Within the oppressive gloom, a faint glimmer of gold flickered. As their lamplight swept over it, the light revealed golden ornaments adorning a grotesque statue standing by the roadside.
The statue depicted a massive Deep One Elder. For the immortal Deep Ones, size was the ultimate indicator of age and status. This one wore a tall, cryptic crown embellished with exquisite gold leaf and hemmed with inlaid gemstones.
Its opulent robes were propped up by fins protruding from various parts of its body. Its limbs ended in webbed claws that possessed a slick, piscine sheen, looking as though they were still secreting phantom slime.
As the duo explored further down the street, they encountered similar statues of Deep One Elders and other marine horrors at regular intervals. Each was lavishly decorated, with no expense spared in gold or jewels.
“Careful!”
Medeili crouched low, hugging the wall as she peered at several humanoid monsters lurking at the upcoming intersection.
They possessed the bodies of Deep Ones, but their fish-like heads had sustained heavy trauma. Their skulls were shattered, exposing rotting, greenish brain matter that looked far from fresh.
The creatures hopped and thrashed with dry, grey scales. Their skin had turned into something akin to cured meat, oozing salt crystals from every pore. Long, curling shadow tentacles writhed hatefully from the cracks in their flesh; it seemed their insides had been completely hollowed out and replaced by Dead Souls.
Ah! That’s Wang Yue’s hammer! Lilith cried out in their shared consciousness.
Medeili saw it at the same time. The unmistakable Morning Star Wand lay abandoned on the ground, its spiked head coated in grey brain matter.
Evidently, Wang Yue had used it to cave in these fish-heads, only to discover that they were already dead. The shadow creatures formed by the Dead Souls had merely occupied the empty cavities to pilot the corpses.
“Why did she throw her hammer away?” Lilith asked, puzzled.
“Once these Deep Ones have been ‘salt-cured,’ smashing their heads is useless,” Medeili guessed. “The hammer probably became a liability.”
“Then she’s not cool anymore,” Lilith muttered, sounding disappointed.
“Wait, you think smashing heads is cool? What exactly are your standards for ‘cool’ anyway?” Medeili held up her lamp and pointed at the mummified fish-men. “Here’s your chance to shine. Shred them into bonito flakes. I’ll stay behind you with the light to burn away the shadow monsters.”
“Watch me!”
Hampered by the water for so long, Lilith was itching for action. She kicked off the ground, launching herself like a projectile toward the nearest salt-cured Deep One. A fierce, silver arc of a slash whistled through the water!
Crack!
It felt and sounded exactly like splitting dry firewood.
As the creature fell apart in two halves, the shadow tentacles within erupted instantly, swarming toward the blonde girl.
Sizzle!
It sounded like cold water hitting boiling oil. Medeili directed the lamplight toward them, and the shadow tentacles melted away like snow under a summer sun.
Lilith’s feet blurred as her petite figure vanished. A moment later, she passed through another desiccated Deep One. A fan-shaped spray of cuts blossomed across its chest, severing its arms and torso into neat segments.
The blonde girl’s footsteps rhythmically shifted as the space around her filled with dancing, whirling arcs of steel. Everywhere she passed, limbs flew and bodies shattered.
Once every monster was reduced to scrap, she came to a halt. With two flashy flourishes, she flicked the blades and sheathed them with precision.
Lilith reached back to brush the hair behind her ears, feeling a twinge of regret. To infiltrate the Gold Rush team, she had cut her hair short. While it was practical, it lacked the elegance of long hair fluttering in the wind.
When I get back to school, I have to use a magic potion to grow it back, she thought. It would look best if I wore a heavy cloak with gold-fringed epaulettes. Only then will I have the proper ‘badass’ aesthetic while I’m killing people.
Having eliminated the “salted fish,” the two reached the edge of the district and found a gateway leading to the next zone.
On the ground before the entrance, a mana-inked exclamation mark glowed—a clear warning of danger.
“Wait.” Medeili stopped in her tracks. “This Beacon was thrown from the inside out. She must have run into something serious.”
Her expression turned solemn as she commanded a Firefly to float inside to provide light.
