‘It’s not dead yet. Just temporarily affected by the curse.’
Lazarus stared at the monster in front of him with heavy caution. It was still not dead and could snap out of the curse almost immediately.
It was for that reason that he dove back down.
The moment he touched the sedbed and found the creature through the thread that remained connected to it, he didn’t waste a single second and placed his hand over its body. Several threads shot out from his hand, trying to pierce through its tough outer skin, but he was surprised to see his threads unable to dig into its body.
‘This is a little bit troublesome.’
Lazarus looked at the monster and decided to apply even more curses to it, wrapping its entire body with them.
He could see the creature starting to lose even more strength as he did so, and it wasn’t long before it simply lay on the sea bed, unmoving.
Lazarus stared at the body of the creature before settling his gaze on its ‘antenna’.
He moved towards it and nudged his head towards An’as. As he did, he made a slicing motion with his hand.
‘What? You want me to cut it?’
An’as quickly understood Lazarus’s meaning, but was left at a loss.
He didn’t really understand why he wanted him to cut the ‘antenna’, but he still chose to comply and moved towards it before taking out a pair of daggers and slicing down.
His movement was quick, and the antenna was sliced off cleanly.
The darkness embraced them shortly after.
Silence.
An’as stood in silence, staring in the direction of where Lazarus had been moments prior, waiting for him to do something.
And soon…
Flick!
A pale light flickered into life.
An’as’s eye widened when he saw this.
Holding onto the end of the antenna, Lazarus calmly raised it and illuminated their surroundings.
‘It works.’
He felt proud as he looked at the ‘lamp’ in his hand.
An’as also looked extremely surprised as he looked at the lamp, seemingly trying to ask how he had done this. The answer was really simple.
All he had to do was channel mana into the bottom part of the ‘lamp’ and the light would turn on.
The mechanism was simple, and most importantly, looking around, Lazarus felt that any creature that would see the light would immediately distance itself from them.
He felt that only this light would work, and any other initiation would only bring the opposite effect.
He now felt a little bit safer.
‘That is, of course, unless it’s a Destroyer-Ranked monster that preys on this monster…’
Lazarus could only hope he wouldn’t meet such a creature.
If he really did, then the only thing he could do was hope he would survive.
With the ‘lalp’ casting a dim light over the surroundings, Lazarus nudged An’as and walked forward. At the same time, he activated [Lament of Lies], and the image of the monster from before started to take over the two of them.
‘Now, we should be indistinguishable from that thing.’
With the light illuminating a small radius around them, An’as and Lazarus walked forward, the darkness no longer a concern.
There was still the issue of the silence, but the two quickly adjusted to it.
‘…It should be somewhere here.’
Lazarus strained to remember where he’d seen the strange structure before. As he pressed on, a long, sharp silhouette outline emerged on the horizon.
His brows immediately shot up at the sight as he looked at An’as, who also looked at the distant structure with curiosity. He hurried his movements, his legs moving as though he were on the surface.
This was all thanks to [Step of Suppression] that enabled him and An’as to move without much effort under the water.
It kept them grounded to the seabed, preventing them from floating up.
‘This…’
Eventually arriving before the structure, Lazarus stopped. His eyes locked onto a massive obelisk rising out of the seafloor like a blackened fang. Strange symbols were carved deep into the stone, but most of them were hidden beneath long strands of red seaweed that clung to its surface like veins.
The markings pulsed faintly under the pale glow of his lamp, but he couldn’t tell if it was just the movement of the water or something else.
But that wasn’t what made him freeze.
He lifted the lamp a little higher. The beam pushed against the murk, and far in the distance, shadows took shape.
Buildings. Dozens of them.
They were huge and twisted, made of dark stone that had eroded and degraded over time. Red spiky coral had grown over most of their surfaces in thick layers, wrapping around them in a way that almost made it seem like it was strangling them.
Some of the structures looked like broken temples or drowned cathedrals, their towers snapped in half or bent at sharp, unnatural angles.
In front of several buildings stood statues.
There were too many to count. Most were missing limbs or heads. The ones that remained intact were worse. Their faces were nearly erased by centuries underwater, but the outlines that were left… they weren’t calm.
