Chapter 57 Welcome
Sorry for all the errors in the latest chapters. As I am busy with some work, I barely get the time to edit. But once everything\'s over and I get back to my hometown, I will fix everything.
Stay tuned! Enjoy!
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The whole hall was in a mess. Shards of glasses and stones covered the marbled floor. The bloody pastes of beings were splattered across the room also guide corpses—the dead bodies of humans, twisted and fine, that of creatures never before seen in the wild, and that of cursed monsters.
The sound of Xavier\'s claps echoed through the hall while Eulene stood in its midst motionlessly—bathing in the lights of countless celestial bodies.
A couple of minutes ago…
The howls of beasts resounded through the room as creatures who had slept since their inception woke up. The sculptures in the room began to move—exotic creatures formed from their artists wildest and twisted thoughts.
One of them was an owl with one head but three faces, another was a demon larger than the ram headed creature Eulene just fought, while another was a naked woman. She looked beautiful—celestial even—but the moment she opened her mouth, a tongue snakelike tongue slithered out, covered with spikes.
On the other hand, from the walls came out beings—each more \'artistic\' than the one preceding them. There was a unicorn, an old woman with a basket full of pears, a human which can be barely termed one—its limbs all twisted and face blurred—amongst a variety of other characters.
Eulene sensed all the Yin energy radiating from the \'escaped\' creatures. She was beginning to have a grasp over the \'authority\' thingy the Curse was using. Between Yin and Yang, the former was more mysterious and \'roundabout\'. The Paranormal was using this Yin energy to control everything inside this gallery.
However, she threw all of such thoughts to the back of her head. Now was the time to fight.
She picked up the mace from the ground—again, with one hand. Without saying a word, she charged at the sculpture closest to her.
She was aware the time was limited. Hence, she decided to make a short work of everything, with one swing of the gigantic mace, the three-faced owl was smashed into smithereens. The poor bird did not even have the time to let out a screech.
Eulene then fixed her sight on the gigantic demon. Its eyes were bright red and both of its hands were holding machetes made of stones.
But before it could swing at Eulene, she span horizontally in the air and smacked the spiked mace to the side of its head. The head detached and bulleted towards the levitating unicorn with breakneck speed.
The headless body of the demon fell on its knees before its whole body collapsed—quaking the hall. The mass of stone broke into countless pieces.
The unicorn, on the other hand, barely dodged the stone head. But it was not unscathed; its prized horn broke along with the demon\'s head.
It neighed in agony. Eulene decided to relieve it of its pain and crushed it under the momentum of the mace—turning it into a bloody paste. One by one, all the creatures formed from paint and stone began to fall, and in gruesome ways.
The old woman with the pears, who was spewing poison, was crushed under a heavy sculpture. The man with twisty limbs—Eulene twisted him even further, mangling all of his limbs around his body and crushing him with his own limbs.
As for the naked stone woman with sharp tongue, Eulene tore her spiky tongue off and twisted it around the woman\'s hard neck—so hard that it decapitated the beauty\'s head off.
All of these happened in a matter of seconds. The creatures who came into life felt the first extreme emotion in their life- terror.
They wanted to run away. But alas, the guests were not the only one trapped in the test.
In a matter of minutes, all the remaining beings—be it characters from paintings, or sculptures—fell.
"Is it over?" Eulene asked Xavier as she stood amongst the mess she just created, the stone mace still in her hand.
Even after such an intense session, her breathing was steady as steady could be. Not a bead of her sweat drenched her glittering silver robe.
The masked Xavier clapped and scanned through the surroundings. After ensuring there was nothing left, he nodded at Eulene.
The mace finally dropped on the ground.
"How was it?" Xavier asked.
"Boring." Eulene shook her head.
"Relax," Xavier consoled. "The Curse is a worthy opponent… somewhat…"
"The two that came from Walp… Walpur…"
"Walpurgis."
"Yes. That. Were they strong enough to get through this test?" Eulene asked.
"Yes." Xavier nodded. "But they would have need hours to complete them. All of the monsters were strong and had their own specialities. They could not have stood a chance against all the creatures together. But the authority limited the monsters to attack only if they were charged at first. Hence, they could have finished the test after multiple two versus one battles."
He pointed at one of the pictures with only a scenery and devoid of characters. "In fact, they already had defeated one."
"Since this is over, let\'s go to the other room," Eulene proposed.
Xavier agreed and the duo walked out of the door. They inspected the wide corridor again.
Sure enough, there was a difference. Everything beyond a certain point, the beginning of the loop, became ethereal—flickering.
And just across the room, there was another door. They wasted no time and entered.
The moment they passed the boundaries of the door, the smell of oil, grease and iron sieved through their nostrils.
Unlike the other hall, that was filled with natural light—that of moon and stars—dozens of oil lamps lit up the room. The floor, was marble still, but there was a bronze hue emanating from them.
Similar to the earlier hall, this room was also filled with art. But instead of paintings and sculptures, there were machineries.
Gigantic bronze machines—clean and polished—were placed on the floor. There were three different types of printing machines, each representing different eras—two of them being manually handled and the latest being powered by steam. There were looms for creating clothes, and different types of sewing machine—big and small.
Along the walls, there were different types of clocks powered by different sources of power. Some were clocked by hands, some by steam and one was even powered by water.
On a shelf, there were dozens of pocket watches showcased.
But the machine that stood out among all such mechanical wonders—despite being smaller than the giant machines, and not being as posh as the watches—was a typewriter.
The typewriter was placed across the hall—opposite the door. The gigantic machines made way to it, as if the typewriter was the king and all the other machines—its subjects.
It was made of bronze coils and archaic looking wood. All the Avion alphabets were still visible on its round keys—the keys that suddenly began to move.
The typewriter began to type by itself. Mechanical clicking sounds echoed throughout the entire room. The piece of paper attached to the typewriter slowly moved to the left.
Xavier and Eulene could see what was being written from afar with their enhanced vision.
*Welcome*