Chapter 85: [85] The Echo That Solved A Mystery
[Harvest successful! You have successfully received B-Rank skill, Wave Of Pulverising Light!]
[Harvest successful! You have successfully received 2 Mana points!]
[Harvest successful! You have successfully received 1 strength point!]
[Harvest successful! You have successfully received 0.5 strength points!]
[Harvest successful! You have successfully received 0.5 Defense points...
After going around to harvest the golems and the boss monster, Ark had gotten a total of two mana points, 1.5 defence points and 2.5 strength points.
The boss monster had not been classified as a regular golem, which was the reason he was able to get two mana points from it.
Ark could feel his bones grow sturdier and his strength multiply. It was a little buff, but when added to the other numerous little buffs he had been getting, he was sure that he was now several times stronger than most players in his rank.
He glanced at Olivia to check up on her progress, only to see her complaining to Jenna.
Ark had instructed Jenna to help her out with her healing, but it seemed they had run into a little problem. Naturally, he went to check out just what that problem was.
"I told you to be more careful! Can’t you do some magic and heal it?" Olivia complained, while heavily sweating.
Jenna was standing beside her, her hands folded as she watched Olivia, seemingly confused, while Inquisitor seemed to have grown tired and was sitting atop the corpse of a golem as he watched them.
Once he got closer, Ark realised that most of her injuries were basically healed, well, all except for one.
"What is the problem?"
The moment Olivia heard his voice, she practically jolted, folding her hands at her back as she leaped to the side, only to wince in pain.
"Nothing. I’m fine, I’m perfectly fine!" she said with blushed cheeks, likely from the pain she was suppressing.
Ark eyed her suspiciously. "Turn around..."
"Huh? Wh-why would I do that? I told you I am fine—"
Before she could finish her statement, Ark sent a mental command to Jenna, who immediately grabbed her shoulders and turned her back towards him.
"Y-you traitor!" Olivia cursed, while Ark stared at her back.
It did not look good...
Well, there was some good news, although her wings had indeed ’snapped,’ her bones were not broken all the way through. The major bone connecting it to her back was definitely dislocated, but it could at least be remedied.
The bad news was that it was going to hurt like hell... and potions would not be enough to fix it.
Ark summoned a coil of steel webs and handed it to Olivia. "Bite down on this..."
"No! This is why I didn’t want you to see!" She was about to wiggle out of Jenna’s grip when Ark grabbed her shoulders.
"We haven’t left the cave, if we don’t handle this now, how do you expect to fight?"
"I did just well with the broken wing! Just leave it... I’ll go to the hero’s statue," she said, her voice filled with horror.
"Yes, you did well, excellently even. But you must have felt it now, haven’t you?" Ark’s voice dropped lower. "Your body feels stiff, and it takes all your strength to stand upright..."
He felt Olivia stiffen in his arms, which meant one thing, he was right.
While in the midst of a high-tension situation, the body had a way of deceiving the mind into doing things it should otherwise not do.
Adrenaline was the hormone responsible for that in humans, and although Olivia was technically not human currently, it didn’t mean she didn’t have a substitute, a hormone several times more powerful than human adrenaline.
While she was caught up in the battle, with the help of that hormone, she had pushed her body to the very brink and even awakened a new skill.
But there was one drawback. Once the hormone wore off, she was left feeling like a husk of her former self.
Even the amount of blood she had lost was substantial, healing potions were magic, but even they had things they could and could not do.
"We have to do something about it now, or you’ll become a liability to us in the future."
Olivia’s eyes suddenly widened. "A... liability?"
Ark had no idea why she was so interested in that word alone, but seconds after, she steeled her expression and bit down on the iron webs.
Ark had wound them up in a way that they were as soft as a sponge, hopefully, her teeth would survive.
He held both her wings, and Olivia took in a sharp breath. Ark took some time to study their anatomy before saying,
"I will snap them back in place on the count of five..."
"Five? Isn’t it normally thre—"
SNAP!
Olivia screamed at the top of her lungs, while Ark poured the healing potion into the open wounds, steam rising up from it as it mended.
Thankfully, Olivia had thought to take a good number of health potions with her, unlike him who only got two.
"Y-you— are you trying to kill me?!"
"All done." Ark released her wings.
Olivia fluttered them, moving them around a bit. She could still feel a sharp searing pain whenever it moved, but it was noticeably better.
"Thank you..." she said sulkily.
"You’re welcome." Ark was surprised that the potion had been effective, but he should have expected it, considering that it was higher quality than what they had in the tutorial.
Best of all, since they had up to thirty slots in their inventory, they could carry as much as they liked...
Still, most players often stuck to around six. Taking too many health potions could lead to death from potion toxicity after all...
"Alright, I think we are done here." Ark said. "What about you, Esau? How are you holding up?"
The lizard man smiled bitterly. "I’m doing great. Don’t mind me..."
By now, he must have realised that Ark didn’t care if he lived or died, so he was likely salty, but Ark could care less.
"Let’s get going then. Another door opened when the lab vanished." Ark pointed at a new pathway at the end of the room.
Since this room had been a bust, his only hope was that they would find more clues as they went on.
They all proceeded into the cave, moving through the dark space with their guards up. Just because they had wiped out several golems did not mean there were not more lurking inside.
They had walked for a few minutes when a piercing scream suddenly echoed through the cave walls.
It was a man’s voice.
Ark and Olivia shared a look, just before they all sprinted forward, rushing through the cave until they all burst out into a large clearing.
It was a vast space filled with glowing mana crystals that painted the cave in an eerie blue light.
Right at the very end of the room was the cause of the scream, and once they all saw it, the scene was more than enough to freeze them in place.
"S-Sazan?" Esau fell to his knees, mouth agape and hands trembling in fear, sorrow and rage.
Sazan was moaning quietly in pain, inches away from death, strength fleeing his body with each passing second.
He had been tied down by a creature which was half serpent, half human. Her scales were black-red, and they glistened softly in the reflection of the light above.
Her serpentine body was wrapped around Sazan, the way a python would ensnare their prey, her powerful muscles squeezing every bit of life out of him, each spasm grinding his bones.
Her body was so long that even after tying up Sazan, it still stretched on for several feet, before tapering at a pointed end.
A serpentine hiss filled the air, followed by a rattle of her tail.
The woman was feasting on his flesh while he was still alive, moaning with pleasure as her teeth repeatedly sank into his side, her face half coated with blood.
But the most revolting part of the situation, the revelation that had caused something dark to settle in their hearts, was that this woman—
Was the ever lovable, Thalia.
"Ahh~ how delightful," the woman said in a seductive voice, as she took her teeth off his flesh.
Her violet eyes fixed on them and she blinked with pleasant surprise. "Welcome..."
A crazed smile appeared on her lips, one that stretched from ear to ear. And then she began to speak while waving her index finger at them.
"I. Have. Been. Waiting. For. You~"