Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)-Chapter 951. The Descent Into The Fifth Level
“Infecta Rot were culled in the upper Levels? Color me surprised.” Horus was rather impressed by the Repenters, enough to verbally applaud them.
However, her voice was lined with sarcasm. In truth, the reason why Frost had received the Tribulation-end message was because they had cleared them from this Level.
The possibility of facing Gheists in the lower Levels was high, but they figured they’d be culled by the much more powerful Corrupted down there.
There were Corrupted that were kept in a Site solely to combat the daily Tribulations. This was especially true in a Killzone Site.
Furthermore, starting from the fifth Level, the likelihood of encountering Site traps and lethal installations were significant.
“Chances are they’ve already been set off. Besides, traps won’t be a bother to us.” Frost confidently claimed. “I have personnel operating the Cognition Terminal.”
“Got a number of how many of them you got up there?” Usari asked.
“Hm? Does that concern you?” Frost glared, causing the bunny to shake her head.
“Great. We don’t have to manually climb down the shaft after all.” Horus applauded, returning to damaged elevator compartment. “Onto the Fifth Level we go~ Oh, Morgause. How are the Repenters up there looking?”
Morgause dragged one hand along her body suit. An onlooker would have easily assumed the woman to be striking a seductive pose. However, the reason why she did this was to palm-read the souls contained within the blood lined within her bodysuit.
She tapped several nodes scattered around her body, twisting them and then slapping them in. She did not wince, but Frost imagined that those screw-like rods would have felt like she was being stabbed with a blunt knife.
Those small rods were mechanical capsules that served as mini–Soul Anchors. By encasing them in her own blood, she could use the Reconstituting Fluids to resurrect them like a living Blood Reservoir.
“80 percent have fallen. As per the order, they will not be resurrected.” Morgause claimed, her tone pitying the utter fragility of these members. “They shall still receive the rewards for the completion of this mission. Humorous how the expectant roles have flipped. Now the lowly Repenters of the Acedia Special Division take center stage.”
“It tends to end up with us playing the role of actors on a stage when we become involved.” Hayte stated. “I don’t suppose it has to do with Act X’s Strings?”
“Usari doesn’t believe we’re actors. Maybe Usari number 384 was an actor. Usari 912 became a Herald too. Usari 912 converted many people into flagpoles.”
Icara scribbled on her notepad. But before she could reveal anything, Horus dragged the group into the elevator shaft. Morgause followed suit, leaving Jury and Frost behind with a trembling Joy.
“Are you afraid you’re going to get hurt again?” Jury asked in a motherly tone.
“Mal…” Joy grasped her wrist and tried to hide her hand into her coat, afraid of losing it again.
She did not want to enter the elevator. It was where the incident had happened, after all. No one could blame her either, especially since it was the first time she was exposed to mortal pain.
Frost had to reassure her that she’d be fine.
“You have my [Protection Ward] on you. Nothing short of a Beholder will be able to break through my ward. I promise.”
“Malgam…”
They took a hand each and slowly brought Joy towards the elevator. The girl took light steps, but the moment they stepped foot into the torn space, Joy shut her eyes and shook her head wildly.
That was until Frost placed her sunglasses over her eyes.
“Better?”
“Gam?”
She was surprised. The punctures that riddled the elevator were nowhere to be found. She didn’t dare remove the sunglasses to compare.
“A CognitO Filter. Or Cognition Filter? Whatever they call it nowadays. They did a terrible job hiding the color of your eyes~” Horus hummed.
“Usari has never seen that before.” Usari shrugged it off, but Icara was silently infatuated with this discovery.
The only thing her current CognitO Filter hid was the color of her hair. Most of the golden streaks were suppressed, and the red strands were nowhere to be found. Even her hair had trouble being hidden from the world, as if there was no shadow capable of concealing her light.
“My eyes are my own CognitO Filter. Do I need to say anymore?”
“No ma’am!” Usari shouted.
* * *
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The descent was longer than usual. The depth of the Fifth Level was more than the previous Levels combined. This was not due to the ever-increasing strength of the Corrupted. But rather, it was the direct result of the unshackled influence of the Site Core.
The Fifth Level could only be unlocked after a Site had defeated all four Horsemen. Each Aberration of Elysia defeated removed a Seal from the Site Core, giving it further unrestrained reign over the Site.
Indeed. The Site Core exerted its overwhelming spatial influence starting from the Fifth Level.
Horus broke the silence as they passed multiple colossal pipes brimming with Liquid Nex.
“Enter the abyss and you become a denizen of darkness. Aquatids believe that once you descend into the depths of the sea, then you become bound to those ceaseless depths. Workers are the same. They live and breathe these depths.”
Morgause then added:
“The same applies outside. In other facets. Those who know despair can never unbind themselves from its grasp. They wallow and weep, for there is no such thing as an escape for them. Only illusionary stars to lead them to fields of false hope.”
“Depends. You’d be surprised by what people are capable of.” Frost countered, though she did agree with their sentiments.
“It does not change the majority require an external force to lift them from the depths of their despair.” Morgause spoke cynically, having seen this for herself.
