It faded, then a new wisp came forth.

Azothic Trait Purged: Obligate Cannibalism

Then, another, this time faster.

Azothic Trait Purged: Hyper-Accelerated Metabolism

And another.

And another.

It sped up so abruptly and so significantly, that it flickered by faster than either of them could reasonably read. Zelsys managed to make out the general gist of it, the message being clear: The dungeon had excised the vast majority of what made the maneater a beast, whilst reinforcing the traits that it thought would be desirable. She quickly realized that the statue’s hands were not held out in a beckoning gesture, but rather held out so that she could place her forearms within their grasp, and this assumption was soon confirmed by the statue’s last exhalation. It wasn’t a thread that formed into words, but rather a continuous spout that slowly drifted down and formed into a humanoid shape in front of the statue. The shape stood upright with its back against the statue, with its forearms aligned squarely within the statue’s grasp.

Zel chuckled, already reaching for the straps on her arm-harness to pull it off. “Might as well get this done quickly,” she sighed, holding out the harness for Zef to hold so she wouldn’t have to just drop it on the ground.

Zef took it into her hands. Sounding more curious that distrustful, she questioned, “You think the dungeon is trustworthy enough for that?”

“It hasn’t lied to me yet. I honestly don’t think it could lie to us even if it wanted to,” Zel replied, stepping into place with the Fog silhouette and sliding her arms into the statue’s hands, dissipating the silhouette in the process.

“Fair po-” the blonde began, only to cut herself off when a cage of ribs burst from the statue’s chest and enclosed itself around Zelsys, tightly enough to hold her still. Two threads of Fog came forth from the statue’s mouth, both of which formed into the same words, merely mirrored so that both Zel and Zef could read them. Even still, Zelsys had to awkwardly crane her head.

The restraints are for the recipient’s safety.

Zelsys herself wasn’t worried, she had no alarming gut feeling, but she could tell that he counterpart was very much concerned, what with that look on her face and the fact she was reaching for her gun. She looked over and just gave a confident grin, nodding reassuringly.

Zef nodded back, though she still pulled that beast of a gun from its holster, justifying it with the words: “Just in case.”

The statue stirred to movement soon after, perhaps of its own volition or perhaps because it interpreted the preceding exchange as the signal to begin. Its grip closed around her forearms, its hollow, freakishly long claws rotating within their sockets ever so slightly before they slipped into her skin, some finding veins whilst others plunged into muscle. At first, the pain was what she had expected, but soon it was washed away when static-like heat shot up her arms and into the rest of her body from each of the needle-talons drawn along her skin by a visible silver glow.

A moment after that, Zel felt liquid flood in. Some of it entered her veins directly, whilst another portion was injected into muscle, but regardless of where it was injected, it burned. It burned not as if it were a high temperature or as if it were damaging her body, but it was… Some bizarre, icy burning that didn’t even feel like burning of any physical substance at all.

She felt it flowing up her bloodstream and into her heart alongside that strange thrumming pins-and-needles sensation, so focused on what was happening to her that she didn’t even notice the fact that she had shut out the outside world. For what, to her, felt like a scarce moment, she drifted away from the world of awareness, only to get yanked out of that peaceful abyss by a voice that sounded like grinding stone, echoing inside her head. It was like a murmur, at first.

Only, when she opened her eyes there was no chamber around her, and she wasn’t even secured in that statue-contraption. She still felt those needle-talons in her arms, the statis, the icy-hot burning liquid coursing into her almost as quickly as her body broke it down and absorbed it.

Yet where she was now, Zelsys found herself standing on the surface of a sea that stretched to the horizon in every which direction, an endless cover of silver Fog rolling over its glowing-white surface.

“Be forewarned: the Parasite is trying to take control, that it might crush you using the statue,” it thundered over the foggy sea, simultaneously from everywhere and nowhere. It was loud and resolute, yet also soft and refined. In her mind’s eye, Zelsys imagined the source to be one of those soft, yet muscular statues she saw on the bridge, just made of black stone rather than white.

“You don’t speak like the dungeon core,” Zelsys guessed on a gut feeling, looking about in her utterly barren surroundings in an attempt to see something to latch onto.

“Correct. I am Subcore Delta, an autonomous part of the core,” the voice said, taking off on a short explanation. “Where the core cannot act on this floor, I step in. We still have some time, seeing as I’ve dilated your perception of time, so here is another piece of advice: The statue’s ribs are not strongly anchored. Even if the serum does not take effect immediately, or if its effect is particularly subtle, you should be able to force yourself free with that crude Fulgurkinetic method of breaking your physical limits. That is all I can say for now, though I wager we will meet...”

The thrumming sensation stopped shooting up through her arms. Simultaneously, the cold burning started to fade as Zelsys absorbed the last of the serum, and she felt a weird sensation at the points of injection just before she felt herself fading again.