Zexus came to a halt as the earth trembled from the roar echoing through the complex. He spun around, amber eyes scanning the darkness. There was nothing worth noting below the few blinking lights that had somehow remained powered on through the narrow hallway. Nothing but the hard concrete with the occasional scratch marks and cracks, rusted pipes, and the numerous scattered bone remains of persons or animals. There were no giant leeches or any sign of a living organism save the abundance of mana particles drifting through the air.

He was just fine with being on his lonesome. Continuing onward in his exploration, he had one eye on his holobracelet and the other on his surroundings. Just because he felt comfortable did not mean he was unalert. That said, much of his attention was on the image projected above his wrist.

The map provided by Black Box filled in with every step he took, creating a detailed three dimensional diagram that outlined every nook and cranny. He had no illusions that this was being illustrated on the spot. Rather, an explorer of the Great Isles had likely already come through. He had a few ideas of who it may have been but did not think much on it.

“Hm…is this some sort of vent?” Zexus turned the corner, glancing at the massive empty shaft that seemed to lead on into the depths. Taking a peek into the abyss and then upwards, he could just make out what looked to be a ‘ceiling’, or rather a metal box suspended in the air above. “Nevermind. It’s an elevator.”

Flicking and tapping his fingers a few times, the marker of an elevator was assigned onto the map. He had discovered soon after leaving the starting room that with the exception of the aforementioned area, nothing else was labelled. Another inconvenience, but an understandable one to put on additional pressure and test the basic organisational skills of participants.

When all was said and done, he was just thankful that he was not being tested on cartography. It was not that drawing maps was difficult, but that it was time consuming and he had no materials to work with.

Passing corridor after corridor, corner after corner, and an unexpected ledge across narrow chasm, Zexus found an abundance of rooms. Some were open, others were blocked either by a tightly shut door or rubble. Guided in part by the words written in the common and painted in dirtied white across the walls, each of these areas were labelled in a methodical manner. Of those that were open to him, many were rooms filled with strange and often ruined devices, while a few looked like storage rooms scattered with containers and dust. One exception had a tree of all things inside, the dark leaves upon gnarled branches surviving through unknown means without a semblance of light.

Other less appealing areas had more corruption, the black gunk spreading like cancer across every reachable surface. From these infected surfaces, a few leeches would spring up here and there. Some masses swayed like seaweed in the reefs, while others seemed to be coiled in the ground or ceiling in a defensive manner.

Zexus noted these behaviours down, as well as the eerie feeling that the more he saw of these strange creatures, the more familiar they seemed.

Eventually, he would return to the area near the starting room, having made a full circle that mapped out the immediate surroundings of their makeshift base. However, on his way back to his group, the faintest sounds of a commotion in the distance reached his ear, causing him to stop.

There were shouts and screams in the opposite direction, and not too distant. From what he could pick up, there were five people.

Were the other groups fighting something?

It likely was not the leeches, given that the masses emitted deafening screams once attacked.

Curious but conscious of the need to return to his team in case something went awry, he turned on his heel and made for the noise.

Quick yet silent, Zexus snuck through the zigzagging halls. As the noise became louder, so too did the corruption on the walls become more abundant. The black gunk was everywhere, sticking into the cracks. The only silver lining was that no leeches came out of them until he came upon the source of the commotion.

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Rounding an arcing corridor, Zexus found himself at the doorway leading into a large circular room with a radius of no less than twenty metres. Rows of seats filled the spaces, leading down to a podium at the centre where a sack of flesh sat. It was oblong like the dozen other leeches in the surrounding area, but much more bulbous as if it were about to explode at any given moment. The very visible veins of blue that pulsed with a strange light only added to the notion of its imminent detonation.

His eyes lingering on the centrepiece of the room for a long considerable moment, Zexus shifted his attention to the four people in the room. They, like him, wore skin-tight suits that reflected their status as participants of the Ascendant Program. However, what separated them from him was the colour of their stripes, that being a light orange instead of a rich red.

