Horrendous Web

"..."

Despite feeling the strange bone emanating an intimidating aura, after standing for a minute with his guard up waiting for some sort of reaction, nothing happened.

Reluctantly putting away his weapons, Noah then decided that since it appeared to be dangerous, he would focus first on the symbols that plagued the entire second floor.

At first glance, they appeared to have been etched with black paint, but upon closer inspection, Noah was quick to recognize the ink.

"Blood..."

Specifically, it was the blood of the Putridbrute, with Noah being able to recognize it so easily due to the fact that he himself had worked with it to write his symbols.

Now, this confirmed that the monsters, despite not seeming intelligent at first, were actually capable of writing, something surprising to Noah.

And although while this confirmed one doubt, it also created another, such as if the monsters knew the symbols, then that meant there was the possibility that some monster was responsible for writing the symbols in the attic?

Did some monster have the knowledge to open a portal to the other world?

"...Hm."

It was a thought that made him feel insecure and uneasy, for this implied real danger.

Unfortunately, Noah could do nothing but accept defeat in the face of these questions, as he didn't know the answer and it didn't look like he would be able to find out anytime soon.

Undoubtedly, the lack of information was something that made him as uncomfortable as the very presence of the monsters.

Luckily for him, he just now had an opportunity to learn more about these symbols, something that he wasn't about to pass up.

Crouching down so that he could touch the symbols, the young man chose one that consisted of an outer circle with what appeared to be three smaller lines inside.

Immediately after, he could feel a certain sensation flood his body, causing him to begin to tremble, the system giving him a warning at the same time.

__________________________

[Warning: The [Host: Mortal Mind] is being affected by an aura of fear.]

__________________________

Just as the system said, an inexplicable fear suddenly filled him to no end, thoughts of wanting to immediately return home as well as start running popped into his head.

"Woah!"

Releasing the symbol and shaking his head, the fear disappeared in a matter of seconds, indicating that as long as he had no contact with the symbol, he would not suffer from the effect of the aura.

Surprise appeared on Noah's face, as his interest in these symbols skyrocketed.

He had originally thought that these symbols would have no major effect because of the crudeness with which they seemed to be made, with brittle and crooked letters and imperfect circles.

Compared to the [Ritual: Mirror Gate] symbols in the attic, the detail completely floored them.

However, proving that his knowledge of how symbols worked in general was largely lacking, Noah had been placidly surprised.

Quickly, he reached for a different symbol, a circle that within it seemed to have more letters, four to be specific, touching it without hesitation.

"!"

Quickly, all of Noah's senses were pushed to the limit, being on alert like never before, and another system warning came, similar to the previous one.

__________________________

[Warning: The [Host: Mortal Mind] is being affected by a slaughter aura].

__________________________

A metallic smell along with screams of pain and suffering assaulted the young man to no end, visions of a battlefield filled with countless unknown corpses filling his head.

Then, a word echoed loudly in his mind, the same word that the system said, slaughter.

With that word marking itself present in his mind, Noah then stopped touching the symbol due to the grotesqueness of the visions and sensations.

"..."

Again shaking his head and looking at his surroundings, Noah shook off the aura of slaughter from touching the symbol, this time with a bit more haste.

He could feel his mental state being affected slightly, feeling restless and more tired, but as he was gaining valuable first-hand experience that would no doubt come in handy later, he wasn't complaining.

After taking a minute to rest, Noah then set about looking for a different symbol.

Unexpectedly, despite the fact that the floor, ceiling and walls were all littered with these symbols, the young man realized that they were not all unique.

Instead, there were only three types of symbols which were repeated dozens of times, joined together in such a way that they seemed to form a spider web, ending in three particular circles that were larger than the rest.

These circles were found only around the large bone.

As to whether these were responsible for the sense of danger or if it was actually the bone on its own, Noah didn't know yet.

Before figuring out the answer to that doubt, he had to find out what the last symbol meant.

Searching the ground a bit, Noah made contact with the remaining symbol, which was made up of five letters.

"KA!"

Immediately after he touched the circle, Noah prostrated himself on the ground, various sensations flooding his body.

__________________________

[Warning: The [Host: Mortal Mind] is being affected by a domination aura].

__________________________

He felt weak, helpless and small.

But most of all, he felt a fervent desire to simply give up, to surrender so that he could leave control of his life to something else, something far greater and more important than he could ever be.

At the same time as these ideas proliferated Noah's inner self, the symbol filled with power, beginning to emanate a black aura that slowly surrounded Noah and seemed to captivate him, similar to what happened with the portal ritual, but to a lesser extent.

"FUCK THIS!"

However, before this attempt could take root inside Noah, determining that he had gained enough information, cut off the contact in an instant with his willpower, forcibly removing his arm.

In the face of this, the symbol apparently lost all intention of captivating Noah and returned to its original form, as if it had never done anything.

