PREVIOUSLY
As she thought, he wasn't dead nor did he explode. Elm turned to look at the monster core on her palm and carefully looked inside, and as she thought, the little serpent was there, taking a power nap as she felt the energy of this core being devoured by him.
At the rate he was going, it would take around 5 days, and a week at most before he got out which was really, really amazing since it would take normal monsters on his level years to fully absorb a monster core so much higher-ranked than them. And, even if they did, they'd probably explode from the excess amount of energy.
But, not little Pochi. Oh no, he was feeling quite at home, with the way she could literally feel how happy he was. Elm kept the little devouring monster inside her breast pocket, and held him there with a little layer of protection so that nothing happened to him during this delicate period of his life.
And then, Elm decided to keep exploring this ruin, or so she thought, but then, she accidentally stepped on a pressure plate. Even for someone like her, all she could sense was discomfort and she tried to break free from the spell that was trying to whisk her away but she was completely locked down by something, before she was forcibly teleported somewhere.
But, she wasn't too worried though.
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For the past hour, Elm had been traversing the spiral staircase to get to the bottom. Or, Elm thought it was an hour. This place was weird. She couldn't use any of her external abilities, so that meant she couldn't use her connection to the light, chi, and other energy-related sources but fortunately for her, she still had her physical conditioning.
Elm's normal speed, without the buffs from her connection to the light or chi, was already pretty fast, easily reaching the speed of sound but even then, it had already been an hour and she was still running down the stairs.
She could risk a jump down the spiral abyss, but decided not to, since she didn't know what was down there. Elm had to be careful until she found out what exactly caused her to be stripped of her powers in this realm.
The bottom was like being inside a silo, but one curved side had a set of massive iron double doors. They were ajar and Elm knew there would be something tough about what was beyond, lurking in the blue lichen light that fell in angular shafts like moonlight in the area beyond. Her senses indicated that there would be something beyond the double doors, something that made even her a little wary.
Truth be told, she wanted to rush in, and finish this up in a hurry, but then she still had the little serpent still sleeping through all of this, and he was unprotected right now since this realm had locked out her powers.
One wrong move, hell, one wrong jump and the monster core would fall, crack and Pochi would die, as simple as that.
Elm touched the massive double doors, and suddenly lamps lit up.
"?!"
She jumped backwards, adopting a battle stance, looking left, right, center and top for anything that would jump out and surprise-attacked her.
But, there was nothing.
Now that the immediate area was lit up, she could clearly see the majesty the double-doors had. It looked like something the ancient giants made, since craftsmanship of this level was far beyond what dwarves could make.
Taking one last good look at the massive double-doors, she pushed them open, and followed through inside, only to find that she was in a tomb, or more specifically, a massive graveyard. Rows of stone coffins filled the area, which was easily the size of a few football fields. There were pillars every thirty yards in every direction, affixed with empty sconces meant for torches. The only light in here was the pale glow from the lichen. It was a giant mausoleum.
But even worse was the mountain of bones on the opposite end. Even from where they stood they could tell what it was. The skulls poking out from the piles of skeletons gave it away.
Insight poured into her head. She remembered the brief history lesson the sentient dungeon, aka the War King Of this ancient kingdom had given her, and knew that this must be the place where the citizens who had lost the war went to.
There were small craters here and there, with long incisions on the walls, along with a number of weapons above the graves, so there must have been warriors amongst the citizens who had fought against the invaders here. Now, she knew where the people who had occupied the city had gone. This was the answer. It had been an extermination. Elm wondered what possibly could have done this.
Oh, but something like this reminded her of her brother. She knew that if he was here, he would definitely have wanted to turn around and flee this place. Death had been here to collect souls and now only the skeletons remained.
But for her, she was filled with morbid curiosity. Not only did she want to fight the people that did this, she wanted to exterminate the exterminator.
For now, she thought inside her head.
'Why did they decide to make their last stand in their cemetery?'.
'Maybe it was the best defendable place for them. By coming down here, they forced their attackers into a bottleneck down the pit. Then they would have to funnel through those double-doors. They could bunker here and slaughter their attackers until they were overwhelmed.'
'Escape wasn't an option for them. The maugrim weren't cowards. This was their home. They would defend it until death."
And so, Elm passed the beds of the fallen, as fire lit up in conjunction with her walks, leading her to where she needed to go.
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After a few more minutes of wandering, Elm happened to walk upon a mountain of bones, skeletons, and decaying flesh that smelt absolutely putrid to her heightened senses. But then, she heard something munching beyond the mountain of bones.
Elm focused all of her senses directly into whatever might be beyond the bones, since she was unable to directly see through the mountain of bones. What she got back was that whatever was beyond the mountain of bones was a monster, a creature that was filled with so much chaos to the point that you would think it was a chimera lord. It shouldn't exist, but yet, it did.
So, Elm decided it was her duty as the Celestial Hero to get rid of it. Placing her right leg back, and her left leg forward, with a clenched fist pointed directly at the monster beyond.
She was going to punch straight through this wall of decayed flesh and bones, since whatever was there, she would rather face it out here. She didn't take out her sword yet, since she didn't know what exactly was beyond there.
Elm listened to the munching, and heard it stop, probably because she was sending loads of hostility towards the creature, and just as she was about to punch straight through, but heard the sound of the creature sniffing, as if nostrils were flaring to take in a scent.
Then, it's voice came out, something inhumane and wet. "I smell soft tissue."
Through a miniscule hole in the mountain of bones, she could see a yellow orb flashing towards her, rotating before a bone-white smile formed in the air above, revealing sharp ivory teeth. It seemed like an upside-down face, but Elm couldn't really scry the shape in the dark. She could only see the eyes and the teeth glowing in the dark.
Now, Elm was sure this domain was definitely inhibiting her powers. How annoying.
"Oh, it's been too long since I've had a visitor," The voice cackled in the dark, before sniffing once more. "And, it's not just any visitor either. My my, who would have known that the Celestial Hero herself would be making a visit in my humble, little abode."
"So good to meet you." The sound of something whooshing in the dark.
"Hero." The voice appeared directly behind Elm.