The elites in their location turned out to be unusually concentrated for the outskirts, but it wasn't long until they ran out of prey to kill. After collecting eighteen Cores of Corruption, their team had no choice but to travel inward, where they were met with an unpleasant surprise.

"Other groups have already been here," announced Gareth after inspecting a remnant battlefield. "This battle took place two to three hours ago and finished quickly and efficiently. We need to pick up the pace."

Their group broke into a run as Gareth led them through the labyrinthine city, but they were soon forced to slow down for the unlikely slowest member of their team: Sorin.

"Are you alright, Sorin?" asked Gareth, clearly concerned about the development. Sorin was typically one of the faster members of their team. "Do you need to take another rest?"

"I'm fine," Sorin lied. "I'll just rest on Stephan's back if he doesn't mind."

In terms of physical stamina, Sorin was doing just fine. The catacombs weren't tiring out his life force or his mana, and given the copious amounts of lesser demons they encountered, Sorin had no trouble restoring both resources over the course of a battle.

Instead, mental exhaustion was slowing Sorin down. The city's dense corruption, it turns out, was something that Sorin passively imbibed regardless of his level of activity. He also discovered too late that his poisons had a penchant for devouring the corruption in their victims, something that added up over the course of several hundred lesser bone-forging demons.

Suppressing the corruption was extremely taxing spiritually. Dealing with the bone-rot that seemed to thrive in this environment was also taking its toll. Adding this to the fact that Sorin couldn't share either condition with his teammates and tried his best to maintain peak performance despite the seal on his bones, it wasn't surprising at all to Sorin that he'd gone from being one of their most productive team members to a liability.

It took Sorin several minutes to re-seal the corruption in his blood and get the Divine Bone Rot under control again. "I'm fine now," said Sorin, hopping off Stephan's back. "I'm ready to fight again."

"Unfortunately, things aren't that straightforward anymore," said Gareth. He shared a map of the city with Stephan, showing at least five teams milling about in the area.

"What are they doing, dancing?" said Lawrence as he observed the strange movements of the five teams. "Oh wait, I know those movements. This is a sweeping search."

"Correct," said Gareth. "We haven't encountered any elites or any signs of battle for a while now. But given our proximity to the center and the high concentration of corruption in the air, that shouldn't be the case.

"It therefore stands to reason that the elites are hiding. They're lurking in the city, waiting to ambush the heroes searching for them.

Astley's face lit up when she heard these words. "Are you saying we're finally allowed to explore these buildings?"

"Not for your stupid research, obviously," snapped Daphne. "And do we really have to search these buildings one by one? None of these buildings are connected to the grid. It'll take forever to climb up and down each one."

"I told everyone to shape up before the Shrine Descent," muttered Stephan. "But no one listens to the old bear, Stephan. Physical fitness? Who needs that when you can just burn a building to the ground? Oh, wait. They're built of stone."

"I suggest we split up to search more efficiently," said Gareth. "Sorin, if you're feeling up to it, take Astley and Lorimer. Stephan, you're with Lawrence and Daphne. As for me, I'll remain outside and support whoever needs it."

Sorin really wasn't feeling up to the task, but he accepted the assignment nonetheless. Ten minutes later, he found himself inside a four-story commercial building with Astley and Lorimer. The stalls and display cases had been hastily stripped of their wares, and valuable gold trim and decorations had been roughly ripped off the walls.

"I don't sense anything," said Sorin. "How about you, Astley?"

A dark-cloaked figure emerged from the shadows. "I didn't find anything on my end either."

"Lorimer?" asked Sorin.

"Ree!" said Lorimer, shaking his head.

"You should have told us earlier that you could use this sort of transformation," said Sorin. "Gareth might have split us up differently if he'd have known."

They opted to jump across rooftops to enter the next building. In her current form—Mistress of Webs, as she called it—Astley was just as quick as Lorimer and could travel through shadows much like Lawrence could.

"This ability has its advantages and disadvantages," said Astley. "Though I'm agile and stealthy like Lawrence, I'm not really able to fill in his role all that well. Myth Impersonation's big downside is that I can't summon any creatures while using it. Top, bottom, or middle?"

"I'll take the top," said Sorin, still tired from having to constantly suppress the Violence in his blood.

