That night, Jack made another unproductive sweep of the Lonestone Noble Cemetery. No clue from the library. No clue from the graves. He had no idea how to continue.
He recalled the previous quests he had done following the twins' direction. The latest were the case of the trapped Kraken Spirit. He had to explore the sea for hours. But it only took him one night to complete.
The first was in Highcliff Town. He had to enter the sewers. Deep within to fight against the great horde of mutated rats. Wait!
Jack suddenly got an idea. Deep. If he couldn't find the source of the problem... The cause might be further below. Or far above. Well, it could also be something else, but he at least had a direction he could go to.
Jack decided he needed to search deeper. If the answer wasn't in the graves, it might be beneath them. Far beneath them.
He stood in the center of the cemetery. A place where many of the oldest and most elaborate mausoleums converged.
He took a deep, non-existent breath. And then, his specter form began to sink. Not just a few feet to check a grave. But deeper. Much deeper.
He passed through the compacted earth. Through layers of undisturbed rock and clay. The pressure increased. The natural world giving way to denser geological formations.
He sank for what felt like an eternity. His spiritual senses guided him through the earth. He was going far beyond any normal grave. Beyond the bedrock that Lonestone Capital was built upon.
He started to doubt. Was he wrong? Was the source of the problem not below? Would he find nothing again? Well, it wouldn't be for the first time.
Jack started to expect to find nothing. Perhaps just an aquifer or solid granite.
But then... There was a change. A suffocating, threatening aura. Cold. Evil. Terrible.
And...
The solid rock gave way to open space. A vast, echoing void beneath the city. He passed through the ceiling of a massive, dark cavern.
The cavern didn't look natural. The walls were smooth and unsettlingly regular. A perfect cubical room. An enormous one. It suggested an unnatural excavation.
And then he saw it...
At the very center of the huge room. Covered by the ancient darkness... Something moved. Slightly. It was a monstrous creature. But it was not a single entity in the traditional sense.
It was a grotesque, colossal mass. A monstrous amalgamation of countless shrunken corpses and skeletons. The Undead Legion Monster.
It twitched with a sickening, unholy energy. It was a nightmare woven from death itself. Hundreds, thousands, or perhaps hundred-thousands, of shrunken bodies had been fused together. To form this abominable creature.
Skulls jutted out at odd angles. Some still bearing chunk of rotten flesh and strands of decayed hair. Ribcages formed gruesome armor plates. And disjointed limbs twitched and writhed. Both skeletal and partially preserved.
All of these things formed a cohesive, yet utterly chaotic, whole. It was vaguely humanoid in shape. But disproportionate. An immense, hulking mountain of stolen flesh and bone.
Its surface was a horrifying painting of different skin tones. Different ages of decay. Stretched taut over a core of pure malevolence.
There were no eyes. No. There were many eyes. From the skulls and dead heads protruding all over its body. But no central ones.
It was the ultimate desecration of final rest. This was the problem. This was where the dead had gone. This creature had absorbed them all.
Jack felt a cold rage and unease. This was not mere undead creature. This thing had consumed the very essence of the departed. Turning their eternal slumber into a component of its disgusting existence.
He activated his [Eyes of Judgement]. A panel of shimmering text materialized before him, blunt and clear:
[Creature: Undead Legion Monster]
[Species: Undead Zombie]
[Power Scale: High]
[Karma: Negative - Extremely Evil]
[Archetype: Fusion Abomination]
[Weakness: Holy Element]
[Origin: A creature created from the fusions of a special undead creature and many different corpses. It acts as a living grave, drawing in and assimilating dead bodies to fuel its growth and power.]
[Objective: Turning the living into corpses and absorbing them. Expanding its dominion to consume all life.]
[Trait: Corpse Assimilation]
[Trait: Undead Regeneration]
[Trait: Extreme Immunity]
[Skill: Miasma Breath]
[Skill: Whispers of the Lost]
The information confirmed Jack's suspicions. This monstrosity was draining the cemeteries. It wasn't just a threat to the dead. Its objective was to expand. To consume the living.
This thing was a ticking time bomb beneath Lonestone Capital. And it was exactly the kind of problem he would be delighted in solving.
The problem was its ability. Jack tried to understand more about the creature. He focused on each of its abilities.
The first one was the [Trait: Corpse Assimilation]. He accessed its description...
