Ant Hell (2)
"What the hell was that just now!"
"There was never supposed to be only one Three-Headed Demon, was there?"
Two of their own had been taken down in a matter of minutes by enemies of unknown identity. They had prepared everything with a single target in mind — the Three-Headed Demon — and that alone was enough to throw them into disarray.
...You recorded data on that thing, didn't you?
At Aliya's telepathic query, one of her soldiers nodded silently.
The Temple Guard rarely fought the standing armies of the Cult or other factions. Their true adversaries were beings far larger than themselves — colossal monsters, or wicked entities like the Vortex One heretics. And when a warrior died fighting things beyond the human order, more often than not no corpse or trace was ever left behind.
That was why every member of the Temple Guard was trained in a specialized psychic technique.
It was called the Memory Storage Technique — an ability akin to thoughtography that converted what a person saw or felt into data. If one member was ambushed, a comrade trained in the technique could record the event and transmit it to the others, preventing the same situation from ever repeating.
Everyone, hold position.
I'm transmitting the stored memory now.
While the others kept watch, the soldier versed in the Memory Storage Technique sent Aliya the images of Brenz's final moments.
The moment the memory data poured in over the telepathic link, the events of moments ago unfolded before Aliya's eyes like a recording.
Brenz stooping to pick up the carcass of the juvenile monster. Between his legs, in the fog lying low across the cavern floor, something pale and formless was visible.
It looked as though a single drop of white paint had fallen onto black paper — and it was a woman's face.
But it was no ordinary human face. Her pupils and the whites of her eyes were indistinguishable, both a uniform black, and her lips were stained red as if soaked in blood.
Setting aside the eyes, it was undeniably a beautiful face — yet all Aliya felt washing over her was dread and revulsion.
The head, at least, retained human shape. From the neck down, it did not. The thing resembled a spider — though that was merely by analogy, and in truth its form was far more horrifying than any comparison could convey.
She — no, it — had clearly been lying in wait beneath the ice, hidden under the fog that pooled along the cavern floor. It had lain in ambush, biding its time until the soldiers let their guard down.
The monster's snow-white face erupted from the ground and shot up along Brenz's back toward the nape of his neck. Brenz, utterly unaware of its existence.
And then the monster opened its blood-red mouth.
Its jaws split apart, stretching wider than the creature's own face, revealing ranks of saw-blade triangular teeth packed tight inside.
With that grotesque maw agape, it clamped down on the back of Brenz's neck.
Blood geysered upward, and his neck was severed with terrifying ease. The monster seized the fallen head and scrambled swiftly backward into the dark.
The memory showed the soldiers belatedly swinging their weapons to bear. Through the frantic gaze of the one using the Memory Storage Technique, Aliya noticed it.
Billone was nowhere to be seen.
While the spider monster had killed Brenz and stolen everyone's attention, another monster must have spirited Billone away.
After that, the spider monster had weathered the barrage of their attacks with its own body before vanishing into the darkness beyond the passage — Brenz's severed head in tow.
And with that, the recording ended.
A headache, the familiar aftereffect of reviewing stored memories, throbbed behind Aliya's eyes as she thought.
The things that just attacked us are anything but pushovers.
The two monsters had displayed unmistakable teamwork. While the juveniles drew the soldiers' attention, the creature wearing a human head had lain in silence, waiting for the precise instant their vigilance slackened.
And a third had held back, striking the moment the soldiers' eyes were drawn elsewhere.
In other words, the monsters of the Temple Guard's quarry possessed a dangerously high intellect. Their superhuman physical abilities were merely a bonus on top of that.
"This is a fragment that broke off the creature's body during the attack."
"This is..."
What the soldier had brought back was so bizarre it could hardly be called the flesh of a living thing. Red metal was fused into glistening black flesh, as though metal and organism had been welded into one.
Not many factions in existence could produce something like this.
Star Union.
Before coming here, she had heard rumors that the Three-Headed Demon might be connected to the Star Union.
The rumor went that the Three-Headed Demon was a new biological weapon created by the Star Union that had broken free of containment mid-experiment and fled into Cult Empire territory. Even the recent armed clash between the Empire and the Star Union was said to have been provoked by the creature.
No. That's going too far.
Aliya shook her head, shaking the fantasy loose from her mind.
Figure out what it is after we've captured it.