Once upon a time, the four-story building would have been a well-off clothing shop, as evidenced by the rotten clothes strewn about the place. That the place hadn't been looted after being abandoned spoke to the efficiency of the evacuation.

Sorin scanned the top floor methodically, paying especially close attention to the dark corners and the storage areas in what was clearly a workshop. This clothing store didn't just sell pre-made pieces, but also dealt in custom-made goods for the well-to-do and special occasions like weddings and funerals.

He'd only finished scanning half the floor when suddenly he felt a flicker of hostility one level down. He quickly made his way down the stairs and arrived at the same time as Lorimer. They found Astley dusting off a wall plaque engraved with many names, made from a corrosion-resistant metal alloy.

"They're top patrons of this establishment," Astley said as she delicately dusted off the engraving and put a piece of paper to it. She then rubbed a piece of charcoal on the paper to produce a rubbing. "Their names, as you can see, follow the same convention as ours. As do the buildings, the arrangement of the city, and even the local cuisine."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Most of these things depend on geography," argued Sorin.

"And yet, many new dishes are discovered in Delphi every day," countered Astley. "One would think the cuisine would evolve, at least, yet somehow, it does not. Everything remains static over time without any intention of ever-changing."

Sorin looked around the room. "The trim around the windows is different here," he pointed out.

"Yet most of the building's layout and architecture matches that of modern-day Delphi," said Astley, tucking away her rubbing. "The grid is the only difference. That's a huge technological innovation.

"Yet, somehow, this breakthrough in technology has very little impact on the other four pillars of culture: language, architecture, social structure, and cuisine. The five pillars are interdependent, and it makes no sense for technology only to evolve."

"Let me guess," said Sorin. "You're using the settlements as a counterexample?"

Astley nodded. "Each of these settlements shows evidence of cultural evolution and subsequent reversion. There are cascading effects to each change. For example, the invention of a better loom might trigger a huge change in industry and clothing styles. An entire village could be lifted out of poverty. In fact, I—" She suddenly cut off as a white object pierced through her chest. The illusion of her speaking vanished, and Astley's true body appeared a short distance away. "And here I was wondering if you'd get bored quicker or this elite would."

Sorin looked up to see a giant spider. It was covered in barbed hairs, and its many eyes were sewn shut. Unbeknownst to Sorin, it had somehow cast a giant web around their group, severely limiting their mobility.

"Ree!" Lorimer warned, seconds before thousands of tiny spiders burst out of closed cupboards and side storage rooms. "Ree ree ree!"

"We should obviously retreat, but give me a viable plan before lipping off!" snapped Sorin.

"We could use your poisons to make a hole in the wall," suggested Astley. "Then signal for Stephan to provide support."

"No," said Sorin, finally unable to control himself. "We'll fight it on our own. Leave this one to me."

Sorin launched himself at the spider with poison-coated, clawed hands. He knew immediately that the spider had provoked him mentally into attacking it, but he didn't care. What mattered was that, finally, he had an outlet for the Violence building up in his system.

Unable to stop him, Astley summoned five fiery elementals to delay the tide of spiderlings. Lorimer's body turned silvery as he took on his armored-plated form and confronted the elite demon alongside Sorin.

The spider bit Sorin's arm and nearly snapped it in half. Sorin responded by plunging his poisoned hand into the spider's head. Violence-infused acitoxins melted through a third of the creature's eyes and burrowed through its blood vessels before eroding its exoskeleton.

It shrieked and tried to retreat, but Sorin refused to let it go. He used Cobra's Glare to paralyze the creature while a poisonous python coiled around its body and held it in place by injecting it with copious amounts of neurotoxins.

The spider, now helpless, shrieked for mercy, but Sorin ignored it and poked out its eyes one by one. He licked his lips as it squirmed and devoured the venom it reflexively injected him with through the barbs on its body.

"Once upon a time, the effectiveness of acupuncture was brought into question," said Sorin as he summoned a small poison spear and pierced it into the fearful spider's torso. "The physicians of the time captured all sorts of demons to prove this was not the case, but the results were mixed. It wasn't until a few mad and unethical physicians captured humans to experiment on to prove the medical art's underlying theories that the matter was laid to rest. A plot by strife, they called it. An evil ploy to dismantle one of humanity's inheritance."

