Chapter 170: Vain Promises

Pain lanced through her hand as they slammed into the wall and fell to the ground, scattering treasure. Black blood that stank of waste sprayed onto her.

She didn’t move, not as she stared at those black eyes barely inches from her own, not as she saw her right hand held between its black teeth, her blood already oozing down its chin. She just panted and shook, not taking her left hand from the hilt of the sword, even after those hungry eyes turned dull and its body sagged atop hers.

It was only when the amulet throbbed again that she blinked. Everything after

that became a series of steps, a dance that she had to execute perfectly or else she’d fall apart right there in that tomb and never get up.

She first pried her hand from its teeth. It burned mercilessly. An arc of gushing puncture wounds encircled her thumb, and she swayed on her feet as she shoved the ridderak off her. It was surprisingly light—as if its bones were hollow, or there were nothing inside of it. Though the world b