C81: Family Reunion
6/23/26
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Alt title: Entrance to Nightmare of Mensis
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With the battle against the one Reborn finally over, I ask my system that gave me fake messages multiple times in a row. I refuse to believe that it couldn't properly sense what the actual abilities of the boss were when it was the one who blessed it….Unless it didn't? "Do you have anything to say for yourself, mister?"
[Get fucked]
"Thats not very nice"
[Die and give up]
"Okay, i'm hitting the mute button on you" "bum bum bee bum bum" I simply swipe away any further messages as I hum elevator songs to myself until it stops as I step forward along the path to the chapel before me. I found two rooms, The first is filled with chairs filled with people wearing the crown of Mensis. There is another room ahead of me in the same state, but it has one guy in the middle, slouched and facing me.
The design of the two rooms feels familiar to me. I look around a bit and realize that it's the same slowly rising stand that the pot rooms used. Last time I saw one of these was in Cathedral Ward where I tried to tip over one pot and get a whole slew of pots with it that were below them.
I don't think it would work here but I'm also in a slightly bad mood since I just realized that my own system is getting weird and trying to kill me now but for some reason it can't just do so outright, nor turn off my skills.
It strangely reminds me of the architect from Solo leveling. The architect made the system but all the gains remained with the host. Wait, is that why it keeps calling me host while the subsystems call me master?
Honestly the original system has kind of died out. It's at most a checklist of things to do and rewards I could get from it, but I think it's not all that useful anymore. At most I would lose out on echoes from now on, that and the challenge modes.
Though the challenge modes are the system's only real way of possibly killing me and even then my memory of the next bonus is not threatening.
If it truly starts automatically dumping NG+100 enemies on then ill just dump all my skill points into my physique and other skills to bring them to their peak and beyond. I don't know if it's the sub system handling skill evolutions through it or if that still relies on the main system. I hope it's the former rather than the latter but I'll find out soon enough.
Firstly though, I take out the statues or rather corpses with how they smell.
And what better way to do it than with extreme Violence. I grab the handle of the nearest chair to me, lift it up, tossing the corpse on it to the floor, stomping on said corpses only to smash the chair onto the others and shatter them into bony dehydrated as fuck chunks of flesh. The cages are also not spared as they get crushed and bent under the force of my strikes.
It only takes a few seconds for me to crush all the Mensis members in the first room before I repeat the process in the second but I use a different method. From what I saw just a moment ago. Their bodies still spill blood. As such, I go the evil Katara route where I try to blood bend their half dead bodies. It takes a few tries but eventually I get the feeling down before slowly extracting it and turning said blood into sharp needles which I combine with a small wind tornado to have said needles to act as miniature blender blades to shred the bodies of both sides.
I tried to shred them all but somehow the middle person that was facing me remained intact which I honestly consider a glitch but just accepted it as is. I'll just come back later to shatter the body here.
Though I don't because if I destroy all the bodies, technically speaking, that should break the connection to this reality unless there are more out there hidden, which is possible unless I start exploring the outside zones in search which would weaken me, even by a little could be dangerous.
So I choose the easier option, I touch the idiotic body in the middle after setting up a timed bomb of fire encased in wind which would detonate after 5 minutes. I then touch the body, leaning in to do so. A mist encases me before I find myself in a new but familiar location.
[Nightmare Lecture Hall f2] The system announces and I just shrug, touching the lamp before opening the door outside. It's essentially the same as the first floor with the exception of the entire center area missing to showcase the lower floor.
"Hmm, I wonder if I could have gotten here earlier and directly skipped past Rom and all that. Probably not as something would have been locked to prevent me from progressing." I mutter aloud as I go across from me into a circular room with chairs and get the set of sedatives here. Along the way I had the 'slime scholar' hanging above the door be eviscerated by wind blades.
I repeat the shredding process with another that was roaming the halls just left of where I originally came out from. Entering the room behind him has me look down upon the lecture hall from before that was filled with multiple rowdy college students ejaculating as their primary attack. I originally left these guys alone but soon found another up top with me. He is quite a bit tougher, his stroking arm far more refined than the others but he fell all the same.
Behind him, I find a note that says, "master Willem was right. Evolution without courage will be the ruin of our race." I hold the note, overlooking class busting class below.
"This sounds like Mensis propaganda. As you were all found within the same general vicinity, your lives are now forfeit to burn this page will all that would be considered pure." I take the closest student and set him on fire before spreading that to the rest until I get a giant fireball burning the entire room that I throw the paper into.
Exploring the rest of the floor, I kill off the students up here, some with hats, some without. It's mostly those without the hats that enthusiastically throw cum at me. While the regular ones are more provided for slapping with their dirty hands, unless I'm too far then they cum.
I get a blood chunk for my efforts before entering a side room that overlooks the other lecture room and on the other side is an empty space save for a chest with the higher tier Communion Rune.
I then return and find a church giant in the corner. Just a regular one, except one small problem.
