Chapter 568 (1/2)

With a sharpened focus, Randidly rapidly realized that the cylinder was lined with extremely dense runic engravings. So dense they were that even when Randidly walked up to the thing, he could barely distinguish the different strokes. It was so overwhelming that Randidly felt his head start to spin as he looked.

Someone who could weave Mana Engravings like this… so truly, this was the work of the Creature-

Congratulations, your Skill Mana Engraving has become Lvl 118!

Scowling, Randidly returned to scanning the runes on the cylinder. There were so many that unless he focused, he could barely make out a single one. And what did it mean that simply looking at it was enough to cause him to have a Level up in that Skill…? In all his time studying from the encyclopedias, that hadn’t happened before.

Which made Randidly dearly want to study it. But at the same time, the Creature’s Aether was here, and there could be no one else with enough Skill to make these runes. So then, the obvious choice was to destroy it. But where was that fucking insectoid…?

Randidly turned around and felt, both with his senses and with his Lava Golems strange rock senses. In addition, Randidly felt with every plant in the surrounding mile. The plants squirmed and touched, but they came up with exactly nothing. When Randidly opened his eyes, he had to admit that he had no fucking idea where the insectoid went. And that wasn’t good.

So he turned and regarded the cylinder. He breathed in and breathed out. Then he gestured, and the Lava Golem took a step forward. But as he did so, a voice cut through the buzzing of the room.

“I have a question for you, Mr. Ghosthound.”

Randidly looked slowly up at the metallic insect that scuttled its way down the cylinder. About halfway down, its wings spread and it glided down to settle on the ground a ways away from Randidly.

“What price would you pay to defeat the Calamity. In human lives. I am curious. As I do not sense a fellow incarnation around you… it seems you have great power. But if that was not enough? How many people would you agree is a fair price to defeat the Calamity?”

Randidly blinked. This was the Creature’s voice, yes. But… what it was asking… this was not like the Creature he knew.

As he remained silent, the strange thing continued to speak. “You are curious, no doubt, why I ask. I ask because I have no doubt the consideration of such issues will bring you much displeasure. As you have killed a fellow incarnation of myself, it brings me a certain pleasure to watch you squirm.”

Glaring at the insectoid, Randidly gestured again. The Lava Golem rushed forward towards the cylinder. As the molten figure was about to crash into it, the insectoid barely even moved. It simply watched. At the last moment, Randidly stopped it, his eyes narrowing.

“... you want me to destroy this?” Randidly said, almost incredulously. Was the manipulation here really that simple? The Creature said something inflammatory to get him to strike?

But Randidly could puzzle out no other motivation for the Creature to ask that question. For all that it spoke in a different manner and behaved strangely, it was still a fragment of the Creature’s Aether. Yet why-

Then Randidly paused. With eyes glowing emerald, he turned to regard the cylinder. “This… this isn’t just a power plant. It’s also a prison. Whoever is performing experiments is also able to-”

Randidly paused. Did that mean… were these runes really made by someone else? Did a System based entity do this? A Champion? Or even a Judgement?

The insectoid clicked in displeasure. “That is incorrect. This is no prison. It is a reminder.”

“Ha, how nostalgic. A reminder?” Another voice cut into the buzzing. Randidly turned and found that a middle-aged woman was ducking through the hole he had made into the powerplant, peering around. She adjusted her glasses. “This is nothing but a tomb. But it was a waste to let the corpse of a god lay fallow, no? So it was put to use. Ignore the pest as best you can. If I could wipe them out, I would. But as you have probably found,”

The woman raised her arm, and Randidly tensed. She was wearing an exosuit, and a long barrel stuck out of her arm. What Randidly could only describe as a bolt of lightning shot outward, striking for the insectoid. In a blur of motion, it dodged, and then skittered into the darkness and up the wall. The woman fired several more times, striking some of the monitors with enough energy to smash them to pieces, but the insectoid continued to climb, moving up into the darkness.

Sighing, the woman turned to regard Randidly once more. “Tenacity should be admired. But it is frustrating; this creature should be dead, and yet it lives in that strange body. Confounding. But it gives me hope that there is more to learn in the world.”

“Who are you?” Randidly whispered. “This is a tomb-”