“People from another Block.” The amber-eyed man’s mind recalled what Vis had said. ‘Five teams’. The Overseer did not specify where these teams came from. “I see. So this is also a competition between Blocks. Additional resources to one Block will put them at an advantage.”

*Click*

Zexus’ narrowed eyes flashed with a cold light as he focused on what the group appeared to be fighting.

There were two enemies. They appeared to be humanoid, with charcoaled skin like the leeches but no visible veins at least throughout their bodies. One of them had a distinctively female form, while the other was a rather large male. Despite being on two legs with a pair of clawed hands attached to elongated arms like a monkey, the heads of these monsters were anything but normal. They had no eyes. No mouth. No nose. No ears. Instead, their heads were unnaturally smooth like boiled eggs without shells, only blood red with webs of blue lines pulsing beneath.

They moved oddly, often on all fours. Perhaps weirder still was their durability.

Watching in silence, Zexus saw a golden-haired man punch the heads of one of these creatures, only for his fist to bounce back and the monster to come out unscathed, if a bit more angry as it swiped in unrestrained aggression and almost a sense of desperation.

“Hm…helping this group out may offer some benefits. But…”

Movement out of the corner of his eye distracted him from his thoughts.

His head shifting to the right, Zexus caught the sight of a leech down in the lower seats cease in its rhythmic swaying. Out of all the other charcoaled masses in the room, this one froze in time for a split second before the tip of its length suddenly opened up.

Endless rows of teeth like arrowheads were laid bare before the bright lights, Lathered in a viscous red sludge, the leech began to gurgle. Then, it coughed, regurgitating something from deep within.

Zexus looked on in fascination as the egg-shaped head of the monsters was spat out of the mouth of the leech, followed by the rest of its feminine bipedal form. Vomited up, or perhaps more appropriately ‘birthed’, the monster’s body remained inanimate for a handful of seconds amongst the puddle of slime. Then, out of nowhere, it spasmed, its limbs twisting at unnatural angles before it arose onto its hooved feet.

“...” The creature made no noise nor subsequent action. It simply stood still, as if awaiting something while the leech behind it buried itself deeper into the ground and burped.

“Sally!”

Zexus heard one of the Orange Block participants scream out in despair. It was the blonde haired man who had been ineffectively swinging at the pair of monsters.

“Hm…so the leeches turn people into monsters instead of consuming them. That must be their defense mechanism.” Zexus contemplated, completely unmoved by the man’s agonised expression. This ‘Sally’ must have meant a lot to him, but neither of them mattered to Zexus. Sympathy and empathy, these were distinct emotions he lacked.

*Click Click*

“It looks like a complete transformation, but also quite…odd. I can’t imagine a complete takeover and conversion in less than half an hour.” Narrowing his eyes, colour left the environment, replaced by shaded outlines of black, white and grey. Despite the details of the world becoming lost, the specks of mana inhabiting the air remained.

With his specialised vision, Zexus focused on the monsterised ‘Sally’, and was surprised by what he saw.

“So it really is a shell…”

Within what seemed to be two layers of charcoaled skin was the body of a woman, faintly emanating a red and orange hue. She was distraught and in pain, likely due to her circumstance and the way the ‘shell’ had restructured her limbs. Whether she was conscious or not however was up to anyone’s guess. What was clear was that the energy was faint, as was her Soul and lifeforce.

In contrast to the turned woman, the other monsters appeared almost as shadows to Zexus’ specialised vision, and had no hidden forms within them. “These two may have been assimilated over a long period of time. That’s the most probable explanation for the difference in structure.”

On the other hand, at the heads of each monster when the shadows drifted past, he could also catch glimpses of shining stones of dull grey light. They were Manacores, functioning similarly to Soulcores save the fact that they could only be found in the less intelligent who have yet to develop a persona. The monsters had no ‘Soul’, so to speak.

Standing up, Zexus stretched his arms, his bones and joints cracking as he flexed his limbs. “I might as well obtain more data now while I have ‘resources’ at hand. If I can’t deal with the two, I’ll just use this orange group as bait to escape.

He glanced over his shoulder, back the way he came. “I’ll keep this to under five minutes.”