Chapter 11 I need to go deeper
“I need to go deeper!”
Vandal immediately held his breath and dove into the pool.
He kept diving deeper and deeper, ignoring the violent splashes and repeated thrusts of the bladed legs stabbing into the water around him.
Only when he was more than eight meters below the surface did he dare look up. From beneath, he could clearly see the six black-glass spiders still frantically stabbing and chopping at the water with their razor-sharp legs.
I need to go deeper. I’m still too close to those legs, Vandal thought, pushing himself further down.
The Mawrot essence had begun decaying him from the inside again. He was forced to activate his Echo Snake Mark, producing toxins to fight back against the rot. However, it was a slow process , the venom took time to accumulate enough strength to fully combat the Mawrot essence.
He pushed through the agony when he spotted a dull blue light in the distance, ignoring the blind fury of the spiders still stabbing wildly behind him.
What is this blue light?
Vandal reached out to touch it. It was a stone covered in strange markings, embedded in a ledge.
“Ouch!”
The rock’s edges were razor-sharp. As his finger ran across the marked surface, a jagged edge sliced his skin. The moment his blood touched the stone, it flared a deep beet red.
“What the--?!”
A powerful current suddenly seized him, sucking him sideways into darkness.
Vandal tumbled helplessly, his throat burning, until his feet slammed against solid ground. The water violently spat him out into air that tasted of dust and rust.
He gasped and coughed, palms slapping against wet stone.
“What is this place?” Vandal whispered in awe.
Dim blue light glowed from veins running through the walls, revealing a vast chamber, half flooded, the rest dry as bone. Broken pillars leaned like old teeth. Shattered urns spilled tarnished coins, and ancient artifacts, swords fused to shields, cracked rings lay scattered as if dropped in mid-flight.
“Urgh…” Vandal spat blood. It was hot and blackish.
“Not a good sign… and this thing in my eye still isn’t responding,” he muttered in frustration.
His right side flared with fresh agony. The Mawrot essence was once again battling the golden-striped poison threading through his veins. Even though his resonance had reached Stage Two, circulating his energy had almost no effect. It felt like molten acid was slowly eating through his organs, burning every nerve as it crept toward his spine.
“Not now,” he hissed through clenched teeth, clutching his ribs.
The pain knifed viciously toward his brain again, each pulse like a red-hot spike being driven deeper into his skull.
“Not… damn it!”
His hand slipped on slick moss and brushed against a statue of an ancient-looking man. White-hot pain exploded in his brain.
“Why won’t you help me? If I die, you die!” Vandal screamed at his own eye.
You… will… die…
I… will… take… over…
…your… complete…
…body.
A horrifying realization dawned on him.
“The reason you saved me from that spider… was because you needed my body intact,” Vandal mouthed breathlessly. He had foolishly believed that if he died, the eye would die too, and that it would eventually be forced to help him.
There was only silence. The entity spoke no more.
His heart pounded with desperation and fear.
“Ever since I came to this damn world, I’ve been struggling to survive,” Vandal yelled at himself, tears welling in his eyes before he forced them back down.
“I may be a boy in this reality, but I was a man in my own… Men don’t cry.”
He didn’t notice that the statue he had touched had cracked down the middle. The fracture spread rapidly until the entire statue shattered.
“Hhhhuuuurrrgggghhh…”
A low, ancient groan rolled through the chamber.
Vandal instantly leapt ten paces backward, staring at where the sound had come from.
Stone grated against stone.
From the broken statue rose a colossal figure. Huge and ancient, with skin the color of weathered oak stretched over bones too long for any man. His head nearly brushed the ceiling. One eye glowed faint gold, the other was milky white. Pink scars crossed his bare chest in the shape of hammers. An overwhelming aura rolled off him, heavy as the ocean, pressing the air from Vandal’s tiny chest.
The giant blinked once, slowly, then grinned like a boy who had found a new bug.
“Well, well… What’s this?” His voice boomed softly, almost gentle.
“A little bug with poison dancing in his blood… and something ugly hiding in that right eye.”
“Come here, boy. Let me see.”
Vandal scrambled back, claws extended and ready.
The massive hand still reached for him.
“I said stay the hell away from me!” Vandal lashed out with his clawed hand.
Peng!
The giant’s pinky finger flicked out casually. It met Vandal’s claws and shattered them instantly.
The world flipped.
Vandal slammed into a pillar, ribs cracking, his vision exploding in white. Before he could recover, the finger flicked again. This time it lifted him clean off the ground and sent him tumbling across the mosaic floor like a discarded doll. His head rang. Blood filled his mouth.
“Stop fighting, little toy,” the giant cooed, stepping closer. Each footfall shook dust from the ceiling.
“I am Alarik… the one who will take your body and make it better.”
“I will make you strong. I will heal you.”
“You’ve got secrets, boy. I see a strange poison eating your insides… and somehow you’ve used another poison to fight it. Clever. Very clever.”
Alarik’s grin widened, his large teeth shining in his scarred face.
“What is that thing in your eye? It’s very strange… I can feel its bloodlust. It wants to kill and consume.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Vandal said as he slowly stood up, his body throbbing with pain.
“Can you help me?”
Alarik rubbed his stubby chin thoughtfully.
“Of course I can help you,” he said with a childish smile. “I just said I would, didn’t I?”
His grin widened further.
“You’ll make such a fine new body. Warm. Strong. Mine.”