Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

61. A Diseased Heart for the Main Course

A living system. Upon seeing the amalgamation of flesh, she realized the meaning of a dungeon being ‘alive’. She did not know if other dungeons contained a fleshy Heart just like this, pulsating and quivering as if pumping invisible blood to the Crimson Hunger that engulfed the city.

Frost quickly went to work. She scrambled over the mounds of rubble and flesh that stared back, trampling over them as she made her way to the closest anchor point. These giant, crimson anchors were attached to various tall buildings, monuments, and statues.

“It’s too high for us to reach, so we first have to bring it down to our level!” Frost exclaimed, opting to shout to maintain her heightened emotions.

“Relay the situation to me. This Heart is suspended, no? I believe your course of action is our best shot. However, be prepared for its defenses!”

“I had a feeling it wouldn’t be as easy as being our punching bag!”

Using her immense strength, she scaled up a three storied home, sinking her fingers deep into its flesh-coated walls. Blood instantly poured from the wounds as something nibbled on her fingers, attempting to devour her. But little did they know was that there was no greater devourer than the Amalgam herself.

“Are these made out of people!? All of it!?”

“Not all of it! Some of it comes from an unknown place, but the majority is. The Crimson Hunger grows in two ways – the first is time, and the second is through accumulated biomass. Most dungeons grow through a similar manner, much like how the Pages transform people into books to expand its territory!”

Huh!? Into what!?

“BOOKS!”

She thrusted herself up and cleaved through the meter-thick web-like anchor, causing the walls to suddenly implode as she was thrown off the building. Her landing was far from clean, but her inhuman strength allowed her to tank the fall considerably well.

The Heart vibrated with the woes of countless thousands as if in pain. These vibrations ran through the very marrows of her bones as she swiftly moved towards the next anchor point.

However, the Infested Heart finally acted, likely seeing her as a threat to its existence now. Pores suddenly opened from the base of the amassed flesh. Dozens of giant Flesh Clot-looking creatures fell with a hideous thump before tentacles suddenly sprouted from their surfaces, flailing towards her general direction.

They were larger than her. Slower, but their tentacles were able to extend a few meters forward. She paid them little attention as she reached the base of a tall stone monument and began clambering over to the top.

It was also here where she finally used Dismissed Confession. She targeted the heart itself and watched it ravenously writhe as she placed 50 stacks of Confession on it. However, the creature did not speak. It had no mouth to speak in the first place. But even so, she could feel the vibrations strengthen, and as she threw herself up to cleave the overstretched mass of flesh, she used it again.

“Nav, you can hear everything I can! Are you able to decipher what it’s trying to say!?” She yelled she the rode the collapsing statue, hopping onto the nearby rooftops as she moved from flesh-infested roof to roof.

“It’s has no mouth to speak! It is no Corrupted either, so we cannot hear or read its inner voice!”

“You say that like the girl was a Corrupted!”

“That was an anomaly. I cannot for the cold, inanimate life of me understand why we were able to hear her voice.”

“Tch! I’ll try those Macro Clumps then!”

She moved around from building to building with dexterity that only few could ever dream of possessing, taking damage over time that she absolutely refused to heal. Reaching the Second State was far more important. She had skills locked away that could eliminate her range disadvantage.

Sinless Repent was also likely to have the same effect, and she would rather use it on something capable of speech. That way she could unravel more of this insanity.

Another anchor point lodged on the side of a building was sliced, causing its walls and windows to suddenly give way, causing shrapnel of gore and material to shower the world.

Infested Heart | HP: 244,600

Her hair steadily grew redder over time. With another target in sight, she instantly inflicted Dismissed Confession onto one of the slow, chasing Macro Clumps.

It seized moving in an instant, its tentacles plunging themselves deep into the ground as it reared its body towards the Infested Heart. This was not because of the effects of Dismissed Confession. Its RESIST stat was high enough to completely shrug it off. However, what it couldn’t shrug off was the 2,000 magic damage it just took.

