CHAPTER 29: SURFACE

"Beatrice stood amidst the carnage, the Penitent Maul slung over her shoulder. The weapon pulsed faintly, exhaling black steam in lazy breaths, and though its surface looked solid, she could feel something within it, like invisible veins, that act as network all crawling within, and strangely there was a connection between them.

A strange, intimate bond, between her the weapon spiritual bond if she had to guess, however all she needed to do to get certain reaction on this thing was to move the Mundus Energy inside it like unknotting a knot, and then.

"Well, isn’t this interesting." She said with renewed awe. Then, as if answering her thought, the hammer began to change, first dissolving completely, starting from the handle, then the head, turning into curling ribbons of black smoke that swirl around her like a cloud.

Beatrice blinked, then smirked softly "Well... that makes it easier to carry around."

Her steps echoed against the steel floor as she walked toward the elevator doors. They loomed before her, half-dented but intact, the panel beside them humming faintly. She raised her hand, still trembling slightly from the aftermath of her battle, and pressed the screen. Only one button glowed. Marked in blue text above it were the words.

TO THE SURFACE

She stared for a moment, her lips parting slightly. "The surface... huh, I wonder how the above levels of this world look like, I hope it is not as dark, and gloomy as my world is. Although base on what I have seen here, I wouldn’t be surprised."

A sigh escaped her as she pressed it. The door sealed shut with a heavy hiss, and the platform began to rise fast.

The low rumble beneath her feet grew louder, and faint lights flickered past as the elevator ascended through the layers of facilities depths. She watched them fade one by one as she blaze past it.

Dante’s voice then came faintly, as he said. "How does it feel to finally pass this level!?" He asked Beatrice and she responded. "Good actually, still I died seven time to reach here, most don’t even die twice, muchless seven."

"Hehehe, well being my avatar isn’t an easy thing." He replied back. "Are you really going to possess my body!?"

"From time to time yes." Said Dante, as he began to ponder to himself more.

"Although, I am not set on being a girl, I was born a man, and died one, and git reborn as one too. I need to find a proper male vessel and soon, and maybe I can even work on that vessel and build it up perfection with the power of my Administrator." Dante said to himself, on the other hand Beatrice began to say out aloud.

"Wow how deep are we, I don’t even see the top."

"Hmmm, good question!?" Dante said.

It wasn’t until ten minutes later, that the elevator slowed, gears grinding as the approaching light at the top widened into a golden slit.

The doors hissed open, parting as the platform reaches the surface. Her eyes close as the bright sun light blind her for a while, until the sight of the surface stunned her. And for a moment, she simply stood there, shocked.

The world stretched before her, vast and wrong. Forests once green had turned black. Trees loomed tall but were covered in sludges that crawled like veins, pulsating with faint, sickly red smoke.

The bark was hidden beneath layers of fleshy moss that breathed faintly, as though the entire forest itself was alive, and starving, or maybe the sludges themselves. The air carried a foul stench, clearly the smell of rotten flesh and stale blood.

And yet... the sun was still there, as Beatrice looked at it and asked. "What’s the large thing in the sky, it so, beautiful!?" And then Dante answered.

"That my child is called the sun, a star, an even bigger celestial body that planet you are on!" Beatrice eyes open in spender as she reach up, as to grab it her fur body armor glistering under the warm embrace. "Wow, I never see anything like it, I have heard stories of the stars from nanny as a child though, is this really how it looks like!?"

Asked Beatrice with great curiosity, as she behold the view of her first start. To her it was like a radiant, golden disk, shining over a land long past salvation.

"Yes, you world clouded in eternal darkness, Soni guess most kids of your era have never seen the sun before." Beatrice nodded and continued. "Sadly that is the truth, dying seven time just to see this beautiful sight was more than worth it, I wish I could carry it back with me." Beatrice said as she stepped out slowly, her boots crunching over dried veins and fractured roots.

"But the land, compare to the majestic ball of light above, is horrific sight to behold. What the hell even happened to this world... She whispered, at last for words as she turned left and right taking in the sight.

The air was thick, heavy with that same scent she remembered from below, just alot worse, the faint sweetness of decay mixed with the sterile bite of old machinery that was the scent of the facility. Here however it was like been drown in a pool of rotting flesh, and pus.

"Ahhhh, the scent is horrific as well." She bluntly said. Until Dante jokingly spoke up. "Beautiful, isn’t it?"

"Decay masquerading as life, and sweet scent of death, you can’t get any better than this." Beatrice’s gaze flicked toward the horizon. The landscape sprawled endlessly, city inside the deep wilderness. From here, she could see twisted skyscrapers overgrown by vines of blackened muscle, their spires bending like gravestones reaching for the heavens. And beyond that, a faint shimmer, a dome of golden light far in the distance, perhaps the only thing untouched by the blight.

"The world outside is lot more dangerous Beatrice, so take me advice and thread carefully. However you death, won’t be for nought. Go forth, and find the Flames of Mourn, they are everywhere these days, touch the fire, and see the rewards it gives."

Beatrice froze at his words, but she began to walk around, looking to see if she find anything that so much as look as a flame. But she didn’t. "... Can’t you tell me where it is D!?"