Chapter 244: Beyond Expectations
Daniel entered the church, but it was nothing like what he expected, Well more than that
The hallways were completely dark. It seemed like all the lights had been destroyed, and the walls and windows were covered in some kind of slimy substance.
"Ugh, it smells disgusting in here," he muttered, almost throwing up from the stench.
He walked forward slowly. The whole place felt like a cave. And something else caught his attention—there were no guards inside.
All the Corruption Beasts were stationed outside the church, and it seemed like they hadn’t left anyone to watch the inside.
"Huh...? What’s that?" He suddenly noticed something in the wall—or rather, inside the slimy substance. There was a large bulge sticking out.
He stepped closer to see what it was. It was big and completely engulfed by the slime. He reached out to touch it and felt something that felt... fleshy?
He frowned and grabbed it with strength, pulling whatever it was out.
"Goddamn..." What he saw made him want to curse.
It was a human! The thing that was trapped in the slime was a human being.
"What the hell is a person doing here?" Daniel sighed and looked down at the corpse with a grim expression.
The person’s brain was exposed—it looked like someone had cracked open their skull and eaten everything inside.
The same thing had been done to their torso. The intestines, stomach, everything was gone. Even the blood had been drained dry.
Using his Ring of Nature, he burned the body. He couldn’t leave it like that.
After letting out another sigh, he continued forward. On the way, he found more corpses in the same condition—and burned them too.
Based on what he saw, he figured out that the Corruption Beasts were feeding on humans. But it wasn’t just regular feeding—they hollowed out the insides of their bodies.
"Wait... they hollow out the insides? Does that mean...?" A crazy idea entered his mind.
He could only hope he was wrong.
As he kept walking, he found a staircase that went downward. He followed it carefully—but there were an unusually high number of steps.
"What the fuck?" When he reached the bottom, he realized the stairs didn’t go all the way. There was still more depth below him, but no more stairs.
It was basically a pit—a massive hole that seemed made for jumping into. It was big enough for several Corruption Beasts to drop down easily.
After hesitating for a moment, he jumped in. It felt like a free fall, hundreds of meters down.
Once he felt himself enter a much larger space, he used mana essence to stop midair and float.
"Holy shit..." Daniel swallowed as he saw what was in front of him.
He didn’t even know how to describe the place. It was like a cave—but massive. Ridiculously massive.
On the floor of the cave were thousands of eggs. Obviously, they were Corruption Beast eggs—the ugly monsters probably came out of them.
He also noticed countless holes along the walls. Each one looked just the right size for a Corruption Beast to live in.
And then he saw it. The most important thing—the queen of this species.
"Goddamn it," Daniel almost wanted to cry, but he had no tears to shed.
It wasn’t a normal queen—it was a giant. Easily over 100 meters tall. Its body size made it look bigger than ten thousand elephants combined.
And its skin was different from the others. It was golden.
"Looks like she’s asleep," Daniel noticed that the queen wasn’t moving or reacting to him.
"So she sleeps during the day... and reproduces at night," he muttered. He tried using the talisman to contact August and Philip—but it didn’t work.
It seemed the talisman had lost its signal. No matter how many times he tried, it wouldn’t activate.
He had no choice but to sigh and look around again—at the eggs, and then back at the cave.
Unlike the rest of the church, this place was extremely bright. It was like they brought all the lights and lamps from the church down here and installed them.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. The light was coming from the queen’s body.
But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was: how was he going to find his Fallen?
"Hm?" He suddenly sensed the presence of many beings starting to wake up.
"Intruder!" A voice echoed through the space in a language he didn’t recognize.
But thanks to the system, it was automatically translated for him.
"...Intruder?" he repeated the word. Then he noticed Corruption Beasts crawling out of the holes in the walls one by one.
"Well... so much for staying quiet," he could feel the killing intent in their eyes.
It was like they wanted to burn him alive. Just from their stares, he could tell exactly what they were thinking.
Daniel was willing to bet they were furious that an outsider had entered without permission.
Suddenly, the Corruption Beasts took flight and swarmed toward him. In a split second, hundreds surrounded him.
"I know I came into your home uninvited, but that’s no reason to attack me. Also, this place isn’t even your home," he muttered and drew The Heavens Honor.
As soon as he pulled the blade, the aura it released made the Corruption Beasts flinch for a moment.
They started making strange buzzing sounds—like flies. It seemed like they were talking to each other.
Daniel didn’t make the first move. He waited. During that time, he took a closer look at them.
There were so many. And since he couldn’t use his skills right now, he was heavily restricted.
But it shouldn’t be a problem. Even though there were lots of them, most were around C-rank to B-rank. Only a few reached mid-B rank.
Their conversation must have ended, because now they were all staring at him again—with pure killing intent.
And then, without any hesitation, they charged at him with full force.