Ellie and Lucas continued their journey deep into the cemetery.
"I will handle most of the ghouls. If any come close to you, take it as a chance to practice your magic," Ellie said to Lucas before she ran into a big group of ghouls. In her right hand, she summoned a sword with its blade covered in flame. Whenever a ghoul got hit by her swing, their body caught on fire and started burning until there was nothing left. The sword she was wielding should be at least level 4 or higher. In just minutes, Ellie had already handled around 30 ghouls and she wasn't stopping. If this situation continued, Lucas would not need to deal with any, as Ellie had already wiped out everything in her path.
But there was still something bothering him – the smell. Since Lucas became a werewolf, his nose had become extremely sensitive, able to sense even a small fragment of scent in the air, which also meant if the smell was awful, it would be far worse for Lucas. At the moment, Lucas was in a cemetery with about a hundred human corpses burning around, so unless Lucas could control what he inhaled, he would surely faint very soon (he had already vomited some, but Ellie was too focused on fighting to even bother about him).
While Lucas was still feeling dizzy from the smell, a ghoul suddenly approached him from behind and scratched him on the back. Feeling the pain, Lucas immediately turned around and saw a ghoul with sharp claws and red eyes approaching him. Lucas panicked, and from the pain on his back, he could not keep his mind straight, so he just threw out the spell he was most used to – Frostbite. Sadly, this level 1 magic hardly did anything to the ghoul, besides slowing it down a little.
Lucas then brought out the revolver inside his pocket and pointed it at the ghoul. He fired the gun— all six bullets in panic— but only two of them hit the ghoul's arm.
'WHY AM I SO BAD AT THIS!!!!' Lucas yelled inside his mind. It would take him a while to collect the magic fragment (what Lucas called the floating runes in the air) to create more bullets, and plus, there weren't any around him.
The ghoul, after getting hit by the bullet, seemed to become even more aggressive. It started swinging its claws randomly in front of it while running toward Lucas. The wounds seemed to be making the bloodlust of the creature increase, and even its strength seemed to be slightly stronger.
'I need to do something!!! Quick, Lucas, think!! What the heck can you do in this situation???'
'If magic won't work, then my only answer should be… True Sight!'
Lucas pulled out his razor knife and stabbed into a highlighted part on the floor. Lines of magic symbols overflowed out. 'F#$k this, I don't have time to think.' Lucas then swung his knife to cut the construction of the floor. He did not intend to make any specific thing from it; instead, he just wanted to change the floor itself. After about eight swings, the floor cracked, and a big hole formed under the ghoul, trapping it deep underground.
'Now I have time to think.' Lucas then started to focus on casting his magic. Minutes later, he managed to form a fireball and dropped it on the ghoul. It took quite some time for the ghoul to burn, as what he used was just a level 1 magic. He even created some more fireballs in case the ghoul extinguished the flame itself. After ten struggling minutes, Lucas had successfully killed a ghoul.
'Wait a minute, why was this one so strong? At the entrance, when we first encountered a ghoul, it was way slower and also not this aggressive. Why the change so suddenly?' As Lucas thought back about his situation, something seemed to not add up. His surroundings seemed to be… darker? And even the air was harder to breathe. Lucas felt like he was being drowned under the ocean— but without water.
'I barely managed to beat that ghoul and it even took time! The best option right now should be… Ellie.'
As harsh as reality was, Lucas could do nothing but rely on Ellie right now. The werewolf then followed the path of the burned corpses that Ellie left behind. Although the smell was unbearable, Lucas could do nothing but hold his breath and try to find Ellie as fast as possible.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Ellie was still fighting with a horde of ghouls that were trying to kill her. Ellie had intentionally left Lucas behind with some ghouls so he could get used to fighting, but now she regretted it.
'How are they suddenly so strong right now? Moments ago, these ghouls were at most slightly stronger than a normal person. Now they are slowly catching up with me. At this point, there might even be a stronger one that forces me to go all out in a few more minutes. Besides, HOW MANY GHOULS ARE THERE INSIDE THIS PLACE?'
