Chapter 275: Underground Facility [1]
A few minutes ago...
After the first time, Aina and Eve waited for the invisible barrier to be uplifted again. However, for the last few hours, the barrier had not been lifted, making the two women frown deeply as they thought they had predicted wrong.
"Perhaps that was the last wave?" Aina thought, a lost look on her face.
"Yeah, it seemed so," Eve responded. "Then it seems I just need to get that runesmith and make him tamper with it. Maybe he'd be able to find a way to break this restriction."
Aina nodded, considering the options. Since they couldn't use brute force or risk damaging the structure, the best option was to contact a runesmith. However, just as they were about to agree for Eve to return to the Duchy, the runic patterns on the walls lit up, immediately drawing the attention of the two women.
Aina and Eve's eyes lit up! This phenomenon was very familiar!
"It seems we were wrong," Aina muttered, glancing toward Eve. "Are you ready?"
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the entrance of the cavern. Just seconds later, beasts poured out from the entrance in all directions. From their vantage point, the large oak trees, the two sensed that this wave was fiercer and more powerful compared to the previous one.
With bated breath and pounding hearts, the two waited patiently for the right moment to dive into the entrance. One misstep and they'd have to wait for the next horde, if there was any.
At that moment, Aina's beautiful red eyes shimmered with fierce determination. "This is it," she claimed in a calm, confident tone. "The last wave."
Eve shot her a glance, but there was not even a flicker of doubt in her eyes. She had come to trust Aina's heightened senses, as strange as they were. During their fights with the monsters, Eve had noticed that Aina possessed frightening senses. She was able to detect beasts from several miles away, and even her predictions were spot on.
Though she didn't like to admit it, Eve had to acknowledge that the holy paladin's senses far surpassed her own.
Without another word, the necromancer and the holy paladin disappeared from the branches of the giant tree, their figures blurring toward the entrance of the cavern.
And just as Aina had predicted, that beast wave was the last one. With a final burst of speed, they dove into the cavern just as the barrier began to solidify behind them, sealing off the outside world.
"Huff," Aina sighed in relief. "That was close. Now, where are we..." She trailed off as she finally took in her surroundings.
Glancing around, the two discovered that they seemed to be inside a cavern with jagged stone projections pointing downward. The part connected to the ceiling of the cave was quite weak, and one could tell that any intense fighting could dislodge the projections and rain them down.
The cavern was very spacious, though there were several broken rocks lying all around, and the footprints of the beasts were still very fresh.
As their gaze swept around, Eve and Aina's eyes soon settled on a statue of a beautiful feline woman. The woman had one arm on her hip while the other held an ornate staff. Her flowing, stone-carved hair cascaded down her back, and her feline ears and tail added an extra allure to her beauty.
"I...is that?" Eve's eyes narrowed. "A goddess?"
The aura radiating from the statue was very similar to the statue in the Mountain of Ascension, where the kids in the barony had gone to awaken their classes. To be sure, they moved closer to the statue and confirmed their suspicions.
Despite being carved out of stone, an almost divine aura was billowing out of the statue, forcing Aina to take a few steps back. The only one who could somehow bypass this aura was Eve.
"This is the first time I'm seeing this goddess," Aina said as she stepped back.
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"Me too," Eve nodded, a deep frown creasing her temples as she said, "But for some reason, it feels as though I've known her for a long time."
There were numerous gods in Eos. Usually, children wouldn't know about all of them, but it was a different case for experienced Awakened such as Eve and Aina. They racked their brains long and hard, yet they couldn't recall this goddess.
Suddenly, something clicked in Eve's mind, and she turned toward Aina. "I think... I think this is the goddess that grants Nox his class."
How had she come to this conclusion? It was pretty simple. Not only was the goddess unknown, but she also possessed bestial features. It was easy for Eve to piece two and two together and come up with an answer.
Yet she wasn't that certain about it.
However, what confused Eve Futher more was why she felt at peace in the presence of this goddess. Usually, whenever she got close to statues of other gods, she'd feel intense pressure, as if the divinity in the statue wanted to come back to life and snuff the life out of her. This was because of the nature of her class, which played with life and death.
'Then why was this statue so different could it really be the goddess of the beast taming class?'
At that moment, Aina spoke. "Say this statue was the one that gave Nox his class. Do you think it's also responsible for the beast tide... maybe bestowing the beasts with abnormal strength and controlling them to attack humans?"
Eve furrowed her brows, her eyes remaining fixed on the statue. "Even if something like that was possible, why would it do something like that?"
Aina shrugged. "Perhaps an evil god?"
As soon as those words left her mouth, the red-haired woman didn't know if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she felt a slight mudrous intent from the feline goddess, but it was so weak that it was barely noticeable.
"That..." Eve wore a pondering expression. "That could be it... I mean, for me to feel at peace with her, she must be an evil god."
"B-but she looks too beautiful to be evil." Aina's thoughts were complicated. Apart from the woman's feline features, she could almost swear on her life that she was identical to Aurora the goddess of dawn and light.
With that lustrous stone hair that flowed to her waist, those cat-like ears and tail, this goddess was simply ethereal, and normal Eos beauty standards couldn't measure her.
"Nyx is also as beautiful as this woman," Eve pointed out, then added in a dark voice, "And yet she's the goddess of death and life."
"That makes a lot of sense," Aina muttered thoughtfully.
The two stood in silence, engrossed in their thoughts as they stared at the statue. However, just as they were about to leave and search the other parts of the facility, they suddenly sensed a presence behind them.