion.
In under five minutes, all of the children were freed.
Smoke then turned to Tragar. "Can you take the children out of this hell and down the mountain?"
"Sure. But you're going with us, right?" asked Tragar as he helped the children get on the backs of his Centaur brothers.
Smoke shook his head and stared at the wall towards the opposite wing. His Cunning of the Dire Fox still sensed Horrabelle's tormented creations. "Not yet. Adder and the Condortlian Warriors are going to help me deal with the monsters that Witch left behind."
"Then I'm staying here with you. There are only twenty children and I'm sure you could use all the help you can get," replied Tragar flatly.
Smoke nodded. "Very well. Let's get to it."
The chosen Centaurs rushed out of the mansion with the children, tasked with taking them to safety and giving them immediate medical aid.
Meanwhile, Smoke, Adder, fifteen Condortlian Warriors and ten Centaur Rangers carefully opened the door of the room in the east wing. Their weapons were raised as they prepared for the worst. The room was identical to the one the children had been kept in, but instead of children, light green monsters greeted them.
A hundred monsters were set up in a similar manner to the tortured children. Smoke and Adder looked at each other as they found that they recognized the monsters lying down in front of them. They haven't encountered their kind since the first time they met Sierra.
They were Varanus Indicus, a larger and more armored version of the Virile lizards that once enslaved the village of Condortl.
Smoke's first meeting with them was a horrifying experience, as a thousand of them had charged at him when he only had Adder and Igniz with him. However, the monsters that were laid out before him now looked completely different.
They were strapped to the floor, inside a red casting circle. Their dark green scales had turned to a lighter color and their crocodile-like tails were no more. Their life bars displayed less than 20% but their maximum life showed an alarming value of 240,000 HP.
"Do you remember these monsters?" he asked Adder as he pointed to the Varunus Indicus.
"Of course. I'm sure we would have died if it weren't for Sierra arriving in time," replied Adder as he tightened his grip on his BlitzSturm.
"I don't know what they're mutating into, but I do know that it’s not going to be good," said Smoke. He walked over to the black wires connected to the lightning rods and cut them.
He then stared intently at the Varanus Indicus chained inside the casting circle. They were helpless and defenseless. It felt wrong to kill them, given the circumstances, but he knew that these monsters would only do more harm if left unchecked.
"Everyone, kill them before they completely transform," ordered Smoke as he stabbed his sickle into the Varanus Indicus next to him. In a little over ten minutes, all one hundred Varanus Indicus were killed.
Smoke and his men quickly went to another room downstairs and found a similar setup—another set of one hundred Varanus Indicus laid strapped inside a red casting circle. However, this room had a desk placed against one of the walls.
While his team relieved the mutated Varanus Indicus of their lives, Smoke busily searched through the stacks of paper that were scattered on the desk. He hoped to find a book left by Horrabelle, but unfortunately there was none.
He settled for acquiring the knowledge of the papers. In a matter of seconds, the progress would complete itself.