Chương 161: 158 - Herald of Limos

As soon as I get in range, I try to Blink past the door into the chamber, but the Skill fails. It starts to activate, but then a mana surge from within knocks the Skill off kilter and it fizzles out. It doesn't feel like intentional interference, though. Just mana chaos happening inside. Spatial mana chaos. After that failure, I instead Blink to right in front of the door and swing my sword between the two doors, cutting through whatever latch holds them shut, then kick them open.

Inside the door is a circular chamber, similar to the shaft that brought us down here, but with a domed roof fifty meters up instead of going all the way to the surface. A ring about three meters wide around the edge of the room is on the same level as the ground, and within that is a pit, and inside the pit is the source of the spatial mana anomaly. Right now, it just looks like a chaotic, constantly-shifting mess.

Pitch black tears open up in the air, only to vanish a moment later, and the stone at the bottom of the pit is constantly distorting and warping. It's clear that something is happening, though. Around the edges of the pit, eight more cultists are on their hands and knees, staring into the chaos. In front of each of them is a carved circle in the stone, and in the center of the carved circles… I finally understand what that delicious scent I've been following is. Interspace Tree Frogs.

They're all dead, impaled through the head with metal stakes that pin them to the ground. The cultists all look to me, and a few of them stand up and get in defensive positions, but the one nearest me just grins maniacally with bloodshot eyes.

"You're too late!"

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," I reply. I have no idea what's going on, let alone how to stop it, so I don't even bother to try. Instead, I just Snatch all the dead frogs and store them away while watching the spatial anomaly progress. Each frog takes a few attempts for the Skill to work through the interference, but I manage to get them all, and the cultists don't bother to stop me. They just stand uncertainly, not sure whether to focus their attention on me, or the pit.

Illiana arrives a few seconds in, and silently joins me in watching the anomaly. After thirty seconds or so, there's finally a shift in the process. The chaos lessens, and a perfect circle of void appears in the center and starts expanding outward. I tense up, ready to turn and run if it keeps growing, but it stops about a meter from the edge of the pit and stabilizes. Everyone in the room holds their breath, waiting for something to happen.

Seconds tick away until the exact moment when I start to think that nothing else will happen when finally, something does. An enormous hand emerges from the black hole, silently rising up and reaching out to grab onto the ledge of the pit. One of the cultists scrambles out of the way to avoid getting crushed as the hand digs its fingers into the stone. [Fenlith, Immortal Herald of Limos, lvl???] The hand is clearly not human.

It has five fingers in the middle, and a thumb on either side, and the entire thing is stripped of its skin so I can see its muscles, tendons, and bones. Now that I think about it, that's exactly what the Children of Limos I just killed looked like. And this thing is a hell of a lot bigger. Every single finger is longer than I am tall, and I don't really want to find out what the rest of it is like.

I Blink over to where its hand is, and use one arm to swing my sword, and the tentacle-y one to spit out a few Charged Spatial Slices at the exposed fingers. All the attacks make contact, and all do very little. The Charged Spatial Slices only make it about halfway through the bones of the finger they hit, and my ordinary one barely gets more than a few centimeters, and as soon as I pull my sword back, the flesh starts wriggling and healing.

The attack might have been a failure, but it did hurt the Herald, and I Blink away as the muscles on the hands tighten, and it suddenly launches itself all the way out. Back next to Illiana, I watch the wrist emerges, followed by an elbow, then a second elbow, and then… the mangled end of the arm. I blink in surprise, and look back at the portal it emerged from, waiting for the rest of it, but the portal just closes up, leaving nothing but a stone pit behind.

The end of the arm looks like someone, or something, tore it off. The end of the bone is splintered and broken, and the muscles and tendons wriggle like they're trying to re-attach to the main body, but without a main body, they just flail aimlessly. The momentum carries the arm all the way up to the ceiling, striking it with a loud crash and sending dust and small stones falling down.

The hand on the ledge lets go, following the rest of the arm up, and when it lands, the hand is on the ground of the pit, with rest arching up above it like a scorpion tail. I hold my sword out in front of me, ready to fight if needed, but I'm thinking that running might be the better option here. My Charged Spatial Slices barely touched it, I don't really want to eat it, and I don't really give a shit if the cultists die. Taking Illiana and running is probably the best option.

"I agree." Yeah, so then— The hand suddenly starts tapping the ground with its middle finger, I tense up, and grab Illiana with a tentacle, ready to Blink away at any moment. However, it does not attack. Instead, it suddenly turns around, and its broken end shoots forward and crushes one of the other doors.

Then, it leaps out of the pit and starts running down the newly-exposed tunnel, moving way faster than a severed demonic arm should be able to, and a few seconds later, the patter of its fingertips on the stone fades into the distance.

"Okay, what the fuck was that?" I ask, turning to the cultist with the bloodshot eyes.

"Fenlith!" he says excitedly.

"The great Herald of Limos! Her return is nigh, and the world will tremble before us!" The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Okay, where's the rest of her?"

"She was torn into pieces, and the pieces were sealed away by the elves of Dryadil in the ruins of the Ahuitl people! But now, she is free, and—!"

"Okay, that's enough of that." I glance over at Illiana and see that I still have a tentacle wrapped around her. She doesn't seem to mind, but it's a little awkward, so I casually unwrap it.

"This seems a little above our pay grade," I say.

"Yes, a bit," she agrees mildly.

"I suppose we'll have to let the Guild know."

