There are moments in your life when you question every decision that you have made in your life.

  Right now, I am laying in the dirt, a stones toss away from the enemy. I can't help but wonder how I ended up in my present situation. Well, I can put the blame of it on one person. That would be John.

  Speaking of the man, I don't know how John is planning to enter the place. What the man proposes doesn't seem possible. The man is trying to get us into the tomb through the main entrance of the place.

  The reason that I am claiming that this is impossible is because the main gate of this tomb is the most well protected region of the tomb. there is an entire patrol of undead skeletons that is guarding the gate from inside.

  Even now, from the outside a group of seven undead are standing around the entrance of the place. Now, the sight of an undead is not good. If a person could see a hundred feet in life, he can see about forty to fifty feet in death.

  That is only the case if their creator is possessing them. Then the sight of said undead would become about to eighty to ninety feet. There is no way that a necromancer is not possessing the undead of such a key location.

  That means that there is no way that we are going to be entering the place without being detected. Now, John claims that it is possible. The only thing I struggle to see is how.

  Now fighting the undead itself is not going to be an issue. After all, they are just skeletons raised from the dead. They are not going to be too strong. The problem is that our fight with the undead will act as a warning for the necromancers.

  They will be prepare for our arrival if we were to try and enter the place by attacking head on. We are already attacking the necromancers in their base. We have no idea of the defenses that exist in the place.

  That is why there is no way that we can give them the time to prepare. The element of stealth is the only advantage that we have against these people.

  That is why john's plan of sneaking into the place from such a well defended place doesn't make any sense to me. Well, there is no use regretting it now.

  I have agreed to follow the man. In the field of combat such a chain of command cannot be broken. That is usually the quickest way to die. I will admit that I don't how wise that decision was now.

  There are other places that we can sneak in from. Things such as collapsed walls and broken window. (It is a tomb that we are trying to enter, after all. You can't really expect it pristine now, can you.)

  One such place is the hole in the wall in the south. Now I have not seen the place myself, but it seems that a part of the wall had fallen in the southern wall of the tomb.

  It would have been barely large enough for a person to sneak into the place from, it looks like. Anthony was of the idea that we should be sneaking into the place from here. He argued for it quite viciously, I must add.

  John is of the idea that this place is a trap. That the moment we try to enter from that place we are most likely to die. This had led to the two of them almost drawing blades on each other. Thankfully the vote of the group was unanimous. John had managed to convince the group that it would be wiser to follow him.

  Part of the reason everybody agreed to John's plan was Anthony. The man has lost so much confidence with the group that he has made an enemy of everybody here. For somebody whose entire job is supposed to be diplomacy, the man does seem to struggle with it a bit too much.

  That is part of the reason that even I had agreed to John's plan. Even then, when I was not here the plan had not seemed particularly sound. Well, I console myself by telling myself that the man knows what he is doing. John is experienced in dealing with creatures like this. There is no way that he will lead us to our deaths.

  Returning to our present situation, I have to admit that this decision looks more stupid with each passing minute. The seven undead all stand around the gate. There is no way that we are opening that gate without the undead reacting.

  We cannot get rid of the undead before the alarm is sent to the necromancer's. Then we shall face a massive group of these skeletons as they fall on us like a pack of ants.

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  The gate itself is a piece of work. I don't know who among us will be opening it. I think it is carved of some kind of rock. It is clearly heavy enough that even lauren would not be able to open it without running vital mana into herself.

  Not that Lauren will be opening it. Right now there are only five of us here. That would be all the leaders of each faction. That was the only way that we would have agreed to such a bold plan without even knowing what we plan to do. We need to be given the first hand look of what was planned.

  All the man says to all of my questions about this is that there is a way to get into the place. That they just need to follow his command when the correct moment comes. Right now, there is no use of telling us the entire plan. It will just cause is to freeze in the middle of a battle, it seems. (Well, those were his exact sentiments, though he might have used prettier words.)

  The man hasn't even told us what the correct moment will be. All he tells us is that we will know it when we see it. that certainly did not inspire a lot of confidence in us.

