Abyssal Awakening

Sitting by the base of the spider lily, Alice's body was covered by countless strands of red and black. Flowers and briar thorns.

Even with her resistance, she could feel the energy of the curse coursing through her body as parts of her would mutate before returning back to normal after a short moment.

She could see the red link formed between her and the infected, a cage that spiralled through the capital.

She could see the pulses of energy rippling from the infected to her own body.

It was a strange sensation. A disgusting familiar sensation.

Like the days in the lab as blood was pumped into her body. Yet strangely, it was… warm and soothing after a short while. It was her own blood in the end but Alice disliked this feeling.

Sweat rolled down her face as Alice gritted her teeth.

Within the warm sensation that is her blood, she could feel something else. Something else that spurred her blood to mutate in such a vile way. To latch onto the target's spiritual heart and consume them from the inside.

'Enris? No… it's too different to be Enris. But it does hold traces of Eclipse. The moon? Not quite either.' Alice made a guess but this foreign feeling didn't match either of these two.

There wasn't even a need to consider the Sun seeing as how there was not even a speck of resemblance.

[It's probably Nyer's handiwork then.] Cayla dismissed while continuing her work of analysing this curse.

She wanted to see if there was a better way to break it rather than just having Alice accept it all into her body. If the curse was to break out in multiple areas, it would be an issue since she wouldn't be able to reach all of them.

'Fair point.' Alice chuckled, distracting her mind from the pain of having all these curses flooding her body.

At certain moments, her flesh would twist and writhe beneath the skin, threatening to break out and mutate.

But she held strong.

While accepting the curses in her body, Alice could sense the space around each of the victims. Through this resonance, their senses were shared with her.

The panic of the Hounds as they find themselves slowly being backed into the corner by the ever increasing beasts.

Guards who trembled as they tried their best to protect the civilians.

The fears of children as they watch the swarm of beasts approach.

Even though the outbreak has been held back, they were still struggling with the beasts.

None of the warriors could fight at full power, not when the Hybrid Lords were pushing Sigurd and Frida back.

'Selen also needs help…' Alice thought to herself.

She watched Selen kill four of the hybrids before drowning herself in the blood. Just to make sure that Selen wasn't consumed by the side effects, Alice attached her into the resonance as a patient.

However, even for Selen and her new abilities, fighting against four at the same time might be beyond her. Especially considering the fourth that felt eerie even for Alice.

After dragging them into the personal realm, Alice lost connection and could only hope that things were going good.

With Selen dealing with the hybrids all by herself, Alice turned her attention to the Lords that were facing one another.

Both living shadows were hard to push back as Sigurd and Frida were also careful with their abilities. Careful so that the city doesn't take any unnecessary damage.

Unfortunately, the living shadows didn't have the same worries. They fired off their attacks without care, carving the landscape and killing hundreds in the process. Alice may be able to hold back the curse but healing people from mortal wounds was beyond her.

She needed a bit more time before she could cut off the connection to the infected. A little more time before she's thoroughly removed the curse from their bodies. If she wasn't careful, even a tiny bit left over could spiral into the death of the infected.

She could only pray that they could hold on for that extra bit of time…

###

*BANG!!!

Gritting her teeth, Frida was covered with wounds as all of her attacks were being 'consumed' by the shadow in front of her. All she could do was slow him down while wounds piled up.

Worst of all, these wounds had special properties. Black tendrils writhed in her flesh, digging into her body. Even if she was to freeze them in an attempt to expel the foreign entity, they would break out from the ice and prevent her wound from closing.

"What's wrong? Running out of gas already? Come on~ Gimme something more to eat." The bestial living shadow cackled as he unhinged his jaw.

From inside him, a swarm of writhing black mass spewed out towards the city.

"B*stard!" Slamming her hands down, an ice barrier prevented the mass from crashing down on the city but this moment of distraction allowed the living shadow to appear in front of her.

Slashing down with its claws, he watched as Frida was barely able to move back in time, suffering only a light scratch on her skin.

However, this light scratch was all he needed to place more of his parasites into her body.

