The downward-sloping staircase initially consisted of stone steps, Aglaea's high heels clicking crisply as she walked. After about five or six steps, however, her next footfall sank into something soft and sticky, like stepping into a mass of putty.
Squishy and clinging, Aglaea tilted her head down to examine her feet. She discovered that the stone steps had been enveloped by a thin layer of purplish flesh, its surface crisscrossed with dense networks of delicate capillaries.
Beside her, Grey wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Ew! What is this creepy stuff? So gross!"
Mindful of the elegant clothes Aglaea had given her, Grey carefully lifted the hem of her skirt, stepping cautiously to avoid staining it.
As the group descended deeper into the staircase, the lack of light plunged the area into increasing darkness. The wizard among them swiftly muttered a spell: "Light!"
A bright but gentle white light erupted from his fingertip, illuminating their path.
After descending about thirty steps, they finally reached a Stone Gate covered in a fleshy membrane. The Warrior at the front frowned slightly but, showing no disgust, placed his armored hands on the gate and began to push with all his might.
Just a bit of fleshy membrane, right?
Most adventurers had seen far more repulsive sights. Only Grey, who wasn't an adventurer and was a particularly fastidious Catgirl, found it nauseating.
The Stone Gate groaned heavily as the Warrior slowly pushed it open. A putrid stench, like something rotting, and the sharp, metallic tang of blood wafted from the crack, growing stronger as the gate opened wider.
Soon, a bizarre space enveloped in fleshy membranes—covering the floor, walls, and ceiling—lay before them. The chamber was vast; even the Light spell cast by the Wizard failed to illuminate its far reaches.
Then, just beyond the spell's reach, in the pitch-black darkness, pairs of blood-red eyes began to materialize, staring intently at the group.
"Prepare for battle!"
The lead warrior drew his weapon from behind his back, gripping a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. His sub-class was Fortress Knight, a warrior sub-class specializing in defense. Though the wizard's waist still throbbed with pain, he gripped his staff tightly, ready to cast spells.
The Ranger Class Holder at the rear drew his short bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed. Without a word, the trio instantly formed the most optimal combat formation. Seeing this, Grey stepped forward, preparing to assist.
The Ranger casually asked, "Miss Grey, what Class Holder are you?"
Grey pondered for a moment before replying, "I suppose I'd be considered a Ranger Class Holder?"
"What a coincidence! Me too," the Ranger replied. "Just stand beside me—we'll provide ranged support together!"
"Alright!"
Grey didn't refuse. She lifted her skirt to reveal thigh holsters strapped to her legs, encased in white stockings. From these holsters, she drew two Magitech Pistols.
However, the Ranger, focused intently on aiming his bow at the shadows, completely missed this. In an instant, the strange creatures with crimson-glowing eyes leaped out of the darkness!
Roar!
With a deep, guttural roar, it charged into the illuminated area of the Light spell. Only then did the group finally see what these creatures looked like—bloated, waterlogged humanoids!
The monsters' limbs were grotesquely disproportionate. Some had one hand swollen to the size of a human, while the other was withered and as small as an infant's. Others had both arms fused into long, bony spikes, while still others had feet resembling horses' hooves.
"What the hell are these things?!" the Warrior snarled, his brow furrowed in disgust.
The Ranger seized the moment to attack. Wielding a short bow, he sacrificed the power of a longbow for a faster firing rate, ideal for close-quarters combat.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
As a Gold-tier Ranger Class Holder, his accuracy was impeccable. Each arrow struck precisely between the monsters' eyes.
Even when the creatures raised their arms to block, the slender arrows slipped through the gaps between their fingers and struck their targets with unerring accuracy.
In just a few seconds, the Ranger had unleashed over a dozen arrows, blinding nearly every monster in the first wave of the charge.
However, these monsters possessed extraordinary vitality. For a normal person, a strike to the eye socket would be a death sentence, but these creatures seemed completely unfazed. Apart from a slight decrease in speed due to blindness, they continued to charge forward.
The Wizard finished chanting his spell. "Third-Level Evocation School—Lightning Lance!"
A bolt of blue lightning erupted from his fingertips, shooting forward in a straight line. In an instant, it pierced through several monsters' bodies, leaving a faint burning smell in the air.
Three or four monsters immediately collapsed, dead. However, the lightning's power had been largely absorbed by the front ranks, leaving only minor injuries for those behind.
Seeing this, the Warrior braced himself, preparing to withstand the initial onslaught. While magic possessed immense power, casting spells required time. The Warrior's task was to survive this vulnerable period.
But then, Grey stepped forward. Raising her weapon—not aiming at any specific monster, but directly at the ground ahead—she pulled the trigger.
Bang! With a gunshot, a blue bullet shot out and landed among the monsters. Instantly, a blue arc of electricity expanded from the impact point, engulfing all the creatures in the blink of an eye.
Zzzzzz!!!
The dense crackling of electricity echoed in everyone's ears, but the attack hadn't eliminated all the enemies. Grey raised her other gun, targeting the monsters at the edges of the arc, who had received the least electrical shock. She pulled the trigger in rapid succession.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As the Warrior, Wizard, and Ranger stared in bewildered silence, they vaguely saw something streak from Grey's weapon—too fast to discern—before the monsters began exploding one by one, their bodies disintegrating into showers of blood and gore!
The Ranger, in particular, turned his head blankly to the little Catgirl beside him, dressed in a maid outfit. "Huh?
