Chapter 252: Analysis of the Strange Creature
"I analysed the creature’s weaknesses and strengths."
After speaking, she joined Nicole who was healing the injured knights, leaving the grey-haired knight with slacked jaws.
He was not the only one, as the rest of the knights in his platoon who were still conscious all had their jaws drop in shock as one teenage girl had just taken out the monster that all twenty of them had failed to defeat.
It had to be taken into account that they were all master-level existences, even so, they stood no chance against the creature that Esna had just single-handedly defeated.
"Guys, you might wanna look at this.
I think you may have missed this too, Esna."
Edward scratched his brown hair as he called out to the rest of the quartet, with them coming over to see the state of the ground around the monster’s corpse.
Despite it being near a lush area filled with greenery, the ground where the monster had passed was drained of life as there were no signs of fresh greenery.
Only decay and emptiness could be seen.
"Is this a universal law’s power?"
"A uni-what now?!"
Edward couldn’t help but scream out in shock when he heard Layla’s question, however, the girl only ignored him while thinking about how similar this was to the watered-down energy of death that Number One who they had just been with a few hours ago, used during one of her training spars with him.
"The other two only had high-level death magic, but this is more than just ’death magic’.
It’s very weak and crudely infused, but it’s definitely the power of a law."
Despite not being able to use the powers of laws herself, it did not mean the girl was unable to sense them, even more so after she had entered under Aurora’s tutelage.
[The girl is correct.
It is a law’s power, one that was infused into the creature by someone or something else.
However, it was done crudely which led to it turning into the abomination that you just killed.]
Undine who had miniaturized herself and was sitting on Nicole’s shoulder spoke up to confirm her words.
[It was unable to use even a bit of said power so it really would not have mattered unless you physically came into contact with it.]
"You know you could have given me this warning a bit earlier, right?"
[Well...you didn’t seem to have any intentions of touching the monster given the expression of disgust that adorned your face the moment you saw it so I didn’t bother mentioning this detail.]
Esna silently facepalmed as she stared at the shredded corpse on the floor, sighing lightly before speaking.
"This means that there’s some kind of existence who is most likely in the Legendary realm behind this monster, right?"
[Not necessarily so, but that is the most likely assumption.]
"Assumption or not, it does not change the fact that this monster seemed to be hell-bent on attacking us.
I mean, it ignored the twenty other people it was dealing with beforehand and charged at us the second we got close."
"It could have just seen us as greater threats to its life, you know?"
In response to Edward’s alternate suggestion, Layla who coated her hand in magic power and picked up a piece of the parasite-like thing that was embedded in the monster’s chest, held it up and replied.
"You may be right, Ed. But I think I’m gonna side with Esna on this one.
Its reaction was far too abnormal, as were the reactions of the two others we encountered before this."
She continuously channelled magic power into the energy coat surrounding her arm to counter the decaying effect that still seemed to be very active despite the parasite not having any life.
[It is just temporary as it hasn’t been long since its death. It would eventually fade away.]
"What the...um...?"
[Spirit]
"Ah, yes. What the spirit says is correct.
The decaying aura of these creatures usually fades away a few minutes after their deaths."
The grey-haired inferior grandmaster realm knight spoke up while inwardly admiring Layla’s courage to pick up the parasite with her ’bare’ hands.
"Are there any other characteristics of these monsters that you can tell us about?"
"Yes.
It al-"
"Hold up, old man.
How about we get to somewhere where we can have a proper conversation first?
The kind of place where your men can rest."
Esna cut the knight off as she spoke, pointing towards the other master realm knights who were visibly more than just ’exhausted’ after having to fend off that monster.
"...
There should be a city nearby, just after this small forest.
It was our original destination."
"Good. We can go there."
"Yes.
Hopefully, it hasn’t been overrun by these abominations."
Like so, the two groups set off into the forest, heading towards the city on the other hand where they planned to gather more information on these parasitic type monsters that had been terrorizing the people on this part of Gade for the past few weeks.
◇ ◇ ◇
Domain of Lucifer’s Vestige
Unknown Planet
Varona Realm
October ????
Year 717 of the 50th General Calendar.
"🎶 The pumpkins went SMACK, there was no use turning back
’Cause I just had to see, was a ghost watching me?
In the mist the hair twists
Was all this swell, or just some kind of hell?🎶."
"Fuck! I’ve had enough!
Gimme that phone, Arthur."
"Huh?
What for?"
"So, I can get rid of all that strange music, that’s what’s for!"
Such was the conversation that took place between mother and son as the two returned to the Domain of Lucifer’s vestige after a few hours of practical training that Arthur had gone outside for.
Since there were no monsters or other living beings on Arthur’s level of strength inside the Domain, the boy occasionally went out to hunt and gain more combat experience using the energies of the laws that he had recently learned.
He did this at the end of a week, or at least what he who was inside the time-accelerated domain of Lucifer believed to be a week.
On a side note; the domain’s time dilation had been increased with Diablo and Creusery’s help, making it so that a week outside it, was three weeks inside.
And so far, Arthur had spent a bit over four weeks inside the time-dilated space, which was just a bit over a week on the outside.
Cattleya came over more often than not, bringing over the most of the work that she had to do with her.
She spent most of her time either dealing with said work, or exploring the large domain of Lucifer and his treasury that was filled with artifacts.
While taking her through the treasury, Arthur offhandedly mentioned the Cosmic Teleporter artifact that had the ability to take him to other universes, and Cattleya’s reaction was not too far off from his expectations.
The woman instantly figured out that her son had intentions of using it to go to other universes and would have most likely turned said artifact to ashes, if it wasn’t strapped to her son’s arm, that is.
As such, the boy had spent quite a lot of time since then trying to convince her to let him go over to other universes using the said artifact.
Sadly, so far, his efforts have been futile as Cattleya showed little to no signs of agreeing with his decision.