Looking at this symbol, Noah could feel a faint anger forming inside him, wanting to destroy this symbol but deciding against that as it would not be the wisest thing to do when he had not finished deciphering all of its secrets.

"Haa..."

Now, thanks to the system and his first-hand experience, he knew the meaning of all three.

The three-letter symbol, the first one he touched, meant Fear.

The second symbol, the four-letter symbol, meant Slaughter.

And the third, the one with five letters and the one that put the most mental strain on Noah, meant Domination.

This time, similarly with the symbols of the [Ritual: Mirror Gate], he could also feel a synergy between these, but instead of being focused on themselves, they seemed to be focused on a certain object.

Quickly, Noah's attention focused on the bone halfway across the room, making it clear that the "certain object" he was referring to was nothing more than the white bone.

"Hm..."

With his interest growing, Noah then approached the bone, careful not to touch any of the symbols on the ground, only the spaces between them.

Standing in front of the bone, he couldn't deny that the pressure he felt was greater than before, various emotions inside him beginning to form, his instincts screaming at him to get as far away as possible.

"...So that's how it is."

Saying those words, Noah had managed to determine one of the effects that the web of symbols on the floor seemed to have, and that was to drive anyone away from this bone, proof of this being what he was feeling right now.

Whether it was fear, slaughter or domination, all of these sensations began to affect Noah, as if warning him not to get close and even to get as far away as he could.

Nevertheless, the young man continued to stand in front of the bone, seemingly indifferent.

Due to his approach of testing every effect of the symbols first hand, he was already familiar with these effects, so even though the bone was giving off these sensations on a stronger level than the symbols, it was not as effective.

With this, Noah was free to experiment as much as he wanted with the object, or at least, that was what he thought.

Before, the next step would have been to touch the bone to know its effects firsthand, but something told Noah that this was not only not a good idea, but might even result in harm to him.

However, that didn't mean he would leave it alone, but powered by his curiosity, already almost becoming a need for knowledge, Noah quickly thought of another alternative.

Pulling his knife from his belt, the young man slowly drew it closer towards the bone, the pressure he felt increasing more and more.

SHA!

Upon making contact with the bone, a small blue spark was first produced, something insignificant when compared to the ones his mirror or the portal produced when Noah used them.

Thanks to this, after waiting a couple of seconds without anything happening, Noah relaxed, but this relief was short-lived as the system warned him of the mistake he had made.

__________________________

[Warning: The "Host" has activated the [Ritual: Horrendous Web], it is recommended to flee.]

__________________________

BOOM!

"!"

No sooner had he finished reading the message, an explosion then echoed throughout the room.

Each and every one of the symbols on the floor, having been activated, reacted violently, especially the three surrounding the bone, which pushed Noah several meters backwards.

As a result, the atmosphere on the ground floor changed drastically, filling everything with electric sparks that burned everything on contact.

As for how Noah knew the latter, it was because he was experiencing it right now.

"Shit!"

Quickly getting up, Noah had no choice but to retreat to the stairs, behind the barricades and out of reach of the symbols.

After a few seconds of pure chaos, the energy the symbols released calmed down, returning the living room to its previous calm state.

Peeking his head over the barricade, Noah could see that there was no electric sparks left, so he returned to the room.

Though of course, that didn't mean he was unconcerned, as he was now moving much more cautiously than before.

After all, after seeing how powerful each of the symbols were, he was thankful that when he touched them with his hand, they didn't have this aggressive reaction.

"Woah, even the knife didn't come out intact." Noah said observing his knife, the tip of which looked like it had melted slightly.

While this didn't mean he wouldn't be able to use it, it was going to make it difficult to use in the future.

However, all this was not necessarily a bad thing, as he had gotten the name of this ritual from the system's always timely warning.

As for whether Noah would leave the web and bone alone, that was doubtful.

Turning his attention back to the bone, although his wariness had increased, it was nothing compared to the interest Noah now felt about this object.

Apparently, instead of scaring him away, what they had done was to increase his motivation..

Thinking no more, Noah then set about closely studying the larger symbols, trying to decipher if there was a specific pattern they followed.

---

At the same time Noah was trying to discover the secrets of the bone and the symbols around it, a certain event was taking place on the outskirts of the city of the mirror world.

BAM!

Inside a warehouse, breaking the characteristic silent atmosphere of the mirror world, a great rumbling could be heard, as if things were being thrown here and there.

Which was not so far from the truth.

"GROOOH!!!"

Letting out a loud growl, a being that was easily five meters tall, almost reaching the ceiling of the warehouse, was throwing monster bodies around.

Its body was incredibly wide, with skin overflowing everywhere and making it almost impossible to distinguish where its stomach began or its head ended, with the lower part of its body not even being visible.

Although it was unclear with such proportions whether he was able to move freely, what was clear was that he possessed enormous strength.

After all, not just anyone would be able to throw not only Putridbrutes, but other monsters of the same size as if they were just garbage.