The next morning, they continued their journey towards the quarry. It sat on the western edge of the plains, right before the barrier of infinity that blocked their strive for the marble palace.
To reach the quarry itself, they had to cut through a ravine in the center of several rocky hilltops, where the quarry laid as a centerpiece. It was filled with several different types of Dweller Demons, and so Mercury and Quincy stayed wary.
They had learned of such things from those that had returned. Not everyone who participated in the quarry scouting mission had been captured by the Lower Demon. Some had been able to escape, returning to Camp Deralise and informing Looking Glass.
Mercury dashed forward, his fist colliding with the misshapen face of a Dweller Demon. It was rotund, sporting a large belly with several mouths and pairs of eyes on it. Instead of using its short, stubby legs, it opted to roll at quick speeds backwards, trying to distance itself from the bloodlusted Reapers.
However, from under the earth, the incorporeal form of a woman brandishing a silver dagger appeared, sinking the knife into its main head, causing it to fall to the ground in a deflated heap.
She brushed the hair out of her face as she became corporeal once more, glancing up at Mercury with a genial smile. "We're almost there, Mercury! You should prepare yourself. A Lower Demon is nothing like these Dweller Demons."
In the path behind them, they had left behind the corpses of several Demons. It was the first opportunity that Mercury had been given to consume and assimilate the flesh of the Demons.
Quincy had told him that the flesh could only be consumed for about a minute after the death of the creature. This was because the life force would quickly dissipate, and wouldn't provide any obvious strengthening effect to a Reaper. Assimilation was also the only way to increase the kill counter.
This caused Mercury to have a chilling thought. 'If it's the case that the kill counter increases with each instance of assimilation, then how could the counter have read '1 Monster, 1 Demon'? Is it the case that my past really is related to Hell? Is that why I felt such a switch inside myself when I first arrived here? Am I close to discovering my memories? What kind of monsters and Demons had I killed in the past? What a strange phenomenon… I can't wait to find out who I truly am.'
They had spent almost five minutes fighting with the singular Dweller Demon. While they had been careful not to sustain injury, it made Mercury wonder just how long a fight against the Lower Demon would take, and to what extent he would have to sacrifice parts of himself for victory.
If it was only a finger, he thought he could handle such a thing. A hand would be somewhat devastating, but not necessarily life-ending. However, if he were to lose an arm, that was surely something he couldn't handle.
Of course, this was just arbitrary thinking on his part. There was no purpose to it. Mercury was just a foolish bastard who couldn't help but think about stupid things.
There still remained three rotund Dweller Demons in the distance of the ravine, staring at the two Reapers with blank, distant eyes. Mercury still had no weapon to fight with, but it wasn't something he minded. The skin on his hands had begun to bleed slightly, but he wiped the crimson off on his cloak and continued walking forward.
"Three Dweller Demons… they're fully grown. It might be better for us to run past them. If you stay hidden, I might be able to control one of them and have them attack each other. Then, we can run past in the middle of their confusion without too much danger." Quincy came up with a preliminary plan in an instant, her eyebrows furrowing.
Suddenly, before Mercury could even respond, rumbling echoed through the ravine, patches of rocks and debris falling from the edges high above. A shrill roar echoed through the small, elongated space, causing the Dweller Demons around Quincy and Mercury to writhe.
From ahead of them, its hundred spindly legs moving at high speeds, an armoured Titan Centipede emerged.
Quincy flipped the blade around in her hand as it approached, her eyebrows furrowing. 'That creature, it's definitely a monster! Will it eat the Demons for us!? But its size… its at least five times as large as us! Does that make it a Titan! We've never encountered a Titan-class monster before! Can we beat it if its all we have to face!?'
"What the hell is that!?" Mercury abandoned his calm persona, his eyes widening as he stared up at the gigantic monster.
At the same time as the monster appeared, the Dweller Demons stopped writhing. The Centipede scooped up the Dweller Demons in its maw, throwing them upwards so that they would land on its back.
Quincy's eyes widened. 'It didn't eat them!?'
After a moment, Quincy replied in an unusually anxious tone of voice. "It's a Titan-class monster! But what is a monster doing amongst Demons!? Usually, monsters are the prey of Demons, and Demons the prey of even bigger monsters! Shouldn't they be running away from this monster right now!?"