Having no MAG DEF left it vulnerable to magic attacks. But at the same time, Frost didn’t have much magic skills going for her to capitalize on their weakness. In the end her greatest was her body as always.

Seeing that they could not catch up, the Infested Heart opened its pores again and summoned even more round, clumped flesh to fight for it. Though these were not the same as the Macro Clumps which sought to consume her.

These things were different. They had the shape of a Macro Clump and a Flesh Clot, but they were suspended in a strange, blood-like goop. As slow as they were, they seemed to have a strategy in mind because they did not mindlessly chase after her. Rather, they went straight to the anchor sites and began spraying the air with a fine, red mist.

“Toxic meatball!? Any idea what it does!?”

“It continuously releases a noxious gas into its surroundings to harm foreign invaders of the Infestation!”

“Huh!? Why the fuck does it sound like you’re describing an immune response!? Wait a second… Macro Clumps giving chase to devour, and an Angered Clump using toxins. What kind of a sick parody of the body is this!?” She yelled, only now realizing this.

Her medical background allowed her to see these connections rather quickly. If the Flesh Clots were neutrophils, and the Macro Clumps were macrophages – then the Angered Clump was undoubtedly a natural killer cell.

It would explain the use of toxins rather than trying to straight up devour her. Understanding this, she grew wary of the Macro Clumps all of a sudden. Aside from devouring foreign bodies, they were also known to ‘present’ them to more specialized response units.

Although she doubted that they’d be able to capture her, let alone catch her long enough for this process to occur. There was no other evidence that led her to this train of thought. She just linked what she witnessed according to her field of knowledge.

“The Plague has a similar process to what you’re thinking! Incredible… your knowledge of the body is ill known here!”

“I’d be fucking surprised if anyone here understood this! How long until this thing becomes a Plague!?”

“Any moment I’m afraid! The largest factor when becoming a Plague is the amount of material it has accumulated. It was only a matter of time with the 50,000 it devoured.”

“So where’s the help from the damned Nexus!? They’ll even let this thing turn into a Corrupted Zone right at the borders of Brandar!” Frost spat as she quickly approached the next set of anchor points, heading straight into the red mist without a second thought.

The reason why she so confidently wandered in was not just because of her immense HP pool, but also because she had been looking at the status screen as she approached. Seeing no abnormalities arise save for the drop in her HP, which fell at around 1 every 5 seconds, made her realize that these were indeed mimicking natural killer cells.

Except that these had some fragment of intelligence. But it was strange. Normally these cells attacked their own but considering everything here was made of flesh – they were all probably one in the same to begin with.

Frost was the impurity in their eyes. The infected abnormality within its twisted nest.

She reached into the Angered Clump, meeting zero resistance. Given its size, her hand was unable to reach the very core of this creature. But that was not needed.

[Double Punch].

Her MAG ATT was currently 750. The attack caused the core within to crack and bleed right before she finished it off with yet another Double Punch before quickly severing the next anchor, chomping down onto its warm flesh.

The cycle repeated for the next 4 anchors as she decided to bite away at the goop surrounding one of the Angered Clumps before devouring its slimy core. Unfortunately, she did not gain any abilities from these creatures. The Macro Clumps likely didn’t either, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

She went out of her way to allow one to ensnare her hand. To the creature’s surprise, it was not her that was ensnared. She towed it with her and swung it around like a giant mace, smashing it onto the ground before she pounced at it. Her speed and foresight allowed her to easily avoid its rabid attempt to ensnare her, and before it even realized it, she was close enough for it to devour her whole.

Its mouth opened revealing an unholy pink chamber filled with writhing appendages, ready to tear her apart. Hers also opened, revealing a normal set of pale teeth and with only a single chomp – the creature perished. She took its body along for a ride and ate at it, slurping up the tentacles like…

Fucking noodles.

“They don’t have anything useful at all!?” She cried, frustrated that these things were completely useless to her.

“It is neither a characteristic ability or skill. Their functions are all grounded at a biological level. It would be like expecting to grow the feathers of the denizens of the Black Forest after consuming them.”

