Chapter 1620: Secrets of the Raidmen
=Okay....good news, we managed to secure study samples of both types of these weird corpse warriors.=
<Yup.>
=And the Ragnarockers have blended in amongst the forces of the Erupting Dawn Empire.=
<The bad news of all this is that I’m pretty sure this shit is a trap and a half,> Pathos noted as she snapped her fingers and summoned up the display featuring the two different type of corpse warriors.
After they had been extracted from the battlefield, Logos and Pathos had immediately dumped in the holding cells next to the stalker that their Lord had yet to interrogate.
The curators had noted that once the two new variables were introduced, the stalker had retreated to the back of his cell to avoid being in proximity of both.
The implication of this being that this was either a recent development, or the fact that the Sacred Flame Theocracy was fielding corpse puppets was something of a secret to the wider world.
That or this mother fucker was incredibly uninformed, but that was a question to be addressed later.
=Yes, but what kind of trap and who are the ones who came up with it? = Logos asked after dismissing the display. = Is it the Erupting Dawn Empire trying to play both sides in this war? Or is there some deep church conspiracy? Maybe it’s neither and there’s a third party, because there’s always a fucking third party getting involved. =
<To be fair, I think we’re the third party in this situation. > Pathos pointed out before getting back to the main topic. <Also, are you thinking that this is an inside job because the chances of not just one side, but two sides of a conflict using corpse puppet warriors are unfathomably low? Especially when both sides happen to share enough similarities, save the weird power source thrumming in their chests? >
=Yes.=
As soon as Logos confirmed this guess of Pathos’s, the display showing the ongoing analysis of the slime core extracted from the Raidman had appeared right next to the one showing the ongoing analysis of the solid core that came from one of the Temple Guards.
Directly beneath these two displays was a third showing that the Temple Guard and the Raidman had the exact same internal structures.
= And you and I both know that our current lord is in a rather temperamental state since his whole karmic void problem still hasn’t been resolved yet. If anything, this entire revelation is going to make him think that this entire situation is connected to it. =
<I mean... to play the devil’s advocate, we could just step away from this fight for a bit before coming back and resolving it once our lord’s karmic void has been filled. Granted, I don’t think we have checked on the Echoing Valley team for a while...>
=I checked on them last night; they were in the middle of scaling down a sheer cliff in an attempt to reclaim a primitive aether treasure. An axe that once belonged to Frosttusk’s old life. =
<Huh...that’s...oddly coincidental...>
=How so? =
<The Ragnarockers are about to enter into a situation that I’m fairly certain is going to lead to Hurricroak and Frosttusk having existential crises...again.
=...=
<...>
=Okay, do we still have that tracker on Draigo, or did we get rid of that? =
<I made sure to have his ass more haunted than the house of a quintuple homicide. Especially after he already popped up once before.>
=Excellent.=
...Meanwhile...
[Why do I get the feeling that the curators are talking behind our backs?] Hurricroak asked her fellow kaijin via their mental link.
[Because they always talk behind our backs,] Nepherage answered, rolling her eyes.
[Yes, but I mean, why do I feel that feeling, now?] Hurricroak explained herself.
[Because...this...situation...is...fucked...and...you...want...a...distraction,] Frosttusk answered.
[I mean...that’s not wrong.]
After Hurricroak, Nepherage, and Frosttusk had managed to blend in with the fleeing warriors from the Erupting Dawn Empire, they had made several discoveries back-to-back.
Their first discovery was that the Erupting Dawn Empire had access to a powerful portal-type aether treasure that they regularly used to send soldiers to attack Emberona. However, this aforementioned aether treasure could only send limited amounts of living warriors at any given time.
Evidently, this perfectly explained why the Erupting Dawn Empire was using corpse puppet warriors in the first place. Since they weren’t alive, the treasure allowed them to pass with no resistance.
Of course, this just led to the bigger question of, "where was the Erupting Dawn Empire getting all of these corpse warriors in the first place?"
