Chương 190: Chapter One-Hundred-and-Ninety

Old Town was a city of grey stone with lichen and moss covering almost every wall in the alleys out of sight of the main thoroughfare. Shadows seemed to cling unnaturally to the nooks and crannies, like flickering mirages at the edge of Adam's vision. The buildings were stocky hollowed-out blocks of stone, and grey lanterns carved ages past ran down the thoroughfare.

Beck had told him how the Forlorn Shadow would spread from the castle in the east, creeping across the green hills until it reached Old Town on the sixth day. Anywhere the Shadow touched, death would be suspended, turning every corpse against them. Even before then, it was clear the Shadow had a far-reaching claw that could lift up the dead individually, haunting them like ceaseless spectres. Only by the light of a true flame could they turn away the Shadow, but that was easier said than done.

Adam looked to the sun. I need to figure out how to create sun fire quickly. Their escort let them go once they reached a large open plaza in the centre of the city, with the promise that they would head for the church. It's main spire was visible from the plaza, despite being several streets away, and it seemed to be rather large, indicating it was likely an important cathedral in the region. They watched the riders hurry back down the thoroughfare to reach the rolling green fields beyond Old Town.

"Should we do some shopping first?" Seo-Yoon asked, looking around at the many stalls. Despite the looming threat, the people seemed generally at ease. Guards wearing chainmail and yellow tunics were stationed around the area, keeping an eye out for trouble.

"With what?" Natalia countered.

"We don't have any money."

"It would be a good idea to see what the stage offers in terms of relics and weapons," Adam agreed, "but we should find Heiner first."

"We should," Chien said. Natalia and Diwa nodded.

"Follow me," Adam told them and set off towards the blip of his mana-infused blood nearby. Old Town had the ruins of a castle half-buried in the cliff side of the mountain wall to its west. Although Adam had expected Heiner to be working his charms on whichever leadership was installed there, the blip pointed more southwest to a part of the city where the moss and lichen flourished, covering even the narrow streets and carved stone lanterns.

The shadows clung thickly to the edges of everything, as much a living thing as the moss and lichen. They walked for a while without seeing any other people.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Natalia asked.

"It seems abandoned. What would he be doing here?"

"I have no idea," Adam replied. Besides the blip of his own mana and Heiner's calm melody, there weren't any other nearby signs of life, with the populace of Old Town clearly preferring to stay outside of the infested areas. They turned down an alley and saw that it led to a tavern that was inexplicably clean of moss, lichen, and shadow. It was a three-storey building with a flat roof and lanterns visible through the windows of its second and third floors.

A kind-looking woman with auburn hair and red apple cheeks wearing a white apron over a light-brown dress stood in front of the wooden door, waiting for them to come closer before she greeted them brightly. She reminded Adam a bit of Charlie.

"I don't like this," Natalia muttered. Heiner's melody is calm, so perhaps this is just a secret place. But Beck did warn that despite Old Town, Gothershall, and Silt all being settlements, they are not safe. Chien stepped forward.

"We are seeking a man by name of Heiner." The woman told them that he was waiting for them inside. He thanked her and went through the open doorway. Adam and the others followed, their melodies turning strangely calm, almost tranquil. I feel… I don't know how to describe it. At peace?

"There's a… spell?" Seo-Yoon remarked, her voice confused.

"Try and, what's the word?" Adam replied, gesturing vaguely.

"Absorb it?" she asked as the others pushed past them, knowing the path to Heiner without having seen the place before.

"Bingo." Wait. Why did I not sense the woman outside? The realisation was like a light in the thick fog clouding his mind and he turned back to look at the door they'd entered through. It was gone. The door had become a blank wall. It was black like tar and shifted slightly. I should disable my… raiment? Adam reached over and grabbed his middle and index on his left hand. Crunch. The fingers bent the wrong way as his gauntlet crushed his bones and flesh.

"Argh!" he exclaimed. The orange light of his lighthouse's effect flared and vanished. [You have taken 8 points of damage from self-inflicted mutilation. Self-harm is not negated by your Defence rating.] The mental fog cleared away all at once and Adam swapped his crown for the mage aspirant's cowl. All around him was a hazy purple-red energy. Adam reached out and absorbed it, something Seo-Yoon had been far too addled to accomplish.

