Chapter 123. What Is That Abomination?!
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric looked at Catherina’s incredible leveling speed and concluded, “As I expected, body size indeed has something to do with leveling speed.”
While he's trying to create dragons before, Cedric has realized that bigger creatures require more energy to achieve a leap in life level.
But at that time, the feeling is still quite vague.
It's not until he's experimenting with creating Kraken that Cedric becomes sure about that rule.
This rule is also the one that has slowed down Elisa’s leveling speed. After all, although a dragon’s body is enormous. Elisa’s massive tree body is on another level altogether.
Thus, even though the number of demons that Catherina has killed is much less than that of Elisa, Catherina still caught up to Elisa’s level without even the need for training.
“I’ve almost finished creating the mermaids and kraken. So, perhaps I should also create a small sized intelligent creature.” Cedric muttered while rubbing his chin. The more he thinks about it, the more he likes the idea.
“Alright. Once this demon king mess is finished, I'll design a small sized intelligent race.” Cedric refocused his attention on the Crystal Cube world.
Before placing his attention on Catherina, Cedric asked the System, “How long until the demon king is born?”
[Approximately seven months or barely eight months.]
He looked at the number of demons remaining in the human territory and found them too widely scattered.
This'll make it uncertain whether those demons are enough for Catherina to reach the next level.
So, Cedric placed his sight on the giant ant tunnels once again. After a decade, the number of demonized giant ants has increased.
As the time for the demon king to be born came closer, every demon in the world became much more violent.
As the place where the most demons gathered, the giant ant nests became especially dangerous.
The number of dwarves dying from giant ant attacks in recent years has almost doubled compared to usual. This is also what causes the number of demon ants to rise again, even after Catherina’s group has already slaughtered them once.
Calculating the number of demons in the nest, Cedric felt it should be enough for Catherina.
But here comes the problem.
Ten years ago, Catherina could barely pass through some tunnels with her five meter long body, which is also the main reason the group failed to annihilate the ants.
Right now, Catherina's body has grown considerably, making many of the paths she could previously pass become unusable.
After some thought, Cedric opened the store and purchased an item.
[Level 4 Consumable Divine Item, Welcome To The Land Of Giants (Trial Edition)
Cost: 20 GP
Details: Reduce the target's size up to 0.1x its current size. Effective for those at and below Level 4. Lasts for a month, and can be dispelled anytime. Doesn't decrease the target's strength, speed, endurance, and other stats.
Warning! Reaching Level 5 while the item is in effect will immediately dispel the effect.]
“It seems I still need to purchase this item,” Cedric had previously thought of purchasing one of the Item’s Level 3 variants to help Catherina enter the ant tunnels she can't pass. But he feels it's a waste of money because it costs 8 GP to activate and lasts only a month. During that time, she definitely won't stop leveling in just a month, so he'll need to spend close to 100 GP a year to shrink her constantly.
After he bought it, another octahedron crystal appeared nearby.
By this point, Cedric is already too tired to complain about the shape.
He picked up his [Divine Intervention: Word] and messaged Catherina.
[The demon king will be born in seven months. The number of demons in human territory is too small and dispersed for you to reach the next level. I suggest you visit the giant ant tunnels once again to reach Upper Level 4 before the demon king's birth.]
[I have prepared a blessing to decrease your size and let you enter small tunnels in the ant nest. I shall activate the blessing once you arrive at the ant tunnels.]
Upon receiving his message, Catherina’s team returned to the mountain range and went to the dwarves’ territory to fight against the giant ants.
Not long after Catherina arrived, Cedric messaged her.
[I am going to shrink your size. Don't dispel the effect unless necessary.]
After sending the message, Cedric immediately used the Divine Item to shrink her.
Catherina saw her surroundings turn bigger at a rapid speed. The elf that's shorter than her soon became much taller.
Soon, she has shrunk to the size of a medium-sized dog.
When Catherina could see an elf’s knee from her eye level, she immediately felt something was wrong.
As expected, she soon received a message from Cedric.
[Sorry, I think I shrunk you too much. It's not like your strength or speed decreased, so please don't dispel it. I couldn't use the blessing again anytime soon. I'll fix it next month when the effect runs out.]
Catherina became a bit speechless, ‘This god is a bit unreliable.’
She first tried to move around in her newly shrunk body.
Just like mentioned in the message, even though her size has shrunk, Catherina’s speed isn't affected.
Suppose she could move at 10 meters per second before. Now she could still move at 10 meters per second.
Actually, being shrunk seems to be buffing her instead. Because right now, it has become much harder to attack her.
Then Catherina punched a nearby boulder and realized her evasion rate wasn't the only thing that had increased.
Although the size of the destruction had decreased from usual, Catherina felt it was much easier for her current form than her previous form.
It's like the difference between stomping on a brick in regular shoes and in high heels with a pointed tip. The forces are simply that much more condensed.
Once she got used to her new body, Catherina’s team reentered the giant ant’s tunnel. This time, they'll also target those small tunnels that Catherina couldn't enter before.