Thankfully, the Ragnarockers had found out the answer to that question very shortly after they had followed the Erupting Dawn Empire warriors through the portal.
The moment they crossed, they were instructed to go with the other surviving members of the mortal warriors in order to deposit their spoils and get their injuries treated. Simultaneously happening to this mortal bookkeeping, the corpse warriors were sent to another area to be repaired and refurbished.
The Rangarockers hung around the mortal warriors long enough to determine that the "spoils" weren’t just aether arts or treasures, but the collected corpses and body parts of the defeated and the fallen.
They bore witness as the dead were cataloged and sorted like they were pieces of meat at the butcher shop, before being carried away towards the same direction as to wherever the corpse warriors were being brought to.
With that information in hand, the three of them proceeded to get out of line, get out of sight, switch to their much smaller travel forms and followed that cart all the way to...well...a room that was incredibly freaky...but also oddly nostalgic.
[I just realized why this place felt familiar...didn’t the Marquis de Howlite have a similar room to this?] Nepherage asked Frosttusk.
[Yes...] Frosttusk rumbled. [But all of the bodies were taxidermied...and missing their hearts.]
[Does that mean we get to treat this place how we treated that old fucker’s mansion?] Hurricroak asked, not fond of that particular set of memories.
[Maybe.]
The kaijin saw dozens upon dozens of the corpse warriors that the Erupting Dawn warriors called "Raidmen", standing in neat rows and looking more or like fucked up mannequins rather than the human-shaped weapons that they had fought hours ago.
Adding on to that mannequin analogy, several of the warriors currently inside this room were stitching body parts together until they more or less assembled into a full body.
Needless to say, watching this occur made Hurricroak feel just the tiniest bit uneasy.
[You good?] Frosttusk asked.
[Yeah, I’m fine,] Hurricroak mumbled. [Let’s just see if we can figure out a way to clean this entire place out.]
This should’ve been the perfect time for the three of them to transform back to their full forms and turn this weaponized morgue into a funeral pyre, but they didn’t.
Because, as stated earlier they learned that this situation was incredibly fucked.
Why?
Well...
"Alright, that’s the last of the corpses," shouted one of the people in charge of carrying the body parts into this room of undead delight. "Call forth the Plasma Mother."
[What the fuck did he just say?] Hurricroak asked the other kaijin, confused by the words.
[Uh...guys?]
[Whoa mama!]
Crawling on the ceiling towards their direction, was the strangest aether beast any of them had ever seen.
This creature had no limbs, fangs, fur, feathers, or claws, and greatly resembled one of those slime monsters from the games that came from their lord’s memories.
But the weirdest thing about this monster wasn’t it’s shape,but the fact that despite it not producing any form of [Chaos], something about it’s existence rubbed the kaijin the wrong way.
[Do you guys feel like this thing is way more dangerous to us than it is to them?] Hurricroak asked her fellow kaijin.
[Yes,] Nepherage concurred. [I get the feeling we shouldn’t confront it until our lord is here to fight.]
[Kind of like the Grub situation?]
[Exactly like the Grub situation.]
[Hmmm,] Frosttusk rumbled as he kept an eye on the blob while Frosttusk and Hurricroak talked.
The blob eventually stopped crawling until it was directly over the stitched body of one of the newly formed corpse warriors.
Once it had situated itself in a "comfortable" position, it stretched out a gooey pseudopod and enveloped the corpse in its slimy embrace.
It was at this exact moment where the kaijin realized why they were being so cautious around this giant blob.
The enveloped corpse begin to writhe and change under the presence of all of this slime, until completely transforming into another Raidman corpse warrior.
Gone were all of the stitches and mismatched body parts, here was now a perfectly normal looking corpse.
A corpse that,once released from the Plasma Mother’s grasp, shuddered for a moment before proceeding to walk itself over to a nearby uniform rack, and dressed itself.
At that end of this surreal moment, the newly minted Raidman proceeded to step back into like before entering some kind of hibernation mode.
[Are...are these corpse warriors incubators or shells?]
[ I don’t know...]
