Mm~
Hoo...
So sleepy...
Sleep...
Hm-?
Let me sleep...
Squelch.
A disgusting sensation plunged into his arm, slowly rattling his mind awake.
The exhaustion had settled into his mind but whatever that feeling was kept him conscious for a moment longer.
'What's going on...?'
'What happened to me...?'
Groggily awakening, Moglit struggled to keep his brain alive.
'Where was I...?'
His eyelids gradually fluttered open, introducing themselves to the hue of vermillion drowning out the darkness surrounding them.
A shimmering light was the next thing to catch his eyes.
Something that seemed to resemble...
'A string?'
And beyond the string was a horrifying sight.
Moglit barely kept his composure at their sight.
At the sight of the Deformed Demons.
At the sight of the experimental tables scattered around.
At the containers of vermillion liquid holding the corpses of perfectly maintained Humans.
He was in the midst of hell.
And beside him were two of the most heinous beings he had ever met.
Aranea, the human-shaped monster.
And the one she called 'Reynauld', the Demon with a decapitated head.
His situation couldn't get much worse.
-----
The seemingly endless coral maze withdrew around the statue.
Its towering walls gradually lowered themselves below the swaying, deep crimson waters.
The crimson waters rushed into the entrance within the statue's feet.
That 'waterfall' into the entrance was the only sense of activity around here if you excluded the weird, flowy texture on the cloth of the succubus-like statue.
They stood upon the final layer of coral.
Separating them and the statue was the suspiciously quiet body of water.
But if there was one thing to be sure of, this statue was more dangerous than the coral maze.
Otherwise, the maze wouldn't have stopped abruptly like that.
It was like a quiet Dungeon.
You enter wondering where the Monsters are.
Only to realise there was no opportunity for the Monsters to be born in the first place.
Because the most dangerous predator of them all was there from the beginning, preventing the birth of any inferior Monsters.
Lucas was sure of one fact.
This statue was extremely dangerous.
Perhaps far beyond their pay grade.
No Corrupted enemies had arrived in the past hour of them observing this statue.
And that scared him.
"Our little Lucas is getting scared~" Charles teasingly smacked Lucas' arm with his elbow, leaning over to stare at him with a smirk.
Scowling, Lucas ploughed a soft punch into his side, "Piss off."
Grumble-
Charles' stomach audibly rumbled from that punch, he was quite hungry.
Randuin towered behind them with a small smile, the first one Savana had spotted from him in the past 3 weeks.
Randuin surprisingly blended in quite well with those two.
While Charles was a prince, Lucas a small-time Priest and Randuin the Saintess' personal Holy Knight; an odd variety of people, it was also a mixture of pleasant personalities that conformed with one another.
Lucas didn't care about their Noble status, Randuin liked watching from the sidelines and quipping in when he felt like it, while Charles acted nothing like a Prince.
It was a comfortable sight.
Charles truly was suited to be a Prince.
Savana believed that to be the case from the bottom of her heart.
The way in which he melted the tension and anxiety brewing in their cohort was miraculous, to say the least.
He easily discovered a method to reduce Lucas' anxiety, their leader.
Savana also had one more thing to admit.
Lucas was a monster.
Once that man got comfortable with them-
"Brrrr-!"
Shivers ran down her spine remembering his methods in the past 24 hours.
No wonder Charles let him take the lead...
Then, finally, at the height of their preparation.
Silvia took the first step forward
The blueish tint at the ends of her silver hair fluttered down the side of the coral wall as she slid along it elegantly, her sword was at the ready with scarlet Aura drenching it.
It was a compact, clean Aura.
Her Aura control was beautiful.
Luliya spread her hands, Divinity flowered outwardly at every team member; sets of reinforcements attached themselves to their bodies.
Be it physical enhancement, a protective barrier that could aid them at their worst moments or an increase in reaction time.
It was a very powerful aid.
Lucas' Priestly role was taken by her, fortunately for him he had other skills to contribute.
"Savana, shadow Silvia, ensure nothing reaches her back. Charles prepare electrical attribute Magic, use the liquid to your advantage. Luliya, ensure you have electrical resistance applied to all of us."
One after another, his words spewed out in a flurry of concise orders.
Then, he turned to Randuin.
"Do your thing."
Randuin nodded, "Got it."
The man lifted his shield and began imbueing his Divinity into the shield.
He was their final line of defence.
It was his sole role in this scenario.
As much as they needed a defence on the front lines, ensuring the safety of Luliya, Charles and Lucas himself was necessary.
Moreover, Lucas could rely on Savana and Silvia to protect themselves.
They were stronger than Randuin.
Their fragile rear group was going to advance slowly towards the statue, Savana and Silvia were going to take the brunt of the assault on their lonesome.
It might sound idiotic, but like it or not, Randuin would be a handicap if he tried following along those two.
If Aranea were here she would be stunned.
Because this was never meant to happen.
Savana and Silvia were too powerful at this point in time in comparison to their game version. It was unfair to compare them to the other characters in the Main Cast at the moment.
Charles, Moglit and Aria were a ways off before their 'awakening' moments.
Alas, this was the power of an Aranea that was never meant to have been.
Splash.
The chest-high waters made moving much harder.
Freezing the lake of water was impossible for Charles to pull off and creating a platform above the water was just as difficult; in the end, they had to accept this as their battlefield.
Moving behind Silvia and Savana, the larger group carefully trudged through.
