Chop by chop, slash by slash, limb by limb, she dismembered the corpse, and came to a realization, one that explained the gigantism and reduced mental state. This wasn’t a Locust Noble, at least not the normal kind. For one, his insides were relatively normal, and it wasn’t just his blood that looked normal. The insides of his limbs were relatively normal, save for the utter absence of even the smallest deformities, beyond those caused after the fact. That wouldn’t have been telling on its own - some people really were just nigh-perfect specimens. Re-examining the remains of his skull, however, made the pieces fit together. She smashed it underfoot, and her suspicions were instantaneously confirmed.

Within the puddle that now remained of his brain, there floated myriad tiny iridescent gems, each smaller than half a rice grain, surrounded by silvery, metallic threads. What little tissue remained intact was thoroughly covered by these threads as well. From what she knew of the homunculus program, even though she certainly didn’t have any deep insights on it, this marked the Black Swordsman as…

”...A failed composite.”

He even had normal, if extremely pallid and unhealthy human skin underneath the insectoid exterior. The armor wasn’t just figurative, but literal.

“They must’ve grafted the suit onto him…” she thought to herself as she pulled an anchoring appendage off the remains of his leg, one that resembled a centipede leg. Whilst most of the armor was indeed inert chitin attached to an underlayer, some thicker armor plates weren’t even plates, but insects that had burrowed their legs into the flesh and somehow tied themselves to the host’s circulatory system.

Cutting his gut open made a deluge of stuff pour forth, composed of the organic slurry she’d seen inside the hives. In the slurry spilling from the corpses there floated an assortment of live sinsects that crawled about panickedly when exposed to the air. Among them were huge snake-like centipedes, trilobite-like beetles whose shells were a perfect match for many of the Black Swordsman’s plates, and even bright-red specimens. Most were too small to make out properly, but there was one about the size of her palm that scuttled about and tried to latch onto her leg, though it fortunately failed and fell onto its back. She realized what exactly it was at the wild whipping of its stinger-tipped tail.

A control parasite. Without so much as a second thought she stomped it out, turning away from the corpse as she sheathed her sword. Even as Alcerys made her way towards the door out of this place, her mind dwelled on the sorry state of the Black Swordsman - were they using his body as a glorified incubator?

It swung open and revealed a Fog Gate. She stepped through without giving it a second thought, and felt the filth slough off her as the pain of what wounds she had faded away. The pleasant feeling of refreshment was immediately spoiled when she emerged at the other side to the sight of the blonde soldier and that homunculus.

They sat on the ground up against the projector altar in the middle of the chamber, embracing one another as if they were in a far more private setting than this. It only confirmed that the blonde one would probably cause trouble if Alcerys tried to go after Zelsys without doing something like invoking a duel, but at least they had the decency to remain clothed... Even if it was rather obvious from the homunculus’ loosened chest wrappings, as well as the blonde’s unbuttoned shirt and undone belt buckle, that it hadn’t been the case up until recently.

Alcerys turned her full attention towards the projected map in the center of the chamber and began extremely audible striding towards it, her neck craned. It was situations like this when she regretted the vow of silence, when she hoped she could smoke these independent contractors with such ingenious coprolalia as to make any other drill instructor break their mask of stoicism. Alas, she was an Inquisitor, and Inquisitors didn’t speak in front of non-Inquisitors unless absolutely necessary.

The map was significantly different from the one she’d caught a glimpse of topside, with clear paths towards the lower floors highlit. It even had a legible legend, with markers and all.

Floor One was the Trial of Solitude, with four three-chamber paths for each of them.

Floor Two was marked as the Trial of Halves, with only two paths highlit, and though they each had six chambers, not all seemed to have enemies. There seemed to be three types of chambers on Floor Two’s paths, each marked differently. A yellow locust head, a cyan golem head, and a grey circle.

Moreover, both paths seemed to already have predetermined participants, with very simple pictograms symbolizing each member of the party placed at each path’s beginning. Alcerys wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or annoyed that the dungeon had paired her with Strolvath. He was an annoying mix of curt and sarcastic in how he spoke to her, but she found his attitude more bearable than a single look at that twisted mirage of her own face. As for the blonde cyclops… Just the implication of an intimate relationship with the homunculus made her instinctively revile the markswoman, even though she had no personal grudge.

The path apparently assigned to her and Strolvath had this order of chambers: Locust head, grey circle, golem head, locust head, grey circle, big locust head outlined in red.

The other path started with a grey circle chamber, then two chambers marked with locusts in a row, then a chamber with a grey circle, another locust head, and ended with a chamber with a larger golem head outlined in red.

Fortunately for Alcerys’ mental state, the pair noticed her after she got relatively close to the map. They shuffled conveniently out of sight, only for Zelsys to emerge from beyond the projection altar with a seal-bottle of Liquid Vigor in hand. She wasn’t even wearing any of her combat gear, did she really think this place to be that safe?

“Took you long enough,” the ultraviolent egoist remarked, her speech ever so audibly smug and self-satisfied. “Now we just wait for Strolvath.”