With This Treasure, I Summon Primordial Weapons
Chapter 26: What’s Wrong?

Chapter 26: What’s Wrong?

Godric watched the colour drain from Loris’s face.

The expedition leader froze mid-step, his breathing turning shallow. His gaze darted across the corridor without focus as he staggered back a step, shaking so violently his teeth clicked together.

"No..." The word left him in a low whisper. He shook his head, arms trembling at his sides. "No, no, no, it’s too soon. It’s too soon!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Torr asked.

Loris broke into a sprint. He didn’t look back once.

Godric frowned. ’What the hell was that?’

At the same moment, every instinct in Godric’s body screamed that someone was standing behind him, followed by a voice that sounded a little too mechanical to belong to a person.

"What’s wrong?"

Godric tensed before he even understood why, he turned around to find Raven standing there.

Something was off about her face. An emptiness he couldn’t quite name. Her eyes stared back into his, but there was nothing behind them. Just an empty copy of the girl who was supposed to be standing there.

"Raven?" he asked, taking a slow step back.

"What’s wrong? We should go this way." She said it without pointing anywhere at all.

A few steps to their right, Torr staggered back.

"James? Valentina?"

The same thing had happened to the other two, their faces as hollow as Raven’s.

Then, all at once, all three of them spoke.

"What’s wrong?"

"What’s wrong?"

"What’s wrong?"

Torr took off running a heartbeat later, with Godric was right behind him.

The corridor ahead was endless, and for some reason, despite their three companions not moving even an inch, Godric felt an odd sensation that he had to get away from them as soon as possible.

A dozen meters ahead of them, Loris was barely visible against the dimly lit corridor. The leader of this expedition didn’t look back even once as he left Godric and the others behind.

With each step, Godric’s mind went into a deep spiral.

What were those things?

And what happened to the others? What happened to Raven?

He knew this expedition wouldn’t be simple, but even he didn’t expect to be separated from his only ally so early on.

They ran for fifteen or sixteen more minutes before Loris suddenly stopped, Torr and Godric arriving at the man’s side a second later.

Torr took a heavy step forward, his breathing ragged, and grabbed Loris by the collar. "What the hell was that?"

Loris still looked as shaken, his head shaking from left to right. "It’s too soon, it never happens this soon!"

SMACK!

Torr’s hand landed heavily across Loris’s face, finally snapping him out of his panic state.

"Focus! Dammit! You’ve been here a dozen times, what is going on?"

Loris lingered for a moment, his gaze shifting between Torr and Godric a couple of times before he finally spoke up.

"A monster.... a spirit... we don’t know. Something is turning into people that come in here. But it never happened so early. Usually it starts near the eighth corridor."

"What about the others?" Godric joined in.

"Dead. They’re most probably dead." Loris paused before adding. "I’ve only seen someone return after disappearing once... and it was Daren himself."

Godric frowned.

Daren.

The leader of the human settlement, he not only knew the dangers of this place, but he was also one of the humans who disappeared and the only one who ever returned.

Did he see something during that time? Is that why he was so focused on finding something in this eerie place?

"What happens when you kill those things?" Torr asked, his gaze drifting to the part of the corridor they came from.

"No..." Fear flashed across Loris’s face. "Whatever you do, do not attack them."

Fighting an enemy they couldn’t attack.

As if this place couldn’t get any weirder.

"So what now?" Torr asked, visibly unwilling to stand in place for any second longer, his gaze and his body shifting from side to side, looking around as paranoia started to creep in.

"We... we keep moving," Loris said. "Down the corridor there should be a turn soon enough, that’s the second corridor. There’s an exit in the eighth corridor."

"Exit?" Godric raised a brow. "What about the others?"

"They’re dead... and even if they aren’t, they will be soon."

A shadow settled over Godric’s face.

Leaving James and Valentina behind wasn’t much of a loss. In fact, having fewer lieutenants around would probably be a good thing. But Raven was his only ally, and chances of escaping were higher with the two of them together.

"Lead the way," Godric said.

The trio began moving immediately.

In his head, Godric was going over everything he just learned.

The hollow ones looked like a possession type of mechanic, but something about that didn’t sit right.

Loris hadn’t said they were gone. He’d said it never happened this soon, as though the timing was the wrong part, not the event itself. As though this happened either on schedule or in a predictable place one could potentially avoid.

That didn’t sound like a spirit or a monster possessing things, it sounded more like a trap, keeping people away from going a certain direction.

Godric thought of Daren, the only one who had ever come back. If the hollow things had simply taken Raven’s place, replaced and erased her, then Daren’s survival made no sense. Something that consumed people whole wouldn’t let one of them walk back out later with a story to tell.

Unless it had never taken anyone at all. Unless the real Raven, the real James, the real Valentina, were still out there somewhere in this maze, and the things standing where they used to be were meant to make sure no one came looking.

’They’re copies,’ that was the only explanation Godric could accept.

And if his instincts were correct, the place they happened the most at, the eighth corridor, was the place someone or something didn’t want them to explore.

Meaning, that’s the exact place he had to explore.