"The white halls had forgotten the meaning of light, years upon years of neglect ate away at the facility resources." Dante's voice came slow. The sound of dripping fluid echoed through the corridor as Beatrice walked, no, glided her steps silent beneath the soft sheen of her new armor.
Each breath she took sent ripples of faint violet haze from her mouth. She could feel it, the minute but present reserve of energy within her cells.
Her body no longer felt foreign. The white fur armor clung to her like a second skin, tight, flexible, and warm.
She look at the status screen.
[Trait Active: Body Armor]
[Duration Remaining: 07:46]
This was a powerful trait however it eats away at her MP. "Not much time left." she muttered. "I will have either rest and let my cells recharge energy naturally or, I would have to level up and refill my MP again."
Dante chuckled faintly. "Make it count, I doubt you will be able to do everything in a mere duration of seven minutes without leveling up, again."
"Yeah, yeah… you're not the one getting torn apart every run." She moved forward. The hallway stretched endlessly, the ceiling low, pipes hissing faint vapor. Somewhere deeper in the facility, metal groaned.
It had been seven times before. Seven failures. Seven deaths. And yet, she remembered them all.
Each failure carved itself into her, muscle memory, trauma, instinct. The moment she respawned in the last checkpoint or her default check point that restarts the game not making it a true check point for this world at least was in the cyro-pods, she could still taste the blood, feel the many pain she endured, and still remember where she misstepped. The world itself was repeating, but she wasn't.
But with every death comes with new experiences. She felt it for herself many times, and have experience many things since then as such she had knowledge of this place to a good degree. "I need to focus on my health, that asshole attacks if landed properly knocks off 1/4th of my health in an instant."
Beatrice said to herself, as her steps brought her toward a shattered metal sign bolted to the wall, letters half-melted by blight corrosion, and she brushed her hand against it.
— MEDICAL WARD —
Beneath it, a splatter of blackened veins spread like mold, pulsing faintly. The stench hit her hard, rot mixed with the sterile tang of long-dried disinfectant. "Last time I made it halfway before that freak cut me in half." Beatrice whispered.
Dante then hummed in amusement. "The one with the giant kitchen knife, right? You screamed quite a bit that round."
"Yeah, well, try having your guts spill out mid-swing. Not exactly pleasant."
The corridors here twisted more than before, narrow and uneven. What had once been an organized medical station now resembled the ribcage of a dying beast. Steel doors bent inward. The faint whir of broken machines murmured from within rooms filled with shattered glass and motionless shadows.
Beatrice's violet eyes flicked across every surface, analyzing the layout from memory. On her fourth attempt, she had fled through this area, desperate, bleeding, and something had followed her. Something huge, skittering, silent until it wasn't.
That thing had killed her faster than anything else. Even faster than the boss, as it was faster and harder to react to. And also had a lot of strength not as much as the boss of this facility but strong enough to be a problem.
But it also dropped something when she did manage to kill it. A blade fragment, glimmering with blight energy. She had watched it pierce the mini-boss's arm in another loop when she had the idea to make the monster kill each other as she act as a lure, it worked for the most part, till there was only that thing and the boss itself, and that thing did some damage, as the blade of that thing began melting part of butchers flesh. But all in all, her playthrough albeit end with death every round, she always got something useful or new from it
Now, she was going to claim that drop item. "Let's see if you're still nesting here." She muttered, crouching low as she neared the long surgery chamber.
The doors were gone, ripped off. Inside, light flickered weakly, creating long, trembling shadows across the floor. Dozens of cocoons hung from the ceiling, pulsating faintly with red veins. Webs stretched across tables, four poles, and machines. Human skeletons were trapped inside some of them, their skulls tilted in mock prayer.
Beatrice's voice softened, as she knew what comes next. "I hate this part…
"You always did." Dante replied, the echo of a smile in his tone. "But the spider doesn't, that for sure."
Then it happened. A faint tremor ran through the webbing. One of the hanging cocoons swayed slightly. Then another. The room went silent except for the dripping of fluid.
Beatrice tightened her grip on the pipe, her fur shifting faintly, stiffening like quills. Her heartbeat slowed deliberately. She knew the pattern, of that attack's heading her way.
First came the sound, faint legs scraping from above. Then, the drop of something heavy falling on the ground. The bastard loved ambushing prey when they looked away, striking from the ceiling.
Not this time though.
She walked forward, playing the fool, this would be scary but living this once made it more novel than scary now as she approached calm, until she reached the center of the webbed room. Then she stopped, pretending to look down at one of the corpses.
The air behind her changed, as something blitzed towards her. A soundless gust... And clear movement. Beatrice exhaled slowly, her lips curving into the smallest smirk. "Predictable fucks." The creature dropped, a blur of chitin and rot, legs stabbing downward like spears, but before it could land, Beatrice spun. Her claws flared violet, the fur along her arm bristling with energy. She caught one of its legs mid-swing and ripped it out of its socket.
A shriek tore through the room...high, wet, monstrous. The spider hit the ground, slamming its bulk into a row of beds, scattering rusted tools and corpses.
Its body was enormous, easily the size of a van, glistening with mucous and clotted blood. Dozens of malformed eyes blinked open across its face, each reflecting her like a mirror of terror. Its abdomen pulsed, cracked, and sprayed a mist of acid that hissed as it hit the floor.
"Careful." Dante murmured. "That spit is what killed you in one run, the sixth one, and it injured you during the seventh causing the Butcher to one shot you when failed to parry."
"Yeah, I remember." She dove to the side as acid splashed against the ground where she had stood. Her claws slashed forward, one, two, three, carving deep furrows into the spider's thorax.
Blight residue oozed like tar. The creature lashed out, catching her shoulder, sending her skidding across the floor.
Her armor shimmered, absorbing most of the hit.
Beatrice then rolled, caught herself, and leapt.
Her claws plunged into the spider's back. She tore them down in a cross motion, splitting the carapace open. The monster convulsed, screeching so loudly the lights above flickered.
"Die already!" she roared. She pressed her hands into the wound. Blight or Mondus energy surged from her fingertips, violet light seeping into the creature's insides. By instinct alone she manage to pull off a basic Mundus technique. "Blight Ray" the manipulation of one own energy within their cells.
The spider spasmed once, then exploded from within, its body collapsing in on itself. Silence followed. Only the faint dripping of blood and acid remained.
[Enemy Defeated: Type-A Mundus (Lesser Arachnid)]
[+12 EXP]
[Item Acquired: Blight Core Fragment]
Beatrice knelt, breathing heavy. Her armor glowed faintly again, steam rising off her shoulders. The white fur pulsed with light as it fed on the residual blight energy.
"This is nice, but where is that kitchen knife bitch, and her other children." She whispered, lifting the fragment, a shard of solidified Mondus Energy, warm to the touch, humming like a heartbeat.
And then, her natrual instinct shot upwards, as power surge forward from.abobe going down below. As she jump back as jet pillar of acid hit the floor, melting the metal instantly to point a whole so large a deep, leading to the other floors below could be seen.
And that's when she saw it, as she looked up. "Attack from above, that's new."