She had lived for hundreds of years. To her, this was an infallible truth.
“That’s what Time Reverberation is for.” Jury brought up. “So people won’t have to fight on their own.”
“A noble goal, but the people aided by Time Reverberation number in the hundreds compared to the billions that exist in Elysia.” Horus stated. “What I meant by the depths is what exists beneath the Epiderma Layer. Those seas where Eclipses come from, the Subderma where ImpulseWorks fishes their Workers, and the denizens of the Derma Layer.”
“Do the numbers matter over the effort that’s being made?” Frost spoke critically of Horus. “Or, do you not believe in Time Reverberation’s mission?”
“I’ve seen honorable missions come and go. Enough where I’ve become apprehensive at the thought of figureheads waving their ideals of the betterment of the population. Often that not, those same people have never harrowed the same kind of hell as the people they’re trying to save.”
“Usari is warning you, Black Dove. The Orange Disruptor becomes like this when she hasn’t flirted in over an hour.”
Usari was right. Horus didn’t seem to be like her usual self. But she didn’t believe the lack of flirting was the reason. If anything, the descent had caused her to become pessimistic.
G-Z7. Those memories must be coming back to her, huh. Doesn’t help that this Site is going to self-destruct in the coming hours. Right. Didn’t she call Jury an ‘Aisyle’ look-alike?
< The name does not strike me as familiar >
< But a being resembling Jury is likely to be an Aberration of Elysia >
Frost wasn’t going to find out by remaining silent. Now seemed like the best time to press Horus into admitting what she knew about G-Z7.
“Horus. If I may ask?” Frost began in a light tone, but it held enough gravitas to hint what she was going to say next.
It helped Horus prepare for the question at hand.
“Who is Aisyle?”
Horus, as expected, turned her attention to Jury before she let loose of a long, defeated sigh.
She slumped against the wall, dragging her foot up as she folded her arms in apprehension.
“The Overseer of G-Z7. At least that’s what she calls herself.”
Then, Horus threw herself from the wall after noticing the gazes of interest from the Repenters. Once she was a meter away from Frost, Jury activated a small Isolation Sphere to prevent them from overhearing.
Morgause, however, was allowed to stay inside as was Joy.
“She has the credentials of an Overseer, but that responsibility fell on the previous Navigator. I don’t need to state the obvious, but Aisyle is identical to your lover over here.”
“An Aberration of Elysia is commanding G-Z7? Is that what you mean?”
“If it was that simple then I would have survived. Don’t get it mixed up. Aisyle wasn’t a bad person. Got my eye thanks to them. But… Jury’s Jury, right? The Beholder of Time Reverberation.”
“I am.” Jury spoke up. “I’m not an Aberration of Elysia. I’m my own person entirely.”
“What a relief. I get a bit worried around white-haired, sharp-toothed women.”
Horus finally managed to loosen up. She continued with:
“G-Z7 had a run in with an Aberration of Elysia. One that looked just like Aisyle and Jury. All hell broke loose. Apparently enough to warrant destroying the Site. I guess Aisyle didn’t want it going into the hands of that Aberration: whatever it was. What I mean to say is: Jury looks like someone that killed me at one point in the past. Nothing more than that.”
“Got a clue of what they were after?” Jury asked.
“Beats me~ Could’ve been the Site Core itself for all I know. You know, Frost… you kind of look like one of the Unit Managers.”
Horus repeated an eerily familiar passage as Enoch when they first met.
“Brown eyes, right?”
“Bingo. So you know them as well? I never received their name, but the resemblance is uncanny. He called himself the Doctor.”
The Doctor. The Vestment of Goodwill also mentioned this. The Doctor helped Sinder from what we understand. Lilith also mentioned that same Doctor. He was an Apostle of the Arbiter who worked on the Captured Star Project. That very same Doctor looked after the Captured Star according to the Vestment of Goodwill…
This was the last place Frost expected to be reminded of the last piece of her unknown past.
But it was, unsurprisingly, fitting considering this was a Site.
“... All the more to involve myself further in this mission.” Frost muttered beneath her breath.
Suddenly, the lights fixed to the sides of the elevator began flashing red.
“Another Tribulation already!? We haven’t even reached the Fifth Floor!” Jury exclaimed, shielding Joy.
“White Midnight must be accumulated a tremendous amount of Nex now. Which brings us to question whether if there is a Corrupted beyond that of Eternal Night.” Morgause suspected this to be the case.
“It may be the Corrupted waiting for us in the Fifth Level.” Frost claimed as the alarm blared all around them.
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Then, the sound of mechanical whirling came from somewhere above.
“ABOVE!” She cried.
Frost leaped through the hole in the ceiling, and there, falling towards them, were dozens of half-steel and half-flesh humanoid constructs.
* * *
//////// < WARNING > ////////
< TRIBULATION IN EFFECT >
INFECTA ROT
< Plague >
< We have witnessed all of creation. Love and hatred, the joy and despair, beauty and ruin. We understand it, beyond what they ever will. But understanding is not feeling >
