Looking around, even though it was dark, it was impossible not to see the imposing statues of angels watching over the altar.
"What the hell... why is there something like this here?" Shiina was surprised by the sight.
"A sanctuary of angels!?" exclaimed Sariel. "So deep underground? Why would winged creatures build a base in a place like this?"
"Have you never encountered anything like this before?" asked Luna.
"Never..." The traveler approached the circular platform and the altar. "And there seems to be some kind of way to open a door somewhere here."
Approaching the altar calmly, the group took every precaution when stepping onto the platform, fearing some kind of trap.
"Are those things dragons?" asked Raymond, referring to the dragon statues.
"They look more like drakes."
"Drakes?"
"They're like a subspecies of dragons that don't have wings."
Curious, each of them approached each statue to observe every detail carefully.
Luna approached the drakes' statues and noticed that, in addition to their robust bodies covered in marble scales, they had eyes made of some brown stone, very similar to Alteration stones, not to mention a circular red stone on their foreheads and claws and fangs made of the same stone.
Moving on to other drakes, they had the same similarities, with the only exception being the colors of the claws, which were made of other Combat Elemental stones, such as Water, Ice, Lightning, Wind, and Nature.
Raymond approached the angel statues, and they also had eyes made of Alteration stones and other Combat Elemental stones on their clothes.
Sariel moved toward the center of the platform where there was a cylindrical column about a meter high with a small, round Alteration stone on top.
"Hmm, what needs to be done here?"
Finally, Aegreon stepped into the circle, and then, something happened.
Suddenly, every statue, except for the larger ones, activated, with its brown eyes shining.
The statues moved at an unbelievably high speed, considering they were made of marble, and surrounded Aegreon.
The angels wielded their weapons, tried cutting and casting spells, while the drakes tried to bit, scratch, and expel magic from their mouths.
Their movements were precise and fluid, which would make anyone believe that they were really alive while disguised as something similar to marble.
Aegreon however, dodged every attack skillfully without attacking the statues.
"Wha-What is happening?" Luna was startled by the sudden attack.
"What is that?" asked Luna.
"Battle golems!" said Sariel excitedly. "What impressive automatons!"
"Golems... you mentioned that before... It's with Sealing magic, right?"
"Exactly! The Alteration stones allow the statues to move, just like our muscles, while the Combat magic stones give them offensive power, and the Sealing stone inside them serves as the brain that controls all functions. And to think there are so many of them here."
"But why are them attacking Aegreon?!" Shiina created a sword made of wind and got ready to fight. "They didn't activate when we stepped in."
"Considering how the shadows are made from Conjuration, my guess is that the angels here programmed the statues so they attack anything that contains this element, the Alteration stones can also detect magic."
"Wait, but why didn't the angels kill those shadows?" asked Raymond. "Does that mean that there are angels somewhere here?"
"I highly doubt it, but you are right, there's something weird about this place..." Sariel looked at Aegreon, who was dodging the statues. "Hey, you probably shouldn't-"
Tum!
Before the traveler could finish, the Pillar punched and destroyed numerous statues at once.
"... destroy them..."
"I'm not a clown for you to watch." Finishing destroying every statue, he glared at him with anger.
"Well, problem solved, I guess."
After this, they went back to investigate the place.
"Hey! There are some Alteration gems in the eyes of those larger statues," said Shiina, who had climbed one of the fifteen-meter statues. "And it looks like you can move the eyes."
"Can you make them look at the altar?" asked Sariel.
"I'll try!"
Carefully moving the statues' eyes, the assassin focused the stones directly on the tiny Alteration stone on the column. When both eyes aligned, an extremely bright beam of light shot out from the statue's pupils and hit the stone in the center, but nothing changed.
"Nothing happened..." said Raymond.
"Maybe this has to be done with the other statues," shouted Shiina. "I'll try to do the same."
The assassin skillfully jumped dozens of meters across until she reached the second statue, again aligning its eyes until the beams of light emerged and hit the stone on the altar.