Normally, a cemetery would have at most 100 or less, and yet she had already gone through number 300. The more Ellie thought about it, the weirder it was, as this cemetery should only have a few dead people, while this amount was already equal to an army!
'Something must be summoning them! I need to find the source.'
Ellie then put down her sword. The flame slowly faded and it turned into a normal sword. Ellie then activated her eye, and the mana around her started to crumble. The thick dark air slowly faded, and a faint red fog appeared in its place. Ellie had transformed the mana around into her own and was ready to cast a strong magic— a level 6 one, it seemed like.
Slowly, on the ground, small fires started to appear. It even started to crack and expose something that looked like lava underneath. After some chanting, a magical circle in red formed under Ellie, smoke rising all over the place. Ellie then spread out her fingers and brought her hand in front of her.
"Scorching Earth."
The ground shook violently, then from the ground, a pillar of lava suddenly flowed upward into the sky. The pillar seemed to be about 20 meters tall and it emitted a strong sense of mana. Shortly after, the lava pillar collapsed in the direction Ellie pointed, forming a tsunami of lava melting everything in its path.
'That should handle the ghouls. I should also be able to destroy the summoner with this.'
But only seconds later, the wave stopped. Even Ellie didn't understand what happened. As this was a level 6 magic, these ghouls should not have been able to form a barrier strong enough to stop it. Slowly, the lava started to fade, and to her surprise, a wall of ghouls was blocking the magic itself.
"Who are you? How did you stop a level 6 magic? Show yourself before I get serious!" Ellie yelled, as she also collected nearby mana. Yet no response was heard.
When the "wall" collapsed, behind it was a voodoo doll with black goo spilling out from its mouth and eyes. The doll was protected by a small black magic barrier and was floating in the middle of all the ghouls. Behind the doll, something that looked like a purple portal could be seen. The portal was where all these ghouls came from, and from the look of it, only destroying the doll might allow her to close the portal.
"Ellie! What's going on?" an annoying voice shouted from behind Ellie, and she didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"You really know how to pick a time to show up," she mocked.
"Seriously, it's not time to make fun of me! Tell me, Ellie, what's going on?"
Ellie paused a little, then let out a big sigh:
"Based on the look of this, we are fighting against some really strong shaman, and the only way to stop it is destroying that doll over there." She pointed toward the black ball with the barely visible voodoo doll inside.
"You should leave. This fight is beyond what you can handle."
"I also would like to if I can," Lucas yelled back.
"What do you mean?"
Seeing his "master" still didn't understand what was going on, he replied:
"This cemetery should only cost us a few minutes' walk to go through the entire place, yet you have already been going straight forward for like 30 minutes. Yet look in front of you— do you see any walls?"
Only then did Ellie realize that this place they were standing in wasn't the cemetery they entered at the start. A troublesome look could already be seen on Ellie's face.
"That bastard! It must have trapped us inside its own dimension!"
Hearing this, Lucas froze a little. As he had read in the library before, a supernatural entity that could form its own dimension to trap its victims in should be at least level 5 or higher— a level that even the top strongest mages of mankind could not possibly handle. And right now, that thing was in front of him.
Seeing Lucas still frozen in fear, Ellie slapped him on the back to snap him out of it.
"Hey, can't you see that there's a wound on my back? It hurts like… hell?"
"What wound?" Ellie questioned.
Before Lucas could realize, his wound had already healed. But the weirdest part was, not because of his insane healing speed, but the fact that there was not a single scratch on his clothes, which made him confused. Wounds can heal quickly because he is a werewolf, but clothes? How could being a werewolf heal his clothing? But for now, he had another thing to worry about.
Seeing that her servant was already back in place, Ellie encouraged him:
"Don't worry. I am very strong. I am the Witch of the End, remember? Besides, we already have our own answer of how to leave this place instead of going around to look for one."
Ellie smiled, her eyes filled with confidence.
"Let's tear this doll down!"