Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

62. A Hideous Dessert

Dungeons very rarely reached this level. The only reason why this was still considered Monsoon was because despite all this; it only required a competent raid team to subjugate. Frost was essentially the only one capable of doing anything here, but now that completely changed.

It’s ATT DEF and MAG DEF stats were unbelievably high. It meant that every single one of her attacks were effectively useless against it; save for her maw. Since the Abominations were slower than herself, she weaved between them and climbed onto the top of the Plagued Heart. From there, it was a matter of chewing through its flesh to her heart’s content.

The towering spires seemed to be connected to it as well, anchoring it permanently into place. Thankfully they were not its appendages, although, that didn’t stop her from planning to take them down.

Plagued Heart | HP: 2,486,000

This ordeal was not going to be dealt with any time soon, and these creatures were not the only ones being formed. Among the cries of “MANAGEEEEER!” emerged others, some screaming out names or begging for help with a hideous choir of voices.

It was a meld of male, female, children, and elderly voices – spoken in unison with terror and rage.

“Why are they speaking like that? Is it a vendetta or something? A grudge against certain people!?”

“No. It’s worse than that. As they mimic the bodies of those they capture, however poorly they do, they also retain the last few words spoken by them. What you are hearing is exactly that.”

“MANAGEEEEEER!”

Frost’s heart sunk as she heard them scream out loud again. Nav’s words caused her coat to rustle. It half confirmed that the Scarlet Logic personnel were somehow able to return from the dead, most likely using their Atelier’s technology.

The other explanation was that these were other previous Scarlet Logic forces who had succumbed to the Crimson Hunger, all with their last words being a cry towards their Manager.

They chewed at the air as they hobbled onwards, dragging their limbs behind them. One of their arms were grossly enlarged, wielding a blade made from bone shaped like a crescent.

“Die. Die! JUST DIE!” Frost screamed between mouthfuls, never ceasing her feast as she burrowed deep into the Plagued Heart with her maw alone.

No matter how much she ate the food just magically disappeared, like her stomach was connected to Dimensional Storage. She ate, using her jaw like an excavator as she slurped up its putrid innards to her disgust.

Plagued Heart | HP: 2,450,000

But the tainting of her tastebuds was the least of her concerns. As she gnawed out a cavity large enough for her to slip into – a geyser of blobs suddenly spilled like puss. These creatures flew all over the place, making strange splatting sounds as they fell and melted upon landing.

They were strange critters. Passive, and appeared like traditional fantasy slimes save that these were most certainly made from flesh. They strangely wore weird accessories, such as ears, tails, wings of certain races and the abdomens of the Insectids.

These things were weak. So weak that Frost could have easily ignored them. However – her blood instantly ran colder than ice when she pulled up their statuses.

“What… these are…!”

She immediately stopped devouring the Plagued Heart as more of the Abominations spawned, alongside quadrupedal creatures that very vaguely resembled a fawn, as they were made entirely of rearranged organs and had the misaligned face of a human.

But they hardly shocked her more than the revelation of these slimes.

“These are undoubtably people caught by the Macro Clumps.”

“They were transformed into these slimes…”

Indeed. Beneath the designated name of Their Bodies were their full, entire names. Then she realized that the accessories they wore were no more than a part of their former selves.

“Why… is this world so fucked up?” She gargled on blood as she grounded her teeth to the point where her gums bled. “No one wants to help anyone. Everyone’s too preoccupied with trying to survive. So then what for does the Nexus exist? The Ateliers? The Beholders…?”

She was lightheaded. Her widened gaze moved towards the escaping Abominations, her pupils contracting to near invisible dots as she tried to find something, anything to justify the inactions of the Nexus.

Nothing. They were irredeemable in her eyes.

“Are these not more horrifying than the CORRUPTED!?”

Her heart wracked wildly. These people were left here to become these things when the Ateliers were capable of saving them. They went from whatever origin they were to the Impuritas. They could not even scream if they wanted to.