She shared the Memory Storage data with her soldiers, then reported to Jason over telepathy.
"...You're telling me Brenz and Billone are dead because of that thing?"
Brenz fell in battle. Billone was taken alive and is being moved. We could still pursue them right now and—
"No. Pursuit is forbidden. Billone's a dead woman either way. Chase after them for nothing and we could all be wiped out."
What?
"Just knowing there's more than one of them is a massive gain. Now get back here."
Billone was still connected through the Soul Link. She would be waiting for her comrades to come rescue her — they couldn't simply abandon her.
She's our comrade! We can't just walk away knowing she's still alive!
"I don't want to lose you, Aliya."
What exactly is that thing to you? You know what it is, don't you, High Priest? Why won't you tell us?
"......."
Faced with the storm of Aliya's furious telepathy, Jason said nothing. The heart of a lover at war with himself came through to her, unfiltered.
"Whew. I figured telling you would only break your spirit, but fine. In exchange, you fall back the moment you've heard this."
When she received the telepathic message he sent next, Aliya could only stare in horror.
"Big Baby, a friend came over."
"Good work. How's the body?"
"Kirk. Movement far more organic than previous model, Kirk. But durability is low, sir."
"You'll probably need to supplement that by consuming metal."
"Blood Reaver, Kirk. Possible, if you provide additional units, sir."
"No."
I shot down PS-111's request without a moment's hesitation.
I'd already burned through one, leaving seven remaining. Even if the Blood Reaver was a Unique-class piece of equipment that could theoretically be mass-produced, it wasn't something you could just pick up anywhere. It would be hard to come by more until we assaulted one of the Star Union's core planets, at the earliest.
This planet is crawling with strong enemies. I need to save every trump card I have.
We'd been here two days and had already run into one APEX and a Cult ranker with Black Galagon-class strength. No matter how many trump cards I had, they weren't enough.
"Requesting... persuasion... Persuasion of Main Controller regarding 'Amorph'..."
"If Big Baby says no, then no."
The attempt to route the request through No. 26 instead also collapsed. PS-111's head drooped in defeat.
Still, I'd call gaining a useful ally a net win.
I looked over the creature, disappointment radiating off it in waves.
PS-111's appearance had changed dramatically since our first encounter.
The face of a human woman with pristine white skin remained untouched, but from the neck down it was an entirely different creature.
Red tubing and mechanical assemblies that evoked the Blood Reaver, black flesh gained from devouring the Tooth Fairies — metal and organic matter interwoven to forge a brand-new body.
To put its appearance in a single image, it was close to a spider wearing a human head. Four pairs of legs extended from either side of its body, and along its torso the energy absorption units from the Blood Reaver peeked out between patches of black hide at regular intervals.
Still, few people would look at it and think spider. All eight legs were different lengths, and in shape they were less like spider limbs than human arms and legs grotesquely stretched out of proportion.
Each elongated leg terminated in a differently shaped foot. There were two broad forms: one bore five hook-like fingers, and the other a single sickle-shaped claw so long it resembled a bladed weapon. Either way, both looked devastatingly effective at carving an enemy apart.
With all eight legs of mismatched length, I'd expected its movement to be hampered — but the creature moved as fluidly as if it had been born that way.
Like a creature straight out of a sci-fi film or a horror game.
By my standards — and I'm a monster enthusiast — its appearance more than passed inspection. At the very least, it looked far better than Screamers or Hulk Mutants, which looked like the work of a practical-effects team with no talent.
Whether the Cult would agree is another question.
Nine times out of ten, they'd popped out of the ground, laid eyes on PS-111, and screamed. The wounds scarring its body made it clear the Cult had been attacking like madmen even in those few short seconds.
"If you devour the Ice Horror's remains, won't your defenses improve somewhat?"
"Kirk. Probability of 72%, sir."
"Good."
I nodded and accepted the Cultist head it offered me.
"Why do you require the head, sir?"
"Everything gets used eventually."
I brought the goat-horned head to my mouth and chewed. The distinctively crisp, fruity flavor of a Cultist flooded my mouth — orange base, with a dash of lemon.
Skin, facial muscle, horns and skull, and finally the brain were crushed to pulp and slid down my throat. Along with them, the Cultist's genetic components were rapidly absorbed into my body.
