The Meronolith Maw was using Colin Fraser’s corpse as its source animal. This didn’t make a lot of sense in terms of using Reveal. So far, the tower only shown him the information about Meronolith Maw, not the dead body inside it. Now that the tower identified it as a dead body, the Maw was functionally non-existent. The Maw had shed itself from the corpse and presumably died, turning into thick vapor clouds.
Colin stood where the Maw should be. He was standing on two legs even though he was categorically dead. This was a strange tangle of logic that couldn’t be parsed without more information. From what Arcen could gather, he didn’t have any clothes on.
The last time he saw this man—merely a few hours ago—he had the full Echo Raider military outfit. If his neck was snapped by a creature and assimilated into its own flesh, the clothes couldn’t go anywhere. If the clothes were lost to some sort of digestive acid, Colin should not remain in the same Colin-shaped body that he was. He would’ve dissolved.
Arcen knew this by experience, having swallowed people alive already. When he threw them up, the most intact corpses already had their clothes intact.
HE WAS MADE NAKED AFTER HE DIED?
King found this interesting. Play wasn’t fun anymore, as it had turned into a strange murder mystery that he hadn’t expected to take part in.
Going off that assumption that Colin was stripped naked after he died, he would’ve been killed by an unknown third party that used his body to create a Maw somehow.
Elena caught up to him as he kept thinking about this while keeping his eyes on the unmoving shape of Colin’s standing corpse.
“Did you see it?” Elena asked, coming to a halt with a massive splash of oil.
Arcen nodded, unable to speak without Red Court leaking out.
“Wait, is something wrong?” Elena asked, taking a step backwards. She seemed apprehensive about his new form, which she hadn’t gotten a proper look at until now.
Arcen nodded sideways, shaking his hands. He pointed his Mirage-bladed left hand at Colin and gestured at it, trying to ask what she knew about it.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Elena said, coming closer. “But we have to catch that thing alive,” she paused, “It’s already dead, but you know what I mean.”
CATCH IT ALIVE HOW.
The corpse still had Aura flames that reached high towards the ceiling despite being dead. The number didn’t show up because Reveal failed activation on a dead thing, but this thing still had several times more Aura than what Arcen had left after the fight.
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ GOLD ─╮?
╰ 0 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ AURA ─╮?
╰ 3,075,154 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
YOU NEED HALF OF THAT TO SURVIVE ON THIS FLOOR.
He only had about one and a half million to spend on fighting this thing if it came down to a fight. This time, though, there were others to make it easier. He spotted several large flames approaching in the distance as climbers caught up to them behind Elena.
Arcen shook his shoulder for Jelly to get down. She clung to his tentacles without letting go. He didn’t have a way to tell her to get down, so he bent his legs and tilted towards Elena for her to grab her.
“You’re going in alone?” Elena asked, raising an eyebrow.
Arcen nodded. He didn’t want to drag Jelly into an unpredictable fight. Granted, she was playing tag with the hundred and eighty million Aura monster only a few hours earlier, but it didn’t feel right to put an alien toddler in the middle of a fight.
Jelly taken care of, he dashed towards Colin in a straight line.
He didn’t get to do anything. A blue line dashed past him, and Elena slid on the moss faster than he could run on his legs.
“Get to the back! Close off the exit! Don’t do anything else.” Elena yelled, moving towards the right. Jelly was dashing towards the left for some reason he couldn’t understand.
WHAT ARE THEY DOING?
Elena slid in a wide arc towards the climber that used a windy contract to blow the smoke away. She fired a thick beam of oil at the wall above the chamber veil as she did, and when the first splashes of it fell behind Colin’s corpse, she ignited it all into a longer fire beam. Burning napalm splashed against the rock, cascading down over the chamber veil.
Meanwhile, Arcen ran leftwards in the direction Jelly was running off to. He had to circle Colin to find the angle to get behind him. Finding an opening, he dashed forward, Mirage Blades ready to defend against any movements this new creature might make. He didn’t use any contracts, since they needed to capture this thing ‘alive.’
Colin’s face was disfigured, flattened against his back with one dead eye staring at nothing.