Their soft breaths drowned beneath the quiet rippling of the water, the small waves echoed off their bodies like a bright torch in the darkness.
They were approaching the statue's feet.
Approaching Revshika's Shadow.
Now, what will appear?
-----
Aranea stood solemnly.
Before her was The Drowned, Revshika.
Before her was the womb within a womb, the sealed one.
Before her was the mass of Deformed Demons dribbling at the sight of Aria.
And before her was Reynauld.
The endlessly wandering soul.
But Aranea witnessed not their wretched visages.
She witnessed not the horrors of Reynauld.
She witnessed...
...
..lty
Cr...
Stop.
..end
Shut it.
Her body was afire.
Her quivering consciousness ablaze.
Her remaining shrivels of Mana dwindling.
And they wouldn't stop speaking.
Pestering.
Over, and over, and over again.
Incessantly, unwieldingly.
They wouldn't stop.
Twitch-
Her fingers twitched and the string attached to it jolted, pulling hard on one of Moglit's arms.
..shut?
S-sorry.
She lowered her head with a bead of sweat dripping slowly down her forehead.
Her skin felt like it had millions of ants crawling across it, biting into it, teasing it. The urge to scratch, to peel was completely overwhelming her.
She felt dangerously hot; as though she had been placed in a pot of boiling water.
And worst of all was...
Blink.
The eyes.
Watching.
Observing.
Gloating.
Think good thoughts.
Blink.
Chocolate cake is delicious.
Blink.
Levelling is fun.
Blink.
The eyes had multiplied.
And the number of good thoughts dwindled.
Or more specifically, she ran out.
She couldn't come up with anything else good.
Seeing everyone live good lives!
Blink.
But that still wasn't enough.
The eyes were encroaching upon her, the oozing droplets of truth glimmering between their eyelids splattered across her vision.
It was black and white.
It was swirling.
It...
Blink.
Aranea bit her lips, and her palpitating heart throbbed into her throat.
How much longer remained?
When would they get here?
She needed something.
Anything.
...
Haa...
'What the fuck am I doing?'
She had to admit.
The urges had clouded her thoughts.
Taking a deep breath:
Spell,
Her already dwindling supply of Mana abruptly dropped down by another few percentiles.
But her mind had cleared up temporarily.
The watchful eyes were gone.
The itchiness was gone.
This Spell was dangerous.
It was a direct insult against them.
The repercussions of its usage wouldn't be so pleasant but now was a better time than ever, she didn't create this Spell for no reason after all.
It directly repressed any negative 'Status Effects' from her, repressed was the keyword. They weren't gone, just temporarily missing.
But now her Mana was extremely low.
She couldn't let it drop below 3%.
It was at 9% currently.
She had 6% to spare, any more and it might mess up more than she could fix.
'It's enough.'
Now, they just had to get here.
She hadn't prepared this act for nothing.
-----
Their questions were answered succinctly.
The flowy texture on the cloth began to seep out, slithering across the fabric and dripping down onto the waters in front of the entrance.
Drip-
It was a murky, vicious, greyed-out liquid; it pounded into the waters uncaringly in front of Savana's and Silvia's eyes.
Silvia lifted her left leg, her muscles contracting as she took a heavy step forward.
Her unique Attribute splendidly exploded around the scarlet Aura surrounding her sword; it was a terrifyingly concentrated volume of uniqueness.
Savana could feel her black flames retracting, trembling.
At the peak of her momentum, Silvia split the sky horizontally; a wave of potent scarlet Aura draped in uniqueness sped towards the dripping liquid in the distance.
A long-range attack was the best option.
Zipping through the air, the sound of crackling and whipping winds blasted the atmosphere, waves of crimson liquid shuddering into the skies; fountains of liquid sprouted and began moving outwardly, a path had been carved wherever the attack proceeded.
Slamming into the odd liquid-
Clang..!
-a dull, yet thunderous ringing sound echoed.
Her unique Attribute had failed.
Silvia's face twisted at that notion, it was the first time this had occurred.
Drip-
The odd-looking liquid continued to collect itself beneath the statue, and the rest of the cohort firmly decided against wasting energy to try and prevent its birth.
If Silvia couldn't do it, neither could they.
But Silvia wasn't satisfied, raising her etched sword once more, another deafening slice of Aura battered itself into the liquid.
And yet another dull, loud noise echoed.
Savana held an arm up to protect her eyes from the winds and prevent her hair from thrashing about madly.
Long, loose hair was inconvenient in times like these.
Squinting her wine-red eyes past her buttery-smooth fingers, she cautiously observed the liquid from behind the barrier named Silvia.
But not just her, so did everyone.
They all watched on carefully.
As the liquid merged.
Splashed.
Formed.
Until, eventually.
It attained its final form.
Revshika's Shadow was, in the end, just a Shadow.
But here's the catch, it wasn't the Shadow of Revshika.
It was the Shadow of Revshika's choosing.
This was where the hell of -The Drowned- began.
Savana and Silvia's eyes shuddered.
Drip-
Taking a step forward, Revshika's Shadow revealed itself from beneath the cacoon of liquid.
It had a short stature.
Drip-
A child-like physique.
Drip-
Infinitely swirling abyssal eyes.
Drip-
Black and white hair.
Drip-
The first of the two bosses of Act One.
Revshika's Shadow.
Model...
""A-, aranea?!""