She could sense the pain wherever she looked and began to pummel down at the gaping wound of the beast in fury. Then, she leapt from the creature’s back and began to annihilate the Our Body Abominations to keep them at bay as she screamed profanity and curses out at the top of her lungs.

She was now at the verge of entering the Second State.

One final push was needed now. And as she tore through these creatures, evading their bladed swipes and the attempts to bite at her by the quadrupedal variants – she finally used her Unique Skill.

“SINLESS REPENT! CONFESS! TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!” She commanded, targeting one of the bipedal creatures as she severed another one’s bladed arm with the swing of her hand.

After briefly attaching it to her strings, she swung it around to marvelous effect, bisecting more than ten at once.

[Sinless Repent].

One of the survivors instantly had its name transform from Our Bodies to Confessor as its eyes suddenly became hollow, and its mouth curved upwards as if laughing. The creature instantly prostrated into the rubble and flesh towards her direction and confessed.

Scarlet Logic Dawn Collection Team Personnel (5)

< Confessor >

< “We died over and over again! Is this even me anymore!? Replication after replication – my body continues to stray away from what it originally was! Scarlet Logic creates us in twos! To fight! For whoever comes out on top! >

Frost defended the prostrating Confessor, annihilating all that approached with her fists and jaws. Her swings were wide and aimed primarily against their bladed arms. Taking one in hand, she brandished like a blade.

It served well in extending her reach. She was not proficient in using swords, but there was no skill required when all she had to do was twist her body in one direction. The result left the creatures cleaved in two.

< When I am pit against a copy of my former self; why do they cry like I do!? What is the soul when I am here, standing above a mountain of my own smiling corpses!? >

“All this insanity… So that’s why Usa reacted that way last night. She fucking died here as well!” Frost roared, annihilating them with ease.

However, her limited movement allowed for the Our Body Abominations to swarm the city in nearly the hundreds, seeking to eradicate all impurities within its territory. She would not be surprised if it breached into the thousands in the next 30 minutes.

< The Hungry are no different from us because they ARE us! I am not a Hungry! I am me! So let me eat! Let me kill the me who believes they are the real me! Let me consume to finally become whole again!” >

“And then she was then brought back… as ‘twos’. So that’s what she meant by defeating her past iteration of herself. Agh…” Frost threw herself back and observed the situation as she tried to make sense of this all.

Replication.

She finally understood the true meaning of replication now. Scarlet Logic possessed a technology that allowed for the creation, or more specifically, the recreation of people, likely preserving their memories in the process. Akin to cloning if her theory was correct.

It explained the strange numbers that appeared right beside their namesakes, meaning the Manager had died 15 times already, and if the confession was anything to go by, then it also explained why her arm was slightly deformed.

Her feathers rustled, and as it confessed, its exact words were written around her in the form of floating symbols. The Confessor repeated this endlessly before it was minced to death by the Abominations as Frost silently stood in a clearing, shocked by the revelation.

These creatures ravenously ate in hopes of becoming who they once were. But Frost knew that was impossible. They were no more than monsters pretending to be who they believed to be, yet she could not help but to believe that those emotions were real.

They were crying out for hope that never existed in the first place.

“Replication… and the Crimson Hunger employs something reminiscent of it. That isn’t a coincidence. The Ateliers… are unreliable. Staying within their Cities… and allowing things like these to exist… outside their walls…” Frost deeply monologued as she could only see red now.

The Confessor likely had a hidden effect because she felt like wielded the emotion of tens of thousands who felt the exact same way.

Their endless hatred and boundless desire for one thing and one thing only – to consume.

Yet it was a controlled rage. But this was not directed towards these Abominations. It was towards the Ateliers. Unfortunately, the Ateliers were too far off for her judgement to reach. Therefore, these creatures would have to bear the full brunt of her power.

There were people she had to save. The Abominations needed to perish.

