Gacha Leveling

Chapter 198 - 59 – The Harp of Dagda 7

"The 200." Cathbad exclaimed."200?" Paula questioned him.

"Yes. The 200 soldiers that volunteered to protect the Harp. The ones buried in this graveyard." The Cait Sith explained.

"But the burial mounds were empty." Michael interjected.

"No. Not empty. Their souls are here." Cathbad said and looked at the distance.

From inside the mounds ghostly figures of Celtic warriors phased through the ground with spears and oval shields. Their bodies showed the wounds they bore in life and took them to death.

"When Dagda buried the Harp in here, they volunteered to be buried with him, to protect his resting place. I didn’t think this is what they meant. Even in death." Cathbad had tears in its eyes.

"We need to help Matt." Vanessa called them.

"Wait. Your Foromian friend." Cathbad said. "The 200 will attack her if they see a Foromian here."

"I’ll go to her." Michael said, already jumping over the ice wall and rushing towards the demoness.

"I’ll go with him! You two, help Matthew!" Cathbad said, running after Michael.

Paula called Lumi to open a way for them to join Matthew. The Ice Phoenix screeched and sent a gust of freezing wind opening way through the cultist camp for the two women to hurry to where Matthew was.

Meanwhile, Matthew and Ffyr were fighting a horde of imps summoned by the cultists around them.

Ffyr used her copper knife she got in hell and wind spells to cleave through the imps that went after her while flying in the air.

Matthew had Aym’s blade and a gun in his hands, using both to keep the demons at bay and slash through the ones that got near.

A fireball hit him, thrown by a cultist, but he was protected by his dragon armor.

Another cultist jumped at him, trying to stab him with a sword from behind, but his blade only met the air.

Using his Sixth Sense, Matthew could anticipate the attack and molt into a shadow. In the next moment, he jumped out from the shadow cutting off his attacker’s hand.

The man screamed in pain, but then laughed. With his other hand he drew a knife and stabbed his own heart.

Matthew recoiled, surprised. These men were mad.

At the same time, the Dullahan at the top of the stairs let his horn fall and raised his spear.

"Valac! Help me." The cultist with the dromedarian staff asked the demoness.

"Samil..." Valac chuckled with a smile on her face. "You only called me to find the tomb. Not to fight."

"You bitch." Samil cursed and prepared himself.

The demoness flew high to the sky and just watched the battle from above.

The Dullahan charged downstairs with his spear at ready under his arm at full speed.

Samil raised a solid firewall on the stairs in front of him to stop the undead horseman’s charge.

However, the black horse jumped sideways, galloping in midair and circumventing the wall. The undead came down on the warlock with its spear at high speed. But, at the last minute, Samil disappeared in a flash of light reappearing upper on the stairs.

The Dullahan just kept its gallop, making a circle and charging at Samil again who responded with fireballs against it.

When Michael reached Tylith, she was surrounded by the ghosts of the 200. She had her hands up and tried to negotiate with the undead, but they all had their spears up and pointing at her.

Michael put an arrow between her and her attackers which exploded making the ghosts take a step back.

He then rushed forward and put himself between her and the spectral soldiers.

"She’s not your enemy!" He shouted.

"Michael?" Tylith called him with wide eyes. "What’s happening?"

"The dead woke up to protect the harp." He summarized.

The ghosts looked at each other. By looking at their faces, Michael could see they didn’t understand him.

He put down his bow and tried to gesture that he and Tylith were not their enemies.

When one ghost stepped forward, leaving his spear and drawing his sword, Cathbad arrived shouting something in a language Michael didn’t know.

"He thought you were asking for single combat." Cathbad admonished Michael while gasping for air. He had to run with all that he had to follow Michael’s speed.

The ghost then pointed at the Cait Sith and asked something in their ancient language. The cat answered and explained to the ghosts what was happening. Then it pointed at the camp where they could see the Dullahan fighting Samil on the stairs that led to the Harp’s tomb.

There were 5 ghosts there. They nodded at the cat and tasked it to rally the 200 around the dungeon. Then they looked at Michael, pointed at his bow and gestured for him to pick it up.

"I will go too." Tylith said as Michael picked up his weapon.

"You don’t need to." He said gently.

"I can’t keep hiding." The demoness smiled trying to hide her anxiety.

"Alright. Stay close to me." Michael smiled at her.

When Paula and Vanessa arrived at where Matthew was, they found him fighting with tooth and nail against a horde of imps and cultists. He had both swords in his hands and moved about as if he was dancing, spreading miasma all over the place.

Lumi was the first to rush to aid him, using her claws to open deep wounds at the back of one of the cultists.

Vanessa moved next with her daggers opening way for Paula to follow her.

Paula used ice magic to create a barrier between Matthew and his attackers.

Having the space, Matthew drew his guns and started to shoot non stop at those around him.

The cultists lifted mana walls of their own to cover themselves from Matthew’s fire.

Lumi then flew upwards to help Ffyr to defeat the imps in the air, while Paula and Vanessa joined Matthew in the fight.

"I assume the Dullahan is with us?" Matthew asked the women when he got a short time to breathe.

"Cathbad said they are old warriors who were buried here to guard the harp." Paula explained.

"And where is Michael and the cat?" Matthew asked, shooting at an imp who tried to get close.

"They went to prevent the other ghosts from attacking Tylith." Vanessa said as she threw a knife at a cultist who died with a smile.

"My God, these men are creepy." Paula exclaimed after seeing his face.

Matthew touched the shoulders of both women and blessed them to protect both from his miasma that covered their position.

"Things aren’t looking good." Vanessa said, looking up and seeing Samil having an upper hand against the Dullahan. "If we don’t help him, that man will defeat him."

"That must be their leader." Matthew said.

"He’s powerful." Paula said while reapplying her buffs on all of them.

"I couldn’t see his level." Matthew said. "But I can see he’s stronger than me."

"What’s the plan?" Paula asked.

"I don’t know. They are so eager to die. I don’t like what’s coming." Matthew said.

"What do you mean?" Vanessa asked.

"To summon demons, to interact with the hells, you need souls. You need something to connect with the afterlife. For small demons blood offerings are enough. But to summon stronger demons, you need to sacrifice lives." Matthew said. Having lived in hell he learned a lot about it. "The way they are behaving. I think they’ll summon something terrible."

A fireball hit their ice shelter, making them recoil.

"Here they come." Paula warned them.

"We have no choice." Vanessa said. "Either we keep fighting or we allow them to summon Paimon."

Vanessa drew her guns and shot at imps that tried to pass through the ice walls from above.

Matthew left cover to shoot away the cultists that approached with swords and quickly returned.

"One thing doesn’t make sense." Paula said while casting a spell to reinforce their icy defenses.

"What?!" Matthew shouted over the sound of gunfire.

"If you need soul sacrifices to summon demons, how will they use the harp to summon Paimon?" Paula asked, shouting back.

Matthew stopped to think. What magical property of the harp could open a way to hell? The legend only said it could make the other weep, laugh and sleep. It really made no sense.

Before he could think longer, the blood of the dead gathered around them and morphed into summoning circles.

Matthew tried to shoot at the Impiomancers channeling the spell, but his bullets were stopped by other cultists.

Then, from the summoning circles surrounding them, cambions surged from the blood carrying all manner of weapons.

They brought down Paula’s ice walls and stepped forward, forcing Matthew and Vanessa to fight them in melee combat.

It is at this moment that they heard the shouting.

200 ghostly warriors assembled at the edge of the camp. They formed lines surrounding the tents. They shouted and banged on their shields making noise and drawing the attention of those inside the camp to them.

The battle was far from over.