Aphrodite’s exclamation, brimming with disgust, rang out particularly crisp in this sticky space—then she instantly regretted it.
“Crap, should I not have made a sound?”
The bizarre creature, which had been writhing slowly, suddenly reacted as if completely startled by Aphrodite’s words and the firelight that burst to life in her hand.
Whoa, isn’t this reaction way too extreme? All I did was tell the truth.
Are these tentacles overly sensitive or something? Did they get mad just because I called them disgusting?
Hissss—rustle rustle—
Those slippery, squelching noises grew sharp and dense in an instant.
The tentacles that had been moving sluggishly now seemed to have an acceleration button pressed.
Countless dark pink tentacles froze for a split second, then began writhing even more frantically, their slime-coated surfaces reflecting a gleam beneath the firelight.
What made her scalp crawl even more was the deep, wet hissing that echoed from the nest’s depths, as if countless tongues were licking a slimy palate.
There was both a resistance to the light and heat, and a sense of…excitement that was unbearably unsettling.
“Wait, don’t tell me this sound means you’re ‘happy’? Don’t tell me you’re the type that gets more excited the more you’re insulted!”
“What kind of messed up setting is this?!”
Before she even finished speaking, several of the thickest tentacles shot out from different directions, tearing through the air with a splatter of slime, and lunged straight at the floating Aphrodite.
Their intent was obvious: to yank her out of the air and drag her back into that slippery abyss.
“Nuwa” Aphrodite clicked her tongue, her body instinctively twisting in midair, narrowly dodging two tentacles that brushed right past her hood.
But attacks came from all directions.
Though she dodged quickly, one tentacle still landed with a crisp smack on her raised left arm.
“Ugh!” A force not quite agonizing but packed with impact made her arm go numb.
Worse still, the icy, viscous slime instantly soaked through her sleeve and clung stubbornly to her skin.
That slippery, wet chill made her whole body shudder, goosebumps popping up at once.
“My clothes…” Aphrodite was thoroughly pissed.
This outfit was something Bella had prepared for her, and now it was ruined by this inexplicable slime.
No longer hesitating, she steadied her hovering figure and shook her left arm, trying to fling off the disgusting goo—though it hardly helped.
In her right palm, the Saint Flame blazed higher!
“If you want to make the first move, don’t blame me for being rude. I’ll burn you all to ashes!”
She stopped trying to precisely control the shape of the flames, instead unleashing the surging power of holy radiance inside her as pure light and heat, flinging it forward in a torrent!
Whoosh—
A fan of pure flame surged ahead, instantly engulfing the first few attacking tentacles.
At the moment fire met tentacle, a strange sizzle crackled through the air, like cold water hitting boiling oil.
The dark pink skin scorched black under the Saint Flame, curling and carbonizing, the once elastic flesh shriveling and turning brittle before her eyes.
A weird stench, part burnt protein and part sickly-sweet rot, wafted out.
Kind of like a mix of charred octopus and expired candy?
The burning tentacles jerked and writhed violently, then quickly recoiled, even sending the Tentacle Carpet below into chaotic upheaval.
“Hurts now, does it? But it’s too late.” Aphrodite pressed her advantage, slashing fire after fire.
Soon, the first wave of tentacles was reduced to ashes.
But the mass of tentacles remained, lashing out with even greater ferocity.
More tentacles surged forth in relentless waves!
It seemed they had no concept of fear—or rather, that some stronger will was compelling them to capture this prey that dared fight back and harm them, heedless of the cost.
Aphrodite twisted and darted in the air with difficulty.
This nest formed of tentacles was not spacious; her room to dodge was extremely limited.
She had no choice but to further ramp up the Saint Flame’s production to keep up her counterattack.
Hiss! A tentacle tried to coil around her ankle, but a slash of flame from her fingertips severed it instantly, the charred stump tumbling into the seething mass below, quickly swallowed up by others.
Hiss! Another tentacle tried to sneak up from the side, only to be pierced through by her reverse grip of a blade of flame, a burst of heat from within blasting it to pieces.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Aphrodite danced like a fire sprite in a viscous hell, leaving char and stench in her wake, broken tentacles flinging everywhere.
Where the Saint Flame had once just been for illumination, now it was the sharpest tool of purification.
The sound of Saint Flame burning tentacles, the whoosh of tentacles slicing through the air, and their high-pitched shrieks of pain all mingled together, filling this nauseating space.
“These things are endless! Can they regenerate forever?!” Aphrodite panted, struggling to maintain both her hover and the constant blaze—her stamina was being tested.
She’d only just begun to master a fraction of her power. Sustained battle was still beyond her at this stage.
This couldn’t go on. She had to find a way to break through.
After burning through yet another wave of attacking tentacles, she finally noticed a key point.
Wait, all of these seem to be coming from the same direction… Could there be some kind of core?
Ignoring the scattered attacks around her, she gathered her flames together into a burning drill, and forced her way toward where she sensed the core!
As much as she wondered whether these tentacles tasted like octopus, finding the core took priority.
After all, to catch a thief, you must first catch the leader~
Blazing flames cleared the way, tentacles turning to charcoal under the Saint Flame.
Aphrodite forcefully burned a path through the squirming nest.
Where the passage cut, all that remained were fields of carbonized remains, limp as dead branches after a wildfire, lying weakly in the slime, occasionally twitching and making their last faint crackles.
Sticky, icy liquid still seeped constantly from above and from the walls of flesh not yet completely charred, dripping down with soft plops that stood out all the more in the silence.
Aphrodite finally neared the core region.
There, the tentacles were darker, nearly blood-red and even thicker, closely entwined around and protecting something.
At the center of these tentacles was a glimpse of a gigantic, pulsating, heart-like mass of flesh. Each throb sent a shiver through the whole nest.
“It’s you!”
Aphrodite’s eyes flashed. She pressed her hands together at her chest, compressing and condensing the Saint Flame into a blazing white-hot fireball that radiated searing heat and blinding light!
“Blame yourself for ruining the clothes Bella gave me.”
Aphrodite hurled the compressed Saint Flame fireball hard at the throbbing core!
Boom!
The fireball struck home and exploded in an instant! Searing light and heat ballooned out like a miniature sun, utterly swallowing the entire core region!
“K——!!!”