The body reacted as soon as he breached some sort of invisible energy threshold. His skin tickled all over, as if he’d just entered a domain of some sort. It slowly turned towards him—ironically, turning the head away from him. It was relying on senses other than the visual.
Elena used her restraining contract as he came to a halt before the climber she was heading towards. The man extended his hand and activated his own contract that cracked the ground beneath Arcen’s feet. Roots grew from the cracks, twisting and wrapping around Colin’s feet.
Arcen stared blankly at the creature, having no further instructions. He was told to let the thing escape through the veil. He’d done just that. Just as he looked at Elena for any further information, Jelly appeared in a flash of blue out of nowhere.
She skidded on the wet moss, a small object in her tiny hand. Without breaking momentum, she threw it directly at Colin.
SHE THREW A FLOOR TUNNELER.
Several things happened all at once. Thousands of strings of light burst out of the portal, as space materialized into shapes. Two shapes towered above a smaller one, which wasted no time in dashing towards the restrained corpse in a straight line.
It was Zuhara.
She leapt across the ground in two jumps, extending her left hand towards the corpse while she swung her sword around with her right. Spider threads burst from her fingers, wrapping the body right away. In the same fluid movement, she closed her fingers into a fist, activating her domain.
Strings burst all around Arcen, engulfing everything in a huge, Aura nullifying cocoon. His Mirage Blades flickered out.
Ending her forward charge, Zuhara sank her sword deep into Colin’s chest, punching through like a long nail through a pincushion. The sword glowed red, sparking as it came into contact with inner flesh and blood. Droplets of Gold sprayed from the wound, some splashing onto Arcen’s own skin, becoming his.
THAT SWORD CAN CONVERT AURA TO GOLD.
“Now, when did you become black?” Zuhara asked with a grin, peeking at Arcen over Colin’s shoulder. She let go of the sword and stepped back, hand clasping her wounded side.
Arcen walked up to her right away. She had torn some of the bandages with her insanely fast charge, which she performed with perfect precision at every step. It seemed Zuhara did not have a ‘tone it down’ button. Injured or not, she had to do things the way she always does things.
Arcen offered her a hand, which she accepted gratefully, wrapping her arm around him to lean on as she limped where she stood.
“More muscles too. All in the few days I didn’t see you?” She asked, smiling at him as she squeezed his armored shoulder a couple of times.
He couldn’t open his mouth to tell her these were temporary fakes. He didn’t know what would happen if Red Court clashed with her Spider Silk domain. She had activated it for a crucial reason; he didn’t want to find out why.
He zipped his lips with his fingers, gesturing to her clearly that he wouldn’t be able to talk.
“Ah, I see? You can’t talk for some reason?” Zuhara asked, leaning over to look at his mouth. He kept his lips glued tightly as her breaths danced on his lips.“I don’t see why that is. Maybe you can tell me when you can talk,” She said, leaning back.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Arcen used hand signals to depict them walking, and then he pointed at the cocoon wall ahead of them, insisting they should get out. She understood right away.
Before they could walk out of the domain, Jelly parted the silk wall and dashed up to them. She climbed back onto Arcen’s shoulder again.
He helped Zuhara walk for a few more steps before Jelly started pulling one of his tentacles. At first, he thought she was just getting comfortable. She continued for more than a few tugs. Soon, she was doing it urgently as if she were ringing a bell.
“EEK!” She yelled in his ear. Zuhara turned, as if she already knew something was wrong by that sound alone. Arcen turned with her.
There was something else bursting out of Colin Fraser’s corpse.
It was halfway out—a black figure with a translucent body as if it was made of inked gelatin. It made no sound as it slowly ripped Colin’s skin on the left side like cutting the stitches out of a stuffed animal along the seam.
THAT THING WAS INSIDE HIM?
The sword remained exactly as Zuhara left it—sparking as it converted Aura dissolved in blood to Gold. If this thing was inside when she drove it through the torso, it should’ve been stabbed through as well. This made what he was seeing make even less sense. A body stabbed through with a sword was pulling itself out sideways.
Arcen slowly let go of Zuhara.
It wasn’t as confusing as he thought. There was a stab ‘wound’ on the chest of this new figure. It was more of a bloodless hole. Next to it on the right side was a thin line where it slid through the sword, a deep cut running across the chest to the ribs.
