Supreme Couple In Apocalypse: Undead King & Demonic Queen - C.218: Dread From Depth

"I'll stay here with Rin," Lily said as she sat beside Rin, who was in a cocoon.

"Alright."

"And what do we do?" Wolt asked as he crossed his arm.

"Do whatever you want," Lilith smiled, "but don't try to escape. I've removed my barrier, but I still have eyes on you."

"Not planning to," Morgana shrugged and stretched her arms as she yawned, "I'll go and take a nap."

Morgana left, but Zenia coughed and said with a serious expression, "When will we cross the Umbral membrane? I'm sure you are also in Spada Valley for that and not for a vacation on this Treehouse."

"We'll cross it after exactly 19 hours," Lilith smiled. "You can do whatever you want before that."

Erix stretched his hand towards Lilith and said, "Let's go."

Lilith held his hand before Erix teleported both of them.

Soon, they arrived at the cavern with a mysterious gray pond and the thing growing out of it.

"Oh my," Lilith raised her eyebrows, faint shock in her.

'But if I sensed it when I arrived here, then if some Empyrean-order came in the Spada Valley, they would have sensed this strange thing if they scanned the area as well.'

'Could this be one of the Granny May's route effect? Or no Empyrean-order arrived her for long, and this remained undetected as it grew?'

Lilith knew this Fallen Land didn't attract Empyrean-order powerhouses nor peak Royal-order looking for improvement.

This Fallen Land was mostly a rising place for Noble-order hunters and a training exercise region for the early-mid Royal-order hunters.

"Do you know what it is?" Erix curiously asked.

"Not yet. What I sensed was the aura of this weird tree, but that thing inside the pond…" Lilith shook her head before she sent her Spirit sense into the pond and saw the same box that Erix, Lily, and others discovered after shaving away the strange spiritual barrier it produced around it.

Erix shortly felt a powerful wave of spirit force bursting from Lilith.

The tree at the center of this pond intensely glowed for a second before it turned into countless tiny motes and vanished.

"Got it," Lilith opened her eyes as her finger slowly moved upward.

"It's strong enough that I had to combine my spiritual and physical powers both to cut the thing growing out of the box," Lilith wryly smiled.

"Wait…you boosted your spirit force's power with your physical powers?" Erix startled.

After all, it was the Spirit force's main effect to boost one's physical and magical aspects. But to boost spirit force with her physical powers or magic powers? That wasn't what he could do, nor had he heard about that!

"It's not something even a regular Empyrean-order can do," Lilith chuckled. "It's no surprise you don't know about it," she said before focusing on the object. "This is one of the perks of the Limitbreak I previously told you about." novelbuddy.cσ๓

"I feel like being able to do that can allow one to create crazy skills and tricks...." Erix muttered as he just got the feeling that physical and magic aspects affecting the spirit force to modify and empower it sounded big.

"You can indeed produce a lot of tricks and eccentric skill structures with that," Lilith chuckled, "It's good that you are able to envision its potential. It means that your understanding of spirit is deeper."

"But this thing is even more amazing," Lilith looked at the pond. "The pond water is fully in control of whatever thing inside the box and its increasing resistance to stop me from pulling it out."

Lilith increased her spirit force's power more as Erix saw her surrounded by a dark red spiritual aura.

'How exactly strong is Lilith?' Erix was speechless. 'I guess she was in that outer layer because of her foundational problem, but after I fixed her, she became…free?'

Erix focused on the pond as he started getting tingles in his brain.

The pond water behaved chaotically while the wooden box was gradually getting pulled up by Lilith.

"By the way….we are not biting more than we can chew, right?"

Erix started feeling strangely nervous as he felt some strange aura and something foreign affecting him, raising his instinctual dread.

"You must understand, my darling," Lilith turned to Erix with a tantalizing smile, "The dread you are feeling is justified because it's several levels above you, but to me, it's a similar type of thrill you and Rin get when you are suddenly thrust into a death fight with Royal-order powerhouses."

Erix gulped before his lips twitched and spread into a crazy smile, "Alright, bring it up."

"Let's see what kind of horror that box is hiding."

The pond became more and more chaotic as Lilith's index finger slowly but steadily moved up.

Eyes bubbling with excitement, Lilith licked her lips as she fought the resistance and finally pulled up the box.

*Crack...*

The box slightly cracked as it approached Lilith.

'It's aura suddenly converged entirely?' Erix was startled. The dread welling up in him also disappeared. It was his mind and instincts giving him those feelings to warn him, but that also vanished.

"Don't do anything, Erix. Not even using your senses on it," Lilith warned, her expression somber.

Erix nodded. He hadn't heard Lilith this serious before.

"Alright."

He moved back a bit as Lilith manipulated the box and made it float between them.

There was a hole at the center of the box from where the tree's thin trunk was growing.

When Erix and Rin looked at the hole, it suddenly glowed dark gray with alluring black that strangely shone before both Erix and Lilith heard a terrifying voice in their heads, shaking them.

'HOW DARE YOU!!!'

Erix even lost his strength as he fell to the ground while holding his ears. His red eyes became fully inky dark red.

"Arrrgh…."

An involuntary scream left his mouth as he felt shaken to a core he never knew existed.

Lilith's eyes glinted coldly before dark red threads entirely covered the palm-sized box.

"It looks like we really got something that can't chew right now," Lilith muttered, "Granny May, was this your route or just a coincidence?"

"What the hell was that?" Erix wiped the sweat as he got up and looked at the box with ink-red eyes that slowly recovered.

"That crazy spiritual force that assaulted me...something is alive in there?! But…what was that…"

"It's an eyeball," Lilith grinned. "But that's all I know."

Lilith looked around the cave and rubbed her chin. "This place is bigger than the branch and not that bad as well because it's hidden from normal senses. Unless it's an Empyrean-order, they won't be able to find us, so let's move everyone here."

"Everyone means only our group," Lilith added. "I'll have to inspect this eyeball here."

"So we are giving away that tree?" Erix asked before he suddenly laughed and continued, "Wait, of course not. We can just go there to meditate and train whenever we want."

It was not like they would or could stop them from using the tree.

"Yep," Lilith nodded before she looked at the floating box sealed in a few layers of dark red threads with an eager smile, "If I want to study and find out more about this eyeball, I'll need to do that here."

"Researching this outside of this underground cave will be troublesome."

Erix still felt dread when he thought about the thing that he just experienced. "But what was that assault? It was so strange, but invoked fear from my depth," he muttered.