Is this really a Game?!

The lizards were all dead, and from the looks of it, none of them had even struggled a bit. Their souls were gone, probably taken by the artifact or whatever else was pulling the souls deeper in.

They all knew that they wouldn't gain any answers here, so they continued moving forward. A tunnel was present in front of them, and this one was at a slope, leading to a layer below them.

Even though they knew that continuing forward was very dangerous, they had to do it.

The demons could not get their hands on the artifact, no matter what it was or what it did.

The worst part was that even if whatever waited deeper in was more powerful than the group, it wouldn't matter to the demons as they could call for more to come and help them out.

They outnumbered humanity by a lot, and not only that, but there were many demons present in the world that were stronger than Basred, Siggurd, and the other leaders of the regions. 

If they were all to leave this place and try to get in later, there was no guarantee that the demons wouldn't find it before them and use their overwhelming numbers and strength to take the artifact.

Such a thing could not be allowed.

An artifact left by a Saint was not something that they could afford to lose or allow the demons to take. They had to take it and try to control it as it might be the one thing that could help them fight back and take back the territories they had lost over the long years of fighting against the demons.

Reign and the others moved through the tunnel and arrived at the layer below, only to find that nothing was waiting for them there.

They moved through the large open area and Basred used his sonic waves, but he couldn't find anything either.

"There's no presence of any souls nearby either, just what is going on here?" Reign asked as he looked around.

"The kobolds had stayed in their area because the lizards, as well as the monsters that resided deeper in, were more powerful than they were."

"The lizards were not the monsters that lived next to the kobolds in the past, the kobolds actually controlled both the areas when they first arrived, and the monsters waiting for them here were something I have never seen before." Reign said as he explained what he learned from the kobolds.

"The kobolds named them 'Darkies', and well, they have limited intellect, so the name doesn't really make sense, but also doesn't matter."

"The monsters were pitch-black and were able to hide in the darkness perfectly, which made it hard for the kobolds to fight against them as they would occasionally go up and attack them, and thanks to their great stealth abilities, they would always manage to ambush them."

"They walked on two legs, but they didn't have any arms or a head, their torso was where the mouth was located at, and they had multiple eyes around the large mouth."

"They were about 2 meters tall and could easily eat a kobold in mere seconds."

"It was only after more than a year of them living here that the kobolds saw the lizards who made their way up, killed many of the 'Darkies', and took over the area we just passed through."

"It seems like something happened further below so many monsters changed their habitats, the Darkies might have been annihilated back then, to be honest, but the kobolds said they did notice some of them when they would fight the lizards, so I was expecting them to appear here."

"Dammit, this is getting weirder and weirder." Reign stated with an annoyed expression as he looked around.

"Liara, where do we go?"

Liara pointed in a direction, and they all made their way over there. As they were walking, Reign and the others couldn't help but feel as if something was not right. The atmosphere had changed ever since they made it to the other area where the lizards resided.

At first, they all believed that it was because of all the corpses, but now, they were certain that that was not the case as they still felt something was not right.

They arrived at the tunnel and entered. The area had been quite large and open, but nothing had been present inside of it. They moved through the tunnel slowly, making sure nothing would suddenly appear to attack them before coming out and finding another area, this one, however, was where they saw the sight of carnage.

Thousands of corpses were present in the area.

Corpses of multiple different monsters, some of which were the 'Darkies' that the kobolds had fought against in the past.

The sheer number of monsters that were killed was astronomically high, and, completely differently from what happened with the lizards, these had all killed one another.

Blood was present in the entire area and everybody was ankle-deep in the blood. The stench of the corpses mixed with the overpowering stench of blood made some of them pale as those who could manipulate wind quickly used their abilities to create a dome of wind around them that stopped the nasty smell from assaulting them.

The corpses were in bad shape. Some were ripped apart, some had their heads eaten, others had a large hole in the middle of their chest or stomach…

It was obvious that they had all fought, the area was once the place of a battle royale, and none of them knew just how long ago the battle had taken place.

At least, that would have been the case if not for the fact that some of the corpses were still bleeding.

"How the hell is that possible, if they're still bleeding, then doesn't that mean that this took place not too long ago?"

"We have been here for about 5 hours now, so it's quite possible that the monsters started fighting against each other back when we just arrived," Reign told the Tier IV that asked the question, to which everybody responded by looking around solemnly.

"This was all caused by us arriving here, wasn't it?" Liara asked Reign who nodded at her.

"It seems the artifact, or some sort of guardian of the artifact, decided to clear up the way for us, or maybe they killed them all in order to get their souls after they realized I can control souls." Reign stated with a calm expression before looking ahead.

"Let's go, whatever is deeper in, we have to face it, the artifact is the one thing we need to get no matter what, you guys need to find it in order to foil the plans of the demons, me and Laura need to find it in order to progress our mission." Reign said as he walked forward.

"No matter what happens, we have to push forward and get to the artifact." 

The entire group nodded and continued walking forward. They were all even more nervous than they were before and held their weapon tightly as they glanced around, trying to see if some of the monsters were perhaps alive, but none were.

Reign was able to sense it from the start as he couldn't sense the existence of a single soul in the entire area.

Of course, there was the chance of some golems being here, and since they don't possess a soul, Reign couldn't sense them at all, but there were no golems here either.

As they walked through the tunnel at the end of the area, they suddenly heard a loud noise as the tunnel started shaking.

"What's going on?!" Alistair asked as they all stopped and stared around, only for the ground beneath them to suddenly shift.

The ground opened, and a wall suddenly appeared, dividing the group in two.

Reign, Liara, Laura, Basred, and two more Tier IV combatants were in one group and were sliding down while Siggurd was in the other, much larger group together with Alistair.

Reign and the others tried stopping, but they were not simply falling down and sliding, they were being pulled down by an invisible force, as were Siggurd and the other group that was now far away from them.

Reign and the others landed and quickly got in a formation and stared around them.

They were in an area that had a lot of greenery, but that was not the only thing that was weird here compared to the ones they had been in before. Here, there was light, and one could even hear the chirping of birds and some small animals moving around.

It was as if they had been transported to a completely different place.

As for Siggurd and the others, they found themselves in nearly the same exact place as well, the only difference was that they were already surrounded by multiple wolves, but these were normal wolves, they seemingly had no mana at all.