Azaroth still didn’t like that they had to combine their essence to make a strong essence shield. Their individual shields were very laughable.

"To make it attack, you have to imagine your shield turning into offensive mode. You have to will it to attack. But it might not be easy since it goes against the nature of the shield. It is a protective, defensive skill, so it will resist you using it for attack," the Crypt Master said.

"So what are we attacking then?" Stallus asked.

The Crypt Master looked surprised as if he had not really thought about it. Then he glanced down and frowned. He looked up again and his eyes widened. "I see now. I should be the one to fight you, but why? I’ll pick a candidate or better still, you will go and meet it!"

"Meet what?" Alex asked.

But the Crypt Master had already yanked the mountain out from under their feet, and they were falling. They fell hard, like stones from a tall building.

But the wind caught them before they slammed into the ground. They could hear the Crypt Master’s voice around them, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. "Inside that building in front of you is a prisoner. She’s a rank higher than you. She should provide sufficient practice!"

"What the..." Alex began, but the voice was already gone.

And it was the truth. In front of them was a building, and they were in a clearing, surrounded by trees. The building was small, not bigger than a room from what they could see from their position.

Azaroth drew his sword, already in battle mode. "Prepare yourself."

The others also drew their weapons. They had not actually fought anyone of a rank above them before. The monster didn’t count since it didn’t use any skills.

"What exactly are we supposed to do here? Go in and use the shield in the shape of a clenched fist to attack some prisoner? What is a prisoner doing here even?" Alex asked.

Stallus looked at him. "That about sums it up, but we have no idea what the prisoner is or why it’s here. That’s why we are going in, I assume."

"Let’s go," Catena said. He still had his chains and was spinning one now, slowly.

Azaroth tried to get a feel for what was waiting for them in the room, but it appeared like any ordinary building to his senses. They moved toward it, concealing their footsteps and aura.

Azaroth moved to the left of the closed door and pressed himself flat against it while Stallus went to the other side. Catena stood in the middle and, with his skill, moved back and kicked the wooden door in.

Azaroth and Stallus darted in, crouching and pointing their swords forward, but no one was there. The others closed in behind them, and the recently crushed door closed.

They straightened and realized that the house was just like any other crypt. It had brought them into a different place. They were still standing in a room, but this one was different; it was bigger than the appearance outside.

The floor was made of flat, smooth wood, and the walls were the same. A chair and table were there, and it looked as if someone was using the room because they could see rumpled clothes on the floor and, in one corner, a kettle boiling on a stove.

"What in the..." Alex began, but Stallus gestured for him to be silent. They didn’t know where they were or what was in the room with them.

Then the door to the left of them opened, and they came face to face with the prisoner. She was an old woman. Her face was covered in wrinkles, but she still walked with a straight back. She looked at them with eyes that had turned milky white. "Guests?" she asked slowly, then saw their weapons and frowned. "Assassins?"

Azaroth looked at her, his sword raised high, his hand firm on it. The woman crossed the distance to the stove without saying anything else. She poured herself whatever was in the kettle and took a long drink. "Ah! So he finally sent someone over to take care of me, huh? But why send such weaklings?" She looked at them, puzzled.

Stallus spoke. "You are not that strong yourself."

The old woman smiled. "You are right. I am only one rank above you, but I have been to higher ranks. I was once powerful. So you can say I have more experience than you."

"Experience isn’t power," Alex said.

She chuckled, pulled up a chair, and sat with a sigh. "Experience is power, boy. The power you have now is because of the experience you gathered. And are you forgetting what makes one really powerful is how they use their essence?"

Azaroth looked at her. She didn’t look like the strong type, but that was beside the point because a lot of people appear like that. What Azaroth really looked for was that she had no weapons on her. And she’s old. How much power can an old body produce before collapsing?

"So you have experience," Alex smiled. "You can say we do too."

She shook her head as if she were talking to a stubborn child. "No, you don’t. You have done a lot of fighting, but are they quality fights? Or are you just fighting to kill? Not to refine your skills. There’s a difference, you know." She yawned.

Azaroth paused. What was the real reason the Crypt Master sent them here? Were they to fight this old woman with grey hair who’s talking sense about their training?

Truthfully, since they entered the crypt, except for the beginning, they hadn’t really trained. What they were doing was meeting the quotas of clearing the crypt.

"You speak sense," Azaroth said. He had not really analyzed his own skills since the crypt training began.

The others looked at him as if he ate something bad.

But the woman smiled, then asked, "So how do you plan to kill me?"