Chapter 259 - The Helgat (1/2)

For the better part of half an hour, the platform made its way down, the chain above groaning and creaking precariously. Every so often, the chain would glow, causing another coiled chain lying nailed to the mountain wall to unspool and attach to the platform, resetting its length for further travel.

And like this, they made their way through the skeletal remains of an entire civilization. Until at a certain point -

”What in the world?”

Surprisingly, it was Li that uttered this statement. He narrowed his eyes as he saw coiled around the bridges, pathways, and mining contraptions what was best described as a black ooze. It shuddered rhythmically, as if breathing, and it glowed with a sickening shine that indicated a slimy, slick texture when the light Li shone glanced upon it.

And there was so much of it, too, wrapped around almost every surface, all of it attached to each other in tendrils like a massively complex web. Notably, there were no corpses here anymore, likely absorbed into the sprawling mass.

The party tensed up, seeing what Li saw, and immediately all of them stood up, wary of the unknown.

Li was surprised largely because he truly had no idea what this substance was. It did not match anything he knew. His first thought was some kind of black slime which would have been rather high leveled, but no, this was not anything like that. In fact, he could not sense anything from it at all. No magic. Nothing to read for their status.

Much like when Li tried to read the statuses of full-blooded heroes.

The black mass shuddered in unison, and Li spoke, ”Stay near me, all of you!”

As he anticipated, the mass attacked, and tendrils shot out from every single direction, aiming to grasp at and overwhelm the platform.

Li immediately cast [Moonbeam], not holding back at all on power output as twin lights of silver lit up the dark innards of the mountain. Thankfully, the moonbeams were highly effective, burning up and disintegrating the approaching black mass with ease. But the attacks came from all directions, and even as Li covered vast swaths of area with his moonbeams, the mass seemed to be infinitely regenerative, and soon enough, the platform began to shake and rock violently.

Tendrils had likely managed to lock onto the chain holding the platform, and it was only a matter of time before it snapped and everyone went into a freefall.

And so, Li prepared a defense. He leaped into the air and closed his fist, casting [Chrysalis]. A cocoon-like shell of green energy materialized around the platform, snapping off the chain. He prevented the energy encased platform from going into freefall by shifting his arm into a mass of roots, extending them to curl around the cocoon like an anchor, tethering it to him as he sprouted wings to keep everyone afloat.

In the short time Li focused on creating the chrysalis, tendrils had struck at him, or rather, they focused more on attaching to him. The ooze seeped into his skin, causing the muscle fibers and blood vessels beneath to blacken and swell, but because this organic form was simply just an artificially constructed vessel, it did no real damage.

Instead, it let Li know that the kind of damage these tendrils did were entirely independent of magic, passing through his innate magical and physical resistances. These things did not belong to Elden World. And thankfully, it would seem that they could not pierce through the energy construct barrier that was the A-ranked Chrysalis spell.

He reactivated his moonbeams, burning away the stray tendrils that had managed to latch onto his arm and legs.

But as Li peered down, he realized the sheer enormity of volume that this thing was attacking with. Fifty meters down was the flat base of the mountain, and it would be no exaggeration to claim that all of it was completely covered in this mass.

Simple moonbeams would not do enough, and he was not going to go ahead and Fusionboost himself as he was not in anywhere near a threat level similar to the Darkbeast hand, though the mechanics of the fight were similar.

Instead, he opted for something else.

”All of you, close your eyes,” said Li. ”Unless you want to go blind.”

Currently, Li flew along with the smaller version of the multi-colored [Wings of Simurgh], but even at full shapeshifted power, those wings did not have the consistent damage to destroy the black slime.