The moment he pulled the mana into himself, he felt a filthy and foreign power build up inside the sigils on his hands and the Flayed Lady's blood within him reacted immediately, expelling it from his body with copious amounts of his own blood. [You have taken 25 points of damage from self-inflicted mutilation. Self-harm is not negated by your Defence rating.] This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Seo-Yoon stumbled a step, and a scream came from further inside the strange building, sounding like Diwa's voice, while the whole building shook violently. The sound of metal-on-metal and cracking bones followed.

"Let's go!" Adam yelled and pulled Seo-Yoon with him as he followed the sounds, swapping back to his crown. The corridors of the building had turned organic and rounded, as though they were running through a snail's shell. The walls were no longer stone but instead the same tar-like and strange material that shifted as though alive. When they reached the centre where the others were fighting, they saw that Heiner lay on the floor, curled up and wrapped in cables like a bug in a spider's trap.

Diwa was also on the floor, her body horribly disfigured. Adam immediately understood that it was because of her amalgam, since her armour had changed to resemble her skin colour and there were no open wounds on her body, even though she was missing her right arm and both legs, along with half of her face. Natalia and Chien were battling a humanoid figure made of the same material as the building's walls. It didn't move like a person, and its body shifted through shapes as it attacked and defended.

Adam fired off the fingers of his left gauntlet after wrapping them in fire, piercing the monster with each of his projectiles in turn, filling its body with holes since it was not fast enough to avoid his attacks. But it didn't matter, because it just healed it all back again. Only Chien's attacks seemed to do any damage at all, and Natalia was just serving as a distraction. Fuck.

"Seo-Yoon, absorb some of Chien's mana and wait for my signal!" She didn't waste a second and pulled the magic out of his cuirass, causing her staff to glow golden. This may be a really bad idea… Adam shot himself towards where Diwa lay, still alive but gasping for air." N… ov… a…," she groaned, her voice turned into an inhuman gargle. Adam shoved a healing potion into her mouth, forcing her to swallow it all.

The effect was slow to heal her back, and he knew his plan might end up killing her regardless, depending on whether or not what Seo-Yoon had told him about the Cloudmaker worked like he thought it did. Still, he wanted to give Diwa a fighting chance. He triggered his spring boots, launching himself back to Seo-Yoon who stood a few metres behind the others, her staff still glowing with holy light.

At the same time, the tar monster struck Chien's breastplate, creating a big groove in the metal and making the big guy grunt in pain. There was another groove right next to it where he'd already been hit once. His nova is what turned Diwa into this, Adam realised in horror. He nearly killed her because he got hit… She would've died if not for my lighthouse boon. The only reason it didn't trigger again is because Seo-Yoon just absorbed the mana inside it.

"Do it!" Adam told Seo-Yoon, making sure he was keeping Diwa and himself as close to her and her staff as he could as she spread out a mist around them. He met Seo-Yoon's eyes.

"I hope you were right about the area near the staff being safe. Otherwise Diwa and I will die." She grinned.

"I didn't lie to you, Adam." Her mist spread out with much less finesse than usual, but it was working, because the monster started to scream in an inhuman voice, the strange building shaking and trembling violently while the dark figure thrashed around with spasmodic movements. Chien seized the opportunity to lay into it with massive hits of his glowing war hammer.

Each strike made the building shake more, and suddenly holes started to form in the black walls as though the holy magic was a flame licking across paper. The cables wrapped about Heiner writhed and snapped, releasing him with a gasp. He started coughing and sputtering, and Adam only belatedly realised that one of the cables had gone all the way down his throat. What the fuck was it doing to him?? For some reason, the mere sight of Heiner was upsetting to Adam now, though he had no idea why.

With a beat of his grafted wings, Heiner lifted himself away from the floor and the monster that Chien was absolutely pummelling. He pulled out all nine of his javelins, holding them unsteadily between both hands, and then he activated his ranger's lucky charm and threw them all. A moment later he activated something else, possibly a skill, and the javelins all formed together into one crackling and white-glowing spear that was shaped like a snaking thunderbolt.

It struck the monster in the back, with Chien having just enough time to get out of the way as it exploded into a boom of thunder. The building broke apart in an instant and Seo-Yoon cut off her holy mist as they all hurried out through a hole in the outer wall, with Heiner staying inside, yelling and cursing as he continued his assault on the black creature.

