Chapter 87 - He Who Would Undo the Heavens (I)

Chapter 87

He Who Would Undo the Heavens (I)

She stepped forward–though there was a falling firmament before her, and though the sky bled creatures beyond compare, her expression remained flat. The entire world around her was falling apart, crumbling, shattered by the earthquakes that splintered the flatlands and flattened the mountains. Geysers of fire stirred and volcanic maws spat out liquid gold as rivers of molten lava hurdled together. She was tiny in comparison, yet stood firm, a sword in her hand.

For a moment, she vanished; her figure morphed into the air itself and slashed through the void, reaching toward a many-armed beast that was falling. With a swift cut of a sword, she halved it, spilling blood and guts down upon the cataclysmic world. Using the thrashing corpse as a platform, she bounced further up into the sky, straight into the heart of the raining barrage of monsters. Nothing mattered to her but one thing–and she would stop at nothing to achieve it.

**

The first to come crawling out of the darkness were strange and misshapen things, masses of gelatinous flesh and elongated limbs. They crawled like spiders, yet had humanoid faces void of all features, sickly pale in colour, while their skin pulsated with a strange, macabre iridescent glow, revealing glimpses of the twisted and malformed organs that churned within. The heads twisted upside down in a strange, clockwork rhythm, unnatural beyond all other things, whilst the creaking sounds of the fleshy bones formed a cacophony of echoes that stirred darkness itself.

At the mere sight of the first crawlers, Elijah and Delilah both yelped and shuddered, withdrawing further back, fear rooting itself within their hearts. No, it was beyond fear–it was akin to primal, instinctual terror that warned them that they would die.

The second to come were contorted bundles of decaying flesh in the shape of writhing spores decorated with blinking, human eyes. The abomination's flesh was more akin to liquid, dripping to the ground and causing an acidic reaction, while its eyes rotated around freely, blinking unnervingly. From within the decaying flesh, protruding, Ethan and the kids occasionally caught a glimpse of bony, rotted limbs bowing back and forth, seeming a breath away from breaking.

Those were the only two monsters that came out during the first wave and yet, for the kids, they had already seen enough. They were shivering and shaking, their minds torn asunder. They weren't anything like any of the monsters they had fought so far which, for all the strange oddities, still had some roots in reality. The things before them had none–they were grotesque, ill-made, mangled masses of flesh, organs and bones contorted into shapes unfitting of anything living.

Ethan, on the other hand, was better prepared–not because he’d seen these things through a scroll, but because he had fought countless disfigured abominations throughout his life. After all, monsters rooted in animals with some added elements were not the norm. These things, however, were.

At first, they were slow, lumbering, but as they approached, their speed increased. There were precisely fifteen crawlers and fifteen ‘eyes’. Taking a deep breath, Ethan took out Q’uilon from his inventory and gripped the sword’s handle tightly. As Blood within him churned, he made a move.

Blood shifting directly in their midst, he began to unilaterally chop and cleave and slice and stab, while a crimson blade hovered around him, doing the same. His speed, though not fast, was still blinding, and soon enough, limbs and heads came flying off while black blood continued to stain the slabs beneath.

The monsters screeched and wailed, their cries daunting, but Ethan looked as though he hadn’t even heard them. He danced freely in the midst of the rising number of corpses, but they all soon converged toward him–the misshapen things lashed out, the limbs of the crawlers like blades cutting at him, causing him to bleed, while the eyes cried bloody, scalding tears that burned him. However, his enormous HP pool was barely dented, and no less soon recovered. Back and forth, back and forth.

He stabbed forth while the crimson blade next to him sliced back, decapitating two crawlers at the same time; a moment later, he used the swinging momentum to lash out to the side and slice the six-foot-tall bundle of eyes in half. Its rotted, rancid organs spilt out onto the ground immediately, making even Ethan wonder whether the thing was truly alive–and if so, just in how much pain it was for its organs to be essentially liquified.

Within five minutes, he’d killed half of the monsters.

On the side, Elijah and Delilah stared at first in fear, wanting to rush over and help, but with each passing minute, their fear was replaced with awe and wonder. Especially so for the latter–the dashing hero was standing in the midst of the misshapen monsters, killing them with ease, protecting her.

For Elijah, rather than Ethan's ability to kill–though still impressive–he was more in awe of his ability to ignore the horror-inducing shapes. The boy was certain that there likely was no other soul on Earth who wouldn't have collapsed under the weight of the shaking knees, wetting themselves.

