Lex mendengarkan Geeves cukup lama, lalu membentuk deskripsinya sendiri tentang hukum Fondasional dan hukum Relasional. Hukum Fondasional secara longgar mirip dengan hukum sains yang dulu ia pelajari di Bumi — sangat, sangat longgar.
Di Bumi ia mempelajari sifat segala objek dan perilakunya dalam berbagai keadaan. Hukum Fondasional pada dasarnya hanyalah aturan-aturan yang menentukan sifat dan perilaku tersebut.
Hukum Relasional, sebaliknya, lebih bersifat metafisik dan tidak benar-benar bisa dipelajari. Atau, yah, mungkin fisika kuantum yang mempelajarinya, tapi karena Lex tak pernah mempelajarinya semasa di Bumi, ia tak familiar dengan cakupannya. Intinya, sejauh pemahaman Lex, hukum Relasional lebih bersifat konseptual.
Entah bagaimana, itu masuk akal. Pantas saja ia sama sekali tak bisa memahami Abaddon hanya dengan hukum Fondasional. Sekarang ia hanya perlu membiasakan diri mengamati dan berinteraksi dengan hukum Relasional, belajar memahaminya, dan menemukan pola di antara mereka. Gampang.
Untungnya, meski Abaddon adalah tempat yang berbahaya di luar bayangan, tempat itu juga sarat dengan harta karun. Karena tujuan mereka telah berubah dari mencari cawan menjadi mencari harta karun, tugas mereka jadi jauh lebih mudah.
Bahkan, mencari harta karun adalah salah satu pekerjaan favorit seorang tentara bayaran. Ini bukan stereotip atau semacamnya. Tentara bayaran tak semuanya orang baik hati yang mati-matian ingin mengabdikan diri pada suatu tujuan. Mereka orang-orang yang menginginkan uang, dan tak takut berkelahi demi uang itu.
Regu tentara bayaran di Abaddon ini memang sangat setia kepada Condottiere, tapi itu bukan berarti semua tentara bayaran seperti itu. Namun semua tentara bayaran punya ketertarikan dan daya tarik pada harta karun begitu kuat hingga mereka rela mempertaruhkan nyawa untuknya. Watak semacam itu tentu berarti mereka punya keahlian yang dibutuhkan untuk mencari harta karun.
Satu-satunya rintangan sesungguhnya hanyalah agar tidak terbunuh oleh harta karun itu sendiri. Pada hari itu juga, begitu berangkat dari lokasi mereka, mereka berpindah dari gletser menuju tanah tandus yang tak memiliki sehelai rumput pun.
Tanahnya keras dan retak. Sudah terlalu lama terbentuk seperti itu hingga tanahnya berubah menjadi batu. Ketika angin bertiup menembus retakan tanah, alih-alih bersiul, angin itu merintih, seolah ketakutan.
Langit merah tua itu semakin pekat warnanya, dan tampak tumpah membasahi daratan di cakrawala, meski siapa pun bisa tahu itu sekadar ilusi. Langitnya tak berdarah — ia hanya sedang menghujani darah di sana.
Walau tampak seburuk itu, tempat seperti itulah yang biasanya dipenuhi harta karun tak terhitung, jadi mereka berjalan langsung menuju hujan darah itu.
Z, yang paling cerdik di antara mereka, tentu paham bahwa ini adalah susunan rapi dari Lex untuk memasuki fase berikutnya dalam pelatihannya. Mereka punya batas waktu, ancaman yang menghantui, dan harus menemukan harta karun yang tepat untuk membantu Lex mengungkap rahasia tempat ini. Betapa praktisnya.
Tapi ia tak mengeluh. Ia hanya mengadopsi apa yang ia sebut mentalitas film horor dan berlari kepala duluan menuju tempat yang berteriak 'kematian mengerikan menantimu di sini'. Tak mengejutkan siapa pun, wilayah yang dihujani darah itu penuh dengan monster-monster mengerikan, tubuhnya seluruhnya terbuat dari darah dan isi perut.
Sama seperti belalang yang tertarik pada jiwa mereka, dan Wraith yang tertarik pada tubuh mereka, makhluk-makhluk berdarah ini tertarik pada spirit mereka! Yang terburuk, semua makhluk itu hanyalah gumpalan yang terkumpul dari mayat-mayat yang memenuhi wilayah tersebut, dirasuki kehendak yang sangat mengerikan. Mirip dengan kelaparan yang memenuhi semua belalang itu, tapi alih-alih kelaparan, asalnya tampak bermula dari rasa sakit — luka batin abadi yang tak pernah usai.
Pemandangan makhluk-makhluk itu membuat para tentara bayaran cemas, tapi tak lebih dari yang bisa mereka tangani. Bahkan monster darah dan isi perut pun lebih baik daripada Chimera di mata mereka.
Anehnya, pemandangan monster itu justru memicu reaksi terbesar dari anggota Midnight Inn.
Ketakutan dan kebencian yang tak terbantahkan menguasai setiap anggota Midnight Inn yang tiba di sini, termasuk Lex. Pengalaman itu sangat membingungkan, karena perasaan-perasaan itu tampaknya berputar dari inti diri mereka sendiri.