Quincy recoiled, grasping at her thin silver knife.
'Why are monsters and Demons acting in parallel!? They've never done this before!' Her mind raced, her body becoming illusory and incorporeal as she activated her forte.
Mercury ran in parallel alongside her. With the Miasma Imp in the Primary implement of the lantern, he activated the Miasmic Boil ability, a swirling liquid mass glowing underneath the skin of his palm. As he appeared before the towering Titan Centipede, he raised his palm, causing the boil to burst open. Pain rushed through his arm, wincing as he watched the orange miasma that emerged cover the side carapace of the Titan Centipede.
The acidic miasma began to melt into the thick armoured shell, gradually wearing it away until soft flesh was left exposed.
Still, the pain was incredibly intense. Mercury's face twisted, stumbling backwards as he stared at his hand. The burst skin of his palm had withered away, the rest of his hand having been burnt by the acidic miasma. However, unlike the armoured Titan Centipede, it seemed the skin of a Reaper was far more resistant to such things.
Fang An had once spoken of what he had learned from Quincy, that a Reaper's physicality was enhanced in comparison to a normal human. It must have been to the extent that it could resist such an ability, or even that the forte he received from capturing the Shade of the Miasma Imp led him to be resistant to it. It might have been that the pain was the trade off for its sheer combat potential.
Still, the pain was debilitating.
'F-ck! I can't handle this much! It feels like all my nerves are spasming!' Mercury fell to his knees, grimacing. It was far unlike the pain he had felt from the strange tendrils of the Gloam Sprite. It was far more concentrated to one area, and that made it all the more unbearable. 'If Quincy wasn't here, I could use the Vita Requiem to heal myself, and the Pax Edict to calm my tension! Damn it!'
As soon as he tried to stand up, he stumbled. But it wasn't the case that he needed to do much more. With the flesh of the Titan Centipede exposed, Quincy regained her corporeal form, thrusting her blade into the exposed portion of the monster. It cried out as the silver blade pierced its skin, hurtling its head backwards to fall away from the attack quickly. It crashed into the side of the ravine, causing the rocks that its rumbling had torn up earlier to fall onto its body, burying it partially.
Quincy didn't hesitate to use this opportunity, becoming incorporeal once more and using her momentum to hurtle towards the Titan Centipede, thrusting her knife into the exposed flesh and continuing along with her momentum, tearing a large gash into the side of the monster.
It writhed underneath the fallen debris, the rotund Dweller Demons having been buried alongside it. But crimson steadily pooled underneath it, leaking out from between the rocks. Slowly, and surely, its movements ceased.
They had defeated the Titan Centipede.
Still stumbling as he stood up, Quincy quickly returned to his side, her eyes widening as she saw the wound on his hand, his entire body quivering.
"Are you all right!?" She exclaimed, picking up his arm as she stared at his palm. "What happened?"
'I would be all right if you weren't here… I could just use Vita if you would leave.' Mercury grimaced as his mind spun.
"I'm fine, Quincy. It's just a burn." He choked out the words, feeling as if he were lying.
"But how did you even obtain it!?" Her mind raced. 'Ah, is it the case that it relates to his forte? But wasn't it the strange black tendrils that I saw? Does it have something to do with that strange lantern?'
"I can't say anything more." Still wincing, he smiled slightly, placing a finger against his lips. She nodded in response, understanding.
Instead, she reached into her bag, procuring a knotted pile of clean white strips of linen. Untangling them, she soaked the linen in water from a flask before wrapping them around his hand.
"It's not much, but cold water should soothe it slightly." She spoke in a soft, pleasant tone, as if trying to comfort him.
As she had said, soon, the trembling of his body began to alleviate slightly, the pain becoming milder. At the very least, it was bearable.
Mercury looked up at the woman with a new outlook. His eyes glistened with admiration. To him, she almost seemed like a Saint.
'Ah, maybe I was wrong about her. I don't need Vita, I think…'
He pursed his lips, trying to think of something to say that would be suitable in the moment, feeling a bit nervous and shy. However, his brain was too scrambled to think of anything smart or witty, so he just chose to show simple gratitude.
"Thank you, Quincy."