THE USELESS PRINCE

A while later, when the aftermath of the final battle had finally subsided, Furina calmly walked out from the passageway the Skeleton Predator had just used.

"Hey Furina, thank you for what you did just now. You helped me a lot." He approached her with a smile on his face.

"It's nothing, I was just walking when I heard loud noises coming from here, and when I got here, I realized it was you."

"...So you're stuck in this cave too?"

"Yeah, it seems troublesome since I have no idea which direction I should go." She sighed in annoyance.

"Um, I was planning to go in the direction you just appeared, is there a path there? Or is it a dead end?"

"There seems to be a path there, but I didn't check it out very carefully."

"Then let's go that way."

"Alright." Furina nodded nonchalantly and turned around, walking in the direction she had just come from.

***

Their journey could be said to be quite peaceful, but unfortunately, it didn't make Ash feel any more comfortable, but on the contrary.

He didn't dislike peace, but he knew that in this situation, if nothing dangerous happened for a long time, something extremely terrible would definitely happen soon.

And he didn't want to face that at all.

Even with Furina as his companion, he was still a little worried.

"The situation seems strangely peaceful, huh?" Furina said, perhaps she was thinking the same thing as him.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure something is going to happen soon. So be prepared, Furina."

As Ash finished speaking, Furina summoned a sword that had a cold appearance, along with a silver blade that shone like a star.

With a stream of blue energy surrounding the sword's body, it created a feeling of both divinity and destruction.

Finally, the hilt was exquisitely designed with the shape of broken crystals, shining brightly.

Ash didn't even have to look at the sword that had just appeared a second time to know that it was called Starlight Judgment - 1 of Furina's 2 Abilities.

When using that Ability, she could summon a sword that could stun the opponent and slowly burn away their life force.

In a way, this sword of Furina's was probably even more amazing than his Sword of Dawn.

At the same time, Ash quickly summoned his familiar sword.

The two immediately raised their guard to the maximum, ready to deal with any event that might happen.

Furina even used Star Domain even though it would definitely drain a lot of her stamina.

But it was okay, if she was weakened, Ash would be the main attacker, he would take care of her and Furina would just need to buff him.

That was also the reason why Ash really liked using Furina Faelan in the game False Horizon. She could buff her teammates and also be the main damage dealer.

Who would hate such a versatile character?

And then, Ash and Furina walked and talked to each other, thanks to that, the heavy atmosphere around them became much more comfortable.

Nonetheless, that did not mean that they had lowered their guard, on the contrary, it increased over time.

***

Quietly, from the ground, a dirty and petrifying hand carefully rose up without making a sound and grabbed Ash's ankle.

At first, Ash didn't notice it because its grip wasn't that noticeable, but then, the grip gradually became stronger, and now, it was like the hand was trying to crush a diamond.

"What the hell?!?" Ash realized something was wrong when one of his legs couldn't move anymore.

And when he turned around, he saw that hand.

"What's wrong, Ash?" Furina asked, but he didn't answer her.

His blade carved a crescent path through flesh and rot. Freeing his ankle.

'I guess everything is okay now?' Ash thought to himself.

But no, he was wrong, he was always wrong. In this world, nothing was considered fine.

The moment that arm was cut off, hundreds of other disgusting arms quickly emerged from the ground, creating a dreadful scene.

And then, the ground slowly cracked, and from there, green Zombies began to emerge.

"Zombies?" Ash couldn't help but exclaim when he saw them.

In the game False Horizon, encountering Zombies could be said to be extremely rare, but right now, there were more than a dozen Zombies surrounding Ash and the number was still increasing rapidly.

In no time, the two of them were completely surrounded, with nowhere to go.

The anxiety was clearly shown on Ash's face.

As for Furina, she was still as cold as ever, but her eyes wavered slightly.

It seemed that their chill time had ended and it was time to move on to the next challenge.

They must escape from the Zombies and get out of the cave, and to do so, Ash and Furina were forced to fight, forced to spill blood and accept the wounds that would appear on their bodies.

"Gulp." Ash gulped, unsure if just the two of them were enough to handle this number of Zombies.

However, he had no time to think anymore as the Zombies slowly walked towards them while making several disgusting noises.

It was time for the swords to be swung down.

This was the ultimate test of their physical strength, endurance, and pure speed.

***

These Fiend Rank Zombies turned out to be not as difficult to defeat as Ash had thought.

His blade could easily slice through their bodies, taking their lives one by one in quick succession.

Coupled with the purple aura and Furina's Star Domain buff, finishing off the Zombies became even easier.

However, the main problem was their numbers.

No matter how simple it was to defeat these Zombies, there were just too many of them, and over time, Ash and Furina's bodies would no longer be able to take it.

Ash didn't know what Furina was feeling, but his arms felt heavy, his body was sweating more and more, and his breathing was quite dry.

The two of them kept slashing and sprinting forward, but no matter what, there would always be a lot of Zombies in front of them.

It was as if they had covered the entire cave.

It couldn't be, right?

A few of the Zombies' hands quickly grabbed onto his armor, so tightly that Ash thought it was about to be cracked.

'No way you bastards! This is my precious armor! Go away!' He thought angrily.

Ash quickly identified the arms that were gripping the armor and used all his strength to tear them off. After all, they were quite soft.

Having solved his own problem, he quickly glanced at Furina.

Only to realize that…her current situation was not good at all.