Hello everyone! How are you doing? I hope you are all fine.
Chapter 118 is here and without any more blabbering I wish you enjoy it!
Thanks again for reading/ following/ favoring the story so far. You are all the best!
As I said a couple chapters ago, next week Rise of The Eldergrimm will be on a break due to me taking some holidays.
I will be back on September 8th and if daily life allows it, I will have a double chapter. Until then, be well and have fun!
Ruby barely managed to understand what transpired. All she knew was that one moment she was surrounded by statues, talking to the weird thing without face that had flat out called all of them sacrificial lambs.
The next one, she found her hands flipping Crescent Rose and using its blade to make a high arc, in response to a sudden rise in malice around her. The thing, dubbed by her as 'Caretaker' from now on, laughed.
Before its laughter could be put into words, however, a scream echoed in the deep, cyclopean room, penetrating the malicious aura as it called her name with both worry and desperation. It was Lumia, she could tell.
"Ruby! What are you doing? You will get killed!" as her mind registered the words and their meaning, a burst of energy surrounded her. All of a sudden, the air liquefied, forming a vortex of dark water around her.
"Time for me to leave. You will soon meet Avyssos; when you will have become so desperate from the endless fighting and running inside the Temples of Abyss that you will have no option than to surrender" it exclaimed.
"As if!" she shouted, but her voice was stifled by the powerful sound of waves, hitting from all directions. The whirlpool collapsed, mighty tidal surges hitting her and sending her crash on the hard stone staircase.
Her body started to get dragged into the living ocean that had again appeared out of thin air around her, but she swung her weapon with all her might and carved a shallow hole on the hard rock.
It was enough for her to keep her body still and jump over her weapon, using it as a lever to land on the upper stairs. As she stepped away from the tide, she swung the scythe and let it rest on her shoulders.
After that, the roaring sea broke down and, accompanied by the sound of breaking ice, filled the entire room. The statues were swept away in the dark waves, sinking to the previously solid surface.
Her silver pools opened wide in shock, as she saw dozens of the familiar fish-faced, tentacle-mouthed Grimm rise out from the flooded ground.
What shocked her the most, however, was that after they rose in a way she failed to understand, they managed to start walking on top of the water, as if it barely covered the ground- wait, is that Lumia there?
Sure enough, her friend was visible walking effortlessly in the middle of the flood, surrounded by the monsters who tried to assault her both by walking and swimming towards the lone girl. Ruby's brows furrowed.
In one split second, she felt she saw Lumia stare at her. Silver reflected emerald green and an unspoken decision was shared between the two women who both grasped their weapons tightly and charged to battle.
'I am tired of this crap.'
Ruby jumped down the stairs with one bullet from Crescent Rose. She landed on a Grimm's back and severed its head before it could register what had transpired. As its body fell, she shot two more on her flanks.
Lumia sliced one in half and sidestepped to avoid two more claws. She kicked one more away and took a quick step to her back, creating room to make a horizontal slice with Buster Orion and decapitate them both.
The reaper got attacked by three more. She ducked and used the dying one's vanishing body as foothold to form a bladed whirlwind of death above her head. The attacking monsters were instantly slaughtered.
Without losing momentum, she kept spinning around, using her body as the medium and dancing with her feet on top of the falling monster corpses as her cascade of death severed arms, legs, heads and bodies.
Meanwhile, Lumia kept her steady footing while she slowly and literally was cutting her way towards her friend. One monster attacked her back and she elbowed it away. Another one went for her neck- she ducked.
Two more grabbed her arms. She impaled one's head with her sword's hilt and shoulder thrashed the other one to two of its comrades that were ganging up on her. Before they stood up, she sliced them down.
Suddenly three monsters came from below, swimming through the very same wet floor she had been walking on so far. Her surprise was so big that she failed to avoid all of them, as they fiercely grabbed her legs.
"Gah!" she clenched her teeth, feeling their sharp claws tearing at her aura. She killed a couple of them, but more and more came fast in a clever attempt to immobilize her with numbers. They were doing well.
Or at least, they would have if not for Ruby. An entire bullet case was emptied at once, each shot blowing up on Grimm head. This allowed Lumia to jump above the gathering horde and toss an earth dust shard.