***
After using the [Welcome To The Land Of Giants] on Catherina, Cedric didn't remain idle.
Although he's still unsure whether the demon king will appear in the human territory or the dwarf and elf territory, Cedric felt they should be prepared rather than caught off guard.
He picked his Divine Intervention and prepared to inform the leader of the respective forces about the demon king. He wants them to prepare an elite army to join the hero.
When the dwarves council, the new Elven king, and the Magic Association’s council heard his revelation, they became shocked before running to Elisa, the oldest and most reputable person, or specifically, tree, that they knew.
With Elisa’s acknowledgement, the dwarf council, the elven king, and the Magic Association’s Council immediately started their preparation. The dwarves went to smelt weapons like crazy, the elves prepared to breed more internet plants so they can be used in the battle to transmit information, while the Magic Association has gathered many refined materials that can be used to cast high level magic.
On the other hand, Cedric also wanted to warn the Temple. But when he looked at the Temple, Cedric found they had already been in a state of war preparation for a decade.
He activated his Past Observation and found out why the Temple is in a tense state.
When he learned how Lacius had secretly aided Catherina's journey and had also ordered the Temple to battle, Cedric fell into thought.
“Honestly, Lacius scared me. To think he accurately guessed that Catherina is a hero just from those bit and pieces of clues. Not only that, he actually prepared against a demon king attack that lasted for ten whole years simply because of the guess he has.”
“Perhaps I've been too hard against him…” Cedric muttered before chuckling, “Pfft, as if!”
“I might be biased, but I am quite certain he's helping Catherina just to ‘fatten’ her until she reach Level 5, before ‘slaughtering’ her to research the path to Level 5.”
“As for why he prepared an army, I guess it's simply to collect another demon king as material for his experiments.”
Cedric felt that although he might not be 100% correct. Given what Lacius has done before, that's definitely not far from the truth.
“Anyway, with the Temple already prepared for war, I guess I don't need to warn them as long as the demon king doesn't appear in the human territory.”
***
Soon, more than seven months have passed since Catherina's team entered the ant tunnels.
This also means Cedric has consumed 160 GP just to maintain Catherina's shrunken state.
Luckily, this time, the result didn't betray the effort.
When there were less than two weeks remaining, Catherina successfully advanced to Upper Level 4.
With the goal reached, Catherina’s team decided to let her rest.
Cedric also agreed with the decision to let Catehrina rest for the remainder of the time. He doesn't want her to blunder during a critical moment because she is tired.
While Catherina rested, the elves and the dwarves were still incredibly busy.
Amidst the busyness, the time for the demon king's birth came closer.
Cedric also became nervous as he questioned the System every three seconds, “System, how long until the demon king's born?”
[Time remaining: 2 hours 17 minutes]
“Did you find out the demon king's location yet?”
[No.]
[Actually, you've been asking the same thing a million times. Please stop wasting the System's computational power.]
Cedric rolled his eyes and stared at the remaining time.
When it hit 0, a warning immediately appeared in front of him.
[Warning! A demon king has appeared in your world.
Cedric immediately checked the situation in the Crystal Cube world.
In his sense, the world that should still be bright has turned dark as a massive cyclone of NE that mortal eyes can't see slowly spins above the sky. The cyclone sucked every NE and gathered them into a center.
Amidst the NE that filled his senses, Cedric tried hard to look for the cyclone’s center.
After searching for a minute, he found that the center is actually located above a plain, near a dwarf city.
Cedric got confused for an instant before realization struck him. He directly checked deep underground and soon saw one of the caves connected to the ant tunnels.
Inside the cave, there are a few barely living dwarves and elves with many mutilated corpses of dwarves and elves surrounding them. At the cave’s entrance, giant ants are guarding the captured elves and dwarves.
Suddenly, the NE that's been gathering in the sky descended. They passed by the soil and soon filled the cave.
Those dwarves and elves who were barely clinging to life immediately turned manic. They crazily bit everything as tears constantly streamed down their faces.
As time passed, their forms became tangled. The one moving them is no longer their muscles but the NE that filled the cave and entered their bodies.
Soon, their corpses turned into a ball with many pores. It's a sight that's enough to fill normal people with disgust, and instantly kills those with trypophobia.
Although it's deep underground, winds from god knows where blew through the pores, making the holes constantly release piercing wails while occasionally dripping an unknown liquid.
The giant ants guarding the caves felt the disturbance and attacked. Even so, no matter how hard they bit on the tangled pieces of flesh and limbs, they barely got damaged. Instead, the newly born demon king swallowed those ants.
After swallowing every ant, the ball became even rounder and began rolling.
Every time it found a giant ant, it would devour them and grow bigger. Even so, its size doesn't affect its travel in the underground at all.
Whenever it moved through a narrow tunnel, it could squish its body and wriggle through. As it squirms, the ball of flesh emits piercing wails and drips unknown liquids from its pores.