The two were extremely in sync; at the moment Char turned around, he spread his arms, disregarding the spiders or any other multi-legged creatures scattered and crawling out from the stone coffin, grabbed the assorted burial items, and dashed out. Meanwhile, Brand dove to the side, rolling to avoid the stone slab that crashed down from the ceiling, landing right by the skeleton tilted sideways next to the stone coffin.

He got up, spat out a mouthful of sand, and glanced around, quickly noticing a few Destiny Cards beneath the skeleton. By now, the sand from above was pouring down heavily, nearly burying those cards. Brand hastily reached out to grab them, but as soon as he did, the two eye sockets of the skeleton he hadn’t been paying attention to flashed with red light. Suddenly, with a clatter, the whole skeleton stood up straight and stretched out a pair of clawed hands toward Brand’s neck.

Brand was taken aback. A mere bag of bones like this wouldn’t even be worth the lowest-level skeleton soldier of Madara and wouldn’t have caught Brand’s attention at all under normal circumstances. But with dirt and stones pouring down on him, even slight hesitation would lead to being buried alive in the tomb.

At this critical moment, a bright Flame Arrow was perfectly timed, shooting from behind him, brushing past Brand’s cheek with a ’boom’ as it struck the bone claw gripping his neck. With sparks flying, Brand could almost feel his hair curling from the heat. However, the skeleton’s claw couldn’t withstand such an attack and shattered. Relieved of the pressure, Brand immediately grabbed the Destiny Cards and retreated frantically. A thunderous crash echoed behind him as a quarter of the tomb completely collapsed, with sand nearly reaching the central stone platform.

Cold sweat drenched Brand’s back, and he quickly turned to see who had such steady nerves to shoot such a precise Spell at such a critical moment — in all his gaming experiences, he had never encountered such perfect timing. Among Char’s Elemental Mage apprentices, he couldn’t remember anyone daring and precise enough for this.

But as he turned, Brand saw a face he never would have expected—Little Roman stood at the tomb entrance, proudly wagging her index finger at him, a small flame still dissipating from her fingertip. The merchant lady seemed eager to boast, but she was immediately pulled out by the maid corps commander.

"When did this lady learn Magic?"

Brand couldn’t help but think that this girl had quite a talent for spells if she could cast with such accuracy, something many high-level players couldn’t achieve. However, the more frightening possibility he immediately considered was that Little Roman probably hadn’t aimed seriously at all; she just happened to ’miss’ out of luck.

Thinking of this made Brand shudder. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that given the girl’s usual antics, this was the real truth. He resolved to make sure that the little witch never touched Magic again, lest one day he end up roasted by a Fireball from behind.

At that moment, a few people remained at the tomb entrance, while most others had retreated. Brand immediately gestured for those left to hurry out, and he followed closely towards the door. The others saw that their Lord had escaped danger and began retreating as well. But just at that moment, as Brand charged breathlessly to the entrance, a distinct and peculiar sound came from behind:

"Crack!"

Instinctively wary, Brand felt a chill run up his spine, and he sidestepped instinctively. A crystal spike glinting with multi-colored light zipped past where he’d stood, a spear ready to pierce his chest had he taken another step forward.

The near miss didn’t scare him to death, as he turned to find a crystal entity, gleaming like crystal, crawling out of the stone coffin. This thing could be described as a Crystal Statue—the crystal body vague yet shaped like a cloak. It stood about five feet tall, with a strong build but without a head. Brand surmised that if it had a head and neck, it would classify as a tall figure among the Erune.