Whatever it was that was attempting to struggle free from the mass of diseased flesh didn't seem capable of doing so in such a short ti. The wall of the throbbing mass protruded once, twice and thrice but it didn't give. Instead, the energy it gave off steadily began to push against the obscurity imposed - most likely - by the barrier around it.
The energy was definitely sothing a step beyond genuine Divine energy. It was Exora Amras. A Divine being was nesting within the disgusting blob layered in boils. But how?
Skullius couldn't make sense of it.
How was this even possible, and why was it happening now? How had this all happened on Aigas without being noticed?
He frowned.
Unlike before, he felt that the ti for caution was over. It was ti to get to the bottom of this, and perhaps in a more literal sense than Skullius had imagined.
Above his blind pair of eyes, slanted slits opened wide, pushing back the skin of his forehead, and a flash of golden-green light was expelled with dented ferocity. The [Legion Eyes] were unleashed, and right then, everything before him was made clearer in a variety of ways. The barrier surrounding the large, disgusting mound of flesh was suddenly piled with a net of cracks, but it refused to yield so easily. Its resistance only lasted for a few seconds before it completely shattered, however, and once it did, the flesh organ was exposed to the full force of the [Legion Eyes].
Almost effortlessly, the flesh on the mass was stripped away, as were the walls of the Purity headquarters and everything in sight. Darkness littered with strings of connected Rules remained... and of course, what had been inside the mass of flesh.
Because of the theory that Elita had told Skullius earlier, the Hybrid Warmoth had been expecting the Second-ranked Paladin Champion to be the individual nestling in the mass of flesh. If she as Elita had begun identifying them so minutes ago, to Skullius' surprise - truly had the ability to control plagues, it would only make sense that she'd be the one in there, right?
But it was not.
It was sothing a lot more sinister.
What was more or less a bloody skeleton with dried and rotting bits of flesh attached to it, adorned in the signature armour of the Paladin Champions, had been in the sack. It was strangely lively.
No. No, it was not. It was the thing in its hand that was lively.
The bloody skeleton was stationary, but the 'weapon' it wielded was the one that had been poking at the inside of the flesh mass just now.
It looked like a great sword, but only its hilt and cross guard, which looked like sculpted athyst, looked as that of a common weapon. Its blade was no blade at all. It was another flesh body, only leaner, with smooth, sandy toned skin with a series of red and purple veins visible underneath. It looked to have been shaped like a sword before, but now, it was growing.
It took a mont for Skullius to realise it, but...
'My eyes aren't working on it at all!' he thought, and imdiately used the guidance field to identify the flesh sword.
...!!!
[Deceptive Incubating Masterpiece]
Realm (Wicked)
A unique sword whose blade will ensnare anyone reflected on its surface in a snug, incubating cushion that responds with 100x efficiency to all forms beneficial stimulus from the outside.
...
The flesh sword... was a Realm rank Treasure! A storage item of sorts!
'No way! It's ANOTHER Treasure, different from the one that was erecting the barrier!' Skullius thought, and he focused his senses on what was below, deep down where the floor was broken, leading to the dark depths.
There, Skullius sensed the presence of a World rank Pri Treasure, a flimsy-looking spear stabbed into the ground. But it lay amidst a swarming mass of sothing atrocious.
'What the flesh is going on here?!' Skullius thought, horrified.
Down below, bonded together in a ss of different kinds of diseases - so kind of pox, swells, welts, zits, blackened flesh and whole lot more - was a whole host of Purity Knights, Paladin Champions, what might have been thousands of commonfolk, Priests and... one pillar of eight people stitched together by revolting swathes of pus. There couldn't have been any less than five thousand people below!
It was hard to say if any of them was alive, even though the softest moans and groans could be heard.
Webs of thin, wet mucousy substances rose from the pile of bodies, and fed into the portion of the fleshy mass protruding above that was not in range of Skullius' [Legion Eyes]. From the webs, skullius got an ominous feeling.
'Mortal Binding...?' he thought, shaken.
Of course!
Going by what Elita had said, if there was soone who could control diseases, it would be easy for them to accomplish Mortal Binding!
Mortal Binding required one to infuse their essence into many blessed beings. Imbuing five thousand people with disease was just crazy enough to work in fulfilling that requirent for the Second-ranked Champion, Skullius realised.
But... where was she? Was she the dead skeleton?
So many questions stood in the way of this, and Skullius couldn't think of them as leisurely as he would have liked.
The flesh sword throbbed, still resisting the power of his [Legion Eyes]. Tiny arms sprung out from either of its sides and grew rapidly, then hair grew on its skin when its end bulged to form a head. Legs erged after and soon, a whole humanoid figure was spat out of the sword, but its back remained attached to the sword's tip (as it appeared, there was indeed a real blade attached to the sword. The figure snatched the sword from the bloody skeleton and floated in the nothingness created by the powers of the [Legion Eyes].
Skullius scowled.
'It's Divine...' he thought.
The figure was naked. It had feminine features, but... it wasn't human. Its hair was a solemn russet colour, long and wet. It was almost three ters tall, and its ears were quite large, pointed and coloured in black. Its eyes were white like Skullius', but there were hints of faint blue pupils within them, three for each eye.
The figure wore a bright smile as it squeezed the wetness from its hair, disregarding Skullius
completely.
The Hybrid Warmoth didn't like that.
A [Ruining Cutter] was released from him in less than a blink, aiming for the feminine figure's neck. The woman - if she could be called that - noticed too late. She was a mont late in raising her sword, which could have easily parried the Andori.
However...
CLANG!
...It was another blade that blocked the visible slash.
It was Broodweiler.
Skullius was stunned, so stunned that he released his [Legion Eyes].
Everything returned to normal. The unnervingly tall woman was swallowed back into the giant flesh sack, though she imdiately burst out of it and landed on what was left of the
floor on this level, right next to her saviour, Elita.
Skullius slowly took in Elita's figure. Her shiny, true sapphire mask was on her face, which
explained how she had managed to jump in the way of the [Ruining Cutter] in ti, but Skullius could have hardly cared about that.
"Elita. What are you doing?" he asked in the coldest of voices.
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