All five of us immediately jumped back, everyone ready and alert, weapons in hand and Qi circulating to the maximum.
However, the creature didn't move. It couldn't move.
It remained still, and soon, began crumbling into bits and pieces until nothing but dust remained.
"What the fuck was that?" Law asked.
"It's one of those creatures... But, I guess it was dead," I replied as I approached its remains and began inspecting them.
The dust it left on the floor was finer than flour, and it smelled like sulfur.
I grabbed a bunch of it and kept it inside my holding bag.
Among the remains was a small crystal, I took it and realized that it had energy flowing through it. It felt murky, and unclean for some reason.
"Corrupted Saint Qi," Zhang Tian said.
I handed the crystal to him where he inspected it some more and he said, "This is like our spirit stones. But, unlike the ones that were made by the condensation of heavenly law, this one is made by usurping the world's Qi, it didn't go through the proper crystallization method and lost some of its essence.
The Saint Qi it has inside it is far stronger than a normal Saint Qi stone but it feels turbid and vile. I wouldn't use this to cultivate, I don't know what the repercussions of doing so could entail," he said.
I noted his remarks and said, "Keep it in your holding bag. Anyway, we seem to have forgotten something, thankfully this creature was dead. But we don't know if the rest of them are also dead."
"We need to give them a name because calling them creatures is pretty jarring," Dao Shen suggested.
"Let's just call them Rakshasa, it's fitting. They eat the flesh of man and have no souls of their own. And from what we saw in that display they are pretty vicious." Law said.
"I agree, Rakshasa is very fitting, anyway, for now, I want everyone to keep an eye out, we don't know if there are more of these things, or even if we passed by some of them without us even noticing," I said.
"I don't even want to think of that, the mere thought of us having gone past a couple of these Rakshasa without us noticing is enough to keep me sleepless for years," Law shivered as he spoke.
"Don't worry, so far, if any of them had been alive and we went past them I'd doubt they wouldn't have let us know. After all, we're few, and they're many."
But even though I said that I still didn't hesitate to take a big chunk of air in my lungs and then spat out a torrent of poison inside the room.
"What are you doing?" Law asked me.
I handed him, Zhang Tian and Dao Shen an antidote pill each, and then one to the Fire Lord.
"I don't need it," he said.
"You'll need it, although you can burn the poison inside you, that requires the use of Qi, if you get exhausted early, you might become a liability," I said.
"Oh, it's because of this," I said as I pointed at the earpiece.
"If it's for the translator, we do have plenty of them. Our creator had expected that a different species could one day come and discover this ship. So he made them in advance. I would give you enough for your party if you hand me some soul energy, what I currently have is barely enough for speech and some movement," he said.
I thought for a second and said, "Sure."
"Then could you please present me your finger," he said.
After doing so, he pulled another needle and lightly tapped my finger. The energy around him increased rapidly and soon its entire body seemed full of vigor and energy.
"Thank you, benefactor," He said, "Please give me a moment."
The small puppet then crouched, transformed its legs into wheels, and just zoomed past us into a nearby door.
A minute or so later, it came back with a small steel box placed in front of me.
"Here you can find the translators for your companions," it said.
I opened the box, and sure enough, there were three more. I handed Law the spare one I had on me and split the other tree between Dao Shen Zhang Tian and the Fire Lord.
After they all wore the pieces, the puppet spoke. "Do you understand me now?"
"I do... quite interesting," Law said.
"Good to hear, now, could you please tell me, what is the purpose of your visit to our Bastion? Not to mention, how did you enter in the first place?"
"We got pulled inside due to a mistake, and now we're trapped here, and we're looking for a way out," I said.
"I see. I'm afraid that will not be possible," the puppet said.
I frowned, "How come?"
"The Bastion is in a state of complete lockdown, nothing should get in or out, in case any of the Fallen God race were to escape," it said.
If it was total lockdown, then why did the door even open for us? I don't seem to understand what's going on. But since it was Law who opened the door... then it could be that it was a minor error. I don't know.
"That shouldn't be relevant anymore," Law said. "didn't we get in? Also, it's been thousands of years since this Bastion arrived in the Beyond, I doubt any of them are still alive."
For some reason... I wanted to smack Law on the head because these are the exact kind of lines that you should never say in this situation.
"It's been twenty-two thousand years since we arrived in these lands. As for the Fallen God race, they are still alive. And they are still here..." the puppet added. Continue reading on m|v-l'e-NovelFire
I facepalmed as hard as I could, "I fucking knew it...you and your damned mouth..."