Upon hearing Abium's words, Rizz's expression began to turn pale. The only one with calm expression was Abium, Kate, and Edith. Edith was already skilled in the assassination, and she knew keeping one's mind calm in these types of situations was a must. As for Kate, she was a Thieves' Guild leader, so she also knew a few things about magicians' traps and didn't get panic.
Abium was relieved by both of their responses and started to analyze the traps carefully. There were some easy ones like tripwire traps, stone slabs, magic sound traps, ceiling lower traps, poisonous gas traps, pit traps, arrow traps, etc., which made him a sigh of relief.
Alas, he didn't get overconfident and started studying the traps one by one.
He knew that a simple mistake could cause everyone to die miserably and felt like he was walking on a wood filled with thorns. After some study, he explained those trap methods to Edith and Kate and asked them to think of a way to counter those traps.
At first, both of them managed to deactivate easily or counter those traps. But they began to face difficulty after deactivating more than a hundred traps. Well, their minds became numb due to those repeated traps, and they got more frustrated. When looking from the outside, everyone thought the temple's interior must be smaller. But as Abium checked the temple outline, he knew he was wrong.
'That damned goblin assassin turned this temple into a complex thief's space locker.' Abium cursed and explained the next trap's outline to both of them.
The group stayed inside the temple for the next six days and continuously deactivated the traps. At the end of the sixth day, Kate and Edith managed to destroy the last poison gas trap in the farthest corner of the main building and breathed a sigh of relief.
Unlike before, the temple interior was only filled with debris and broken weapons. Moreover, everyone was injured, and Fennelis even had a few burn marks on her hands.
After placing the deactivated trap box, Kate and Edith stood up solemnly and said in unison.
"It's over!"
Everyone let out a relieved sigh and sat down on the ground with tired expressions. Meanwhile, Abium maintained the two conjured flame balls in midair and shifted his gaze towards a strange foggy area before them. It was the innermost part of the building and remained untouched by them.
He was more guarded because even Azolla's scan function couldn't pass through that fog!
'This is most likely the final altar area. Azolla, are you sure you want me to explore alone?' He asked in his mind.
'They will catch up to you soon. Before Ringer finds the Divine Fragment, you should search for it and get it.' Azolla replied solemnly.
Meanwhile, Abium fastened his steps towards the grey fog while nodding and soon noticed that he had entered a strange large room. An altar table was placed at the end of the large room, and on it were multiple strange types of bowls. He also saw a strange magic circle drawn on the floor before the altar, emitting a bright red color.
Twelve candles were lit around that red magic circle, and many strange, heart-like substances with dark slimy mucus were placed near those candles.
But what caused Abium to take a deep breath was that he saw 12 naked humans tied up in the nearby stone pillars and appeared crucified. All of them were severely wounded and barely breathing.
Not only that, but their eyes were robbed, and everyone was moaning in pain and crying. If it were any other person, he would've run toward them and tried to save them.
But Abium didn't even take a step forward.
'They have long reached the end. It's impossible to save them.'
After giving one sympathetic look, Abium silently shifted his gaze towards the altar table and looked at the half-meter-tall mud worm statue.
'This looks more like a sacrificial altar.' He muttered.
Then, he walked closer to the center and soon arrived at the front of the red magic circle.
'That goblin must be stayed in this temple for a long time and seems to be preparing for something.' Abium muttered inwardly and turned his head towards the small humanoid creature lying motionlessly at the center.
'Another goblin?' Abium creased his brows and soon widened his eyes as he noticed that the goblin's mouth was muttering on its own like a puppet!
'Damn it! It must be a resurrection ceremony! This goblin seems to be a crafty one. If not for Azolla's help, we would have died already by those traps, and this ceremony would have been completed.' Cold sweats dripped from his forehead as he stared at the ceremonial ritual circle in awe and astonishment!
The next instant, he conjured a ball of fire and sent it toward the worm statue. But soon, his fireball got blocked by a strange invisible force and disappeared completely with a puff!
Alas, Abium was not surprised by that strange power and again conjured another fireball. But this time, he threw it at one of the naked humans and killed him mercilessly.
At that moment, he sensed a strange fluctuation from the worm statue and frowned.
'There seems to be some connection.'