[Trait: Corpse Assimilation. Innate ability to rapidly absorb and integrate dead bodies into its form, healing itself or increasing its power. It can absorb corpses from a significant radius despite being blocked by solid objects.]
This seemed to be the reason for the disappearance of the corpses in the Noble Cemetery. Absorbing corpses from a distance despite solid objects blocking the way. This was indeed the reason.
The next one would be [Trait: Undead Regeneration]. The description said...
[Trait: Undead Regeneration. Innate ability to heal rapidly from most forms of damage by re-knitting its fused components. Requires constant access to new organic material for optimal effectiveness.]
Fast regeneration. It was probably comparable to his [Hyper Regeneration] in his physical incarnation. His [Hyper Regeneration] consumed satiety and calory to recover. This ugly monster's [Undead Regeneration] required... dead bodies?
Jack wasn't happy. This was troublesome. How long would a fight of two fighters, each with such kind of regeneration, could last? Hours? Days?
He moved to the next trait...
[Trait: Extreme Immunity. Innate ability to nullify any physical, mental, and magical attacks that do not carry the creature's natural weakness, the holy element.]
Jack was speechless. This one was a cheat. Definitely cheating. Being immune to anything other than ones with holy element? How the hell could he defeat this creature?
What ability did he have that possessed holy element? Nothing. Well... his weak [Healing Chant] had partial holy element. But his upgraded spell [Arcane Healing Lullaby] was pure arcane magic.
It seemed that he had to go back first. He needed to make enough preparation before dealing with that abomination. Perhaps, he could bring Reina for help.
Eliminating this threat would surely gave great amount of positive karma. Reina did need the karma points.
But for now, he decided to keep checking the monster's abilities. The next one was no longer trait. It was an active skill. [Skill: Miasma Breath]
[Skill: Miasma Breath. An active skill to exhale a noxious cloud of putrid gas that inflicts decay, poison, disease, and curse. Effective against living targets.]
Jack contemplated. This skill would be completely pointless against his current spectral form. But for his physical forms, it could be very troublesome.
As for the last skill...
[Skill: Whispers of the Lost. An active skill to emit an unsettling psychic hum, capable of causing fear, dizziness, and confusion in nearby sentient beings. Stronger against those with weak wills.]
Compared to the previous one that attacked body, this skill affected mind. It could be very dangerous for others. Not so much for Jack. His willpower was way above chart.
Five abilities. He had to be prepared against all of them.
Jack didn't linger. It was just scouting for now. Foolishly engaging a creature with such absurd immunities was definitely an idea he wouldn't take.
Still in his specter form, moved to the furthest corner of the chamber. He extended a spectral hand. Tapping a ring on his spectral finger. The Nine-Anchor Portal Ring.
A faint, shimmering light solidified in the cold floor of the chamber. This was his fifth anchor point. A direct gateway back to this problematic place beneath Lonestone. He could simply teleported here next time.
With the anchor set, he phased his body upwards. He ascended through layers of soil, rock, and grave foundations.
The oppressive chill of the abomination's lair slowly faded as he got closer to the surface. He emerged discreetly in the Lonestone Noble Cemetery. He quickly returned back home.
Back in the quiet solitude of his hidden workshop, Jack shed his spectral guise. He shifted into Jack Night. His form was filling out. Muscles rippled under a thick leather outfits. The transcendent Steamrune Engineer emerged.
The air crackled with ambient mana as he began his preparations. "Holy element, huh?" He muttered. A sardonic twist to his lips. "Never thought I'd be dealing with divine mechanics."
He pulled out schematics. His work table groaned under the weight of arcane tools and gleaming metal components.
For hours, he worked. The rhythmic clang of hammer on steel and the hiss of steam filling the workshop. He wasn't just simple tools. He was making bullets. A specific type of bullets.
He was engineering Holy Ammos. Each casing was infused with intricate carvings of runes designed to amplify and channel divine energy.
He made grenades too. They quickly took shape. Their cores were packed with volatile alchemical compounds. Painstakingly designed to explode in a burst of concentrated holy force.
It was delicate work. Mixing the sacred with the scientific. But Jack thrived on such contraventions.
As the dawn broke, Jack paused his crafting. He needed the catalyst. Donning a simple, unassuming cloak that disguised his hulking physique, he made his way to the Cathedral of Prosperity.