  I at least know that the man is not one to have half formed plans. The man is a sentinel. The first thing that they grill us on is the importance of having a plan of action during combat.

  The others don't have that assurance, though. Even now each of them has a look of doubt on their faces that makes me wonder whether the they will actually listen to him when the time comes. Anthony looks like he is preparing to strangle the man even at this moment. (Well, that is how the man looks whenever he has to look at John.)

  Leave aside all of that, I am actually more worried about our present hiding place. It is a bit of overstatement to call this place a hiding place. All of us have dug a little grave about half a kilometer from the entrance of the tomb. We did this during the night, when the guard was a bit looser. Ever since then we have been laying in here. Right now, it is about to be dawn. (That means that we have laid here for five to six hours at least.)

  Now, this place is completely exposed. It isn't the only grave dug in our surroundings. If anything the place is hidden quite well. After all, a grave right next to a necromancer's lab is like sand in a beach.

  The problem is that if we are really unlucky, then we are screwed. The grave is not even full by the way. We are literally hidden in a pit in ground. The only reason that we haven't been discovered already is the fact that the necromancer's have not sent a undead patrol out of their base. They will discover us even if they were to pass us. They would just need to look down to find us.

  We are so exposed right now that even a single patrol sent out will find us. Well, there is no use thinking about that. The only thing that does is to make me feel like sword has been placed on my throat.

  The only reason that I have not already jumped out of my tomb (well, that is a bad phrase.) is that doing that will certainly mean the seven undead will detect us. It has been a practice in my patience to keep myself jumping out from here.

  Every single sound makes me feel like jumping out of the place. A particularly tense moment when I had popped out of my tomb due to some sand falling on my back. Thankfully I had returned to my old position equally quickly so the other party had no seen us.

  Still, I can't help but grasp my sword as tightly as I can. Not that it will be any use. I have been supressing the sword to such a degree that it is doing to take a while to activate anyway.

  I had to supress my vital mana in a similar manner you see. Any imbalance in the ambient mana of the place will be enough to tip of the necro......

  I notice the cannon shot when it had hit the gate of the tomb, though I felt its mana way before that. It is like a miniature sun in my mana sense. (I had my mana sense trained to the place. Even the slightest movement, I could have caught.)

  The sound of the cannon shot is enough to tear my ear drums. Well, a quick glance from my mana sense tells me that the seven undead are certainly annihilated.

  Even as I am recording this though, I feel new sources of death mana. (I have to focus on my death mana fully to even tell.) thankfully, I follow John's instruction of being fully still even as the undead move at me.

  Soon enough they are right next to the pit in which I am hiding in. I can feel my heart come to my mouth as the creatures come close enough to see me. They just need to look down. I am preparing myself to move even as they get closer. I prepare the sword to aim for their spines. A strong hit to the spine will be enough to disable the creature.

  Well, the mana signatures outnumber us so much that destroying one or two won't have a lot of affect. I would like to say that it is discipline that forced me to stay so still. I would say that I had just laid there, completely paralysed in fear.

  The fucking cannon shot was certainly not something that I had expected. What the fuck is John planning to do at this moment.

  Even as I am thinking this, the undead finally leaves us. I can feel their mana grow fainter as they leave us be. I can feel relief flood my feet even as I get up. There is no use trying to hide anymore. Even as I am doing this, the other members of the group all rise, looking as confused as I feel right now.

  The only person that seems to have it together is John who begins to run towards the gate. We all just stare at each other, as John stops in middle of his path.

  He then gestures with his hands for us to follow after him. It is in this mixture of adrenaline and confusion that we find ourselves running towards the gate. Even as we reach the place, it becomes very clear that the cannon shot has managed to do quite a significant amount of damage to the entrance. The streaks of burning can be seen on the rock of the door.

  The gates to the place have been clearly blown of its hinges. Even as we pass through the gates, I can feel the questions form in my mind.

  Even as I look towards the man for answers, he silenced me with a look. Now is not the time to question the man, it looks like.

  Thus we follow the man deeper into the tomb.