Chapter: 860

The sounds of marching knights got louder as he stood at the top of the lower staircase.

“There’s definitely more than two coming…” he thought.

Jay was in a narrow passage which connected the upper and lower stairs. There were no doors and no rooms; nowhere to hide. Jay wondered why they build the stairs disconnected from each other instead of as one continuous staircase, but his only guess it was for structural stability.

With a large force of knights coming up, he had nowhere to go but backwards.

“Dammit. I just came down these.” He sighed, walking back and going back up the staircase.

With his options limited, Jay had no choice but to backtrack. While he could hold off the knights in the narrow passage, which allowed one versus one fighting, it would cost him more time; more than he is willing to give.

There was also some risk involved as he didn’t know exactly how many knights were coming up the stairs. It could be several or seventy of them.

With Red in the lead, he entered the first pitch-black room that the stairs opened up into. It was one which wasn’t used by the knights as there were no luminous jars around, not counting the ones in Jay’s bag. As an added precaution he poured out some of the luminous jars from his stash around the entrance, in case there were any stray patrolling lesser knights and a patrol route in this room.

Before dispersing into mist, it lit the room up for a moment and revealed many long wooden benches arranged before a white stone altar.

“No time to investigate.” he thought, passing the rows of wooden benches.

Jay walked to the back of the room, hiding himself behind the altar and peered back at the staircase, waiting.

The luminous fluid disappeared, along with its light.

For now, all Jay could do was wait, listening to the sounds of marching knights getting louder.

“If they do come in and discover me, I’ll need to flood the room with bones… then, well, it’ll just be a painfully long struggle.” He thought, already making backup plans for if the enemy discovered his presence..

Peering into the darkness from behind the altar, the marching got louder, and soon, a faint light appeared in the staircase. The familiar glow of luminous jars.

One knight appeared, carrying a sword in one hand and a glowing jar in the other.

Behind it, an intelligent one directed it, carrying a sword and shield.

The lesser ignored the pitch-black room and continued upwards, taking a step on the staircase. However, the intelligent one reached forwards, grabbing the shoulder of the jar-carrying lesser.

Both of them paused.

It made the lesser turn to face the pitch-black room; more light flooded in.

The helmet of the intelligent one turned across the room, scanning it.

Jay quickly ducked his head behind the altar and hid himself completely from the light.

He held his breath and watched the walls, and the ceiling as the light landed on them.

The light remained unmoving - but only for a moment.

“Good… just leave.”