The woman doesn’t even look towards us, she just picks up the box and heads back into the cave. All of the red spears from before disappeared along with her.

"None of us would know who that is," I say while keeping an eye on the cave.

"Yet, we have to go in too," Amelia replies with a bit of fear in her voice.

"The Artifact is inside there," I say before taking her to the bottom of the tree.

All of the men from before are dead... They never stood a chance against whatever that attack was. One look shows that it pierced straight through the heart for each one of them.

"You guys alright?" Lia asks with concern in her voice.

"Yes," We both answer.

"Good. I didn’t know what to think with that woman," Lia says with some concern in her voice.

"I didn’t either. Let’s head into the cave," I reply with a laid-back tone.

"Right," Lia says with caution in her voice.

I lead the way into the entrance of the cave, watching for anything that could possibly jump out at us. As I enter the cave itself I notice blood splattered along the walls.

None of it appears to be recent, it is mostly dried blood. The people who came in died awhile ago.

Nonetheless I push forward. I can hear the girls behind me still which is good since you never know what to expect with a cave. There hasn’t been any signs of a secret path for anyone to take either.

I’ve never really been inside of a cave before so I don’t really know what I’m looking for in the slightest. There are a bunch of different possibilities... The woman could also sneak up on us out of nowhere.

A strong sense tells me she is lurking about, waiting for us to make a wrong move before moving in. At least that is just my best educated guess for the time being.

She wouldn’t really have to wait since she seems to be pretty strong with those red spears.

But her attack wouldn’t work for her entirely, I can function completely without the heart inside of me. At least that’s what my father used to tell me about our kind.

Even after it is destroyed we can function the same as we did before... Just the pain will obviously exist and the heart will no longer be there anymore.

It makes me wonder if I could heal it with the kind of power that we have in our bloodline.

"I see a series of paths ahead," Lia speaks up.

She’s right since I’m noticing a path going left, straight, and right. Each of them appears to have obvious differences along the ground.

"Which one do we go down?" Amelia asks while carefully looking at each one.

"That is a good question," I respond while still deciding.

Regardless of which path we decide to go down, we’ll still be able to come back and try the other. For the time being I think going down the path to the right would probably be smart to start with.

Straight would be the normal answer while left would be the second to to.

"We’ll go down the right path," I say with a calm tone.

"Alright," Lia replies before Amelia.

We begin heading down the right path with no problem, just more blood along the walls and the occasional torch just barely going. It is clear that people went down this path before.

But shortly after a bit of walking we eventually reach an opening to a massive room.

A roundtable sits in the center of the room where skeletons sit at each of the chairs. Most look to be hundreds of years old while some are fairly recent, but why would recent ones be sitting with the older ones?

There doesn’t appear to be any strange smells in the room, even though death is lingering as much as it is.

"This doesn’t feel like it was the right path," Amelia says with worry in her voice.

"Just stick close to one of us and everything will be fine," I assure her while keeping one hand on the hilt of my sword.

I look towards Lia and notice she doesn’t seem to be panicking in the slightest... Complete opposite of Amelia who is worried about everything in this room. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

There’s no reason for her to since everything in the room appears to be dead.

RUMBLE!!!!! RUMBLE!!!!!!!

The whole room begins to shake so we all try to keep our balance. After two or three minutes it finally comes to an end but another opening is ahead.

STOMP! STOMP!!

I would’ve recommended going towards the opening if I didn’t hear the sound of someone stomping towards us. I’m guessing it has to be something big or else it wouldn’t be that loud.

At least that is the safe assumption in this scenario.

Would it be best to get some blood just in case or should I just take my chances for this battle? I don’t even know what we are facing yet so it feels dumb to just drink blood without a proper reason.

I don’t want to leave either of them in a weakened state since that is exactly what happens for a brief period of time.

The stomping suddenly goes silent.

I look back towards Amelia and then over at Lia, both of them appear to be perfectly fine.

"Stay o—

My sentence doesn’t even have a chance to be finished as pain forms within my gut.

WHAM!!!!!

I feel my feet lift off the ground as I go flying through the air, trying to look back at what punched me. It is a bit hard to make out but there is a unknown black figure standing there.

CRASH!!!!!

The wall finally stops me and I can feel it break slightly behind me before falling onto the ground.

Any normal person would’ve probably died from an attack like that but I think I’m pretty lucky right now.

I cough up a bit of blood before standing back up, the pain getting a bit more intense in my gut.

That thing broke a couple ribs or something... I don’t know what would cause the intense pain in my gut otherwise. I’m definitely going to need a bit of blood if the initial punch was that damn strong.