Coughing up a bit of blood, Frida furrowed her brows as things weren't looking too great.

"Frida!" Sigurd shouted out as she glanced back while keeping her guard up.

"I'll defend! Go all out!" Sigurd roared, twisting his body and slamming his hammer into the body of the humanoid living shadow.

The collision caused his body to splatter before returning back to normal.

No matter how Sigurd tried to burn and break him, he would always recover before counter attacking with the same attack if not stronger.

Raising his guard, he braced himself for a hammer strike as the humanoid shadow slammed a writhing mass in the form of a shadow into Sigurd's body.

With Sigurd telling her to go all out, Frida nodded her head.

Clasping her hands together, all of her Sigils lit up across her body as blue markings spread out.

A blizzard erupted around her with the bestial living shadow lunging forward to stop her.

But before his jaw could reach, Sigurd appeared, bloodied and bruised.

Leaning back, he uppercut the beast using his hammer, throwing him back before creating a barrier of flames to fend off the attacks of the humanoid living shadow.

Around them, the blizzard continued to rampage as space itself was frozen before shattering apart, revealing a woman with skin as white as snow and white silken hair. A pair of pristine blue eyes and a flowing garment of white.

The Avatar of Winter.

Raising her hands towards her mouth, the Avatar took a deep breath before exhaling towards the shadows and the city by extension.

A tsunami of cold mist rushed down and both of the living shadows felt a threat of death.

Meanwhile, Sigurd jumped down, spinning his hammer and slammed it into the ground.

*RUMBLE!!!

From below, flames slithered through the ice and began to melt through the layers.

*BANG!!!

Breaking out of the ice, a flaming serpent coiled upwards, letting out a loud hiss as glowing red markings appeared across Sigurd's body.

Avatar of the Forge!

A wave of flames crashed up, colliding with the tsunami of cold mist. With extreme heat on one side and extreme cold on the other, the two living shadows writhed in pain.

However, Sigurd's goal wasn't to kill the two. Rather, his goal was to stop the ice from reaching the city!!!

*CRACK!!!

Collapsing on one knee, veins bulged on Sigurd's arms as he was struggling to hold it off.

Ever since he was cursed by the Enris, his Avatar of the Forge had been weakened considerably. While he continues to maintain his powerful defence, his offensive capability practically disappeared. At this point, it was no different from a sealed beast.

But as long as he could hold off the cold mist from reaching the city, they can win!

"Ku! Hahahaha!!!"

A shrill laughter could be heard as a chill ran down Sigurd's spine. He snapped his gaze up and saw a mass of darkness within the collision of flames and ice.

Within this mass of darkness, tendrils could be seen harvesting this frozen energy. Many were frozen and destroyed but double the number was regenerated.

In mere moments, a barrier of writhing mass was formed and Frida's attack failed!

Seeing this, Frida instinctively took a step back out of disbelief and fear.

What kind of beast was this? That they could 'consume' her strongest attack meant to freeze even the Lords and extinguish their vitality?

"F*cking… Delicious." The bestial living shadow grinned as his form had increased by several folds. All of the tendrils across his body was in a state of excitement as he cracked his jaw open.

In an instant, a thin line of raw energy shot out, piercing Frida's shoulder.

"ARHG!!!" Letting out a cry of pain, Frida was barely able to shift her body in time out of instinct. If it wasn't for this, this beam would've hit her heart!

Panting heavily, she froze the wound and glanced at the beast with sweat dripping down her face.

The Avatar above were started to fade away as cracks formed across the surface of her body.

But before she could fully fade away, a dark hand gripped her neck.

*BANG!!!

"!!!" Grasping at her neck, Frida choked on her breath as her gaze glanced up and saw a dark avatar slowly appearing from the ripples in space.

A dark twisted amalgamation of limbs and shadow grasped her avatar by the neck. Its head, a mass of flesh began to split open, revealing countless rows of teeth and writhing tendrils.

A horrific thought filled Frida's mind as fear revealed itself in her eyes.

It was trying to consume her Avatar!!!

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