He summoned a few more spears and pierced them into the spider's acupoints. "They were killed, of course. These physicians weren't just heavily corrupted by madness—they brought the entire medical establishment into doubt. But not before they halted decades of supposedly useless experimentation on demons.

"But were their experiments useless? I, for one, have been able to put them to good use. Being able to see an opponent's meridians and bone runes is useless without basic theories to tie everything together. Theories I've tasked myself with refining since no one else in the medical community would bother.

Three more needles pierced the creature's body, and the spider, who'd been fearful until now, contorted in pain. Its body spasmed uncontrollably. "See? I just used acupuncture to trigger your nervous system. It's now fully activated, making it so your entire body is filled and racked with pain. Now let's see what other experiments we can perform."

He was about to insert a few more needles when suddenly Astley brought him back to his senses. "Sorin, we can't hold out much longer!" Lorimer had long since abandoned the spider in favor of fighting off spiderlings with Astley. The duo was on the verge of being overwhelmed.

Sorin sighed as he summoned a fifteen-foot spear. "See, that's the bother with teammates. You need to worry about the big picture instead of just having fun. By the way, certain acupoints, once pierced, lead to a sudden and irreversible loss of vitality."

He stabbed the spear through the spider's weakest point—as determined by a combination of his instincts and random medical knowledge he'd gathered. The creature let out one last agonizing scream as the spear cut off the connection between its core and the rest of its body. Its limbs, now fully infused with acidic poison, melted away, revealing a glowing core of madness where the creature had once been. The spiderlings, dependently linked to their progenitor, collapsed upon the creature's demise and melted into pools of acid.

"Are you insane?" said Astley, finally free from the spiderlings. "Taking your time, I can understand, but you were just toying with the thing. Normally, I wouldn't care, but many good minions holding off those spiderlings. And me and Lorimer this close to being spider food."

"Ree!" said an aggrieved Lorimer.

Sorin looked around and realized that nothing could be salvaged from the fight. "I don't suppose you could bind acid to your grimoire, do you?"

"No, Sorin," said Astley, still a little peeved. "No, I couldn't. Now, are you going to retrieve that core from that pool of acid before it melts a hole into the floor?"

Sorin snatched the core up with his bare hand and absorbed the remnant acid that surged into his body. Vitality surged into his body, healing up what hadn't been via the armor's life siphon ability.

He braced himself for the inevitable backlash from the corruption his poisons had imbibed, but to his surprise, he found none. His Violence was satiated for the time being.

"Ree?" said Lorimer with concern.

"I'm fine," Sorin reassured the rat.

"Ree ree ree!"

"Yeah, I get it," said Sorin once again. "You don't have to remind me."

"Sorin," came a voice on the wind. A silver sparrow flew into the building and spoke using Gareth's voice. "I sensed a surge of corruption in your building. Are you three alright?"

"Yes, we're fine," said Sorin. "We killed an elite demon and got its core. Madness again, like the others."

The sparrow scanned the room and assessed the damage before continuing. "Rest a half hour before continuing. There's a gradient to the corruption in this region. The demons will get stronger the deeper in we go."

"We don't need rest," Sorin said. "Astley, Lorimer, and I have maxed out our resources and can keep going."

"That wasn't a request," said Gareth. "And watch your emotions. In a place like this, where corruption is so thick, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell if you're compromised."

"Fine," said Sorin. "We'll rest for a half hour before continuing." Having obtained confirmation, the sparrow flew off.

"That bird is quite useful," said Astley, pulling a chair out from her Hero Medal and plopping herself down. "Especially in a place like this where communication devices don't work."

Sorin shrugged and sat cross-legged on the floor. "It can't be helped. There are no relaying devices underground and in dungeons. Cookie?" He summoned a plate from his hero medallion. Astley took one, and Lorimer took two.

"I bought these from the arena," Sorin confessed. "Don't tell Lawrence. He's convinced they stole his father's recipe, and having tasted both, I can tell you they're identical."

"That seems… unlikely," said Astley, taking a bite. "Dead gods, these are fantastic!"

"Right?" said Sorin. "But they're worth what—a gold coin, a cookie? It's highway robbery."

Astley raised an eyebrow. "If that's all they cost, those thieving bakers are welcome to rob me silly."

"Ree!"