Chương 307: Last Words

They all saw it through Jupo's handy spell, but seeing this thing in person was a completely different experience… As Hortus had said, there had been no traps whatsoever on the way there. No ambush anywhere. Only a winding, partly crumbled tunnel leading to a wide open space concealed beneath the earth, sealed into thick rock.

This was the very place many adventurers and mercenaries had met their end in an expedition to hunt down the wandering abyssal, but there were no traces of this confrontation left, and the tunnel the creature had dug to get away was simply gone as well. Instead, the previous religious symbols that had once been made in worship of a serpentine entity of divine nature had all been remodelled. The statue was now made in the likeness of Mara Nebulo's 'Base Form'. The eyes of the statue were purple crystals.

They failed to mimic the oddness the real ones could provoke, but they did make it clear who this was a representation of… The entire cavern had been reshaped, no longer resembling a naturally formed hollow space, but instead the inside of a temple.

"You… Shouldn't have come. This place… Is a holy ground" The steel monster, nought but an imitation, sounded awfully smug, and the reason was certainly that it wasn't alone. From corners darker than dark, from cracks thinner than threads… Creatures of anomalous nature emerged, each more bizarre and misshapen than the last.

Some were tall and thin beyond belief, their bodies appearing like poorly strung together twigs, all for their heads to always strongly differ, being what ultimately gave them an identity, as otherwise, the tall ones would all look the exact same. However, there were also many other creatures of completely different appearances. Some look like people at a glance, but only at a glance. They were deformed in ways that shouldn't be possible…

Some others should simply not exist, such as a goat-like entity that looked more like the outline of a person than anything else, with only the edges existing, whilst everything in between was simply empty space.

"What the hell is this nonsense?!" No one in the group had even sensed a whiff of these creatures. It was as if they had only appeared just now. One of the horrors stepped next to the druid-like imitator. It was one of the lanky, dark-bodied ones. This had a pale white face with disturbingly human eyes and teeth stuck in a permanent smile.

"You… Are… Tres… Passing…"

"Let's calm down, everyone… Why are we trespassing, actually? Maybe we've got to pay respects to this temple" Binibelle brought her best smile, the sort of expression that could convince someone to buy something they definitely didn't need for an absurd price. However, the steel monster merely laughed choppily.

"You? Pay respect…? Amusing. A most interesting pleasantry!" Somehow, its speech got clearer as well. Whether it was from how funny it thought this was, or from the anger clearly bubbling within as it was clenching its fists, was unclear, but the contradictory message it was sending didn't matter much compared to what it was actually saying.

"Fools! You are standing on consecrated stone! This place is where our goddess slew a divinity! This is where she earned herself a spot amongst the heavens! She's divine! She's a deity! Prostrate in worship! All of us here… We are her creations one way or another! We will be the ones to inherit this world!" Binibelle scratched her nose.

"We will be leaving you to your matters, then…"

"No. You aren't leaving. I know who you are, filthy heretics! You don't get to challenge our goddess and simply walk away""Death… Is… Required…"

"A sacrifice!"

"A sacrifice! A sacrifice!"

"Boil them alive!"

"Rip out their bones!"

"Drown them!"

"Let them be feasted upon by insects!"

"Wow… Not very welcoming, huh…? Jupo, are you done with your thing?"

"I am, Master""We're getting the fuck out!" Binibelle actually used magic to enhance her own body, something she very rarely did. As the group took off running into the tunnels, the mass of horrific creatures suddenly burst forth at speeds their crooked frames had no business being capable of. Whilst the glorified scarecrow was busy giving a speech, and Binibelle was busy doing her best to make the fuckers talk… Jupo had been busy.

Just because he worked on complex utility spells didn't mean that he didn't have some good offensive spells in stock. His master didn't want him to dig himself into some overly specific specialisation as she had done.

Binibelle believed that he was too talented to limit himself in any way, and he took it to heart–All the while still making the spells he came up with oddly complicated and specific, but it paid off as none of the creatures noticed that he had been performing some painfully complicated outer mana manipulation and placing condensed charges of mana all over the place–Including directly behind the head of the statue. In an instant, all of the mana bombs went off. Their explosion didn't just tear through stone.

They also sent the ambient energy flying unnaturally by pushing it, which caused the monsters to all be hit by what felt like an episode of mana sickness for a few moments. Most beings constantly absorbed the surrounding ambient energies, so when an absurd amount of it was suddenly pushed toward one of such beings, it was likely that they would absorb too much in too short a timeframe.

This caused many of the creatures to slow down suddenly, keeping them from reaching the exit tunnel as their temple came crashing down upon them. The compressed mana behind the statue made its head detach from the rest, flinging it forward, straight at the steel monster, which narrowly avoided being crushed by sheer luck as it ended up being in the right spot for the statue's open maw to miss him. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

It was between the upper and lower jaw, giving it protection as everything crumbled around it, crushing the creatures spawned by Mara Nebulo's mere existence in this world. The steel creature, nought but tortured souls forced to possess this vessel, slammed its fist into the ground. In its eyes, the existence of these creatures, no matter how crooked or ugly others might see them… No matter what, the fact that they were being born was proof that Mara was a goddess.

What could be a more divine ability than to create life like it's nothing? She doesn't even seem aware that she is doing it. The simple fact that she is within this world is enough for these creatures to come alive. As for itself… It was forged by one of the goddess's consorts and imbued with souls that the goddess herself prepared.

"I. Am. An…" The group managed to escape from the cavern, finding themselves at the bottom of the great ravine.

