Chapter 985 - Tall house

After a quick sweep of the surroundings with her mana senses, Sofia looked up at the lone silent statue lording over its underground shrine.

What a grotesque figure.

The statue looked like an atrocious human-shaped beast with tiny toothed tentacles for a mouth its eyes carved out, holding out an offering bowl overflowing with liquid pooling at its clawed feet. It somehow managed to simultaneously exude an air of nobility and savagery. Sofia’s honest thoughts were that this appearance would have been an eyesore even amongst demons.

Sofia walked up to the statue.

Although it looked disturbing, she felt nothing from it.

“Had we not been told otherwise I would have never thought this was anything other than a creepy statue. Feel anything different, Pareth?” she asked, looking back.

Pareth shook his head.

“Curious.”

Sofia poked the statue, first the bowl, then the gnarly fingers holding it, but there were no reactions.

“Is it ignoring us? Or can we not hear it for some reason? Hmm. Leaving us no choice.”

Sofia produced the Esoteric marble they had obtained from the closed doors entity, and dropped it into the offering bowl.

Although the ‘liquid’ in the bowl was sculpted stone, the core sank inside like a rock sinking in thick mud.

It was then that Sofia and Pareth both felt a powerful pressure weighing down on them. It felt ancient and cold, a deadly force not to be messed with. But Sofia and Pareth both held strong, not even showing any strain.

Compared to the presence of the Lords… This can only be called a crude imitation.

The bowl started to exude a dark light that obscured the surroundings. The sculpted stone representing the liquid in the bowl started bubbling, and slowly, a long metallic javelin, like a giant nail, rose from the bowl it could not possibly fit inside of, the liquid stone overflowing even more, flowing down the steps of the statues’ altar.

Sofia glanced back at Pareth, who nodded and stepped up to grab the weapon.

The dark light grew stronger, further plunging the room into an abyssal darkness.

An ancient voice that sounded like it came from a corpse echoed through the dark.

“Kill it… Valor… Kill… Prove… Yourself… Stab… Pierce… Destroy… The hidden eye… I await…”

In an abrupt transition, the voice stopped and the darkness instantly disappeared. Aside from the new weapon in Pareth’s hand, it was like nothing had even happened.

Was that all an illusion?

It seemed pretty convincing…

“Prove yourself, destroy the hidden eye…”

Just then, the status window in the corner of Sofia’s vision updated.

[Main quest: Save the world before humanity becomes extinct.]

[Sub quests:

(The hero’s proof of valor) - Prove your valor to the mysterious statue using the cursed weapon.

Reward: [The Grand Relic] (Real item also useable for the remainder of the trial)

[Day 2 - Humans remaining: >96%]

Holy hell… It’s already down to 96%...

Sofia tried to look up the ‘grand relic’ since it was tagged like an actual item on the system window, but the description that opened was fully empty.

Cursed weapon…

Pareth was still holding the long metallic stake, moving it around lightly, observing it like a blacksmith checking a sword for imperfections.

“You do have a resistance to curses so hopefully it will be fine… Care to share the description?”

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[Tooth of Drogorath]:

A cursed lance to pierce untruths.

Visions of hell haunt the bearer.

Pain inflicted by this weapon is reflected twofold to the bearer.

Hero Pareth has accepted the burden.

“It does look like more of a burden than a boon. Warn me if it ever gets too bad.”

Pareth nodded, but he seemed unbothered, although he looked at the weapon with a serious gaze, he did not try to let it go, and instead summoned his usual sword over it.

“Alright. Since the statue already said what it had to say, let’s not waste any time, then.”

Pareth and Sofia left as discreetly as they had arrived. Leaving Pareth behind to watch over the sleeping Gabriela, Sofia donned her human disguise again to have a walk around the city. The streets were illuminated by electric lights, there were still a lot of people outside.

Walking through the streets near the bars and other nightlife places, Sofia eavesdropped on the conversation both in the streets and inside of the buildings.

Although people looked normal at first glance, there was clearly an uneasy feeling permeating through their discussions. People anxiously shared news of the happenings in the western region, the disaster alarms, the sightings of strange meteors in the sky by fishermen over the northern sea. Some called the happenings fake news, some silently prayed for the mercy of god, some pretended not to hear, but it was undeniable that there was a gloomy undertone to the city’s jovial nightly gatherings.

Failing to gather any information on events not related to herself, Sofia was going to call it a night and started making her way back to the house when she walked past a deserted street.

It was really strange to see, bordering the large street full of noisy pubs, this singular street was dark and silent, the street lights turned off, no signs of life behind any of the houses’ windows, nobody walking the street or the long straight road. It looked out of place.

There was no certainty of anything, but Sofia trusted her instincts.

Pareth. I need you here.

Wearing a long dark cloak, Pareth appeared next to Sofia.

A drunk passerby rubbed his eyes at the sudden appearance, he then took another swig of his bottle and stumbled away without a word.

Look at this street.

I didn’t expect to find anything in the city… But there is clearly something wrong here.

Pareth seemed to agree. Sofia tried to find a physical or magical boundary separating the silent street from where she stood, not finding anything.

Are we just being overly cautious, seeing things where there are none?

Determined to find out, Sofia stepped into the silent street.

She was hit by instant silence. The bustling street behind her ceased to exist. There was only a dark street now, in front and behind her both. Pareth still felt like he was nearby, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Watching from his eyes, Sofia had disappeared, the street was still empty.

How weird. Don’t get in yet.

Sofia’s quantic transposition no longer reached outside of this strange street, but she checked and [Roaming Free] could still reach the real world, although she was unclear on where exactly she was.

Since they would not be trapped here, Pareth joined her.

“An opportunity to try out your new cursed spear,” Sofia commented, watching Pareth grow in size, no longer having to limit himself to disguise with the cloak.

“Woah… Did you see that?”

Pareth looked around with a questioning look.

“When you used shapeshifting to adjust your size… The smaller houses of the streets grew taller. Some even gained a new floor. They just… Stretched to a new size and windows appeared by themselves?”

Curious, Pareth turned around, and pushed his skill to grow a little taller.

This time he too saw the houses become taller with him. Turning back to Sofia, he mimicked something with a few hand signs.

“You can’t see past them?”

Now that you mention it, my mana senses beyond the row of houses are a bit… Oh wow. It’s the same row of houses? The street is a repeating pattern?

To see behind the houses, Sofia jumped up, only intending to go high enough to comfortably see past the tallest houses around.

The entire stretched upwards as she ascended, completely blocking her line of sight.

When she landed back down, having seen nothing, she was now surrounded by two comically tall walls of houses.

She only shared a brief glance with Pareth before spreading her wings and flying straight up.

The houses stretched into the sky in complete silence, following her. Several kilometers up into the sky, the houses still kept up, no matter the speed of her ascension, the gutter of the lowest roof was still above her line of sight.

How surreal. What is this even trying to accomplish?

There isn’t even anything worse looking at behind these, If I am to trust my mana senses, all the copied rows grew alongside this one… And I’m not in the ‘other’ streets so it’s not like my senses are getting fed into some kind of perception loop…

Sofia came back down, the street now crushed by the suffocating presence of the gigantic houses.

Pareth was waiting for her at the door of one of the houses he had just used the penthouse key to unlock it.

Her senses found nothing strange inside the houses, they were all furnished and seemed somewhat lived-in, even though there was nobody around. But you are right, it might still be worthwhile to look inside. After you.

Holding the cursed lance and his shield, Pareth opened the door with a very light kick.

A gust of glacial air escaped as the door creaked open.