The light that passed through the cracks above illuminated the area. If it werent for the giant patches of darkness in the spaces between the cracks, Sylver would have thought he was still outside.
Sylver was grateful for the fact that he didnt need to breathe because if the intense pressure on his eyeballs was to be believed, there wasnt any oxygen down here. It wasnt a perfect vacuum, but if it werent for the layer of mana surrounding him, the saliva in his mouth would have started boiling by now.
Were underground, how can the air pressure be this low? Ria asked.
Since she was covered by Sylvers mana, he heard her loud and clear.
The complete and utter silence didnt disturb Sylver, but he could feel Mora was bothered by it.
Normally Id say magic, but this is one of those rare tis where I have to say, Ki. Or sothing along those lines. The good news is that this isnt a dungeon, Sylver said, as he walked over to Mora and very gently moved his hand down her head.
Calling her a horse right now wouldnt be proper, the only thing horse-like about her was her head, and even then, Sylver had to squint to see it.
Her torso had squashed itself into an oval sphere, and her limbs shifted until they were almost right next to each other.
More than anything else, she looked like a giant spider. Or a crab, depending on the angle.
But, to Moras credit, she was no longer limited by her musculature, and now could move left, right, backward, forwards, and although she wasnt as fast in terms of acceleration, she was still significantly faster than Sylver was on foot, or in [Fog Form].
Currently, they were both standing on the roof of a single-story building that very easily supported the weight of an extrely dense necromancer and his equally dense companion.
The reason for that was that the roof was made out of tal, as were the walls supporting it, as was everything as far as Sylver could see. Tarnished silvery tal, covered in so spaces by coats of dark orange dust.
Sylver felt Ria slither down his side and leg and felt sothing akin to a gasp from her as she touched the floor.
Its plastic, Ria said, as she lifted the tiny piece of tal she had sliced out of the ground up to Sylvers face.
Great, Sylver said with a polite smile, as he took the tiny speck of plastic tal out of her tendril and continued moving his hand down Moras neck.
Its so sort of extrely dense organic polyr, but the chemical structure doesnt make sense? Ria asked, as if she expected any sort of answer other than what Sylver said.
Ki enhanced plastic, Sylver said, as Mora nearly pushed him over as she shoved her head against his.
Her eyes had moved around and now gave her just short of 360 degrees of sight, blocked only by her torso behind her head.
No, its Its like amber, solid resin, but it shouldnt be this dense, Ria explained, as Sylver nodded along, while he waited for Mora to completely calm down, and for the scouting shades to return.
I see, Sylver said dismissively, as Spring returned with not a whole lot of news.
The city was empty, and it was also one piece of a greater whole. Streets continued into solid rock, buildings were cut in half by the rock walls, and for all intents and purposes, it appeared as if soone had found a giant hole in the ground and teleported a part of a city inside.
Sylver didnt recognize the architectural style, but going by the height of the doorways and windows, humans, elves, or a race of a similar height, had once lived here.
Both Sylver and Mora turned at the sa ti and saw a flat snake-like creature slithering towards them. It was dead silent, mostly due to the lack of air to carry the sound, but also because the monster was sohow moving along the dusty rooftops without disturbing the dust.
Thats very disturbing, Spring said, as he disappeared into Sylvers shadow, and confird that the monster was completely invisible to him, while he wasnt materialized.
Sylver watched as the monster opened its mouth, and like a pelican, stretched its jaws apart. The resulting flap of skin created the appearance of a mouth several tis bigger than the monster, enough so that Sylver couldnt see the tail part.
All he saw was two very large dark brown billowing skin flaps becoming larger and larger with each passing second. Sylver also noticed that the edges of these flaps, the teeth, for lack of a better word, were very thin, and perfectly smooth, like the edge of a curved razor blade.
Sylver clasped his hands behind himself and stood up straight as the monster continued soundlessly slithering towards him. He just stared at it, as it seed to be completely unconcerned at the fact that it had been spotted.
