When Irene meant that the thing she found was weird, it was indeed weird.
The monster was akin to a reptilian spider with the head of a horse. Dull-coloured scales lined its body and all its eight long legs stepped into the smooth stone floor with bony hooves. On top of that, the monster was cut perfectly in half.
Yes, in half. One side had four legs and half of the horse head each. The two halves were connected by a bubble-gum like black substance, looking like a smaller spider had woven them into an intricate web.
"...It's an atrocity," Athelei was rather stunned when he floated before the monster. Whatever the monster was, his entire being rejected it.
But with his growing disgust, his interests in it grew too. As usual, conflicting emotions clashed within him as he executed Inspect.
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Happy Home Spider
Health: 69/140
Mana: 1/1
Energy: 43/46
- "This is the pinnacle of art. My magnum opus."
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"I see..." Athelei choked out loud, "It's an artwork... Irene, what you're looking at is a living artwork."
Irene blinked as she parried the Happy Home Spider's sudden lunge. She couldn't help but exclaim, "What kind of psychopath made this?!"
Cannonballs rained out of Irene's aura, blasting clean holes straight through the Happy Home Spider. Irene was a human siege machine as she made swiss chess out of the cargo-truck-sized abomination.
Whenever the Happy Home Spider smashed at Irene with its hooves, a crack on her armour would always form from the impact. The stone under Irene's feet would cave in each time, forcing the Dictator to reinforce the area she was standing on as well.
Drums and breaking glass beat with surprising rhythm throughout the battle, as Irene hammered into the Happy Home Spider's joints. The monster's scales were too blast-resistant for her explosive tendencies. A dozen humongous serrated lances appeared, all fanned out in front of her.
A flick of the wrist was all it took for her to send a volley out, piercing through the monster's legs and a few of its vitals as well. A horrid squeal reverberated throughout the long dark hall.
"Burst!" Irene yelled.
Boom!
A simultaneous explosion of twelve blasts wrecked the Happy Home Spider, kicking up dust and damaging a large portion of the hall.
"Damn..." Athelei admired Irene's explosive power as he wiped the blood off of his fog. "And this is you controlling the explosions? How many cities do you think you can flatten in a day?"
"...Maybe half of Avina? My Mystic Energy reserves would not last until the end of the day if I am to destroy every little thing." Irene answered when she confirmed the death of her adversary.
She walked towards the battered corpse and spotted a weird metal contraption hidden among its organs.
At the same time, Athelei crushed the sentience of the residual consciousness he absorbed and was jolted. He tilted his head, "Hm?"
"What's wrong?" Irene asked as she extracted the metal contraption.
"This, er, Happy Home Spider has more than one consciousness. In fact, it has eight. Does it have eight separate brains?" Athelei was looking into himself, feeling the eight new crushed consciousnesses.
RIP!
Irene, who had initially encountered difficulties in pulling out the metal contraption, used her Tangible Will to tug. When she did so, instead of a tiny machine about the size of a saucer, an entire mechanical skeleton emerged from the Happy Home Spider.
At eight specific areas of the skeleton, what seemed to be brains were forged into the steel.
"What in the name of Libra..?" Irene froze, her exclamation wrenching Athelei from his reveries.
"...It really has eight brains." Athelei flapped his wings and flew up to give the soft, fleshy grey matter a little poke. The brain wobbled like gelatin, making gag-inducing squishing sounds in the process.
Irene and Athelei glanced at each other before wordlessly nodding.
"Art." They both said at the same time before proceeding forward.
The hall was surprisingly long, spanning for about five hundred metres before an end came into view. Irene had to fight off thirteen more works of art, which thankfully weren't too dangerous given their monotonous fighting style. The only way Irene could be defeated was if she lay down and allowed herself to get beaten up.
'Pure brute strength is akin to giving children my age a greatsword.' Athelei likened the fighting capabilities of the bizarre monsters to such a thought. 'It makes sense at the same time though... These are all works of art, not war machines or godly creations like the Filter Beast.'
