The anticipation and tension rise as I find a dark cellar filled with crates, barrels, and pots stacked all the way to the ceiling. Whatever Crawling Chaos is moving about in this lightless environment is still further ahead, somewhere in the maze of unused containers.

There's a smell of decay that can't just be explained by foodstuff being forgotten down here for a long time. This place isn't so deep in the dungeon that people would completely forget about it. In other words, it's new and was brought here after that being arrived.

"[What is this...?]" Mereana wonders in a whisper. Her nose is crinkled when she notices the stench, and she looks about in confusion. She can only see within the radius of her torch, so her tension is much higher than mine.

"[Stay here.]" I take the torch out of her hand and walk ahead quickly to prevent her from following me. Unable to come up with any plausible reason for why she should do so, Mereana stays at the door and watches me with a worried expression.

Flann follows me with her usual emotionless face, not in the least concerned about the possibility of a fight between two Cosmic Horrors. Oinos was such a high hurdle earlier that I doubt this one is going to present much of a danger - as long as it's not Mataku.

When I make my way past the shelves and piles of items, I find myself in the center of the large room. It seems to be a loading area, as there's a trap door above, which doubtlessly leads somewhere in the backyard of the pyramid.

Below that door is a lone figure, misshapen and shuffling on unsteady legs, slowly moving in a circle without apparent aim. The signals of a Crawling Chaos are coming from its vaguely humanoid form that seems to be made of black liquid rather than tentacles. It's surrounded by rotten offal, most likely meat to keep it alive down her.

Seeing that appearance, I remember Tokomaha telling me about Sea Witch Rapania's experiments. Something about her using Tahiri's lightning to power some apparatus that turned human experiments into a creature close to my nature. The fact that it registers as one of my kin means that Mataku and Rapania succeeded in creating an artificial Crawling Chaos.

"This is the one I felt." Flann's eyes are fixated on the pitiful being that doesn't seem to have noticed us yet. No matter how I look at it, this isn't my other half, but it feels just like her. I don't have many experiences with feeling others of my kind, so I'm not quite able to tell them apart by how they appear to me in my Chaos senses.

"[Hey, you.]" I try calling out to the creature. The moment I make my presence known, it cranks its oval and blank equivalent of a head toward me. If it had neck vertebrae, they would have been broken by that unnatural movement.

It has no features in a face that looks like thick crude oil has been poured over a mangled human skull. But it's clear that it can see me, as something like a mouth rips open at the base of the oval rather than where a human's jaw would be. With a voice similar to mine in Crawling Chaos form, it seems to be saying something. Or maybe it's just an expression of resentment, as that's all I feel coming toward me from it.

Then it raises an arm, which extends into a spike shooting straight at me. I let it bounce off my chest covered in dragon armor before grabbing it. That's when I feel a prickling sensation in my palm and realize that Mataku must have given it properties similar to Korenga's Black God form. It's soft to the touch, so at least this one isn't indestructible. But that means I can't eat it.

"I'd like to take this along for analysis, but I don't think I can." Muttering to Flann, I point a hand at the artificial Crawling Chaos. A light barrier in the form of a sphere appears around it, cutting off the arm still extended toward me. "What about you?"

"It will only turn into another one." Shaking her head, the blonde girl confirms my suspicion.

"Too bad." With these words, I ignore the prickly feeling and pull the severed arm, which is beginning to twitch on its own, toward me. At the same time, I start a fire inside the barrier sphere to incinerate the creature as it bangs its head against the translucent wall of light.

The winding black limb begins to ball itself together and melt into one solid form. But that suits me fine, as I put a light barrier around the much more compact piece and light a fire inside it as well. Turning up the intensity in both incinerators, I burn the artificial Crawling Chaos and its spawn until not even ashes remain.

Only when I'm sure that the spheres are empty do I undo the magic. My Chaos senses no longer feel anything, so it must have been destroyed without a trace.

I don't know if this one was weak or incomplete, but who knows how many of those Mataku has created by now. Alverost is throwing these new devils at Kairaki, and Mataku is possibly fielding his own army as well. What's going to become of this world?

A pile of rubble very soon, if I don't take care of the moon problem first.

"Let's head back." With these words, I return to where I left Mereana and tell her about my discovery. I'm worried about Asoko since Flann searched for her across the globe and only found this fake. But for the same reason that I didn't want to spend any time on searching for Exla, I can't waste any more on my other half at this point.