This...
Is this right?
Are you really a Ranger?!"
The Ranger's three main combat styles were: animal companionship for coordinated attacks, marksmanship training, and agile movement techniques, including dual-wielding curved blades for close-quarters.
But what was this strange weapon? A mere flick of her fingers, and enemies spontaneously combusted?
He was a Ranger too, how come he'd never learned this move?
Grey shrugged, her tail swaying gently behind her. "Skilled in ranged attacks, agile and nimble—isn't that the definition of a Ranger?"
For a moment, the Ranger felt like her words made perfect sense, yet something still seemed off.
With a single volley of attacks, Grey cleared all the monsters from their path. She curled her tail around her Magitech Pistol and began reloading.
Unlike the firearms from Aglaea's previous life, this Magitech Pistol lacked a magazine. Instead, it had a top-loading chamber where users manually loaded each round.
Grey's first shot was an Arc Bomb, followed by several Ripper Rounds. The Arc Bomb worked simply by instantly releasing all the energy within the projectile, causing an explosion. Ripper Rounds, upon impact, would unleash a swarm of Wind Blades in all directions, tearing the enemy apart from the inside.
The only drawback was the projectiles' tiny size. Stably storing such immense energy within such a tiny volume proved challenging even for Okhema, with its advanced Magitech Technology. This meant the ammunition was exceptionally costly, making it a weapon typically reserved for specialized agents like Grey.
Perseus, who was also watching the battle, wore a stunned expression. He turned to Aglaea, who was standing beside him at the rear of their group, and asked, "Do all Rangers from Okhema fight like this?"
Aglaea hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I suppose you could say so."
Strictly speaking, Okhema didn't have a Ranger Class Holder. But according to Grey's description—long-range attacks, agile movement, and quick reflexes—wouldn't all of Okhema's basic firearm soldiers fit that definition?
After eliminating this wave of enemies, the group continued their advance. As they pressed forward, Aglaea carefully watched her footing, avoiding stepping on the monsters' corpses to avoid splashing blood on herself.
The deeper they ventured, the thicker the fleshy membranes covering the floors, walls, and ceiling became. The walls were particularly unsettling, punctuated by circular protrusions that pulsed rhythmically like beating hearts.
With a grim expression, the Warrior slashed one open with his sword. A curled-up "person" tumbled out, collapsing limply onto the ground.
In the next instant, the figure's eyes snapped open, and it began writhing and crawling across the ground like a centipede. Reacting instinctively, the Warrior stomped down, crushing the creature's head in a single blow!
Then he looked around at the countless embryonic protrusions and couldn't help but curse, "What the hell are these things?"
The Wizard pondered for a moment and replied, "They look like the first cocoons?
They trap people inside, incubate them, and transform them into the monsters we saw earlier?"
The Ranger fell silent for a moment, then turned to their leader and said, "Lord Perseus, about your wife...
You'd better prepare yourself mentally."
To prevent the creatures inside these 'cocoons' from ambushing them simultaneously as they ventured deeper into the basement, the Warrior stabbed each one repeatedly as they advanced. With so many cocoons, the Ranger drew their twin scimitars to help.
They continued their destructive advance, stabbing nearly a hundred cocoons before finally reaching what seemed to be the end. Before them lay a circular altar made entirely of flesh.
Perseus's wife, an elderly Catfolk woman, was hunched over the altar, her hands gripping its edge. She leaned down, her tongue darting out to lap up the thick, crimson liquid pooling inside.
As if sensing the commotion behind her, the wife slowly raised her head and turned around, spotting Aglaea and the others. Her gaze lingered particularly on Perseus, a look of bewilderment crossing her blood-smeared face. "Darling...? What are you doing here?"
Perseus's lips trembled as he stared at the scene before him. He seemed to want to speak, but no words would come. Despite having braced himself somewhat for what he might find, the reality of this scene struck him with unimaginable force.
The wife continued speaking, "Darling, you finished work so early today? Can you wait for me a moment? I'm almost done here. We have plenty of free time afterward. Want to go out? Leon (their son) has grown again recently; we could buy him some new clothes."
Though her words sounded perfectly normal, her hands never stopped moving, plunging into the blood pool on the altar as if searching for something, as if completing the "work" she mentioned.
The Wizard spoke gravely, "Her mind has been completely corrupted. She no longer knows what she's doing."
Perhaps in his wife's eyes, she was doing perfectly normal things—reading a book, cooking a meal, cleaning the house.
But in reality, she was performing a terrifying ritual to appease an Evil God.
The world as she perceived it had become drastically distorted from reality.
Perseus took a deep breath and asked, his voice heavy with sorrow, "Is there any hope for her?"
The Wizard shook his head. "It's hard to say. We need to find a Priest—preferably one of the Goddess of Life."
Hearing this, Perseus turned to his wife, softening his voice to a gentle tone. "Let's stop working now. Come home with me, okay?"
But she immediately shook her head in refusal. "Just a moment, I'm almost finished!
This is my last task. Once I complete it...
Once I complete it, I'll be..."
As she spoke, a confused expression crossed her face, as if she herself didn't know what would happen after completing this final 'task'. But Perseus had just heard Aglaea's warning, revealing that the Artemis Priest was trying to corrupt the entire city.
Could his wife's current final task be precisely that—this very thing?!
Perseus clenched his teeth and said, "Don't let her continue! Stop her now!"