< The Will of the Amalgam Has Reached the Second State >

< One Thousand Eyed Bird is the Only Corrupted Available >

< Borrowing Active and Passive Skills of the One Thousand Eyed Bird >

< The Second State has manifested as the One Thousand Eyed Bird >

< ACTIVE: Prejudice  >

< ACTIVE: Biased Verdict >

< PASSIVE: Rightful Ignorance >

< PASSIVE: Fear of Retribution >

Her flowing, grey and black hair grew streaks of white as the all-devouring aura surrounded her. One by one, a thousand stars populated the city skies as she pointed her maw towards their direction and snapped it shut once.

[Prejudice].

Everything before her disappeared when the shadowy maws closed. A shallow chunk was bitten straight out of the Plagued Heart, revealing more of its innards and the slimes. Two of the hundred-meter-tall spires collapsed, crushing streets in their wake as the world turmoiled and sifted.

Plagued Heart | HP: 2,422,000

As Frost fought the Abominations head on, she sent many Judge’s Aid to scour the city in search for the others. She would be a fool to believe that she could defeat this in time. Even with the immense power of Prejudice she’d have to repeat a cycle of devour and attack over an unreasonable 200 times.

Granted, she was more than willing to. It was hardly comparable to the ordeal of dealing with 1,000 of the Hanged Juries. However, she did not have the leisure of time on her side.

The range of control she had over the Judge’s Aids was phenomenal and reached as far as the city’s outer walls before it wavered. Beyond it she saw swarms of Flesh Clots among other Crimson Hunger emerge from the ground beyond, staining it red as they spread the fleshy plague beyond the city’s reach.

Cara was right. The city was ironically the safest place to stay.

Eventually, a few of the golden eyes found traces of battle somewhere in the outermost region of the city. She promptly flew the eyes into the urban complex, dodging rubble and weaving through tight corners before finally reaching what she believed to be a two storied inn.

It had two entrances and saw combat on either end. The Scarlet Logic forces were evenly split as Furio could be seen roaming outside with the Manager, using his flames sparingly.

He seemed to target the wriggling Crimson Hunger. The Entrail Loops, or Noodles as they called were his utmost priority since they were capable of easily destroying walls.

“They’re doing fine right now… thank goodness. But that won’t last long when these things arrive. Think… what the fuck can I do to save them!?” Frost annihilated even more with another round of Prejudice.

Biased Verdict was a rather useless skill in this scenario. The Plagued Heart was already immobile, and the creatures present were weak enough to kill with ease.

That being said – she continued to observe their situation like a watchful owl and dealt with as many of these things that strode in their direction, whilst repeatedly laying down Prejudice after Prejudice like it was only thing she could do.

Plagued Heart | HP: 2,400,000

She moved to the spires now, attempting to remove them all but with each one she felled another just took its place. The desperation kept piling on for she knew that it would only be a matter of time before the others would be met with the full brunt of the Abominations.

And so, she immediately sent every single one of her eyes towards their location, opting to use them like a shield against the Abominations to buy her some time.

The Judge’s Aids slipped into the inn, surprising the Scarlet Logic forces and many of the slaves. The women of her group had to instantly assure them that they belonged to her. She observed the inn, clicking her tongue when she found that Jury was still out cold, whereas the cat-eared girl was now wide awake.

How unfortunate of her to awaken into yet another nightmare.

“Anything else!? NAV!? Any other ideas you can think of!?”

“The strands are futile. Jury is still asleep as well to make matters worse. Manifesting Judgement may be the only way.”

“That can’t be my only avenue to get out of this fucking –!”

Suddenly, a Corrupted skill was used.

< [Remember] >

It came from somewhere in the direction she looked in. Then, she heard the faintest snap somewhere in the infested ruins not too far away.

< [Remember] >

“It… followed us all the way here?” She said almost in shock. “Who could Our Happiest Moments be taking a photo of? Isn’t Calfasio – Wait!”

And then she realized something.

Calfasio was nowhere to be seen within the inn.