When the duo made it to the end of the hall, Irene was surprised to find a place where she could slot in her parade of torches. The burning light sources all had a place around the back end of the hall, bringing about the perfect lighting for the final artwork.
"Anticlimactic," Irene had grown to look at the works of art fondly. The skills required, the attention to detail, and the sheer creativity displayed by the artist was something she could barely imagine. Thus, when she arrived at the end of the hall, her expectations were weirdly extinguished.
"This should be the creator," Athelei looked up to see a four-story tall painting. "An Oxhorian Spawn."
"A demon..." Irene, too, looked at the being depicted in the painting.
It was of a humanoid man with dark blue skin and a pair of horns sticking out of his head. The Oxhorian Spawn looked very human, especially with the intelligent glint in its eyes and the colourful flowing robes it wore.
"Ai'slkr Viarchsbound," Athelei read the name written beneath the portrait. The writing had used Acivis techniques, but thanks to his time in Lady Karire's library, he was capable of reading basic things like names.
Irene's eyes were burning as she looked at the painting, and yet she could not look away. Her golden Tangible Will was pulsating with strength.
Crack!
A huge fissure appeared throughout her aura and armour, but thanks to that, she was able to look away. Cold sweat dripped from her chin, and her expression was hideous.
"There it was again..." Irene caught her breath, "So much... hate."
Athelei drifted around Irene as she analysed the state she was in. Her [Energy] and [Mana] reserves had dropped to worrying levels.
"Should we destroy the painting?" Athelei asked with a pinch of concern laced in his tone.
"Even if this is probably the first image of the Oxhorian Spawn that humanity has ever discovered, I feel that we should." Irene wiped the sweat that dripped down her face. "A simple glance may just be fatal for any human under Rank 3."
"Alright," Athelei surrounded Irene's body, acting as a filter to the sights before her. The angel used the mental connection they had together to relay what Irene could no longer sense.
Irene appreciated the extra precautions Athelei had taken. Such an action allowed her to feel free to unleash a barrage of explosive golden spheres. One cannonball after another was sent out.
Time passed as she bombarded the painting until only dust was left behind. It was only then that the duo felt it was safe.
Well, as safe as it would get as they explored the unknown.
It turned out that behind the painting lay another long hallway, with darkness so thick, it was like liquid. A frosty breeze blew through this new hallway, bringing sounds of battle along with it.
Irene and Athelei gave each other a glance as the former retrieved her torches and marched forward. The liquid-like darkness parted like a tide, but tentacles and drops of shadows fancied a taste of her presence.
Using the torches, she warded whatever the living darkness was as she advanced. Athelei was following shortly after, looking around curiously like the child he was.
"There are monsters lingering within the liquid darkness itself." He whispered to Irene who nodded in response. "They have corrosive abilities. Don't let too many get to you."
The duo continued to advance as the sound of fighting grew louder. Irene continued to scare off the darkness with her parade of torches, but the monsters were growing bolder by the minute. Some had already made contact with the torches, causing the former to fall to the ground like dying moths, and the latter to dim.
"Stop." After a certain point, Athelei placed a hand on Irene's shoulder.
The noises of battle had suddenly been silenced. Irene was on high alert and was fully exerting her influence.
A figure suddenly emerged from the darkness ahead of them. It collapsed just as it stepped into the light.
It was a woman, but she looked like a zombie. Her skin had been eaten through in several areas, exposing bone and flesh. She was missing a quarter of her head, half of her right arm, and a large portion of her stomach. All that was left of her armour indicated an affiliation with an Illyas noble.
"H-help... us..." She pleaded with an outstretched hand, but both Athelei and Irene lacked any powerful healing abilities.
The woman's body then literally fell apart before the duo's eyes. Her skin was like wet tissue paper and her bones were like twigs. Her organs were practically liquid, flowing out of her body as her entire being underwent a phase change.
Then, what was left was dragged into the darkness which churned in absolute delight.
Burp!
Something had just finished the main course of tonight's meal.