The room was empty, there was only one closed tomb, which was made of stone, and a dead soldier leaning his back on the tomb.
The man was long dead; he was wearing heavy black armour, which looked scary.
Sola walked to the tomb and, after looking at it for some time, decided to remove the lid.It creaked open pretty easily.
Inside, there was a skeleton covered in spider web; it was missing its right-hand bones, and there was a silver prosthetic hand instead of it.
Without realizing it, Sola stretched his hand towards the prosthetic arm.
He was mesmerized by the beautiful patterns and the shiny silver, which had no signs of tarnishing even after so much time.
A second later, as Sola touched the silver and removed the dust from it, he heard an eerie sound.
[Your mark's ability has been unlocked]
The next second, excruciating pain made Sola fall down onto the cold ground.
Lily went up to him, saying something which Sola could not hear as his ears were ringing from the pain.
It felt like his whole body and soul were torn apart by a sharp blade.
His vision was getting blurry, all he could see was Lily kneeling next to him, looking at him with a worried face while saying something.
The pain only lasted for about thirty seconds, but Sola felt like he was being tortured for hours.
As he regained some of his vision, he saw white particles forming something on the right side of his body.
Sola leaned on his right arm and stood up, facing Lily, who looked perplexed.
The pain had not yet gone, so he was still not back to his senses.
'Did I just get up using my non-existent right arm?'
As this thought entered Sola's mind, he clenched his fist on the right arm and looked at it.
The prosthetic that the skeleton had was gone.
Sola could not feel anything on the silver hand, but he could move his fingers with a faint clinking of metal.
It had beautiful engravings on it.
The prosthetic itself was not some kind of machine; he could move his fingers using some kind of magic that was imbued in it.
"What happened? Are you okay?"
asked Lily while looking at his new right arm.
Before Sola could answer, they both heard a loud voice from the entrance, which echoed in the cave:
"Come out, devil; we know you are here."
Sola dismissed Lily.
He heard the sound of soldiers coming his way; there were about a dozen of them.
As he was hiding in the shadows and listening to the footsteps, Sola opened the system.
Name: Sola
Rank: Ashen
Tier: I
Soul: 29/100
Remnants: [Madman's Cleaver] [Sword of the full moon]
Curse: [Lilly]
Marks: [Banished] [Solace] [???]
Essence: [Dauntless] [Swift] [Drained]
Sola then went into the description of his mark, "Solace" and checked the ability, as he remembered that it was previously locked.
[Solace]: [Every living thing abandoned by the gods may find solace in you. Every being that opposes the gods is bound to you.]
Ability: [Solace Of The Cursed]
Ability description: [You command the fallen rebels of the divine—those who dared defy the gods in life now rise at your call to fight once more.]
Right as he finished reading that, Sola heard footsteps, but now they were closer to him.He instantly looked at the dead soldier next to him; someone was locked inside to protect the body of the seventh god, meaning that this soldier, too, was one of those who rebelled against the gods.
Sola's thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise of footsteps; they were seconds away from entering the room.
Thinking quickly, Sola summoned Lily and hid next to the entrance, and as soon as the first soldier entered the room, he slit his throat, killing him instantly.
Every warrior started rushing towards him, most of them about the same rank as he; all of them had one dire purpose: to obliterate him at all costs.
Upon entering the room, some of them were backstabbed by Lily, who came from the shadows completely undetected.
More than half of them were fighting Lily, while the other half was harassing Sola from every direction.
Sola knew that they would not last more than a couple of seconds, so until any of them received a serious wound, he whispered,
"Arise and fight."
It was directed at the huge soldier who had his back leaning on the tomb.
As soon as Sola whispered those words, a faint white light ignited in the visor of his helmet, and the huge soldier appeared behind all the soldiers who were standing in front of Sola.
He was more than two meters long, and he was a dire force; fighting with a broken sword, he killed two of the soldiers Sola was fighting with dire speed and deathly intent.
He dodged some attacks effortlessly and let some hit him, knowing that they would barely leave a dent on his black armour, which was so black that it looked like it was absorbing light.
Sola felt scared looking at him, even though he knew that they were on the same team.The spots that the armour had openings, it was as if there was nothing there—only darkness; only his eyes were emitting a white light.
Most of the soldiers were forced to turn against him as he was too strong to ignore.Now Sola could fight one of them one-on-one.
The sound of the swords clashing against each other did not stop for the next minute.
Sola was more than happy to have his right arm back, as he felt how overpowered it was to fight using both of his hands compared to just having one.
The air was filled with the scent of blood.
Sola killed the guy in front of him and saw Lily finish the last warrior with a swift, piercing blow to his heart.
Then something strange happened.
The soldier in black armour started slowly walking towards Sola with his broken, bloodied sword still in hand.