He is Naked.
I purge the giant and the sight of him from my brain and onto the floor before using the ladder down to the lower area where I find an old friend.
Feeling my stare, the spider, Patches turns around with surprise on his face and fear taking it.
"Oh how could it be? Oh how could it be?" he audibly mutters.
"Because I'm HIM" I say with authority and the statement seems to knock him out of his contemplation.
"Yes, you're right, you're right. I simply bestowed upon you a path to become more powerful. I'm not in the wrong right? You don't hate me?"
"If I could, I'd shove my foot up your spider ass so fast that you wouldn't be able to cry for your mother. She's still searching for you by the by." I give my usual friendly threat before my smile drops and I remind him of his human side.
He too falls silent, contemplating the path forward for himself. "There is no way for her to see me anymore. Not now that I'm like this."
"Moron, she's the type of crazy old bat that is obsessed with her family. She would recognize you even if you were a worm Patches." the spider seems to step side to side a few times in anticipation. The call to his last family sings to him.
"Let me go see her first to make sure she hasnt mindlessly stopped drinking her steroids. She could develop Altzheimers at this rate. Ill go on ahead okay. You better not chicken out you dumb bastard.
"Is she still at home?" He asks and responds, "Nah, I got her situated over at the Oedon Chapel now. There is a keeper there maintaining the candles along with a few others. You better not attack them like mindless beasts as only my blade will be your salvation. Of course not before literally kicking your ass a bunch to make sure whether you're redeemable or not.
"HA, with these good looks, I should be the one in greater fear of being pounced on by the ladies. Spider or not, I'll not judge." he gives the counter anticlockwise rune he had saved up before I trek back upstairs. I find nothing else so I approach the door that obviously emits smoke from the other side and even through a few of the nearby walls.
I push it open and then take a few steps through before I arrive here at my current goal.
[Nightmare of Mensis]
I find myself in a cave surrounded by stone that is carved out into faces, big and small. 2 holes for eyes and another for diverging sizes of mouths.
I continue on for a few seconds before arriving at my first challenge, A silverbeast which I easily kill even when it just barely notices me. Upon it's death, it spits out two worms like those from the valley at cainhurst castle. Or those creepy crawlies from underneath the water in that Forbidden Forest cave that leads to Iosefka's former clinic.
I take out the two worms as well before continuing on in the misty dirt path surrounded by face stones. My next challenge is a scurrying beast that bestows upon me, 3 blood chunks and then I find a frenzied coldblood (9) a moment later on a random corpse.
Taking a peek higher, I see what looks like a castle with an intermittent glow that comes from the lower half of the building. I hide as it glows as I could feel it.
The pure and utter frenzy it emits. Perhaps it's because of my new physique but I could outright see the rays of frenzy passing over my head before the light ended and I ran out to the lantern just a few steps away with a thin layer of face rocks blocking it.
My only steroids right now are the 5 I picked up in the lecture hall. I gave the rest of Cherry and her grandpa before. Thus I have to be very careful about being touched as with my current insight, It's akin to an instant proc of frenzy. My only possible salvation would be the lunar moon but even then I don't want to really chance it.
For now though, I have to return to the chapel to fulfill my word to that bitch patches.
I return to the dream then head to the chapel where I find the retarded nun missing as well as the prostitute. I sense blood in the air. It goes in two directions. One leads into the chapel sewers while the other into the open left side area with the well.
I first look at the old hag who seems to bright up upon seeing me.
"Oh my dear, you've returned to me. Oh im sure a growing boy like you needs something to like on a night like now" A creepy grin crosses her face but that's primarily creepy for me due to familiarity.
What she hands me is a sedative. Truthfully, very useful right now but I have a better idea.
"Mama, I have something I want you to taste. It's a treat I got from the doctors, now close your eyes and open your mouth nice and wide."
Thunk
"Ahhhh, mmmmmmmhmmm" She opens wide only to be met with the opening to the now unclasped Sedative she just gave me.
"SLORP IT" I command as I have her drink the disgusting flavor of medicine. She resists with all her will, pushing against the bottle, not swallowing it or pushing against my hands. But with her mouth full, she can't breathe. So she finally succumbs to that urge and nearly chokes on the sedative but finally gulps it down with my water manipulation skills.
I feel a punch on my side.
"Damn brat, what are you trying to do to me with that bottle." The hag RETURNS.
"Oh you know. Preparing you for a lovely reunion with the one you love most. Make sure to drink your medicine more often until you do. I don't care if you lose your mind after but not until he gets here."
"Who?" she questions before seemingly seeing something from behind me. I could already tell that Patches was crawling around the chapel, muttering to himself about what to do or say.
While they deal with each other. I head out to the side path where I find the retarded Nun dead. A hunter stands beside her. Huffing and breathing heavily as many of his bandages have already become undone due to the transformation.
I lean against the pillar. "So, did you get anything good from her or was she as much of a waste as a human as well as a corpse?"
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Word Count = 2395