It had simply ignored all damage, and its gelatinous body was already healing from these fatal wounds. It wasn’t as fast as Meronolith regeneration, but this thing had a way of fusing its own material.
The fact that it cut across itself to break free was evidence that it didn’t have any critical internal organs where the cut was. On a normal human, that would’ve sliced the lungs, the spine, and the heart. This thing apparently hadn’t suffered such critical damage.
Crawling out of the corpse, it slowly turned towards them backwards in an uncanny, contortionist-like way.
It had two glowing bright eyes and a considerable amount of Aura flamed around it. It wouldn’t be able to use any of it inside Zuhara’s domain, but Arcen wanted to see exactly how much Aura this thing had.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ╰︶
????
REVEAL
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He did it out of habit, and he knew Zuhara already did it herself.
╭ ╰︶?? ERITHERIA ?? ︶╯ ╮
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ ACTIVATION SUCCESS ╰︶
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ NAME ╰︶
????
n
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CLASSIFICATION ╰︶
????
ASCENDER [12]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ MAIN CONTRACTS ╰︶
????
PASSIVELY OBSCURED
BY A HIGHER RANK
[CONCEAL]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SUB CONTRACTS ╰︶
????
PASSIVELY OBSCURED
BY A HIGHER RANK
[CONCEAL]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ TRAITS ╰︶
????
PASSIVELY OBSCURED
BY A HIGHER RANK
[CONCEAL]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ DOMAINS ╰︶
????
PASSIVELY OBSCURED
BY A HIGHER RANK
[CONCEAL]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ TRIBES ╰︶
????
PASSIVELY OBSCURED
BY A HIGHER RANK
[CONCEAL]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ GOLD ─╮?
╰ 11 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ AURA ─╮?
╰ 21,142,899 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
WHAT IS THIS? IS THIS A CLIMBER?
“Now, what the fuck is that even supposed to be?” Zuhara whispered, raising her hand. She fired off several threads at it, but none managed to restrain it. This creature—this person dodged all of Zuhara’s threads as if it saw them coming yesterday. It was too erratic in its movements to pre-target, and Zuhara lowered her arm after about ten attempts.
Arcen wanted to help her. He pushed Jelly off his shoulder, making sure she scooted a safe distance away. He entered the fight when Zuhara started changing her strategies.
Luckily for them, their enemy couldn’t do many impressive things without Aura-based skills and contracts. This had boiled down to a test of physical strength due to Zuhara’s domain. If this were to end in a brawl, Arcen had every imaginable advantage against this scrawny gelatin doll. He didn’t even have to fight. He could just jump on it and squash it like a bug.
Leaping towards the creature, Arcen reached forward—hand outstretched to grab it by the neck as he passed. He was already anticipating the next set of movements. He’d slam it on the ground repeatedly, and if that wasn’t enough, he’d punch it until the ground cratered around it.
Other climbers came pouring in from all directions, having finally made it to the point where they were needed. The ones that came in had prepared for a physical brawl, each carrying some sort of dangerous melee weapon somewhere.
Zuhara waved her hand forward, urging them to overwhelm the target with Arcen.
He barely touched the mind-hacker’s neck with his pinky. He couldn’t grip it by the neck as he planned. In fact, none of his plans had any chance of working.
As he passed, entirely missing the target, he saw the creature’s eyes for a split second.
In the brief moment of eye contact, the creature’s pupils subdivided into eight petals like a flower. His world flickered to complete blackness almost immediately. His sense of touch vanished, and his spatial awareness was inverted.
Zuhara spelled out the exact thing that he couldn’t yell aloud.
“Oh shit! It’s a mind hacker!”
Arcen heard several other voices of surprise, yells, and screams as he struggled to find his bearings. At one point, he found someone, though he could only tell by their tugging at his hand. He couldn’t actually feel their touch.
“What the fuck is happening!” He heard Zuhara’s voice to his left where he was being tugged from. They had been close enough to find each other. “Who’s that!?” She yelled in a panicked voice, pulling at him harder. For a moment, he thought she was going to rip his arm off.
Something silently tugging at one in the dark sounded very much like hostile action. Zuhara could easily think that he was the enemy.
