NOVEL WEB Chapter 14: Heretical
The Incarnate steeled his resolve and took a step forward.
There was no other choice.
The call of the Spirit Essence from the doorway made him believe that going down the slope instead was a terrible mistake. Maybe other Incarnates who chose something similar were rolling in their supernatural graves right now.
‘Well, I guess I could always come back. Maybe,’ Incarnate ^8001 thought morbidly.
He placed his bare foot, caked with bits of mud, on the first step. The floor was a lot colder here, maybe because of the Spirit Essence.
He continued on the path, feeling the light brush of energy against his skin.
Silently, the Incarnate scaled the stairs, finding with each meter he traversed that he had a decently long way to go. That was both a good and a bad thing.
Even though he didn’t have much trust in his Equipment when thinking about the horrors to come, he still held them both tight. The Valiant Subject’s Ward had most of the Incarnate’s faith, though, after all, the mace, as the glowing tablet identified…
===
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SeiJo (Equipment) :
>Valiant Subject’s Ward
>Bash Brain
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[Bash Brain (Worn) | Grade Valuable]
+4 STR [N/A]
-
Enchantment : N/A
===
Bash Brain, the mace, was worn.
Whether because of time, or whatever made the mace mystical in the first place being compromised – the Incarnate obviously didn’t know – the weapon’s effects and enchantments were no longer usable.
The Demonling had been thoroughly displeased when he found this out. Bash Brain was already inferior to the Valiant Subject’s Ward by a grade, but having it not be functional as a supernatural weapon on top of that, was hideously unfair.
If not for the fact that whatever the mace was made out of was rather strong and resilient, ridding Bash Brain of some of its irrelevance, the Incarnate didn’t know how he would have felt. At least the mace still worked as an instrument for clobbering.
His march up the stairs continued, and fortunately for him, it wasn’t too dull.
The slimes he had seen before were abundant down this path as well. Not only that, they were bigger.
Unlike the previous ones – which were roughly the size of an eye – these were bigger than the size of his fist individually and had more vibrant colors.
As the Incarnate moved up, he felt the Spirit Essence pouring from his destination get denser and denser to the point where he could see it with his eyes as flakes, or maybe, sparks of silvery-blue.
And as the intensity of the energy grew, so did the sizes of the blobs.
‘They are feeding off the Spirit Essence to grow,’ the Demonling thought as he focused on a blue blob. ‘I imagine if I poke my finger in there, it will probably melt off.’
That… was true. The potency of the properties of the blobs grew with their size.
Somehow, this made the Incarnate feel uneasy.
Twenty meters later, he felt the Spirit Essence burn his skin lightly, like steam, which was ironic considering that his feet were very cold.
In any case, he was almost there.
Just thirteen steps away was a large, rectangular, welcoming gap where a burst of different colors and muted highlights could be seen.
Despite the feeling the Spirit Essence gave, the Incarnate couldn’t wait any longer. Vigilantly, he rushed up the remaining set of stairs and leaped into the entrance.
The moment flat, consistent ground registered on his feet, the Demonling was ready to swing Bash Brain and the Valiant Subject’s Ward.
Sadly, no enemy immediately appeared within close proximity.
Instead, what met the Incarnate was a large, ovular space with contents that required him to relax his mind to grasp.
If he had thought what he saw before was all beyond his understanding, what was before him was even worse. Barring the overabundance of all flavours of blob in this place, all as large as he was, at the very least, everything else was strange.
Before the Incarnate could fully sink his mental teeth into it all, however, he heard a boom behind him, and to his dismay, he turned to find that the exit was closed off by a giant mass of rock that would require more than flesh-inspired might to move!
“No!” the Incarnate cried, but he quickly turned back his attention to what was before him. It was unwise for him to worry about his exit before even understanding what he was up against. Thankfully, his momentary swim through despair didn’t cost him anything. Nothing had rushed him for an attack.
Taking several deep breaths, the Incarnate lulled the worries in his heart.
‘Let’s not be rash. So far, there’s always been a way to escape danger. This shouldn’t be any different,’ he thought.
He then thoroughly analyzed everything in sight.
The ovular room was not that big and neither did it have a lot of things within it – excluding the slimes, of course. The same dark rock the Incarnate had seen all the way here was the same that formed the walls, but the floor was different. It was made of rough blocks of granite.
The only other things to be found here were seven purple drapes attached to the wall equidistantly.
‘Strange. This place has a lot of light,’ the Incarnate thought.
Yes, there was a lot of Spirit Essence within it, giving some light through sparks, but something else… something high up…
The Demonling raised his gaze.
This place had a very high ceiling. Something especially bright, plastered on said ceiling acted as the source of light.
That something was…
The Incarnate turned pale, rather, a shade of pink as he backed away to press himself against the huge rock behind him!
His icy blue eyes dilated and cold fear ran through his body.
What in the name of all that was sacred and holy…was THAT?!
THAT – as the Incarnate thought – was the body of a tall woman adorned in a black, silk dress.
This woman, whose entire outline of atrophied flesh was detailed by her soft dress, was pressed harshly against the ceiling. Her ash blonde hair was chaotically flying behind her, her face, dry and grey, eternally frozen in a look of terror. The absence of her eyes made all this especially terror-inducing.
Behind the woman was a strange brand, a vast symbol that looked like stylized octagons feeding into each other sevenfold. It was the source of the light, glowing in a golden peach hue.
The Incarnate belatedly realized that all the furious Spirit Essence was pouring from this brand and vaguely – easy to miss – was a faint column falling from the woman and this brand, reaching down to the floor.
‘What… what is this?’ the Incarnate thought fearfully. If ever there was a scene fitting of the designation ‘heretic’, this would be it!
Everything about this place made the Demonling uncomfortable.
What was he supposed to do here exactly?
What was being tried here?
Just as he wondered all this, the Incarnate saw the glowing tablet appear before his eyes.
[You are within range of a Legendary Far Ji (Unique Quality)]
[Find its source and pay a fitting price to claim it for yourself]