Before long, one of the Human-Faced Beasts embedded in the carapace at the back of my head withered and shrank away, and in its place a new face bloomed.
The freshly grown face was identical to the Cultist I had just eaten. Identical, that is, apart from the pallor — even paler than a typical Human-Faced Beast.
The new face opened its eyes. It grasped its situation instantly and bulged them wide in horror.
"Wh-what is this...?!"
"Quiet."
"!"
All five Human-Faced Beasts growing from my head were bound to my will. When I commanded silence, their mouths sealed shut. When I bade them speak, they spoke.
Don't worry. You'll get to scream as much as you like soon enough.
That was the whole reason I'd brought him here, after all.
I sent a wavelength pulsing toward Adhai, hidden nearby.
[Zzz (Where are the enemies?)]
"Coming." "Ten." "Twelve."
[Zzzzz zzz zzz zzzz zzz (None of them as strong as you, Elder?)]
"Enemies." "Strength." "Little Elder." "Compared." "Lower."
The pack containing the Black Galagon-class powerhouse had frozen in place the moment another pack came under attack. Perhaps intending to assess the situation before moving again, it was holding position at the rear.
The pack ambushed by PS-111 and Mother of the Sky had likewise changed its behavior. The ones who had been heading for my nest had altered course and were now moving toward the pack at their rear.
Only one group was moving independently — the ones coming straight for us.
So far, everything's going to plan.
By now Mother of the Sky should have arrived at the nest with her prisoner. While PS-111 was out harvesting a Cultist's head, she would snatch a distracted one of her own — that was the design.
What happens next depends on how that thing reacts.
[Zzzz zzz zzzzzz zzzzz (Well done. Hold position until I give the signal)]
"Understood."
Finished speaking with Adhai, I turned my gaze to No. 26 beside me.
She was freely radiating the immense psychic power she had been stockpiling inside her body.
The torrent of psychic energy a Sea Demon gives off bleeds into every other psychic organism in the area. Abilities that demand minute, precise regulation of psychic power — telepathy, the Soul Link, and their like — all find their use restricted.
Since we'd entered the underground, one of the three split packs had been moving toward us — coming to clear away whatever was interfering with them.
A trap, of course.
The packs heading this way had no idea the operation had changed. No. 26's psychic interference was scrambling their telepathy.
If the pack that comes here is annihilated, that thing will move.
It had two options. It could go rescue the prisoner Mother of the Sky had captured. Or...
It could come here personally, to remove the obstacle jamming the flow of psychic power.
And whichever it chose, the outcome would be the same.
I intended to fight it right here — in this place where the Ice Horror's hard carapace and bones still lay scattered.
[Zzz zzzzzz (Then let's get ready)]
"Yes."
"Kirk. Understood, sir."
[Zzz zzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzzz (If they move unpredictably, stick to the plan)]
"Confirmed. Please do not worry, sir."
Together with No. 26 and PS-111, I slipped inside the prone skeleton of the Ice Horror.
Intruders who had come barging in without the first idea of what they were walking into.
Only two futures remained to them.
Die and become genetic essence — or become my slaves.
Either way.
Their essence would end up as mine. On that point, nothing would change.
"Is this it? Looks like the bones of some beast."
Krishian, commander of the third Temple Guard detachment, let out a low murmur of awe at the sight of the colossal creature's skeleton.
They were standing in a half-collapsed underground cavern. Even in a space several hundred meters across, the monster's bones dominated it with overwhelming presence.
"The psychic power is emanating from inside the skeleton itself. We'll investigate."
"Selene. Keep firing telepathy at High Priest Jason and Aliya."
"Understood."
The Cultists here could no longer make proper use of telepathy or the Soul Link — all because of the immense psychic power pouring out from within the bones.
Unless powerful psychics like Jason and Aliya transmitted to them directly, there was no way to reach the outside world.
Not until the source of this uncanny energy had been eliminated.
"What kind of creature bleeds this much psychic power, anyway?"
"Could it be an Arcane Orca corpse?"
"Something that flies through space died under the ice?"
"It doesn't look fossilized, though."
While his soldiers carried out their duties, Krishian studied the bones and carapace plates.
Lights carved from glowing gems illuminated the skeleton out of the darkness. Where the light struck, the pale bones gleamed — utterly smooth, stripped of every trace of flesh.