They were distorted.
Mouths open too wide.
Eyes hollow and deep. It looked like they had been caught mid-scream, and whatever they had seen, it had been enough to break them.
Lazarus didn’t move for a long time.
Something about this place felt wrong. And it wasn’t just the silence.
‘Focus. Focus. I need to figure out where the guy went. He must be here somewhere.’
Lazarus tried his best to maintain calm as he scanned the place, his eyes glancing at the collapsed buildings and statues around. He was sure that the silhouette he had been chasing before was somewhere here.
He just needed to find him.
But where exactly could he start?
Lazarus closed his eyes and looked around. He couldn’t afford to waste time. He still had about fifteen minutes of breath inside of him.
He had to quickly find out the hiding spot of the strange group responsible for this entire situation and understand what they were planning.
This was something that he had to do.
If a Red Tide occurred, then he’d have no way to traverse the Red Sea and get to the Remnant South, which had been his goal the entire time.
This situation was not something that he could allow to occur.
As such, he continued to move deeper into the city.
But just as he took another step, his head flicked up rapidly as he sensed something rapidly approaching from above. His entire body tensed when he felt the presence above, but by the time he realized it was too late.
Thump!
A muffled noise echoed right after as two silhouettes appeared in the distance.
The moment they caught sight of the figures, Lazarus and An’as both widened their eyes as they recognized one of them immediately.
Sylas.
The Captain of the Crimson Wraiths. Besides him was an unfamiliar figure. With long brown curly hair and green eyes, she wore a deep red coat lined with gold trim, the fabric worn at the edges. A wide leather belt crossed her waist, holding a long and narrow sword.
An’as paled the moment he saw her — like the blood had been sucked clean from his veins. He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. His trembling fingers reached for Lazarus, but they stopped mid-motion.
It was too late.
By the time he tried to warn Lazarus, the two figures had already spotted them, their eyes locking onto the two of them, causing An’as to freeze on the spot.
‘Oh, shit…’
***
“Aukh—!”
A loud gagging sound echoed within the confines of a small chamber, a figure with long hair stumbling forward as they clung to the well-polished marble floor beneath. Their fingers scraped across the cold stone, blood flowing out from the tips of their fingers.
“…Eurk!”
Gagging once more, the figure raised his head to slowly reveal an extremely pale face, dark veins flowing out of their skin and webbing across their entire face.
“S-stop… Make it stop…”
Jackal’s breath was rough as he looked up. His head throbbed massively, and he could hardly think.
All he felt was pain.
An endless amount of pain that invaded every part of his brain.
“H-how is this possible?”
He had known from the start that the assimilation with the blood was going to hurt, but to this extent? He couldn’t understand at all.
It was almost as if the blood itself was rejecting him, trying its best to shoot away from his body.
“W-why are you re… jecting me?”
It made no sense at all.
This was his blood! Blood that should’ve belonged to him! How could it possibly be rejecting him?
Something was amiss.
‘No, I just… I just need to try harder. I just underestimated the amount of time it takes for the… blood to assimilate.’
“Urkh.”
Jackal gagged once more, forcing his body up and leaning against a tall marble pillar.
He took several deep breaths as his head leaned to the side, saliva dripping down from the side of his mouth.
To Tok!
It was also in that moment that he heard a loud knock coming from the distance. Jackal’s eyes flickered, and his entire demenour shifted. His face turned rosy again, and the veins receded.
Standing up as though nothing was wrong, he moved towards the door where a familiar figure appeared.
“Cardinal.”
Jackal gave a short greeting to the concerned-looking Cardinal.
“How are you doing?”
“…I’m doing fine. There’s no issue with the assimilation. It shouldn’t be long before I fully absorb the blood.”
“That’s a relief.”
Cardinal Ambrose covered his chest upon hearing the news. He was just about to say something else when Jackal spoke.
“I’m going back to the room. Unless there’s something important, do not contact me.”
Clank!
The door closed shortly after, leaving the Cardinal unable to utter any more words.
The Cardinal could only stare at the door blankly before shaking his head.
“What a pity.”
His eyes flickered faintly, his muscles starting to spasm as he quickly massaged his face shortly after.
“…This job is really hard.”