[??? ??? 129][HP: 19,880 94%][MP: 0 0%][Stamina: 4,890 97%][Corpse Common][Soul Petty]
Huh Sylver said as the serpent disappeared from view, and Sylver lifted his head to look up at the two giant inflated half-spheres falling onto him. The monsters timing was perfect, it clamped its jaws, and Sylvers head was sliced clean off his body.
Or rather, thats what would have happened, if Moras strings hadnt tightened and froze it in place. Sylver stepped out of the way as Mora slowly lowered the statue-still creature towards the ground.
Sylver used [Deadly Darkness] to turn the wrapped-up monster onto its back and jumped up onto the monsters chest. Now that he was physically touching it, Sylver could tell it was screaming, albeit it was having a hard ti of it, given the extrely strong strings constricting it.
Can you understand ? Sylver asked the creature.
Its jaws remained inflated, through so kind of foldable bone structure. Sylver waited for a response but didnt feel any reaction from the screaming serpent.
A dagger appeared in Sylvers hand, and he discovered that there was a very good reason as to why the creature was so unconcerned with being spotted.
Sylver couldnt cut it.
He couldnt stab it.
He couldnt even get a grip on it.
It was like trying to grab hold of a soap bubble, it was that smooth. Sylver continued trying to stab it with his [Necrotic Mutilation] coated dagger, but even when he enhanced the weapon with enough mana that Sylvers hand started to smoke, he couldnt get through the monsters seemingly impenetrable armor.
It wasnt impenetrable because it was hard, it was impenetrable because of the exact opposite reason. It was so squishy and stretchy that Sylver couldnt apply enough pressure to stab it. Even when he thought he pierced it, it turned out that he had simply pierced the floor underneath it, and the monster was completely unhard.
Thankfully the smoothness didnt do shit against a cloud of [Draining Blight]. The second Sylvers cloud of HP draining smog touched the monsters skin, it buckled so hard it made Mora lose her footing.
Sylver could feel its screaming through the vibrations in the floor, as the monster slithered out of Moras stings, and tried to bite a piece of Sylver off.
Luckily Ria stepped in at that mont and stabbed the monster through the head as if Sylver hadnt failed to so much as scratch it a couple of seconds earlier.
[??? (???) Defeated!]
[Draining Blight (VI) Proficiency increased to 42%!]
[Necrotic Mutilation (IV) Proficiency increased to 2%!]
Is it suffocation? Sylver asked, as he made the corpse float into the air, and continued inspecting it.
As he turned it over, one of the teeth fell, and lazily uncoiled within the creatures mouth.
Alright, I see. It catches sothing, and then lets this flap of teeth act as a blender Sylver explained as he found that the creatures impenetrability stopped working once it died.
Sylvers dissection revealed a couple of interesting things.
For starters, it didnt have any internal organs.
There was a long tube that Sylver had to assu acted like a stomach, but that was it. It had eyeballs, but they werent connected to anything, it didnt have a brain, it didnt have a heart, it didnt even have any proper muscles, the only thing inside was a dark red ground beef-like substance.
He had seen similar types of monsters in the past and had to assu this was the Ki equivalent. So monsters depended on mana so much that they literally couldnt exist or function in environnts that werent extrely mana dense.
The problem with these kinds of monsters was that Sylver struggled to understand how they functioned, without literally spending weeks studying them. Even if he didnt get the feeling that raising this thing as an undead would bring back its squishy invulnerability, as a necromancer, Sylver was still curious to figure out what made it tick.
His attempt to store the two corpse halves in his [Bound Bones] storage showed that it was still soaked through with Ki, and Sylvers mana-based storage perk didnt want to play ball.
Sylver turned one half into a dense sphere of [Necrotic Mutilation] and mixed it into the semi-liquid armor he was wearing over his torso. And because she had asked for it, he gave the other half to Mora, who slurped up the whole thing the way soone might slurp down a long piece of pasta.
