181. Tribulation Dungeon: Crimson Hunger

There were 3 rules when it came to Tribulations.

The first was that all Workers needed to immediately cease all activity and return from mandated breaks to deal with the threat. It did not matter if they were asleep or ill. It was an ‘all hands-on deck’ operation.

The second required all Workers and Employees to remain within one of 4 wings of their floor, or the central room where the elevators were located. Anyone outside would be met with a gruesome end unless they were capable.

As for the third, no Corrupted must be interacted with until all threats are dealt with. Failure to comply risked jeopardizing the entire Site with not just the Impuritas but Corrupted as well.

Frost’s group was split across all three floors 30 minutes prior to the invasion, granting them ample time to prepare. Under the Overseer’s guidance, all Workers were sent to the northern wings. They only needed to defend one room whilst Frost and the others planned to comb through the entire floor and eradicate the encroaching Crimson Hunger.

This way they could guarantee that all lives would be spared. There was only one issue, however.

Ara could not enter the Administrative level with Snap. Instead, Frost needed to force the 2nd Floor to house her with them in the northern wing. It took some convincing, but with the peculiar power that Frost possessed, the Unit Manager eventually offered to personally watch Ara.

In the meantime, Frost paired up with Cer. Jury and Res were located in the 3rd Floor, whilst Ignis and Ber moved to the 1st. The pairings were arranged in such a way where Frost could directly communicate with them via Nav.

That way if something were to go awry then she’d instantly be made aware. Despite how pitifully weak the threat was, Frost did not dare to underestimate them. Where she could annihilate a Flesh Clot in the blink of an eye, she vividly remembered her first encounter with them and how a handful of Scarlet Logic personnel were assimilated into the pulsating mass.

30 minutes was a lot of time, and Frost took the opportunity to line the walls with her metal strands. She ensured that the Overseer made all Workers and Employees aware of this, because the last thing she wanted was for someone to lose a hand, or the Nexus forbid, their head.

The agonizing steam left her fingertips as strings were produced at a steady rate. The Navigator was bewildered by a healer with Anid-like abilities, and she unintentionally blurted out:

“She’s like an embodiment of the healer-Anid relationship. Wow… That steam looks painful.”

“You wouldn’t believe it.” Frost responded.

She didn’t know they would be facing Flesh Clots until the Navigator mentioned ‘Meatballs’.

From what they understood, the order of Tribulation intensity fell in line with how Impuritas Dungeons evolved over time. It began with normal Dungeon entities, then an Infestation, a Plague, and finally, what they called a Dungeon Corrupted Zone.

But Frost knew all too well that the 4th stage of the Impuritas was called the Complex.

The maximum that this Site could face were Infestations-levelled Impuritas. After the 3rd Seal was broken then Plagues would become their greatest threat. Now that Frost realized it, their Facility was severely under equipped to deal with such threats.

Because Plague entities were easily upwards of level 70, which would be akin to an F-Threat Corrupted. And the last time she checked; the highest levelled Workers were only level 50.

Hell, the Crimson Hunger had creatures ranging in the 40 to mid-50s at just the Infestation stage. This was one of ImpulseWork’s fatal flaw, which the Hyperlinks alleviated as neighbouring Sites usually donated strong Workers to help deal with their threats.

But with them gone, they needed to rely on Scarlet Logic…

And even they were unreliable.

* * *

The red, flashing lights and the blaring, low-pitched alarm marked the entrance of the Crimson Hunger. Nav flashed a unique prompt which only Frost and her Realized companions could see.

“I’ll take the one half of the Site. The other is free for yours to take.” Frost gave this one simple order to Cer as they took their positions within the central room of the 2nd floor, waiting for the steel doors to open.

“Pshhh. You’re taking this too seriously.” Cer shrugged, her fangs emitting an electric charge. “They’ve got some insulated walls behind the metal, but it has its limits. Guess I’ll have to bite them instead.”

Indeed. While the containment units were heavily insulated against electrical and thermal attacks, it was rated only for Monsoon Corrupted. Cer, a Moon, laughed in the face of such measures.

She could very well electrocute the entire floor with just the snap of her jaw.

“Don’t let anyone die. Please remember that.” Frost reminded as the doors whined open, revealing a hallway filled with 6 stationary Flesh Clots.

“As usual!” Cer exclaimed and slid through her door’s opening on all fours, leaving Frost to face her own collection of monsters.

They shivered and began rolling towards her the moment they caught whiff of her presence. The giant, meaty masses bounced like pinballs as they rolled straight into her threads, severing various chunks before she hit them with Scrutiny.

From there, Frost launched right into action with an incredible lunge and a hunger for these fleshy monstrosities. Since Punch was already mastered, she took the opportunity to begin leveling Double Punch.

The secondary strike hollowed them, spewing chunks into the air which she immediately incinerated using a controlled flame thanks to Inferno. The walls were blackened by a layer of heavy soot as she pummelled them to bits.

She did not eat them then and there. They’d be collected later for consumption.

The amount of food present within the Site was woefully inadequate for her. With the hallway reduced to a picturesque mess of red and black, she immediately moved through the outer layers of the floor which connected each wing with one another.