Ruby smiled as she saw the massive pillar form below the ex-maiden, letting her step above her pursuers and make haste towards her. She took a fierce slash around her- no, too many to do so. Time to escape.
Ruby burst into petals- or not. Shock, confusion and terror filled her very soul as she tried once more before she registered that her semblance was failing to activate, despite her having plenty of aura reserves left.
Realizing she had no time to grab her dust, she swung in desperation, hoping to kill enough for them to escape with a tumble. Her beloved scythe took down two, but three more grabbed it with their claws.
"Shit!" two came from below, scratching at her legs. She kicked- one bit her arm, rattling her aura. She pummeled its eyes with her left fist. One jumped at her back, making her fall with her face on the wet floor.
As she did, six of them jumped- and got eliminated by a freezing dust arrow. "Get up! I can't reach you yet!" Lumia's voice made her roll on the ground, next to her fallen- and thankfully not sunken- weapon.
Spitting water mixed with blood, she pulled the trigger. The force from recoil sent her whirling mid-air, landing closer to Lumia. "We must get to the staircase; it's the only way out of here!" she screamed.
The taller woman exchanged stares between the massive staircase that Ruby was pointing at and the piling fish-faced monsters climbing the earth slab she had formed with Dust. "Working on it!" she screamed.
Theoretically, what she had to do was simple. Jump off the platform as those things were getting closer, run towards the stairs and slaughter every single Grimm that stood in her way while doing that.
The Grimm got closer and she destroyed three of them with an air shot. The problem is; can I trust that ground just because I was walking on it minutes ago? She sent a couple more wind arrows to clear her way.
As the horde got closer, she took a frost arrow and aimed at the floor. I may be wasting resources, but I can't trust this place she thought as she pulled the string and released the explosive projectile.
On her part, Ruby moved on foot- the highest speed she could muster at the moment- while slicing and dicing Grimm at her path. A satisfied grin appeared on her face, as blood dripped down her wet mouth.
It has been so long I just killed monsters; I had forgotten this sensation. An explosion of ice appeared behind her but she was too preoccupied to deal with it; she was almost sure it was Lumia anyway.
The reaper jumped on top of another monster, pummeled its face with her weapon and spun around on its dying body to cut three more. She let out a satisfied cry just as Lumia jumped on top of the ice behind her.
"Are you ok?" "Yes" the brunette replied, staring at the never ending horde. A good 10 meters separated both girls from their destination. "A final push remains; let's go Lu!" she pumped up and started dashing.
Her friend ran behind her, weapon back at its sword form. They were at once surrounded by the abyssal monstrosities, but at this point the two girls simply didn't care. They were barely a nuisance to them.
Careful to not stop their advance and keep their breathing steady and calm, the huntresses trekked the final 10 meters next to each other as they cut and cut and killed and severed, Grimm disappearing around the powerful duo with speed barely equal to how they jumped at them.
Hands and heads vanished. Legs cut short, blood spilling down. Bodies and torsos obliterated at their wake. Until, a few minutes later, their boots stepped on the drenched, dark stone of the massive staircase.
Kicking the closest Grimm away, the girls ran up the stairs and stopped only when they realized they weren't being pursued anymore. At once, they turned their heads around to observe their enemies.
The monsters were staring at the staircase, watching with a mixture of awe and- terror? They all stood still, their amphibian throats letting out inhuman croaking sounds like humongous frogs singing in alien words.
As adrenaline left her body, Ruby felt a lingering sadness fill her heart. She had been so preoccupied with her survival, she had forgotten after a point that those things could have possibly been humans once.
She sent a side glance at her friend who was watching them in full alert, Buster Orion turned to its bow form. Better not tell her; there is nothing to be gained from it she thought. Besides… her gaze fell on the Grimm.
I am really sorry for enjoying it too much she closed her eyes for a mere moment and clutched her chest. But I won't run away from what I did; I hope the souls of the ones I killed are finally free from this nightmare.
"Are you ok, Ruby?" the green-eyed girl asked her. "Yes" she replied "I just wanted to consider something. Let's go- WOAH!" she screamed in shock, as she turned around and came face-to-face with a small door.
"What?" Lumia followed suit and opened her eyes wide in shock at the sight of the door. It was made of granite, with green eldritch highlights and supported by an arch made of sculpted large grey stone rectangles.