"And in the meantime…" I sweep my sword in an arc, pointing at all the cultists.

"You all are under arrest. If you resist, I will literally eat you."

"She will," says Illiana, nodding. The cultists all look toward one woman in particular who is standing near the back of the room. She looks surprisingly young to be the one the rest defer to. And a little strange. She's got pale skin and red eyes like an albino, but her hair is pitch black, and despite everything that just happened, she looks surprisingly calm and collected. [Metztli, Disciple of Limos, lvl???]"We surrender," she says, raising her hands and sinking to her knees.

"We've already lost enough believers today."

"Good choice," I say.

"Now, for the important part. Where is all your money?" The woman blinks, then breaks out into a grin, showing off canines that are just a little too long.

"We spent it all on this ritual."

"Bullshit."

"Whether you believe me or not, it's the truth."

"Okay, you shut up. You." I point at the bloodshot eyes guy.

"Where do you keep all your money?"

"You think I would–?!" He stops talking and flinches as I swing my sword. A moment later, his arm flops to the ground, completely severed. He starts screaming, which is really annoying, so I smack him with the flat of my blade. It doesn't knock him out, but it dazes him enough that he shuts up.

"Alright, your turn," I say, pointing to another cultist, a middle-aged woman to my left.

"Where do you keep your money? And you'd better not say you're out."

"I have nothing to say to—" Her arm mysteriously falls off, and then I Blink over to the cultist behind her.

"What about you?"

"I have money!" he exclaimed, putting his hands in the air.

"We really did use all our funds for the ritual, but I can pay you out of my own pocket."

"Now that's more like it," I say.

"I think you should also know that I was not deeply involved with these people. I only joined out of academic curiosity."

"Uh huh. Sure, buddy. Now hand over your money before I take your arm too."

"I don't have any coins, but I can pay with badge if you'll let me reach into my pocket."

"Do it." He reaches into his robes and produces a platinum badge with the Artificer's Guild insignia on it. I tap my Adventurer's Guild insignia to it, noting a very healthy influx of 100, 000 gold. That's frankly more than I was expecting, and while I'm sure he has more, he paid enough up front that I won't press him for it.

"Alright, the rest of you pay up," I say, turning to face the rest. One by one, I go visit every cultist in the group and collect my dues. About half of them were annoyingly smart and didn't bring their badges with them, so I can't get anything. This includes Metztli, the creepy red-eyed girl, who just smiles smugly the whole time. I grab her by the hair and cut it all short and uneven, which finally gets an angry reaction out of her, but it only lasts a second before returning to something more neutral.

"This might all be a little unnecessary." Don't care. They deserve it. They started a cult and got a bunch of people turned into demons and killed, and they're trying to unleash whatever the fuck that thing is. Losing an arm or some hair is getting off light.

"Right, but shouldn't we leave this to the authorities? I'm sure they'll face justice." Meh. While I go around collecting money, Illiana ties everyone up with roots connected directly to her staff. Once they're all properly subdued, she lines them up while I take one last look around the room to make sure we're not missing anything. The room is pretty bare aside from what was obvious, though, so we're soon on our way back. All in all, I got about 200, 000 gold out of this.

It would have been 400, 000, but I had to give half to Illiana. As much as I didn't want to share, she did do half the work. A pretty solid haul. Not enough for me to be set for life, or even for the year, if I buy everything I want to buy in Dryadil, but it's a good start. Hopefully Zorg has more. Speaking of Zorg, I did manage to confirm that the cultists bought their frogs from him.

That's a little ominous, if the cultists have a connection with Zorg, and doubly ominous if Zorg has another piece of this Fenlith thing sealed beneath his castle, but ideally, we won't be dealing with any of that. It's something to keep an eye out for, but most likely, this is a problem for Wesley and the paladins to deal with. We fly back down the tunnel we came from, with the lead cultists dragging on the ground behind us, and the young terrified ones on their own mana hand.

A few of the lead cultists complain, but we ignore them. This isn't that big of a deal. They have enough Resilience not to turn into meat crayons, and they can deal with a little discomfort.

"I'd say that was a pretty successful Quest," I comment lightly while one of the cultists yells obscenities behind us.

"Yes, it was very profitable," says Illiana.

"And we got good, new information for the Adventurer's Guild. I'm sure there will be a small bounty for reporting what we saw."

"Oh yeah! Nice!"

"You seem quite unbothered about what we just did, though."

"I could say the same to you."

"I suppose you could." Illiana looks amused.

"But are you not bothered by the killing? I know that most Adventurers don't have to deal with hostile Enlightened often, and some have problems with it."

"Well, I'm not happy about it," I say.

"But it's not like I had a choice. If they didn't want to die, they shouldn't have been summoning demons."

"I see."

"And what about you?"

"Well–" A guttural scream and the sound of branches snapping makes us both turn around. One of the cultist leaders has turned into a Child of Limos and broken free of his bindings. With a sigh, I get ready to fight, but instead of trying to attack us, the demon instead reaches for the red-eyed girl, Metztli, tearing her bindings away. She sinks into the ground like it's made of water, and then keeps going, further and further down. I try to Snatch her back, but she resists, and soon, she's well out of range.

"Well, shit." None of the other cultists move, instead watching in shock as the Child of Limos begins to rampage. Illiana and I take care of it fairly quickly, and things settle down after that, but we're both left staring at the spot where she disappeared into the ground.

"Huh," I say.

"Well, I guess that's one more thing to report."