Chapter 680
At those words, everyone unleashed the darkness spells that they had kept at the ready. The agonizing shrieks rose in intensity and made their stomach churn, but their survival instinct beat their compassion by a landslide.
The air turned immediately clear, but the flesh tentacles at their feet reacted with violence, attacking Lith's group from all sides. Luckily, centuries of feeding only on the light element that seeped through the two layers of arrays blocking the door had left the creature severely weakened.
Each one of their hits was quick and well-aimed, but it lacked the strength necessary to pierce the enchanted protections. Life Ward further protected the expedition members, inflicting deep burns to the entrails whenever they struck at the white membrane.
A second volley of darkness spells killed the attackers and cleansed the air enough for the ward's in-built lights to allow the Professors to read the documents they had brought along.
"This should be Project Evolution." Professor Ellkas read.
"The Odi had discovered that Abomination don't suffer from aging nor diseases, so they attempted to fuse the Abomination's life forces with that of members of the 'lesser races' before infecting them with incurable ailments. I'd say they failed big time."
"Idiots." Lith was enraged by the Odi's reckless approach to science. "They failed to understand that if creating hybrids was so easy, everyone would do it. Their foolish experiment didn't bond the Abomination with their specimens, but with the diseases!"
"How do you know that?" Phloria asked. The Professors were flabbergasted as well. None of them was a Master Healer, but Lith's comprehension of the Odi experiments was too accurate to not be creepy.
'Oh crap!' Lith thought. 'I forgot that the others don't have Solus to explain everything to them almost in real-time. I've got to play my genius card.'
"Isn't it obvious?" Lith acted smug. "The fog is clearly alive and has been feeding on our lights ever since we stepped down here. The moment you told me that Abominations were involved, all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place."
"No, it's not obvious at all." Gaakhu said. "How do you explain the things that just attacked us? That was no disease."
'My money on a partial success.' Solus came to the rescue. 'Probably one of their victims partially fused with both the Abomination and the disease. It gave them the edge they needed over their competition but at the same time it trapped them in here.'
Lith repeated her words and added:
"That's why we hear screams and why the door upstairs was still standing. Probably the hybrid has a real body somewhere and can't get too far from it."
His brilliant deduction surprised everyone, Phloria included. She knew that Lith was brilliant, but not that much. Yet she said nothing aside from praises and kept her questions for later.
The carpet of entrails led them to a cell near the access leading to the next underground floor. Just as Lith, or rather Solus had predicted, the heavy metal door had been ripped off as if it was made of paper.
Nothing remained of the arrays or the holographic pad. The only thing left was the mana crystal cable, around which the only healthy tentacle was tightly wrapped.
"I guess that explains how the hybrid survived for so long." Lith said while pointing at it.
Inside the cell, there was something of vaguely humanoid shape. The creature had a spongy look, as if a black and green moss had entirely covered a man's upper body, from the head to his midriff.
Yet it wasn't moss and there was no underlying body. The creature could twist all of its parts like a rag doll, forming unnatural angles while it tried to escape from the shining red chains that bound its arms to the wall.
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