Versatile: Alternate World

The efforts of our group allowed us to reach a much deeper area of the hole. The relentless undead is also getting a bit thinner compared to the earlier assault of them. At the moment, it is much easier to move compared to the right place where the undead just keeps on getting near everyone.

"I will be making a way for everyone. Once I do, start running together and fight against the enemies that will also try to block your advance!" Sigma charges her greatsword as we continue to defend ourselves from the incoming horde.

"[Shining Ray]!"

FWOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH!

It's not as loud as most ray attacks do but the power is enough to say that it isn't something that should be underestimated. That ray alone cleared the whole road of undead and zombies in one go. Everyone started to run to immediately take advantage of the road devoid of the undead. As for Sigma, she didn't run as she felt exhausted from firing off the skill to clear the road. If she didn't run, the undead behind us would immediately catch up and will attack her.

Leaving her there is not a good thing so I sheathed my Versatile Weapon before grabbing Sigma who is still recovering from the attack. I carried her in a princess-carry manner and she was startled by my sudden actions that she didn't expect me to suddenly just do that without permission.

"Wha-? What are you doing Bladeheart?"

"I'm sorry for doing this but we are going to need to be hasty enough rather than staying still. I apologize if you find it somewhat offensive to suddenly do this."

Sigma smiled instead of getting angry. "Haha, thanks. Didn't expect you to go and pick me up while I am struggling."

"Ha, what would we be doing without you commanding the group? Just so you know that I am terrible at giving commands to other players so don't even bother dying and passing the baton of leadership to me. I don't like that."

She chuckled but she didn't say anything else. As for me, I continue to run and catch up to the rest with Sigma in my hands still recovering from the attack she did.

It took a few hours before she managed to recover her energy to move again.

"You can put me down now, Bladeheart, I can now properly run again."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Thanks for the lift."

"No problem."

Since the [Shining Ray] has obliterated a wide range of the way, it allowed us to have enough way to move forward and reach a much deeper area of the hole. The undead and the zombies that are appearing are also getting a bit smaller in numbers now too and what is left behind seems to be stragglers left behind from the blast since it doesn't look like it spawned and they have some burns on their bodies that seem to be not caused by the flames of those burning zombies from earlier.

"So, how deep are we going to go? Are we going to keep on going to retrieve [The Dead Man's Heart[?" my father asked.

"Until we know who the target is, we will have no idea which enemy will be our target to take the item but we still need to prepare. Perhaps we don't even need to kill any boss to retrieve it, be optimistic everyone," Sigma assured everyone.

But I doubt about it that we won't be fighting any boss. The confirmation earlier from Lucia and the others that a sign of a necromancer is present under this place similar to the necromancers we fought before that possess one piece of the necessary part for the legacy book of the necromancer. That alone signifies that we have a big chance that the guy possesses the item [The Dead Man's Heart]. The previous necromancers didn't pose any challenge but I can assume that they are much stronger than the previous two.

"Let's continue and eliminate the enemies further down below. We can't afford to keep ourselves dawdling here and we should also take advantage of the lack of monsters further below. The fewer the enemies we fight against, the faster we can get to our main destination."

...

As we progress deeper, I realized that the whole surroundings gets darker and darker the further we went down. Even the sky is looking dark if you stare above. It's a bit weird since when we went down, the sky isn't even cloudy or any things that would make the sky dark. It's not even gonna rain.

It also doesn't help that the surroundings are getting heavier and miasma seems to envelop the area and seems to suffocate our lungs from it. I have seen this before in the videos in the past timeline where the players seems to have trouble breathing and started to see something that wasn't there. I thought it was a bit silly of them to be done just like that but now, I think the main reason they went like that was due to the miasma in the air. The more we breathe on it, the more the hallucination will get on us and that would end up with something like going against your teammates due to the hallucination effects.

"The miasma is getting thicker. Be careful and don't just smell it for long periods. If possible, cover your noses with something like a face mask or something," I suggested.

"But we don't have that kind of thing son, face masks aren't just going to drop from monsters and we can just equip them," my mother immediately retorted.

Then, Chase moves forward as he raised his hands.

"Umm, I have a few face masks in my inventory. I can give it to you guys if you wanted to use one."

Oh, right. Clerics do have the ability to create face masks. It's one of the main passives that are present to the player since the very beginning of the game. The main purpose of the face mask is the same thing done in the real world. It was like a necessary item for a cleric like it was a real doctor or something similar to that.

With Chase's help, everyone gained a mask to cover their mouth, nullifying the effects of the miasma that are getting thicker as time went by.

And since the part that would slow down the player didn't get through to us, the progress is much smoother. The deepest part of the area is very close now, and the final boss is waiting for us, is already anticipating our arrival, though I still don't know about that as we slowly descend.