Strange. If a creature this size had died here, the entire surrounding ecology would have changed.
Predators drawn in to feed on its meat, the massive clouds of gas and bacteria produced by a rotting corpse — not a single trace of any of it remained. The giant's skeleton was as clean as if someone had stripped the flesh from it and nothing more.
And these marks. There was clearly a ferocious battle here.
Krishian ran his hand along a fractured bone, thinking. There was something off about the theory that it had been defeated and devoured by the Three-Headed Demon.
The thing was many times larger than this colossal creature had been, and yet the passages connecting to this cavern bore no trace whatsoever of it passing in or out.
No way to reach the other units, either... tsk.
He was clicking his tongue in frustration when voices drifted out from inside the lattice of bone and carapace.
"Commander Krishian! Come see this!"
"What is it?"
Following the voices inward, Krishian stopped dead at the sight before him.
Between the white bones stood a wall of deep violet-black.
Its surface was densely engraved with geometric patterns, uneven and rugged rather than smooth. On the ground before it, unlike the other bones, spikes of the same violet-black jutted upward — and for all they called it a wall, it looked far more like the carapace of some enormous living thing.
And embedded in it were five deathly pale faces.
"Uuuugh, s-save me!"
"Kyaaaaaaaah! It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!"
"It hurts! It hurts so much! Somebody help me!"
"Hnnngh... hnnnngh..."
"Get us out of here!"
Astonishingly, every one of them was a Cultist's face. There was no telling how they were embedded in the wall, but all five were alive. They wept and drooled, begging pitifully to be freed.
Krishian had survived a thousand battlefields, but he had never seen a wall studded with nothing but faces. It was a sight too horrible to survive even in a dream.
"H-how in the world...?"
"Th-the psychic power is flowing from behind that wall."
"Damn it! Smash the wall right n—huh? Wait a moment. I've seen that one's face somewhere before."
One of the five faces struck Krishian as naggingly familiar.
"You... wouldn't happen to be Brenz?"
"Gah? K-Krishian! It's me, it's me! Brenz!"
He was so deathly pale that Krishian hadn't recognized him at first. The man embedded in the wall was indeed Brenz, the Temple Guard soldier who had entered with them.
"Didn't you leave with Aliya? What in the world are you doing here...?"
"I don't know! Goddamn it... I blacked out, and when I came to, I was here!"
"We'll get you out right now!"
Krishian stepped toward the wall of faces.
That was when Selene's voice rang out from beyond the bone lattice.
"Commander Krishian! I've just received a telepathy from Aliya! Brenz and Billone have fallen in battle!"
"Huh?"
At those words, Krishian and his soldiers looked at one another.
Brenz was right in front of them. Embedded up to his neck in that violet-black wall, but there.
"Ig-ignore that! Aliya made a mistake! I'm still alive! I'm alive, I tell you!"
The highest-ranking member of the Temple Guard present on this mission was Aliya — the third-strongest warrior in the entire order.
Would someone of her caliber really be incapable of determining whether a comrade was truly dead?
Krishian and his men began backing slowly away from the wall. Watching them, Brenz hurled curses after them.
"You goddamn Cult rats! You think any of you are getting out of this?!"
He cursed them with tears of blood streaming from his eyes, and he looked precisely like a vengeful spirit.
Krishian was certain now. That thing was not Brenz. It was something wearing Brenz's face.
"Everyone, careful—"
"C-Commander Krishian!"
Startled by a soldier's cry, Krishian turned to look at him.
The man — a veteran who had clawed his way through as many war zones as Krishian himself — stood with his mouth hanging wide open, as though he'd witnessed something shocking, or something terrible.
Then a spike of searing pain lanced through Krishian. His gaze dropped.
"Huh?"
A spike that should have been anchored in the ground was buried in his belly. His blood and shreds of viscera slid down the thick violet-black spike.
He felt the strength drain from the legs holding him upright. His wavering eyes rose to the wall ahead.
The faces embedded in it were still there.
All of them were grinning, the corners of their mouths stretched to their limits.
"Heehee, gotcha."
"Heehee, gotcha."
"Heehee, gotcha."
"Heehee, gotcha."
"Heehee, gotcha."
Only then did he understand.
The face he had seen was not Brenz. And the thing before him was not a wall.
It — the thing that had impaled Krishian on its horn — began to rise up out of the ground.