Chapter 839: How Mama met Meteor Horn(2)
“Mother, I can’t help but feel compelled to ask this…but how long did it take you to figure out how that invisible wall worked?”
“Short enough to save face in public, long enough to be personally embarrassing.”
“Fair enough.”
…
|Traces of [Pride] and [Humility] have been detected. Absorbing into spiritual body…|
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“Open already, damn you!,” Daria shouted as she kicked the invisible wall in front of her.
For the better part of an hour, Daria had been trying, and failing, to access whatever secrets was hidden by this weird invisible wall that.
“Heavens help me, I will know your secrets!”
Daria first attempted to be delicate, running her hands across the invisible wall until she could find anything that remotely resembles a door handle or a key hole. Unfortunately, all she found out was that the walk eventually ended into empty air and that the whole wall was about as solid as the ones back home.
She then attempted to use pure brute force, making use of a large rock and smashing it into the invisible wall, hoping something would budge or at least click. Unfortunately, the rock she used shattered into dust and sharpen the moment she banged it against the wall. Luckily she remembered to coat her body in aether before the aforementioned explosion.
Out of a mix of desperation and frustration, Daria eventually attempted to use her most powerful Aether Art in a mad attempt to simply overpower the wall. Unfortunately, just like her aether probe, her attack disappeared like bubbles caught in an ocean wave.
“RAAAAAAGGGHHH!”
Caught in the throes of her own rage, she didn’t realize that as she was screaming into an uncaring wilderness, the piece of paper that led her to this stupid wall had slipped out of her pocket.
“By the grand divines, I will level this place if I-huh?”
Just before Daria could make a promise about causing wanton destruction, and just before she could release a tirade of curse words that would make even the most foul mouthed of sailors blush, she noticed that the little piece of paper that had caused all of this was floating around the wall in a rather weird manner. Not only that, she could feel a flow of that weird energy from before, happening between the piece of paper and the invisible wall. It was as if the two were connected.
Wait…
“I swear if this works, I’m going to be incredibly annoyed.”
*Bam!*
*Sound of a magically invisible structure suddenly becoming visible again through mysterious and incomprehensible means, alongside a now painfully obvious passageway.*
“SON OF A BITCH!”
In one fluid motion, Daria proceeded to yank the floating piece of paper out of the air and slam it against the invisible wall in the same manner one would slam a poster against a normal wall.
The moment the paper made contact with the wall, whatever effect that allowed it to maintain its invisibility had disappeared, revealing to Daria that it wasn’t just a wall that had been standing in front of her, but a whole structure made from carved rock.
A part of her wanted to know how this worked or why it took a slip of paper from her family’s library of all things to reveal this place, but alas, the part of her that had been screaming in frustration for an hour and a half just wanted to figure out what the big damn deal was.
“Whatever is hidden by this invisible and unbreakable structure better be worth it,” Daria grumbled as she entered the open passageway.
“Seriously though, just what kind of insane secret requires this many layers of deterrence?”
…
“And this is when you met Meteor Horn?”
“Well…sort of. There was a bit of build up to it…and I might’ve knocked over a statue or two…”
“I…you know, if any of my other cousins heard the surprising amount of clutziness you exhibited as a child, I’m fairly certain that their mental image of you would shatter in an instant.”
“Which is why I’m only telling you about it, my baby boy…and probably the twins once they’re old enough to sit still and pay attention.”
“Fair.”
…
“Oh…that’s why.”
When Daria crossed the threshold of the invisible doorway, a part of her expected to detect some kind of rich aether to start building up all around her like in the stories of old or in the clan’s treasure vault. Instead, she had felt nothing.
As such, she started to expect that whatever secret was hidden away in this weird structure had long since been stolen away by some other adventurer or warrior that managed to get here before she could.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case in the slightest.
“This place is… significantly bigger on the inside…”
What eventually greeted Daria’s eyes instead, was an expansive hallway that was illuminated by aether fire torches and decorated with the strangest statues that she had ever seen.
“What are they…they don’t look like any mortal or beast I’ve ever seen…”
To her left and right were three states each, all of which were casted in bronze and decorated with a variety of jewels and precious metals. However, none of the statues looked similar to each other in the slightest, save what appeared to be a shared motif involving stars and constellations.
For example, the first statue to Daria’s immediate left was humanoid figure that looked like a candlebra mixed with a jester. This, as far as Daria could tell, was a statue made in reference to the Candlebra constellation, a constellation that only appeared in mid-winter.
Across from this statue was a feminine figure that had a spinning wheel embedded in their chest, with fingers that looked like large needles with threads flowing out of the tips. If Daria was to hazard a guess, this statue was suppose to represent the Weaver constellation that appeared in mid-summer.
As Daria studied each statue in closer detail though, she noticed something…off about them.
“None of these statues have any real world basis, no living counterpart…so why do they look life-like?”
Daria had once seen an aether puppet master make use of a puppet that looked surprisingly humanoid, complete with a masquerade mask that helped to make the whole thing appear more human. However, despite who well-made the mask appeared, she could still tell that the mask was a mask and that the puppet was ultimately a puppet.
These statues were…the opposite of that.
Despite looking impossible to exist, despite clearly being the artistic vision of some deranged sculptor, or sculptors, the statues all had this strange quality to them that made her believe that they were real and alive.
So much so that, out of curiosity, Daria proceeded to walk right up to one of the statues for the sole purpose of touching and sweeping her aether over it.
The one she chose was a statue that was shaped a bit like a lizard bloodliner but with strangely mechanical limbs that looked more at home on a clock than on a person.
“Who could come up with such a strange looking statue?,” Daria asked herself as she quickly gave the statue another once over with her eyes.
When it became clear to her that she wouldn’t be getting any additional insights visually, she decided to use her aether to sweep over the statue to see if there were any secret mechanism, arrays or treasure that would react during the sweep.
(Un)surprisingly, there was something.
Just like the time with the paper and the invisible wall, Daria sensed her aether disappear the moment it made contact with the statue.
Once was weird, twice was a coincidence, but a third time meant that something was up.
But what that something was, was completely unknown.
“Wait…why did my probe disappear like with the door and paper? Unless…”
Daria racked her brain for an answer, a reason why a piece of paper, an invisible wall and now this strange statue, all seem to radiate that same type of weird energy.
The only thing that came to mind as to how and why this was possible, was the existence of an aether array being imprinted somewhere on all three items or locations.
Daria couldn’t access the paper since it had merged with the invisible wall and turned into a whole ass structure.
This meant that the only items she could observe in all of its totality was none other than the weird looking statues.
“I didn’t see any markings on its body…so maybe it’s on the bottom?”
Daria’s initial plan of action was to enhance her muscles and simply lift the statue over her head like another people before me
However, the moment she touched the statue with her aether coated hands, she could feel the statue suddenly drain away her aether again. Only this times it was a bit more than what she had initially pitched in.
“Ah-! What the fuck?!”
Unlike the structure wall that simply absorbed the aether probe, the aether art attack and then proceeded to do nothing, this statue was trying to use the initial offering of aether to drain Daria’s of her own!
Needless to say, Daria was freaking out.