"Fucking hell… What were those things?!" Gontra used her shield to stand up against, pretty much launching herself out of the cave, but running for dear life was something she had grown accustomed to, so she was more curious about what she had seen down there.

"I have no idea. Those things are unlike anything I've ever seen before and… Some of them seemed more… Different than the rest" Binibelle struggled to speak as she had to catch her breath. All the while hoping that no one had noticed the fact that the greatest hurdle for her hadn't been the sprint, but keeping her 'attributes' in control. She could swear those things were conscious and were trying to get her killed sometimes.

"I see what you mean… Some of them, I felt like they were something I was kinda familiar with, but others? Totally alien" Hortus coughed up a bit of dust.

"I guess… I guess it's like those things are being born more and more different from anything that is known in this world, huh? If so, it might have a point… That's a pretty fucking divine-sounding ability to create a brand-new form of life" Hilene cursed, staring at herself in the reflection of her sword as if hoping that her reflected self would have answers that she did not have.

Jupo stayed silent, not because he didn't want to share a theory about the monsters that he had just come up with, but just like everyone, he felt the sudden tremors and instinctively stanced himself for a fight. A fist of steel shattered through the ground, and the figure of the creature they had come here to hunt down revealed itself, now ragged and somehow with a maddened look despite possessing no face to show emotions with.

"I. AM. AN. ANGEL!"

"I… I will bring judgment upon you all! I was crafted in my goddess's likeness. I was given a mission. My body was forged by the hands of my goddess's beloved… I am one of her messengers!" Only Binibelle noticed what was happening, as she hadn't taught Jupo how to get a feel of soul energy, but when it came to this thing screaming about being an angel and going on tirades, it was quite easy to sense the soul energy coming from the several souls inhabiting its metal body. The souls were melting.

The soul in charge of all the others got caught up in its delusions after discovering the temple that the creations of his goddess had built in her honour. They had travelled here, sensing that it was the place where their creator had acquired a spark of divinity from slaughtering a divine being. At least, that's what they believed.

They couldn't know for sure, so it might as well just be that Mara Nebulo's presence melded with some divine energy that leaked out when the serpent died, and this was what they were sensing, but none of the creatures that had been inside this temple would have cared to listen to logic or reason. They hadn't arrived here and then come to the conclusion that their creator was divine. They had held this belief from the moment of their conception. This consecrated ground didn't matter.

It only served as further fuel to ignite their inner flame. … What was currently happening to the imitator was quite elementary, though. Its intense faith was multiplied due to its possessing several souls. It was as if it held the faith of several people at once, but since the entity was more of a construct than anything else, it couldn't handle the influx of holy energy its faith was producing. Thus, it was melting its own souls without realising. Unfortunately, whatever Mara Nebulo had done to these souls…

They were strangely resilient to melting, and instead of falling apart and causing the demise of the tortured being, they were instead melding together into one. The process was unrefined. A Soulomancer would cry at such a dreadful spectacle, but even then wouldn't be able to deny that, as awful as the process was, it was somehow working against all odds.

"Kill this fucking thing!" The halfling barked as she unleashed a constant barrage of mana bullets at the creature, and Jupo did the same, but the mages could only click their tongues. The monster's chest was actually filled with green crystals containing nature energy, and it was proving itself capable of using them to put up a primitive, but effective barrier to shield itself. The creature shouted something, but its speech was no longer comprehensible.

It sounded almost like it was speaking another language at this point. It rushed forward, leaping without a plan or strategy, merely acting like a mindless beast. It opened its maw wide, aiming to bite Binibelle in half, considering her to be the most threatening person here, not to itself, but to its goddess. Gontra stepped in between the attack and the halfling, slamming her shield into the monster and sending it flying away.

The possessed automaton howled, preparing to rush forward again, only for a sneaky arrow shot by Hortus to shatter one of the crystals in its chest. Worried that more would be destroyed, it made the mind-numbing decision to simply expand all of the nature energy at its disposal immediately, achieving a speed that even it couldn't handle, leading to its aim to be way off. Instead of biting the frail halfling's head, it ended up clamping down on Jupo's left arm.

"Again?!" The sheer outrage the young mage felt was only weaker than the abhorrent pain he experienced, completely preventing him from casting any spells. The monster, reeling from overusing an energy it didn't actually own to cast a pseudo-spell it didn't even know how to properly cast, failed to follow up with another attack, but as a consolation prize, it could think that it didn't matter, as even had it been capable of acting immediately, it wouldn't have had the occasion to.

A blade luminous as though superheated stabbed into the mechanism that connected its lower and upper jaw, completely stopping it from biting, right before a kick sent it flying away into the side of the ravine. Hilene closed the distance quicker than the monster could process, and her blade struck thrice with vertical swings, slashing the monster apart completely. Rather than watching her opponent fade away, she rushed over to Jupo, and only Binibelle actually paid attention to the dying monster.

Its green eyes were slowly flickering. Binibelle only wanted to make sure it died, but she soon noticed something off. As the souls were fading away one by one, the soul that had controlled the head and thus been in control of the others seemed to change.

"Oh my… Just what did her shining blade do?" The halfling grabbed the automaton's head.

"Can you hear me?" The soul could not hear her, but it did unintentionally confirm that something had happened to change it.

"I… Failed my oath…"

"What?"

"I was supposed to protect, but… I let her corrupt me… You must… Save their souls… So… Many… So many are trapped" The eyes flickered strongly as they noticed Jupo in the distance.

"Good… Seems like he was able to do without me…" The eyes went out, and the soul melted away. Utterly destroyed.