“Hmph, I bet that girl is just being overly cautious,” Lilith mused, her eyes gleaming with a hint of excitement. “She’s probably jumping at shadows. I bet if we go further, we’ll see more beacons saying things like ‘Help me,’ or ‘I’m dying,’ or ‘I wish Lilith was here, sob sob,’ or ‘I want to see Lilith one last time before I go!'”
“Uh…” Medeili looked at her, stunned by her partner’s delusions.
The Firefly drifted into the gateway, illuminating a square corridor. It was a narrow passage, barely two meters wide, meaning any attack would be nearly impossible to dodge.
As the orb of light pushed deeper, Medeili’s pupils suddenly contracted. Near a bend at the end of the hall, she saw a very familiar set of clothes—and there was a gaping hole torn right through the chest!
“Lilith, is that…” she whispered, her voice trembling.
Lilith’s face went pale. She recognized the clothes Wang Yue had been wearing before they set out. The respirator and oxygen tanks were there too, discarded on the floor and completely crushed, as if by some immense force.
“Don’t panic. There’s no blood on the clothes, and they weren’t taken off normally,” Medeili analyzed quickly. “She probably transformed into a cat the moment she was attacked, shrinking her size to dodge a fatal heart-piercing blow.”
She glanced sideways and saw Lilith gritting her teeth, her red eyes wide and glowing. It was as if a monster had finally shed its human mask, radiating a feral, murderous aura.
Lilith bolted forward before Medeili could grab her.
She rounded the corner of the corridor in a flash, searching for the enemy.
Deep within the darkness of the passage, countless spheres of fluorescent orange light flickered in and out of existence like lanterns. Looking closer at the black vertical slits in the center of those glowing orbs, she realized they weren’t lanterns—they were eyes. Thousands of them.
A dense, wet squelching sound filled the air, like a blender filled with slime turned to the highest setting. Myriad bubbles burst simultaneously, a sound that made one’s skin crawl.
Splat!
A tentacle composed of putrid, amorphous protoplasm shot out, its tip capped with a bone-white spur as sharp as porcelain!
Instead of retreating, Lilith lunged forward, swinging her blade in a massive horizontal arc!
To her shock, the cells at the tip of the tentacle differentiated instantly. They sprouted tiny feelers that swerved around the blade, lashing out to entwine her!
Crap…
Lilith’s heart sank. Fortunately, because the opponent was an organic lifeform, her Mystic Art activated just in time. The feelers froze mid-air, straining against an invisible force until they stopped mere inches from her face!
She could clearly see that the tips of the feelers were covered in fine needles. The faint odor wafting from them made her head swim—it was undoubtedly a potent, injectable neurotoxin.
“Run!”
Medeili reached her, grabbing her arm and dragging her back toward the opposite end of the corridor.
The mass of maddening, amorphous protoplasm had fixed its sights on them. The sound of bursting bubbles grew louder and louder. Tentacles dozens of meters long slammed against the walls with deafening thuds!
Seeing that they were about to be submerged by the slime, Medeili slammed her left foot down and swung her right leg in a devastating roundhouse kick, channeling the power of the Glacier Breaker!
In an instant, the corridor behind them was choked with ice shards as sharp as razors. The frost bloomed within the narrow space, biting and grinding into the stone. The pressure was so immense that the masonry of the walls cracked, and the entire section of the corridor groaned and sank like a derailed train car!
However, the protoplasmic slime began to squeeze through the gaps in the ice, reforming on the other side amidst a mist of freezing vapor!
Medeili looked toward the vault door at the end of the hallway. The lock was a six-by-six keypad, the bronze buttons engraved with ancient pictograms. She had no idea how many digits the password required.
She turned back to the rapidly reforming mass of protoplasm, a wave of despair washing over her.
“A beacon…”
She scanned the area desperately for any message left by Wang Yue, but this time, there was nothing! Perhaps the attack had been so sudden that she hadn’t had time to leave a mana beacon before fleeing.
Just as Lilith drew her sword to try and force the door, a familiar voice rang out in their ears.
“Stop! You fool!”
A crow flew out from Medeili’s pocket, its wings flapping as it landed on the keypad. It pecked several keys in rapid succession, and the vault door groaned, retracting halfway into the wall.
“Quick! Get inside and close the door! The Shoggoth won’t follow!”