“Arcen! Is that you!?” She yelled. “I think it’s you?!”
GOOD THING WE SHOWED HER BEFORE THAT WE HAVE TO BE SILENT.
Arcen instantly had the idea to use the Red Court. He could perhaps freeze everyone and figure this out. Thinking a second longer, he didn’t want to collapse Zuhara’s domain by overriding it with his own. He wouldn’t know how to ‘unhack’ a mind anyway. There was nothing that he could say to undo something that was done. ‘Start seeing again’ would be a nonsensical use of his Command. He didn’t even know how the Red Court would interpret it.
Rather than playing with fire that he didn’t understand, he decided to wait. Elena had to know how to fix this, and she was nearby. It was a good thing she didn’t come into the domain following them.
King tried to fill the mind-hacked sensory gaps for him. He tried to come up with a way to interpret touch. Through that method, Arcen quickly figured out he was bumping into several other people. Everyone else who entered the domain was moving like drunks in a blackout.
“Jelly?” Arcen heard Jelly speak into his ears. He couldn’t feel her weight on his skin, but she was talking into his ear like she was yelling into a well.
“Oh my god!” He heard a familiar voice in the distance.
“Thank fuck!” He heard Zuhara exclaim. His own vision flickered back to reality as his sense of touch returned. He was holding Zuhara’s hand, lying on his back on the mossy ground. Elena stood over him, eyes wide.
“Are you okay?” she asked, brow twisted into worry. Jelly peeked in as well. She didn’t seem to be affected by anything that just happened. All around them, other climbers lay in random poses like trees scattered by a tornado.
The mind hacker ‘n’ who scrambled everyone’s brains was nowhere to be seen.
“Everyone, stay where you are! It was a mind hack!” Zuhara yelled, grabbing Elena by the shoulder. “Did you see that fucker run away?” she asked, looking around suspiciously.
“Yeah, ran that way, and out of here,” Elena said, pointing in the direction of the chamber veil.
Arcen stood, ready to chase.
“You two find him! We’ll catch up soon!” Zuhara said, snapping her fingers to collapse the domain. Outside, the two large shapes that came through the portal loomed. Arcen hadn’t seen them in his rush to charge the corpse.
Two of the doctor’s ghost creatures had arrived with him, and they immediately started picking up the struggling climbers with energy beams from their long fingers.
“Jelly, tell them where to go!” Zuhara said, pointing at Jelly as she turned around.
Elena took off, sliding on a stream of oil. Arcen dashed behind her, bursting back into the pillar chamber through the veil.
The chase was easier than he thought, as he was assisted by both Jelly and Elena at the same time. They didn't waste a single moment. He always knew which direction to go and he always knew it was the right one.
Jelly was having the time of her life, giggling the whole time as she held onto his tentacles like they were bicycle handles. She was even happier when he jumped great leaps from pillar to pillar.
“Jelly!” She screamed every time without fail, her big blue eyes sparkling with pure joy as she flailed around with his tentacles like a weirdly shaped kite.
THIS THING IS ALWAYS HAVING FUN.
Elena was far more serious in comparison, her face twisted with determination as she poured even more oil than usual, creating huge ramps to slide off from pillar to pillar.
For all their greatest efforts, they only caught a glimpse of the escaping mind hacker twice. This person—this thing—was far more agile than any of them, fitting through cracks that they couldn’t navigate through. In a way, this pillar chamber was the best location that it could have escaped into.
However, they didn’t hang around in this chamber for long. Jelly guided Arcen towards the chamber veil as Elena turned that way as well. He didn’t see it, but the mind hacker had escaped into a new chamber.
Elena dashed through the chamber veil face-first like an oiled bullet. Arcen burst through a second later, guarding his face and body with his limbs, as he didn’t know what he would be crashing into.
The chamber they landed in was a central chamber with one glowing wall of the tower stalk. It was well lit and full of docile creatures that lived around trees that looked like cactuses but with more twisting branches. The mind hacker ran along a thin stream of water, weaving through the vegetation faster than they could catch up. Elena did manage to fare better than he as she was slippery and small.
“That way!” She yelled, pointing to a chamber veil to his right.
Next chapter on Wednesday.
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