He instantly conjured eleven red orbs and threw them toward all other humans. The next instant, the fire orbs made contact with the humans, exploded while sending shockwaves, and killed everyone mercilessly.
But Abium didn't stop there and started destroying the next candles using the same red orb spell.
Once he destroyed all the candles, the red glow in the mysterious circle began to dim drastically and soon vanished. Without minding the creepy magic circle, Abium took out the Scarlet Sword from his spatial and began to walk towards the muttering puppet Goblin. He knew it was an empty shell just performing a resurrection ceremony and slashed his sword at its head.
A heartbeat later, the goblin's mouth stopped muttering as its head got decapitated, causing the creepy red magic circle to break into million pieces.
Abium didn't relax even after cutting that goblin's head and slowly walked upon the altar steps. Within seconds, he appeared in front of the altar table and looked at those strange dishes in disgust.
After looking at the strange rotten meats, fried worms, and another dish made of human eyes, he got nauseous. He couldn't stand seeing those strange dishes any longer and immediately pushed them off the table.
After that, he threw a ball of fire and burned everything.
'Damn it! What the hell did he put to make these dishes? It still makes me want to puke.' Abium cursed the damned goblin and finally shifted his gaze toward the mud worm statue. He could still feel some mysterious force inside the statue and quickly punched it using his hand at the worm statue's head.
The head with a strange white gem embedded single eye broke from the body and shattered into multiple pieces.
Meanwhile, Abium moved his hand at a fast speed and quickly grabbed a small thumb-sized white gem.
'Divine Fragment!'
He could feel a large amount of spirit power hidden inside the fragment and got overjoyed.
'This is not a divine fragment, kid.' Azolla said inside his mind, damping the mood.
Abium froze for a moment and asked hurriedly.
'What is it then?'
'It's called Soul Tricker. Some ancient mages used these artifacts to harvest soul powers from mortals' souls and increase their strength. But their actions attracted the Lawful Gods' attention. It is also one of the reasons that Lawful Gods banished ancient mages from entering our world. I didn't expect to see one here.' Azolla said calmly.
'Oh? Can you tell me more about this artifact?' Abium asked in interest.
'Soul Trickers are not strange artifacts during the Ancient time. You can capture one's soul with the help of this artifact and extract one-tenth of the person's soul power. But you have to be more careful when using these types of artifacts. These artifacts come under the Taboo artifact section and will attract Lawful Gods' attention. Well, your luck is as good as ever. You finally got the item that could help you improve your rank faster.'
Although Azolla's words appeared to be kind, he knew it was not an easy job to improve one's rank. He also knew how dangerous it would become if someone found out about this secret.
Abium drew a deep breath and soon nodded in understanding.
Afterward, he placed his spiritual imprint on the Soul Tricker and checked it. Unlike the divine fragment, the Soul Tricker had more complex mystical magic patterns and looked creepier.
His consciousness entered the Soul Tracker and appeared in some creepy room filled with strange engravings and characters.
In his soul form, he floated in the room and tried to understand the meaning of those strange engravings and characters. But after a few seconds, he realized it was completely out of his league and moved to the next section.
It was a large white hall filled with endless white and red clouds.
'Chaos and Lawful power are mixed inside.' He frowned briefly and soon withdrew his consciousness from the Soul Tricker.
After that, he stored it inside his spatial ring and waited while fixing his gaze on the creepy worm statue.
He also noticed a strange box hidden beneath the worm statue and thought of giving it to others.
After a few minutes, others also entered the altar room and stared at the surroundings with dumbfounded faces. Abium gave them a short explanation and broke the remaining statue with a kick.
A second later, the black stone began to break and revealed a small pit covered by a thin layer of a red metal sheet.
'Red Adamantite!' Azolla said calmly inside his mind.
Nodding, Abium quickly opened the red adamantine sheet and looked inside.
Inside the sheet, a head-sized box made up of the same red adamantine was placed. A soft smile appeared on Abium's face as he picked that box with his hand and sifted through it. He then sighed as he saw only a simple lock was placed in it and opened it without hesitation.
With a click, the box opened smoothly and sent an unknown type of magic wave in all directions. It soon entered everyone's body and formed a black cross mark on everyone's hand!
An instant later, Abium's smiling face froze.