He and Mora jumped down from the tal roof and landed on the empty dust-covered street below.
Sylver poked his head into the house he had been standing on and found it to be completely empty. No tables, chairs, flowerpots, just walls, windows, and a door fra without a door.
Every building Sylver inspected had the sa empty interior. It was as if everything that wasnt bolted down to the floor had been taken, and the empty husk that remained was turned into tal.
Sylver made his way towards the only thing that wasnt made out of sand that had fallen in through the cracks, or the odd tal plastic material that the buildings, and roads, were made out of.
Sylver crouched down near the shattered cup and very carefully picked up the biggest piece he could see. There was a part of a symbol visible on the piece of green clay. Sylver brought it up to his nose and covered it in his mana.
The fact that it had enough of a scent for Sylver to sll it, ant it had been used very recently. The sand and dust around the cup didnt appear to be disturbed, but even if they had soone who could cover their tracks, it wasnt good enough to trick Sylver.
He followed the slightly off-colored sand, and in a matter of minutes, arrived at what seed to be the exact center of the tal city. With a single kick of the foot, Sylver made the sand fly away from him, and found a small dark red hole on the otherwise completely perfectly smooth tallic floor.
The only reason Sylver didnt dismiss it as a random hole in the ground, was because it was a hexagon. Sylver stuck his finger into the hole and could feel the inside portion wiggling about.
Ria, would you mind? Look for gears, or possibly magnets, and try to turn it anticlockwise, Sylver said, as the liquid tal womans staff floated out of Sylvers robe and turned upside down.
Her golden tendrils entered the small hexagonal hole, and within monts, Sylver could already hear clicking and the sound of tal grinding against tal.
The hole began to glow a pale blue light, and as Ria pulled her tendrils back into her body, the light spread out from the hole. It extended out until the lines of light stopped and started moving clockwise towards one another.
Sylver and Mora both jumped back, as the glowing circle on the ground began to rise. It spun as it rose, and reached a height of about 5 ters before it stopped. Everything disappeared in a cloud of dust, as the floor shook violently for a split second, and caused all the sand on the ceiling of the enormous cave to fall like rain.
When the dust and sand had cleared, or rather, when Sylver blew it away, he was greeted with an opening within the tall spiral. Sylver allowed himself a slight smile, as he saw a crudely drawn bright blue symbol painted inside, along with an arrow pointing downward.
Either the Blue Tiger sect heirs ca through here, or this is a very elaborate trap, Sylver said, as he extended his mana towards the room, and inspected it.
Sylver turned to look at Mora in the anti. He could both see and feel the mont his thoughts reached her, and she saw the problem Sylver saw.
The opening was tall, but it was also narrow.
If they were attacked while inside, Mora wouldnt be able to move out of the way. And thats not addressing the fact that she wouldnt even fit inside.
They would be fine as long as Sylver used [Fog Form] but the volu of the room was smaller than the volu of Moras already extrely compressed body.
Just as Sylver was about to make a suggestion, Mora made a whining noise as her whole body curled into a ball, and a giant crack ford along her back.
Sylver just stood there and watched, as a much smaller arachnid crawled out of her larger spider-shaped body, which was now dead enough that it fell within the influence of Sylvers [Dead Dominion].
The small white spider shook itself the way a dog would, and then proceeded to lift every one of its 7 legs to her head, to wash herself, the way a cat would.
Did you know she could do that? Ria asked.
Mora stretched herself, and Sylver was surprised to see just how flexible her new body was. It was downright gelatinous.
Her body, head, torso, and abdon included, were about as big as a large dog. Her legs were thin, ending in barely visible claws, and she moved around with a speed she hadnt had before. She looked like a very large pale black widow spider, except there wasnt any kind of marking on her abdon, it was just more white.
Actually, she looked a lot like the spider chiras Tera and the kids had on their heads, except Mora wasnt gold-colored, she was as white as snow.
I did not But I think I know what happened, Sylver said, as he used [Arcane Insight].