"That thing wasn't here before" the green-eyed huntress, sending the occasional look to her back to make sure no enemy tried attack them, said. Ruby gritted her teeth- and kicked the door with all her might.
"I am tired of this crap! And I am tired of things appear behind, above or below me like this!" she kept kicking and kicking and kicking for few seconds until she was forced to stop and catch her breath.
"Huff… huff… sorry" she apologized at her friend, checking once more to make sure none of the abyssal creatures followed them. Much to her surprise and relief, they were still standing there, croaking at the stairs.
At the stairs, or at what lies behind this sudden door? Lumia gulped and examined the granite slabs forming the leaves. There were no images on it, unlike any gate they had seen so far. She reached out to touch it.
"There are lines on the surface" Ruby, having the exact same idea, told her as she ran her deft fingers on top of its ragged surface "not due to the material; someone has traced lines on this door" she stepped back.
It was a hard thing to achieve inside the semi-lit room, with the green lights and misty surroundings reflecting her torch. At times like this, I envy Blake so much! "It looks like a road or something?" Lumia asked.
"Yeah" Ruby nodded, narrowing her silver orbs to make the most out of the roughly sketched ornament. "Could you sketch it, Lu? It may prove useful" she asked her friend, who took out a pen and a piece of paper.
"Just cover my back" she noted behind her, to the impossible sea that hosted the fish-faced Grimm. "No need to; they vanished" lacking any sort of surprise at that point of the mission, Ruby informed her.
Lumia followed her friend's gaze and let her own exhaustion overcome any shock she might had felt before "this is why the croaking stopped" she took a deep breath and returned back to sketching at once.
While Lumia copied the door's carvings, Ruby took one more step back, letting her vision travel inside the cyclopean room, filling with miasmatic fog, towering pillars and wet granite tiles covering the floor.
Inside her mind she suddenly remembered a line from of one of Albus' favorite authors. The fact that he delved into horror and mysteries of the great deep was an irony she didn't ignore and had to stifle a laugh.
'There is no madness greater than accepting madness as normal. Only the insane find comfort into the deepest pits of human lunacy'
-o—
The gate was easy to open. Undeterred and untroubled, the two girls took a careful look inside the dark opening it revealed. A dim corridor, barely illuminated by green torches, was the only thing they could see.
"It looks… normal. Or at least in terms of what passes for normal in this place" Lumia exclaimed. "Which possibly means we will get attacked by the air or fall into the floor; or the green lights will eat us" Ruby replied.
They stared at each other. A couple tense moments passed. And then… "pffff" "HAHAHAHA!" tension getting the best of them, both huntresses started laughing at the sheer and realistic absurdity of Ruby's joke.
"This was… pff… horrible" Lumia covered her mouth, thinking it seemed inappropriate for her to laugh at a time like this. The reaper just flipped her cloak and straightened her posture while tight gripping her scythe.
"As I said before, it's time to play this fight in our own terms" she said before stepping inside the gate. "Wait!" Lumia rushed after, hoping it wasn't another crazy dimensional-bending spell protecting the door.
And, of course, her hopes were quickly turned down. As they stepped in the barely lit passageway, they saw the gate vanish in thin air behind them, leaving no trace it ever existed at all. They both sighed deeply.
"Well, it's not that we knew where we were" Ruby scratched her nape. "True; better focus on where we are right now" the taller woman said, taking her flashlight out and trying to pinpoint any important details.
Their surroundings were slowly revealed under her powerful light, mists swinging and forms being shifted as if they were instantly remodeled in a moment since the humans started observing them closer.
The corridor was made of grey stone, with dark outlines and a wooden floor made of mahogany. Thick glass windows with wooden panels let a serene silver light burst inside, falling on a luxurious red carpet.
Sea-themed pictures adorned the walls, slightly highlighted by eldritch green torches that burned, placed around the windows. Dark, unused chandeliers hung from the windows, their ornamental design indicating exquisite wealth and taste. Rich curtains elegantly adorned the frames.
"Ok, that is exactly not what I expected to see; a mansion under a most romantic moonlight, minus the torches" Lumia snarled. Ruby didn't reply; she ran towards a window and stared through the blurred glass.
Her eyes opened wide in recognition. A slope was running down from the mansion, reaching to a seaside village. She could easily pinpoint a much extended shipyard and a tall lighthouse in the far distance.
