Chapter 214 – Hacking some runes.

“We must retrieve it, find the intruder!”

After the head priest had been stabbed in the back by an unknown assailant the whole place was in an even bigger uproar. A few deaths had occurred during the obvious diversion but there were still many angry cultists around. They quickly noticed the treasured magical item that adorned their leader’s neck was missing. This was not something that could leave this place, some of their darker secrets were attributed to that item.

“Find this heretic, they could not have gone far!”

This was the truth as Roland had to duck into a nearby building after his trickery was discovered. Time was of the essence, if he couldn’t figure out the inner workings of this strange medallion he would be unable to wake up everyone from their slumber. Without his allies, it would be difficult to escape as the number of cultists was too much for him.

*KABOOM*

A sound of an explosion entered his ears and was followed by a cry of a cultist. When retreating he had spread all the remaining explosives around this area he was in. It was clear that he didn’t have much time as they were coming this way. Soon they would probably figure out that he was in this house.

Thus he quickly activated his rune smithing skill to access the internal structure of this strange magical device. Luckily for him while the large double helix outside was in possession of a greater rune or above this one wasn’t as intricate.

‘Good, it’s just a high-grade common rune, where is the structure that is responsible for communicating with the main relic?’

From his experience, he knew that if he tried to activate this thing with his mana it would go sideways. This had been clearly made with the dark priests in mind and was attuned to their special mana fingerprint. Perhaps it also had a bit of evil god energy mixed into it that would not be possible to recreate by someone not in the cult.

Roland knew all of this as he had already created similar long-ranged tools that worked like remote controls. After some fiddling he had found the correct structure, now he only needed to go around the password that only allowed cultists to use it.

This was a delicate process that normally was not to be rushed. What he needed to do was to alter the structure to fit his mana fingerprint instead. This would cause a large change in the structure that could introduce other mistakes into the runic item. These would need to be altered as well to access the main program inside and finally send a disabling signal to the double helix-shaped device.

‘Wish those guys could be a bit quieter but I think that I don’t have much time left…’

There was an obvious larger concentration of traps around the house he was hiding in. It was a combination of explosive marbles and other small devices. While some of the spells only exploded taking out the feet or whole legs of the cultists, some were more complex.

Right at this moment as Roland was altering the medallion, the cultists were witnessing another mana bolt trap. After getting in range that didn’t require stepping into it, the spell caused the marble to jump upwards. Then instead of a regular explosion, it caused something akin to a shrapnel grenade to go off.

This depending on the opponent would cause less or more damage. Luckily they were humans that had many exposed spots. Without any heavy armor protecting their bodies most of the cultists approaching the building received many deep injuries yet with time they had decided to surround the building he was in.

“I can sense the intruder’s presence, he must be in there!”

Soon about twenty cultists were rushing in like madmen towards the house he was hiding in. Even with the many explosives in their way, they couldn’t be stopped. The dark priests used their spells to protect their foot soldiers from the magical attacks which allowed them to burst through the door.

Yet instead of the intruder, they discovered something else. It was an emptied backpack along with some strange metallic contraption. Before they could realize what it was it started giving out a radiant glow which soon blinded everyone there.

“R-retreat!”

It was too late even though the dark priests that were standing in the back created a barrier around their foot soldiers still the ensuing magical explosion was too strong. The entire building was taken out along with all the people that had rushed inside. The ground shook for a moment and alerted everyone to this position.

‘There goes my backpack…’

Roland had quickly tackled down one of the walls while surrounding himself with his own protective barrier. Now he was running for his dear life while still working on the magical item in his hand. His cover was blown and he had gone through all of his explosives.

“There he is brothers!”

‘Shit.’

The explosion had brought every cult member to this position. His armor that was constantly giving out a runic glow was easily spotted. But this was not the end, he still had a chance as finally, he was able to jerry-rig this medallion while the whole village was after him. The only problem was that due to this hastily put together solution, he needed to make his way back towards the main relic.

It was time to make his last big push so finally, he took his kite shield. While lowering his head behind him he started running. Unbeknownst to his enemies, this protective shield had a handy feature. On the front, there was a small orb, a tiny golem eye that fed information directly into his helmet. This allowed him to sprint toward his destination without the need of peeking his head out.

Even when the bolts, arrows, and skulls made from dark mana flew his way he was able to defend against them. With a protective barrier around his front, he was able to charge through his enemies towards one destination. Yet to the cultist he was only boxing himself in as soon enough they surrounded him around their great relic.

“You have nowhere to run heretic, you will tell us how you were able to awaken from the dark dream!”

“Oh, will I now?”

Roland’s back was now facing the large tower that was still active. Even now he could feel the strange waves of energy radiating from it. The cultists seemed to increase in number, some of them were occupying the houses only coming out when an intruder was spotted.

Now the whole village was out for his head, with how many opponents were here even with his armor this would be an uphill battle. But before they could charge toward him he held up the precious item that they wanted.

“You want this?”

The moment the cultists saw the medallion they stopped in their tracks. He knew that they didn’t want this item to be destroyed but they would probably not let him leave with it either. However, this was just another small distraction, while holding it out in front of his body he activated a small spell.

This spell wasn’t meant to damage but blind his opponents as it was just a concentrated flash of bright light. The medallion was just used to get the cultists to focus their eyes on this one spot. Then as the flash of light momentarily disabled their advance he pushed the altered runic item towards the double helix relic. Only when the two objects were touching each other could he deactivate it.

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“You will regret that heretic!”

It didn’t take the abyssal cultists long to recover from this little distraction, when they came to their enemy was still there. He had taken up a strange position on the ground with his kite shield’s bottom end touching the ground while he was kneeling down. Soon a large blue barrier of light surrounded his whole body.

The maddened cultists quickly rushed towards the man that was clearly just stalling. Yet the moment they got too close they were repelled by the shield he had produced. Their cursed daggers were bounced back along with their spells that only caused the shield to crack slightly.

‘Was this the right choice? Will they wake up in time before they can get through my shield?’

…

“Hehehe… take this!”

“Huh? Ey, what are ye doing back there?”

“What the? Where did the tits go? What is this?”

A rather surprised Orson was looking at a dwarf posterior that he was holding with both his hands. The large village girl breasts that he was just playing with turned into his adventurer’s partner’s posterior that he was now fondling. Almost instantly he jumped back in horror just to collide with another random body he was on.

“Get off me!”

“Hey who stepped on me?”

“What the hell is this place?”

Soon the voices of many were heard by everyone here. Orson looked down to see that he, along with Darlak, were on top of a pile of people. It was a mix of adventurers and regular passengers that he had gone on a transport mission with.

The last thing that he remembered was him having a nice time with a voluptuous village girl. These people had left a long time ago while he had decided to remain here along with his party members. Both of them had hit it off with the locals and even had planned to be married soon.

“T-there is something wrong here… what are those creatures?”