Chapter 174 Porcelain
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As for Milo's three allies during this cave diving session, they were all pulled together into the same room, into a pillar of empty space carved in the ground, the width of the surroundings wasn't much, only forming about a twenty meter circle, the ground here was much less rocky than before however, it was soft soil, with plenty of moss growing atop.
In this damp and squishy atmosphere, the silhouette clad in blackness unfolded itself, giving out ear grating cracking noises as it stood up to its maximum height, just above the two meter mark, the beautiful red rope tied around its neck stood out from its dark choice of attire.
"Our valiant lord has spoken"
"Die, die via haemorrhagia"
The androgynous voice spoke clearly, the red rope tightly bound around its neck came undone of its own volition, falling to the ground like a drowsy serpent, the dark veil slipping down from the back of its wearer, revealing what lay beneath.
"Praise the lord, offer up your blood, offer up all that you own, offer up your body, offer up your mind, offer up your soul, and accept to be reborn, only by being sculptured by a higher being can you hope to rid yourself of impurity" its body unfurled, revealing countless arms ending with sharp objects, knives sliced through the air, scissors opened and close as its elongated, feathery limbs stretched out all of their joints.
The body skeletal, skin pulled thin against the bones, chest barely raising as the abomination breathed in and out, a perverse respiration muffled behind porcelain fused with its head, mask etched so deeply that without a doubt, it had become one with the skull.
Its grand speech and undressing was cut short, a flying blade of sword mana aimed to cut through the puppeteer's face, blocked rather easily for it had more arms than the three students combined, repeatedly clicking the scissors, taking a single step forward, beginning to dance toward them.
Using the abject length of its limbs to try and take them all out in one fell swoop, swinging from both sides, aiming for a swift and simple victory, it's wide movements may be graceful in a way that was hard to decipher, but they lacked in speed and couldn't be more predictable.
Griar had run forward first, sliding in between the puppeteer's legs, Helena simply used her wind element to float up into the tall expanse up above, going well out of the crafted abomination's range.
Lacking the means to worry, it simply focused on attacking Antieeld, who still remained standing in place, instead of carving her to pieces, the lustrous alloy of knives and scissors hit something hard, much too durable to be destroyed in one go, two knights carrying great shields appeared to the youthful commandant's sides, the girl simply pointed the tip of her sabre at the center of the puppeteer's mass, using the blade as a wand to shoot out a mana bullet.
Just as it registered the incoming projectile, the existence of the other two students was forced back into its mind, the knight-in-training slashing deep into both of its heels, knocking the frail fanatic out of balance, an abject sin for them who spent their entire time dancing.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om
From above, countless blades of wind rained down, cutting and tearing into many arms, amputating a great deal of them, only red threads coming out of wounds, incapable of feeling the pain, it could still tell that this was a rather poor situation.
Its body moved on its own, letting a strident scream that rattled the focus of the trio, allowing the puppeteer to do the unthinkable and finish dismembering its feet, standing tall on stumps, hugging itself tightly before unravelling it all, spinning like a whirlwind of sharpness and death, the speed grinding down its legs bottoms up, deep cuts were left in the walls of the cave.
But there was no blood, where was the awaited carnage? The only slaughter that occurred was its own as the students were currently floating high above, the two land-bound youths having been swiftly scooped up by Helena.
"Offer them up! Your lives!" gone was the lull generally inspired by the Ironic Puppeteers, with a strained growl, this one spoke like a maddened canine, meaninglessly swinging at empty air.
A bullet of air came crashing through the top of its head, unleashing the suppressed winds inside, exploding from the inside out, and the graceful creature of nightmares fell inert to the ground, unable to land any blow.
"Dear freaking gods, what the hell was this?" Griar ceased with the calmness once got his feet back on solid ground, pointed at the feathery remains.
"An Ironic Puppeteer, I heard those guys worship a puppet, I hadn't been told about their… Unique designs" Antieeld looked at the corpse with interest, wondering how it was possible to alter somebody's physicality to such an extent, they were lucky that only one showed up here, one more of those many-armed psychos and the party immediately would have gotten much less funny.
"Miss Rosemary told us that they normally fight in groups of three or more, why was that one on its own? But more importantly, we need to regroup with Milo" Helena spoke rapidly, even if he would be protected by their teacher if things went south, she would prefer to be here to help.
The farm boy in question rolled to the ground, tackling and grabbing a hold of the second dog, subduing it with a chokehold, breaking the animal's neck before using the corpse as a projectile against its master.
"Oh ah! No respect for those of lesser cognizance, heh? I understand, what's the point of existing if you can't even comprehend why food turns into poop?!" still as burning as ever, the unknown follower of heresy coated his hands in fire, or rather, he allowed his limbs to catch on fire as his body clearly wasn't shielded from the flame.
The wall behind Milo, where the first projectile had ended its course was left with a deep hole and burn, the mark left on the stone similar to that of a burn of skin, cracks shining with the same orange glow.
The flame of The Defiler was not one that could be tamed.
"Come on! Come on! Are you not interested even a little bit? We don't limit ourselves to any department! I am sure you have desires you can't act upon because of the idiotic beliefs of the ignorant masses, come on! Come out and say it, what the hell do you want?!" spouting about without a care in the world, the defiler tried to get a hold of Milo.