The second thing that greeted them was the pungent stench of decaying bodies. Nuri nearly reeled, fighting the urge to vomit at the rancid smell — even Art had to turn her face away for a quick moment when she had just looked invincible minutes ago.

He wasn’t even sure they were human bodies. The corpses in the 1st Floor’s dungeons and caverns had never smelled this disgusting, so what the hell did this chapel contain?

As soon as the notification vanished, the door slammed shut, making everyone turn to look behind them.

"Shit," Murray bellowed. He hurriedly grabbed the handle and tried to pry the door open, but it wouldn’t budge, no matter how much force he exerted.

Everyone worriedly watched as Murray struggled with the door. After many futile attempts, he finally pulled his hand from the handle and clenched it.

"We’re stuck."

"Just blow it open!" Hugo barked from the frontline. "It’s a wooden door."

"A wooden door," Schwartz repeated. He almost sounded amused by the situation. "Diana, if you would."

Diana stepped up beside Murray and pressed both palms against the door. The small flame in her hands bled into the fine grain of wood, and it crawled up fast along the iron bands.

It burned for about three seconds before going out completely. When Diana pulled her hands away, there was no char underneath.

Diana backed up a step.

"...Okay, that didn’t work."

"I said to blow it open, Diana — not caressing it!" Hugo leaned forward to retort.

"Do you want to alert every being in the cathedral?!"

While they argued, Nuri had already guessed that opening the door was futile. Deep down, he knew everyone understood this and was simply overtaken by delirium. There was nothing wrong with that. No one could have stayed normal after breathing in something worse than death itself.

And not everyone was as resistant to death as him.

He looked to Art, who was gazing into the abyss. Had they exchanged even a single word? He had always struggled with such a brusque character. If an extrovert like him were to approach her, anything he said would bounce off her like insect repellent.

Nuri wanted to make an effort, however. Art was pragmatic and had a quick mind, and even though she might seem a bit sketchy, she was the most reliable person in situations like these.

He crossed to her side.

"Hey, Ar—"

"Quiet."

"Roger that."

He was shot down before he even got a word out! That had to be a contender for the fastest rejection in history. And what was she even looking at? Everyone faced the door, while she was the only one with their back to it.

’Wait...’

Barely visible through the clouds of rot, white humanoid figures slowly came into view. Their presence alone seemed to push back the darkness into the corners, followed by grim groans that were too human-like.

"Monsters ahead!" Nuri announced to the crew.

Hugo was already skittering to the front. Schwartz unfurled his aquamarine spear. Everyone seamlessly returned to their positions without being told.

The figures shuffled out of the rot one step at a time, first revealing their faceless heads. Their faces were wrapped in thick silk and blended into one smooth surface. They reminded Nuri of drawing manikins.

It didn’t stay that way for long.

In just seconds, small marbles dug through the tight wrapping of silk from underneath. Nuri first thought it was just something akin to pus-filled boils, but then the marbles blinked. Yes, they were dozens of eyes that forced their way out through the silk, not some inflammation on their skin.

Not all of them had the same amount of eyes. Some had six, while others had four, blinking at separate times while starting straight at them.

"...The hell are those," Hugo breathed.

No one answered. They were petrified by the sheer wrongness of it all. When something looked human yet warped beyond familiarity, it became the most jarring kind of horror —enough to make even experienced Explorers flee.

Art’s bowstring was already drawn back.

"They’re slow," she said flatly. "Keep them far and this is easy."

’I don’t think so...’

Kethsura was a Legendary 3-Star creature, seemingly fed by these four chapels. There was no way its minions wouldn’t be formidable.

"Ah, Art. Let’s not act reckless here, shall we," Schwartz pleaded, his usual smile was thin. "What if you accidentally trigger something? They’re approaching us slowly, but we don’t know if it’s their trait or something else. I believe it’s best if we observe it for now."

Although Nuri didn’t like the honey-coated tone, Schwartz had a good point.

"Observe?" Art didn’t lower her bow, however. "I’ll observe for you."

She fired the arrow before Schwartz got another word in.

It buried itself beneath the cluster of eyes on the nearest one’s face. The silk puckered around the shaft and swallowed the arrow whole. The figure trod toward them without slowing at all.

Art put a second arrow into its throat and a third into its chest. The humanoid cocoon walked through all of them like she had only flicked pebbles at it.

She lowered the bow.

"Huh," she monotoned, briefly confused before concluding, "there’s your observation."

The moment her words completed, Diana’s flame reached past its neck to the rest of its lower body.

It wore torn pieces of vestments. The cloth had rotted to deep brown and hung off the silk beneath in strips.

It had no hands. Instead, its arms tapered past the wrist into a single point. They were freakishly long, scraping the floor as it approached the party.

Nuri had thought nothing could be more disturbing than the eyes, but he was dead wrong. When the light crossed its belly, it revealed a monstrosity that made his body spasm.

The silk there was woven so thin that light pierced through. And behind the see-through silk, there was no belly. It was literally nonexistent. From the ribs down, the body had been hollowed out and packed with organs and innards, heaped into a messy work of gore.

Diana rushed to the nearby wall and vomited. Hugo hung his head, and Murray did the same. Only the pair of strangers and Nuri could still look straight.

It was simply too repulsive.