"What the fuck was that!?" Natalia exclaimed as they stumbled out into an alley leading away from the fake tavern that was crumbling in on itself.

"I think it's my Capgras Demon," Diwa said in horror from where Adam had set her down. Her face was back to normal, and her legs were half-reformed, but her right arm had yet to start healing. Natalia gave her a pitiful look and offered her one of the medium healing potions she carried.

"You need to get rid of your amalgam," she said. Diwa started sobbing.

"I know."

"I'm going back in," Chien said.

"Hold on," Adam stopped him.

"I want to try something first." He summoned a flame above his right hand, feeding it with the bones of his armour to turn it white-hot. From his experiments, he knew that the flame was short-lived but extremely powerful.

"Use it," he told Seo-Yoon. She knew the deal by now and absorbed the magic into her Cloudmaker staff, before creating a mist ahead of them, near the black building that was still undergoing a sporadic collapse.

"Heiner! If you're in there, get out now!" Adam yelled. Then he shot off his own fireballs while Seo-Yoon's scalding hot mist tore into the black walls, melting them like ice. Adam's white-hot fireballs created the same effect where they struck the building, and before the whole thing melted into a black iridescent puddle, they saw Heiner fly up above the rooftops, keeping himself airborne with rapid flaps of his wings, though he looked unsteady.

In the large black puddle that the fake tavern had become stood a single skeletal figure. It wasn't quite human and its slow twitchy movements were deeply unsettling. Seo-Yoon cut off her mist as she ran low on mana, and Chien didn't waste a second, charging in with a roar and swinging his war hammer through its frail-looking body. The holy magic of his weapon and class simply disintegrated the monster, evaporating all of its body and the black puddle into steam in a single flash. [Capgras Demon defeated.] Left behind was a small black chest, the same iridescent black as the puddle had been. It was liquid like crude oil, but nevertheless coherent. Heiner stayed in the air, but from his melody, which was filled with disgust, terror, fear, and gratitude, Adam sensed a deep exhaustion. It seemed that his wings drained a lot of stamina. He settled down atop a roof nearby and just watched them, clenching tightly onto one of his spears. Maybe this experience will make him more likely to work with us now.

Surely he can see that working alone is too dangerous. Even if he's afraid of us, he needs us to survive.

"That was way stronger than a mimic," Natalia muttered.

"It might be the evolution of one," Adam guessed.

"It had similar transformative powers, although I wonder what the hell that hypnotising magic was."

"Was the lady we saw also part of the building it made?" she asked.

"I think so," Adam replied.

"I realised it too late, but she didn't have a pulse, so she definitely wasn't human." While Adam and Seo-Yoon went over to Chien, Natalia stayed with Diwa as she drank the potion to hopefully regrow the last of her missing limbs. Although Natalia had the most luck, Adam knew there'd only be one item inside the black chest. After all, Emelia had told him about these types of chests. They were similar to the ones rewarded from the ritual in stage six, except far more dangerous.

He pulled off one of his gauntlets with his magical control and used it to open the chest, since he had no desire to touch it himself. The item that appeared was a ring of the same flowing oil-like metal. < < Demon Relic Available > > < Demon Ring (????) —???? >"Why doesn't it have a description?" Seo-Yoon asked her cube. [Demon Relics must be equipped for their power to be revealed.]"Nobody touch it," Adam said.

"Demon relics come with permanent demerits, so even if you unequip them, the weakness stays with you, etched onto your soul."

"The angel didn't tell me about this," Chien remarked.

"Does that mean using them is just a gamble?" Natalia asked, having overheard the explanation and joining them with Diwa leaning on her shoulder. The tank had regained her right leg and most of the left, but her arm was still just a half-formed stub. With two medium healing potions she should've regained 80% of her health, which meant that the amalgam armour had taken even more than that, perhaps putting her in the single digit percentage amount.

"If someone worshipping Messimer uses their appraising eye on demon relics, then they can see the description," Adam said. Heiner landed a few metres away from them. As everyone looked upon him, their melodies soured into disgust, anger, and apprehension. Adam thought it was an overly strong reaction, until he felt it bubble up within himself. It's like the opposite of magical attraction, he realised.

"Give it to me," Heiner said.

"The demon stole my power from the Courtesan, and I have been scorned as a result. I won't survive past this stage, so I may as well help you figure out what the relic does."