[N/A Corpse lder 181][HP: 26,000 100%][MP: 6,107 81%][Stamina: 3,577 46%][Corpse N/A][Soul N/A]
She got a new class Wait, did you? Sylver asked the distracted arachnid, as it conveyed an enormous grin.
Of course, you did Where did you get the experience? Oh Right, those guys that attacked Faust Why did you wait until now to tell this? Dont you you didnt ask at ! How was I I see I see Yes, alright I see Sylver said.
Whats she saying? Ria asked as Sylver gestured at her to give him a minute.
He nodded at Morana several tis, as she did her best to explain what exactly a [Corpse lder] was, and what it did.
Alright I think she got the new class at so point while we were out hunting monsters in the swamp Along with perks and skills, that she cant explain in a format I understand This molting body augntation thing she just did was 1 of them You have another 1? No? 2? She has 2 more perks related to her new class, and 2 new skills Sylver puzzled out, as Mora was concerned with getting all her threads sorted out, as opposed to telling Sylver what she was capable of.
Her new body ca with several drawbacks, although the only one Sylver could understand properly was that she wasnt as strong or as physically tough as she had been. But she was faster, and apparently, this shape made it easier to use her wild magic, specifically her thread magic.
The horse shape had been made for speed since Brunos dungeon had a lot of tough, but slow, monsters. Unsurprisingly, soone with a soul compatible with Sylver wasnt as attached to her physical body as most people, or monsters, would be.
You sound jealous, Ria said, and Spring nodded along.
She isnt thrilled about this form, because I am too heavy to ride her Yes, I see Sylver said as he chose to ignore Rias comnt, and instead walked over to Moras discarded horse/spider-shaped body and stored it away within the safest bone inside his chest.
Mora had been very specific about keeping the old body safe. Apparently becoming smaller was significantly easier than becoming bigger.
You know what? This is fine. Considering who Bruno is, and considering who I am, it only makes sense that shes able to do these sorts of things. You did great, Mora, thank you, Sylver said as if this was normal, even though he wasnt convincing anyone.
Nonetheless, sitting around and trying to puzzle out Mora and her biology wasnt going to get them any closer to finding the two Blue Tiger heirs, or Edmund.
Sure, Ria said, with a tone that implied she was just as curious as Sylver, but simultaneously understood why he wanted to move along.
Sylver walked around the large pillar and looked for a crack, or an opening big enough for him to use [Fog Form] on, but despite being seemingly abandoned, it was still airtight.
Sylver used a paper-thin beam of abyss magic to make a hole in the floor, but the tallic plastic was extrely strong. He lost all the skin on his pointer and middle finger by channeling that much mana, and all he got was about half a centiter in return. The surface was sowhat brittle, but the tal underneath was significantly stronger.
Are we waiting for sothing? Ria asked as Sylver continued pacing near the opening.
I dont like the idea of having to go through an entire dungeon, or whatever this is, to get out Im just trying to see if I can co up with a better idea, Sylver explained, as he continued to consider his available options.
The main problem was that if Sylver didnt find and kill those two heirs, the Bucklers would likely cut contact with him.
Or they would kill him, given that hed seen so of their faces.
And as fun as it would be to watch them try, the real issue was Wolf and Lion, who posed a very serious threat to Sylver, and Faust.
If he quit right now, what would be his next move? Just sit around, and wait for the chain to snap? All while the bucklers quietly sneak the shield girl into the city, and sohow the emperor ends up impregnating her.
Then Sylver would have about 20 weeks before the child could be born. Assuming these people had a bit of dical know-how, and cared more about the childs bloodline, than they did about its health, it wouldnt be all that hard
All they would need is a handful of healers
Or a very large group of elven healers
Shit
I sincerely hope Im wrong, but if we assu for a mont Im right, then we have to gain Owls trust very quickly. Fuck ! Sylver said as he grabbed Ria, and with Mora in tow, walked inside the pillar.
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