Chapter 127: Australia (not that one)
After the ghosts returned, they communicated with their movement, conveying which direction to go.
And Lea obliged, travelling above the sky to avoid the church people. Those attack first, ask later people are what pissing her off.
She still has a promise to The Shapeless Comedy. Getting to Australia and doing something to take back the ring, holding the God of Order. With Ideation and the protection from Bashie Mahzala, and whatever is happening in the North Pole, Lea can recall some details that had been stolen away.
Something about Charlotte and that jester god's relationship... which makes Lea feel uncomfortable.
Shaking her head, she continued to fly for a good hour, realizing how good having an alien ship was. Travelling through the night, under the gaze of the twin moons.
It wasn't long before she reached land, landing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Even with no one around, Lea could hear the distant thoughts. Chaotic, barely coherent, like wild animals that just so happen to have sapience.
Her body morphs back into a humanoid form, draped in her cloak made of darkness.
She tried to isolate herself using Silence, but the thoughts are still there.
Was she too hasty? What had expanded, and what new abilities did she get? Lea would've taken it easy before heading here, maybe even gone back to take a few more commissions.
But with the literal end of the world happening right in the North, Lea doesn't have time. She doesn't want to be a coward, someone who falls into despair, anymore.
With her body covered in darkness, Lea began to head forward.
From the cliff was a slope leading down to a marshland as far as the eye can see, with very few trees scattered around. But Lea could sense creatures frolicking around beneath the water.
Worst of all, Lea could feel that these things were the so-called Half-Horrors... horrific monsters resulted from The Heretic's experiments to create the Path System.
Lea wonders what had happened here...
Reaching the bottom, she sat down for a moment of rest... thinking about what her new powers are.
Ideation is the Immaterial counterpart of Erudition, it grants her Cognito. But unlike Erudition, which makes one's mind sharper and better at connecting clues. Ideation accelerates thinking, processing information, and disperses to any other information with a vaguely similar idea.
Even now, some of her thoughts are wandering off to different places, trying to connect unrelated things. Like why are clowns the worshippers of The Maker? Isn't He a theatre director or playwright? And what exactly is divinity? Charlotte explained divinity is vastness, yet it doesn't make that much sense.
Ideation's mystical ability is Soul Morph; she can reshape her Soul into any form she wants - and in turn, her body changes into that shape. Lea wasn't sure what would happen when she used Soul Morph on living creatures. Malediction certainly allows it.
But that was not all, Ideation let Lea know the Divine Domain inside her had evolved her supplementary Paths.
Malediction only got an upgrade to Mockery, her insults have a high chance of killing people. So she needs to be mindful of what she says.
Cloak had gotten the unique ability for Material Paths, the Zone. After a certain radius, she is completely hidden, nobody would know or remember who she is when they look directly at her.
Silence has the biggest change from what Lea could feel; she could isolate certain information in capsules that can open for later. This means that she could learn as much as she wants, isolate them in some corner of her mind, and release it when she can endure.
And Judgement, it had sharpened her senses for the better, the conviction she got was further enhanced, she could make better decisions on the fly. Long term though... not sure.
There are other abilities unique to the Demigod of Unconscious, she is vaguely aware of them. But besides her familiars, she doesn't have any test subjects, and she doesn't want to use them either.
For now, Lea just wants to rest.
It has been a tiring day...
=0=0=
For the past few days, Dawn had been chopping wood. Something unbecoming of a princess, but sometimes one has to work for it.
She had found that the area between two trees is the warp point for this forest. Cutting them changed the size of the portal, so she had been careful in order to set up a checkpoint.
A few people had stumbled upon her base, some from her own expedition. Solafant, being one of them, helped set up some wards to defend against the mist's effects, which Dawn didn't even realize. People from the Church of Sacrifice, though they are very cautious of the two demigods and what they consider cult leaders.
And more strange... an entire production crew that somehow stuck together, they are followers of The Maker. Dawn was on guard against them at first, but this group is entirely different from the Wondertainment Troupe, calling themselves History Reactor - those who record and recreate history.
Suspicious, but they brought a lot of rations.
"Still no clue where Jim is?", Dawn asked Solafant.
"No, but I hope fate is kind to him.", they responded.
...
Blackwood branches erupted from the ground, painting the white world with darkness. Then a wave of corruption crawled up the gigantic flaming boar, clashing with the figure on top of the branch.
A shockwave rumbles the world, but the fighters do not falter.
The Light Seeker dashed across the Blood God's sword, their right hand channeling a vortex of glittering stardust. They threw a punch, obliterating the growing forest.
But the Mist Lord flew just above the sword that was swinging down. Only to be hit by a puppet imbued with corruptive divinity.
The Blood God brought down their blade, crashing upon the hooded figure. Yet the attack was once again blocked by an emerging forest.
The one witnessing all of this was Jim, who looked helpless even at the edge of the expanding white world. He had run all the way through the maze-like forest, ending up here. He doesn't know if he should blame his luck or something, but this is definitely fate and destiny playing tricks on him.
Worst of all, he needs to wait for the Divine Domain to come and stop just for the chance to grab it.
Jim doesn't know where to begin with the first obstacle, which is this expanding white domain, carrying a thick scent of chalk from it. He had seen what it could do; some people, unfortunately, stepped into it and were turned into chalk statues in mere seconds. He knew the moment he got anywhere close, he would die instantly.
So he is pretty much stuck here. It was frustrating and quite dangerous as well. But in the face of a battle of epic proportions, the second time, he can do nothing.
=0=0=
With enough rest, Lea began to head East.
The ground was unstable and muddy, making it hard for her to get through. However, there is something worse.
Fuck... she thought, glancing around.
Underneath the marsh were creatures, and going around her were things bigger than normal animals should be.
Boom!!
From the ground, a pale fleshy giant worm-like creature came out. Although Lea had hidden her presence, she could not hide the vibrations she made.
That thing has eyes and nose of a human, but its mouth was oversized, stretched, ready to consume everything. She could see two thin arms on its sides, seemingly useless.
It was a Half-Horror.
Morphing a part of her body into wings, Lea flapped to the side, avoiding the descending giant monster. She would like to use Shadow Sneak to get away fast, but her body is too unstable to attempt that at the moment.
So Lea tried to fly, transforming herself into a bird.
Only to be met with birds twice the size of a human with human faces stretched out to the extreme. They tried to swoop in, taking bites of Lea.
Luckily, her body is made of Cursed Construct, the moment they touched her, dozens of curses were inflicted upon them. Bits of her body were still taken though.
She dived down, trying to weave between the birds and giant worms—
"Gah!!"
Something struck her neck; it didn't do much but cause her intense pain for a moment. But Lea realized a normal human would die instantly due to the venom. She turned to look at a bug-like Half-Horror sticking to a tree, its back full of quills the size of her forearm.
This place was ridiculous. How can such a dangerous place exist?!
"All of you shouldn't exist!!!", she screamed, her voice enhanced by the Divine Domain - reaching the very soul.
Her Mockery activated, striking the conscience of every Half-Horrors around her. And Malediction went on a rampage.
In a radius of 50 meters, everything screamed in pain and agony. So loud that Lea had to remove her ears. And when things settled, all she could hear was the quietness of the dead. And an unbelievable tiredness...
Yet she still kept going on. Beyond exhaustion, her flame of hatred burns brighter.
Because that woman is in sight.
Literally, Sinclair is standing on top of a tower made of black flesh that rose just a minute ago, smiling down upon Lea.