"I know where we are" she gulped, feeling an odd mix of excitement and terror altogether. "You do?" "This is Octavios Red's mansion back in Grimmwater" she explained to her friend, staring at the night sea.
"Are you sure?" "Yes; it has only been a few months after all" the girl replied in a half-nostalgic, half-bewildered voice. She moved next to the closest wall, eyes opening wide as she saw a portrait of young Elia Red.
She is smiling so kindly. She looks like Yang here; just look at the way she is hugging her brothers! Another pang of sadness filled her heart, her mind threatening to bring back images of the girl's last moments.
"Is this Cinder?" Lumia asked, lighting the portrait. "No; that's Elia Red. She hadn't become Cinder Fall yet" Ruby replied. "I see… but back to the major point at hand- why are we in this place?" the tall girl asked.
"Maybe Avyssos uses my memories of the place to recreate it?" Ruby pondered. "No, that's wrong" she shot down her own proposal "when I visited Red Manor, everything was rotting. It wasn't in such fine shape."
"And I have never visited it to begin with" Lumia nodded, seeing more pictures. Octavios Red, his wife Charlotte, their children and the family servants silently observed the girls searching up and down the corridor.
"It could be using your memory of the place as a form and then adding its own concepts on it, like it did in Riverside" the taller huntress kept on with her line of thought "and this place is important for you both."
Bypassing another family picture, Ruby nodded. Lumia truly had a point at this. Grimmwater was Avyssos' lair after all. But still something didn't add up.
"Why would it bother doing that when it has already trapped us in the temple to begin with?" she wondered "what does Avyssos have to gain by recreating Red Manor inside its own temple of worship?"
"The answer would be simple at that" green eyes shone in recognition. "There is something here it wants us to see; maybe continue the whole preparation for the ritual concept that thing was talking to you about."
"My thoughts exactl-"
Ruby's words died in her throat. Lumia stood with her mouth agape. In front of their eyes, illuminated by their flashlights, Red Family's portrait started to change.
Charlotte Red started to bleed from a large wound in her neck as her body withered away. Robus' head was painted red as the boy collapsed to the ground with a bullet hole on his forehead. Alizar turned his back.
Elia's smile vanished and got replaced with a sinister, hateful grin. Her body was turned dark and her hair got cropped. She opened her mouth as if to scream at Ruby, but suddenly fell on her knees, bleeding from a large diagonal wound as if she had been struck with a large scythe.
"What is-" "Ruby…" Lumia's scared voice made the silver eyed girl turn at her. Her friend's facial expression was a rare display of fear "Crescent Rose… is dripping blood" she said, making the reaper's blood freeze.
"Ahh…" they both stared back at the painting- and then turned around and started running through the dim-lit corridor, their lights swaying as if they were searchlights on a boat during a mighty storm.
In their desperate flee, they passed by the numerous staff portraits, the invisible hand of terror gripping their hearts as they saw everyone who was being depicted slowly being killed in various ways.
A butler was shot twelve times, blood splattering all over the staircase he was standing. Lumia swore she felt something splash on her back.
A maid was hung from the ceiling. Her gasps of pain echoed in the walls and wooden floor, even above the sound of their boots running on it.
Two pictures caught fire. Lumia resisted the urge to kick them down and stomp on them. "There!" after a short dash that seemed like it took hours, Ruby pointed at another door- a large, two-leaved, wooden one.
They slammed it open and then both turned around, closing it with all their might before happily barreling it from the inside with everything heavy they could find. Then, they stared at each other, unable to talk.
For there were no words to describe the suffocating feeling of horror the two seasoned huntresses felt as their eyes fell on the accursed Red Family portrait that had still been pointlessly trying to spread the curse.
Because right inside it, surrounded by the corpses of his own family and the turned back of his only still living son, Octavios Red's image begun change as well.
His flesh expanded and turned a gelatinous black color. His arms and legs turned into a mass of thin, slimy tendrils. His head melt away and was replaced by a sheer, void nothingness. His clothes expanded, tore and got wrapped around his form, unifying with the slimy, black flesh.
In the split second that she managed to see Cinder's father transform into the Caretaker before she ran away stifling a scream, Ruby Rose once more realized that some questions were better left unanswered.