Within seven minutes, it was over–all thirty monsters were now nothing more than the liquified blood that the ground itself seemed to have been sucking, cleaning up the gory scene. Ethan straightened up, using Hemomancy to clean himself of the drying blood–both his and otherwise–before turning toward the kids. Surprisingly, to him, neither had passed out; he wholly expected to find them frothing and spasming on the ground, and yet they stood tall. Though clearly frightened and shocked, they still watched it all and not even vomit.

He walked over just as the notification surged informing them that they’d cleared the first wave–everyone gained 1 Level, with Ethan’s being pushed to 26, and 2 points to the main stat–in Ethan’s case, Vitality. Vitality shot up to 157, equating to 1570 Health.

“G-good job,” Elijah commented as Ethan joined them. They had 3 days in front of them during which Ethan wholly planned on training Elijah to the bone–this was the perfect opportunity since, due to the time lock, they'd return to Earth as though they'd spent less than a second inside the Tunnel.

“Thanks,” Ethan smiled faintly as he patted the both of them. “Good job you two, too. I wholly expected you guys to piss yourself and pass out. Well, there’s still time.”

“... y-you mean… even w-worse things will come out?!” Delilah cried out in shock. The only reason the young girl endured was because her entire focus was on Ethan, while the monsters somewhat blended into the background.

“Oh, way, way worse,” Ethan said. “This is really just a warm-up.”

“Jesus…” Elijah whistled.

“Right. What Core ability did you unlock, Eli?” Ethan asked, prompting the boy to look it up himself.

“It’s called Clockwork Homeostasis,” Elijah replied. “Every time I shield or buff someone, I get a stack of ‘Clockwork’. At 10 stacks, I can use the spell to forcibly stabilise… well, anything? Apparently? What does that even mean?” Ethan pondered for a moment before replying.

“Homeostasis is a process in which things sort of maintain a level of equilibrium or stability or something in the period of adjustment to the external conditions… I think?” he mumbled uncertainty. “Probably something like if I’m walking through a field of molten lava, and you use the ability on me, it would stabilise my body? I dunno. We’ll experiment with it. Since it’s a Core ability, it will likely become the foundation of how you do things. So, we’ll have to research it in detail.”

“I–I also unlocked a new ability!” not wanting to be left out, Delilah called out.

“Oh? You did? What is it?” this was the first new ability that Delilah unlocked since joining them, having just only hit Level 10.

“It’s called Spectral Voyage,” she said. “I… I can buff someone to walk through solid objects for 5 seconds. That’s… good… right?” she asked, appearing desperate for a singular answer.

“Of course,” Ethan smiled wildly, reassuring her. “It’s gonna become really, really useful.”

“Yaay!” the girl exclaimed in joy, shaking left and right in her own little kingdom. Ethan’s smile disappeared as she watched the girl–she wasn’t getting any better. If anything, she was getting worse. Though Elijah noticed the shift in Ethan’s expression, he didn’t say anything.

"The second wave," Ethan said. "Will have the same monsters as the first, just double the amount. So, it will be a perfect ground to experiment a bit. Now that you're somewhat used to them, Eli, you're also gonna be participating. From the rear, of course. I'll see how you react to the changes in the battlefield, which means I'll purposefully be fucking around a lot. It will be up to you to keep me alive." Elijah simply sighed, not saying anything. "Now, considering we have the whole three days left, we ain't just spending them in happy chatter, right."

“What… what do you mean?” Elijah suddenly got a bad feeling as cold sweat broke out on his back.

“I think it’s time for the sequel to the good ol’ classic ‘Hellish Training’, directed by Ethan–’Hellish Training Part 2: The Boy Who Suffered’.”

“No…”

“Oh, yes.”

“M-me too! I want to train too!” Delilah called out suddenly as Elijah began to shake.

“Oh, of course! Are you good at running?”

“N-no…”

“Then I’ll make you really good. Really good.” Young, old, man, woman, child… it didn’t matter. Some things ought to be taught universally–especially if the people in question were volunteering.

And thus began the first three days of torture, a mark that would live on with both Elijah and Delilah forever. At some point, their memories of this specific dungeon would not be of the misshapen things that should not exist, and not of Ethan slaying them, but of the ‘training’ that he put them through… all else be damned.