Ketakutan dan kebencian. Itu menghantam setiap manusia — bahkan binatang yang telah
Lex listened to Geeves for a long while, and came up with his own descriptions of Foundational and Relational laws. Foundational laws were loosely similar to the laws of science he studied back on Earth - very, very loosely.
On Earth he studied the nature of all objects and their behaviors under different circumstances. The Foundational laws were basically just the rules that dictated that nature and behavior.
Relational laws, on the other hand, were more metaphysical, and could not really be studied. Or, well, maybe quantum physics studied those things, but since Lex had never studied it back on Earth, he wasn’t familiar with what it covered. But the point was, based on how Lex understood it, Relational laws were more conceptual in nature.
In a way, that made sense. No wonder he wasn’t able to understand Abaddon at all using merely Foundational laws. Now, all he needed to do was get used to observing and interacting with Relational laws, learn how to understand them, and pick out the pattern between them. Simple.
Fortunately, while Abaddon was a place of unimaginable danger, it was similarly a place teeming with treasures. Since they had changed their objective from searching for the chalice to searching for treasures, their task was much easier.
In fact, treasure hunting was one of the favorite tasks a mercenary could take on. This was not stereotyping, or anything of the sort. Mercenaries were not all good hearted people dying to dedicate themselves to a cause. They were people who wanted money, and wouldn’t be afraid to fight for it.
The particular batch of mercenaries in Abaddon were extremely loyal to the Condottiere, but that didn’t mean all mercenaries were like that. But all mercenaries did have a fascination with, and attraction to treasure so strong they’d risk their lives for it. Such a disposition naturally meant that they had the requisite skills to go treasure hunting.
The only real obstacle was not being killed by the treasures themselves. That very day, once they set out from their location, they traveled from the glaciers to a barren land, devoid of a single blade of grass.
The ground was hard and cracked. So long had it existed like this that the soil had turned to stone. When the wind blew through the cracks in the ground, instead of whistling, the wind whimpered, as if it was afraid.
The deep red sky became even richer in color, and seemed to bleed out onto the land in the horizon, though anyone could tell that was a mere illusion. The sky wasn’t bleeding - it was merely raining blood over there.
As ominous a place as that seemed, that was exactly the kind of place which would be filled with countless treasures, so they marched directly towards the rain of blood.
Z, the most astute of the group, naturally understood that this was an elaborate setup by Lex to enter into the next phase of his training. They had a deadline, a looming threat, and needed to find just the right treasures that would help Lex uncover the secrets of this place. How convenient.
But he didn’t complain. He simply adopted what he called Horror-movie-mentality and ran headfirst towards the place that screamed ’gruesome death waiting here’. As a surprise to absolutely no one, the region where it was raining blood was filled with macabre monstrosities, their bodies made entirely out of blood and guts.
Just as the locusts were interested in their souls, and the wraiths were interested in their bodies, these bloody things were interested in their spirits! The worst part was that all of these creatures were just clumps gathered from the numerous corpses that filled the area, possessed by a particularly forbidding will. It was similar to the hunger that filled all the locusts, but instead of hunger, it seemed to find its origins in pain - an eternal, unending psychological pain that knew no respite.
The sight of those creatures caused apprehension in the mercenaries, but nothing beyond what they could handle. Even bloody gut monsters were better than chimera in their eyes.
Oddly enough, the sight of those monsters drew the biggest reaction from the members of the Midnight Inn.
An undeniable fear and hate gripped each and every single one of the members of the Midnight Inn who had arrived here, including Lex. The experience was extremely confusing, because those feelings seemed to originate from the very core of their being.
Fear and hate. It affected every single human - and even the beast who had transformed into a human, Malfoy.
Lex, who was sitting on the shoulder of the Midnight mech, paused his meditation and turned his attention towards the corpses on the ground. There wasn’t enough of a single corpse left to allow them to distinguish what the whole body must have looked like. But by observing hundreds, even thousands of corpses, and fitting their pieces together in his mind, he drew up an image.
These corpses, before they were butchered, looked like gorillas. Their size was not bigger, nor were they bulkier than normal gorillas. If there was any difference at all in their body structure, it was that their skeletal structure was more similar to a human, meaning they likely stood on and walked on two legs. Oh, and instead of hair covering their body, they had grey, metallic spikes. Even so, they looked fairly similar to a gorilla.
Why would their appearance strike fear in their hearts? Since Lex did not recognize the race, he conjured an image and appeared in front of Kaemon.
"Do you recognize this race?" Lex asked, his expression stern. "They don’t seem like they’re from Abaddon. This is the first sign of outsiders we’ve encountered so far."
"Yeah, that’s the Gon race," Kaemon said, recognizing the image at a glance. "Their race is a follower of the Path of Chaos. Although we haven’t really faced them, learning about the top races from the Path of Chaos is mandatory for the Reaving Dread."
Kaemon paused, and turned to look towards Lex.
"One of their most significant historical achievements was to eliminate the last of the human Dao Lords."
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