Descent of a God

Beast Glades

Well, they can't really be called guns. The firearms that some of the statues were holding were different from the ones I was accustomed to from my previous life. They were more archaic, like the ones of the past that still used metal bullets and gunpowder.

Rather than walking straight ahead, I walked over to the wall to my right, searching for any sort of hidden side exit. After searching both walls, I let out a sigh and looked down the middle aisle again between the row of stone statues.

Suddenly the room shook as the lights from the sconces dimmed to an eerie degree.

I looked forward at the exit still over two hundred feet away. The runes carved on the door had changed and the handle that used to be there was gone.

The statues around me began cracking. Large stone fragments broke off and fell to the floor...and as more and more of the statues began crumbling, the more I could make out what was inside them.

What was exposed from the coffin-like statues these...creatures were trapped in could be nothing short of unsettling. Scabrous flesh-covered patches of exposed muscles and bone in these sinewy humanoid creatures. The weapons depicted in the statues were actually weapons in similar shapes made of elongated bones and muscle fibres.

If I could describe it simply, it would look like some lunatic had ripped apart a large human and tried to piece him back together inside out. Like some failed chimera experiment.

The first chimera to fully 'hatch' out of its stone encasement had been a statue of a man wielding a bow and arrow. It let out a guttural screech from its crooked mouth as it leapt from the podium the statue was on.

I let out a small grin as I clenched my fist.

[Absolute Zero] 

All of the chimeras instantly froze from my spell. I would be lying if I said that I didn't overdo it with such a powerful spell against such weaklings. 

I was going to just walk over to the door and go on to the next level, however, my senses picked up the erratic purple particles of the chimeras.

I walked over to them and held out my hand to touch the particles of the frozen chimeras. Suddenly, I felt the purple particles enter my body.

I scanned my body as I suppressed my shock at what was happening. The particles seemed to be strengthening my body as well as adding something to my mana core.

I smiled gleefully as I extracted the purple particles from all of the chimeras. The particles seemed to have formed a sort of purple layer around my mana core, boosting not only my ability to influence them but also increasing the control of my mana. 

I decided to try out my new skills by moving these particles. I tried to influence them to come to my left hand

As more and more of these condensed in my left hand, a thin layer of black coated my hand like a smokey glove.

Smiling, I swung my enhanced fist against one of the larger frozen chimeras, resulting in it exploding apart. My eyes slightly widened in shock. 

This was more powerful than I imagined. The layer of this was more helpful than I imagined, allowing me to sense it in the atmosphere without even focusing. 

I walked toward the door that'd lead to the next floor. 

Immediately, I was welcomed by a hot gust of humid air that clung to my skin. However, my mild dissatisfaction toward the warm sticky air was overcome by the scene ahead of me.

Interesting.

I had stepped into what could only be described as a jungle except for a few notable differences. The first difference was in the plethora of white trees around us with leaves glowing in various shades of purple. The second was that there weren't just trees growing out from the ground but also on the ceiling of this enormous cavern.