Once his upgrades were complete, Michael exited the system interface and turned his attention back to the hoard of skeleton soldiers. Despite the power boost from his upgraded spells, the skeletons, each surrounded by a yellow aura, remained formidable adversaries. Michael was eager to put his new abilities to the test.
"Stay back and hit them from a distance," he instructed Gaya, who swiftly switched her crossbow bolts from the limited explosive ones to normal steel bolts.
"Use your dark flames," Gaya suggested, noticing the rapidly increasing number of skeletons.
Despite her suggestion, Michael had a hunch that simply burning the skeletons might not be as straightforward as it seemed. To validate his theory, he raised his hand and unleashed a ring of fire spell, directing waves of flames at the skeleton soldiers. As he anticipated, the skeletons turned into smoke and disappeared the moment they were engulfed in flames.
"Did you kill them, or did they just vanish?" Gaya asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.
"Did you really think it would be that simple to deal with my skeletons, guys?" Silvaris's taunting voice echoed through the maze. "I put a lot of effort into making this dungeon more than just your typical one with cliché weak skeleton soldiers. You'll need more than brute force to defeat them."
When Michael recalled his dark flames again, the skeleton soldiers reappeared, seemingly unaffected.
"What about using the dark flames to make them disappear, then walking straight through with the flames blazing ahead?" Gaya proposed.
Interested in testing Gaya's idea, Michael conjured the dark flames once more, watching as the skeletons vanished like smoke before them. "Let's go," he said, moving forward cautiously. However, as soon as he crossed the line where the skeleton soldiers had been, he felt a chilling sensation and instinctively raised his dark swords, blocking an unseen attack.
Leaping back, Michael activated his X-ray vision, using thermal imaging to see the silhouettes of the soldiers through their heat signatures. "The flames only make them incorporeal. A clever trick, and I bet there are complex runes and arrays involved in this," he mused, impressed yet baffled by the intricacy of the trap.
"Alright, now I'm officially out of ideas," Gaya admitted, her voice tinged with frustration.
With the dark flames extinguished, the skeletons returned to their physical forms, forcing Michael to step back and defend against their relentless attacks. The maze's challenge was proving to be as intellectually demanding as it was physically taxing, a puzzle wrapped in a battle that required more than just raw power to overcome.
As the skeleton lunged at Michael with its long sword, Gaya called out a warning, "Watch out!" She fired bolt after bolt from her crossbow, desperately trying to keep the growing horde at bay. Despite her efforts, the path ahead was quickly becoming overrun with skeletons, and they were beginning to encircle Michael and Gaya.
Reacting swiftly to the immediate threat, Michael cast the upgraded Silenes spell, slowing down time within a five-meter radius around him, an improvement from the previous two-meter radius. This temporal manipulation gave him the crucial advantage he needed.
In the slowed time, Michael deftly caught the long sword of the attacking skeleton with one hand and unleashed the Eyes of Doom, firing laser-like black beams from his eyes straight into the skull of the skeleton. The dark beams effortlessly pierced through, and Michael tilted his head down, continuing to emit the beams, effectively slicing the skeleton in half.
"Now!" Michael shouted, and Gaya fired a bolt at a trigger mechanism they had identified earlier.
With a loud creak and a crash, the floor gave way beneath the skeletons, sending them plummeting into the dark abyss below. Bones clattered and shattered as the trap claimed its unintended victims.
"Take that, you boneheaded fucks!" Gaya yelled triumphantly, a satisfied smirk on her face.
They continued this strategy, luring skeletons into other traps they had previously disarmed or avoided. Another trap involved swinging blades that they activated just in time to slice through a group of pursuing skeletons.
"Looks like the dungeon is more useful than we thought," Gaya remarked, slicing through a skeleton that had gotten too close.
"Silvaris's traps are turning out to be a blessing in disguise," Michael replied, his focus unwavering as they methodically used the maze's own defenses against their enemies.
One by one, the skeletons fell victim to the various traps laid throughout the maze. Michael and Gaya's plan was working; they were turning the tide in their favor by outsmarting the skeletal army with cunning and strategy, proving once again that brute force wasn't always the answer.
"Hell yes! Take that, you bony bastards!" she exclaimed, her voice echoing with triumph through the maze's corridors.
Together, Michael and Gaya methodically cleared out the skeletons, using the maze's traps to their advantage. With each step, they felt a growing sense of achievement, turning the perilous maze into an ally in their fight. Eventually, they found themselves back at the spot where the skeletons had first risen from the ground.
With the immediate threat neutralized, they continued down the path, wary of any further surprises. Gaya, keeping pace with Michael, couldn't help but wonder about their final destination. "So, what do you think awaits us at the end of this godforsaken maze?" she asked, curiosity in her tone.
Before Michael could respond, another loud, thunderous moo resonated through the maze, its source still a mystery. The sound reverberated off the walls, filling the space with a sense of ominous foreboding.
As they progressed further into the maze, Gaya's sharp eyes caught sight of something unusual on the walls. There were drawings of bulls, crudely rendered in what appeared to be dried blood, giving the illustrations an eerie and ancient feel.
"Hey, check this out," Gaya pointed out, her voice tinged with curiosity and unease. She traced her fingers lightly over the drawings, careful not to disturb the aged markings.
Michael stepped closer, examining the drawings and the overall setting. He noticed more skeletal remains scattered on the ground, each positioned as though they had met their end while fleeing something. Putting the pieces together – the thunderous mooing, the drawings on the walls, and the skeletons – a realization dawned on him.
"Minotaur," he said, almost in a whisper.
"Great, as if skeleton soldiers weren't enough. Now we have a bloody Minotaur to deal with?"
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