“You’d think you’d be able to as the Amalgam. I might be mistaking it for mimicry!”

That you are.

“C’mon… there’s another eight of those anchors left! It’s already beginning to sink!”

Indeed. The Infested Heart steadily drooped with each anchoring web of flesh she severed. It was not long before cracks began to form along the ruined structures as they struggled to keep its sheer mass suspended. She expected it to take immense damage as soon as it fell.

A howl similar to that of the groans of a suspension cable echoed throughout the city.

“Nav, how does environmental damage scale?”

“It depends entirely on how it is implemented. Using a tree branch to skewer someone may do more damage depending on where it hits and will certainly do more damage than the person who playfully shoved them.”

“What a morbid explanation. You never fail to impress me!”

“It was a simple explanation. Has your emotions gotten the better of you?”

“Not yet if I can still speak to you like this!”

Frost pushed onwards to finish this thing off, severing another two of the anchors. Each one caused it to sink a little further, causing the world to quake as the vibrations grew loud enough to cause her vision to wane slightly.

And then, after one more anchor was severed – the entire thing collapsed into itself with a grand thud. The ground tremored as ruined structures collapsed, causing a chain reaction to occur throughout the city. Its immense mass was a detriment to itself. Its flesh split open, revealing countless more eyes within and giant organs in an arrangement that barely made any sense to her.

Infested Heart | HP: 90,200

A shallow sea of blood pooled in the crater as Frost rushed in to finish the task, preparing everything she had to lay down a fury of fists until it perished. She let loose of a war cry, attempting to further heighten her emotions.

However, one could never forget about Murphy’s Law. Particularly for someone like Frost who was roped into this world, chained to its whims, and plunged knee-deep into is madness. It was always lingering in the back of her mind, and she did believe she could have at least ended this before its inevitable transformation into a Plague.

But she was wrong.

What can go wrong, WILL go wrong, most certainly at the worst possible time. Thinking about it now as the world seemingly went slow; perhaps the transformation was due to it perceiving her as a severely dangerous threat.

Whatever the case was – the inevitable happened.

The reason why time slowed was because Solemn Counter activated as she saw towering spires of flesh reach for the skies, bursting through the ground beneath. She threw herself back just in time to avoid these towers, which rose to a hundred meters into the air.

“We were too late…”

“Ugh! Nav! Are the others going to be fine!?”

“The roaming creatures will be much the same! But from here on out new creatures are going to emerge from the Heart! Be wary Frost! They possess similar mechanics to the biology of the human body!”

“In what fucking sense!? T and B cells to fight me off!? Fucking antibodies!?”

“Exactly that!”

As Frost went back and forth with Nav, she failed to realize what this truly entailed. She quickly spun up her strings and began to create a rudimentary barrier around the massive creature as its innards churned through its torn flesh.

And from it – emerged bipedal creatures made from flesh; their organs rearranged as if they were made in a poor attempt to mimic people, like having cat-ears protruding from their shoulders and tails from their navels, much like umbilical cords.

Their stats ranged wildly, but most were in the mid-30s. No. They were almost identical to those in the Scarlet Logic. And as dozens of these creatures emerged from the Infested Heart, they all cried out through their lipless mouths.

“MANAGEEEEEEEER!”

“Nav… what the fuck am I looking at?”

“Antibodies no? The concept should be familiar to you. People caught by the Macro Clumps would have had themselves used as a base to create a specialized creature to fend off any similar threats. Like you for example, and the others. They call this an Abomination, but it is very similar to the mimicry rumor that plagues the City of Spades.”

For the first time in a long while, Frost felt the pressure amount to her. The weight of the world felt like they rested atop her shoulders as she did everything she could to stand up straight.

No matter what adversity stood in her way, she could only keep going forward and devour it. But she’d be lying to herself if she said that she had total faith in defeating it in time before the others perished.

Because a 2,500,000 HP platter would be a very long meal for her.