When she went to do the same with the last one, she noticed something that would likely thwart the group's plans.
"Fuck... The last statue is missing a gem!"
"Let's look around," suggested Raymond. "Maybe we'll find something."
"Wait," said Luna. "I sense several of those creatures approaching."
"They won't dare come near with all this light." The assassin pointed to the statues with their constant beams of light illuminating the center.
"No, there's something different about their aura!"
And proving what she had just said, several creatures made of shadows slowly approached the site.
However, their forms were different.
This time they had a totally human form, but instead of flesh, what could be seen was a human skeleton with dark bones and black skin made of shadow that looked like liquid.
Where their eyes should have been, there was only a purple glow floating in the midst of absolute darkness, and their skeletal arms made of shadow held pickaxes, shovels, or any object that could be used as a weapon.
Most were just skeletons made of dark bones and shadows, but some wore partially decomposed adventurer's or miner's clothing and wielded swords and other weapons.
"Hmm, seems like they can posses corpses?" Sariel calmly looked at them approaching while thinking.
"It's alright, they will melt under the light." Raymond also ignored the dozens of possessed shadows approaching.
However, almost as if to mock him, the creatures stepped onto the circle, immune of the effects of the light.
"What?"
Sariel approached Raymond and lay his hand on his shoulder. "Well, since you jinxed it, I'm letting you take care of it, good luck."
"What do you mean? At least help me!"
"It's alright, they are weak!" shouted Shiina. "We will try to figure out how to fix things here!"
"Fuck..."
Without any choice, Raymond dashed towards the waves of shadows alone.
"What do we do now?" asked Luna, feeling somewhat worried about the bodyguard, even though he was dealing with them easily.
"We'll open the passage to the sanctuary, of course."
"Isn't it easier to destroy the floor at once?" Shiina asked.
"The floor is reinforced with Protection magic. Not to mention that it's dangerous to do something like that underground."
"But how are we going to open it?" asked Luna. "I don't see any Alteration gems around."
After hearing this, the traveler stared at Aegreon with a smile.
Noticing this gesture, everyone looked at the Pillar and Sariel, wondering why he was staring at him.
Aegreon stared back at him with a sharp look, then snorted in discontent, approached his horse, and removed an Alteration gem from his luggage.
When they saw that, everyone, except Sariel, let out a gasp of surprise.
"How did you get that?" asked Shiina.
"The Scorched Mountain..." Luna murmured. "You already received an Illusion gem from Yaxun, was this Alteration gem also a gift from him?"
"Yes..." Aegreon replied, clearly annoyed.
"Then give the gem to Shiina," the traveler urged.
Once again, the Pillar glared at Sariel angrily. Getting a gem was not easy, that bastard had already made him spend one of them on Krimisha, and now he was doing the same thing in this situation.
Losing an Elemental gem was a heavy loss, but who knows what could be in the sanctuary, which was clearly special, as it was built underground, a place that angels did not like very much since their mobility was reduced.
"Hey, I would appreciate if you all make things faster!" shouted Raymond with some indignation.
Accepting defeat, Aegreon handed the stone to Shiina, who hurried to place it in the eye of the remaining statue.
The gem was a little smaller than it should have been, but fortunately it was enough to align with the stone on the altar and emit a beam of light.
Now, with all eyes aligned, the stone on the altar reflected all the strong light in the place, revealing the entire room and allowing Luna to notice something on the walls that she couldn't before due to the darkness: several veins of magical stone ore, the main resource that was extracted from those mines.
A few seconds after the stone was hit by the light, a loud noise of something heavy moving began to reverberate.
The cave began to shake, and everyone looked down in surprise, seeing the floor descend and reveal a circular staircase that led even deeper into the earth.
Due to the intense brightness, all the creatures felt intimidated by the light and gave up the attack, while the statues that were fighting them returned to the center and remained motionless.
"Finally." Raymond approached the group.
"Good, we are going there now."
Sariel, carefree as always, began to descend.
Following in his footsteps, everyone descended together.