‘… I can’t breathe… Anymore…’ Arthur thought to himself as he felt his body grow limp as he lost all energy to move or resist. He was already exhausted from fighting all those spirits and now, he didn’t even have the luxury of breathing to actually fight the abomination that caught him.
The cold water slowly turned his skin into an icy shell, rigid and lifeless. He didn’t know how he was even able to remain alive this long. But, here he was, slowly dying as the monster dragged his body down to the floor.
He couldn’t even open the options and try to log out as he was still in the midst of combat which doesn’t allow him to actually exit. The game simply wanted him to experience the full horror of dying in the hands of a nightmarish monster.
The monster dragged him down for almost three minutes straight while Arthur was barely able to hold whatever air was left in his lungs. Due to his evolved state, Arthur could easily hold his breath for almost 8 minutes if he remained still… 5 minutes if he was active… And 4 minutes if he was doing extremely taxing actions.
So, by that calculation, Arthur had merely 30 seconds at most before he succumbed to the water and drowned which was perhaps far less merciful than dying at the hands of whatever creature he ended up angering.
‘Well… I at least tried. I would say this was a good attempt to fight something that is clearly levels above me in strength… It isn’t a complete failure…’ Arthur tried to ease his pain and bitterness with some positive thoughts. Even as he was drowning, he could only draw a small smile. ‘I froze one of your tentacles, bastard. A kid did that to you when you’re clearly stronger than me and I’m fighting underwater.’
As he was like that, the tentacles suddenly started rotating him 180 degrees, making him face the opposite direction which was the bottom of the lake. The complete darkness made it impossible to see anything beyond a certain small distance. But, Arthur’s instincts immediately told him that he was very close to the main body of the monster.
Somewhere in the darkness ahead was the horrifying creature that he saw moving beneath his feet a few minutes ago. The shape he saw earlier didn’t resemble anything he had ever seen before so he could only wonder what this horror looked like.
Slowly, the tentacles continued dragging him down, getting closer and closer to the target. Arthur’s heart started beating faster as he stared ahead without blinking.
‘Is it an octopus? A fish? Something else? An abomination straight out of a horror fantasy?’ He asked himself. The possibilities were simply endless and Arthur was certainly not ready for them.
However, what he saw after that completely shattered every single image he drew in his head. Nothing he imagined or could’ve imagined reassembled what he witnessed at that very moment and it made him almost leak out all the air he had in his mouth.
There, a few meters away from him, the monster’s main body appeared in his vision. Right there, floating in the darkness of the water was a giant throne-like structure made out of solid rock. The throne was at least several dozen meters in height and width, appearing like a tower.
Greenery and other sea life had already thrived on this ancient structure, showing how ancient it truly was. However, what was truly shocking to see was the creature sitting on that ancient throne.
Arthur could only describe the creature with one word… Mortifying. The monster was almost as big as the throne itself, appearing akin to a humanoid creature. The monster was motionless with its eyes closed, indicating that it wasn’t feeling anything. It’s two arms and countless tentacles floating around it were the only things that seemed to be working as they kept wiggling on their own.
The monster itself looked completely dead with a body so skinny, that the bones were defined under its pale grey skin. Large scars could be seen across its entire body, many of them looked like sword injuries.
‘…’ Arthur could not describe the feeling he had at that moment, seeing this bizarre creation. A giant strapped to a large rock throne in the complete darkness of the lake. What in god’s green earth was even that?
It didn’t even appear like something that should exist. The aura around its dead body, and the weird tentacles protruding out of its arms and torso were simply akin to parasites eating away at its ancient husk.
Seconds passed in that suffocating silence before the tentacles tried to bring him closer and closer to the dead giant. That was when a third important detail appeared in Arthur’s vision.
On top of the giant’s head, there was a golden, cracked crown, loosely attached to its head. The crown looked in a horrible state, completely wrecked by the years and years of exposition to water and ice.
‘… Is this monster some kind of king or queen?’ He asked himself as the tentacles dragged him to the monster’s eye level.
Eventually, it stopped when he was exactly right in front of its face. Arthur couldn’t move as he was completely frozen so he simply watched in eerie anticipation to what was about to happen. A few arduous moments passed before something finally happened. The monster slowly opened one of its giant eyes… The same eye Arthur saw earlier in the darkness.
That weird feeling of horrifying charm this eye had was simply incomprehensible. It was red in color, appearing almost majestic if not terrifying.
Your journey continues on empire
“…”
Arthur and the giant stared at one another, in silence. Then, the monster slowly opened its mouth, leaking out an ancient voice akin to a groan. Its sheer depth and power shook the water around them.
Arthur tried to cover his face from the shockwave but he was still hit hard, losing his balance.
‘What the hell is that…?’ He asked himself.
Then, the monster made another sound, this time more akin to an incomprehensible noise than a groan.
‘Ugh! Is it trying to say something?! I don’t understand at all!’
The noises didn’t seem random at all, almost sounding like some kind of ancient language that Arthur couldn’t comprehend.
‘Can we please go back to fighting? That’s a lot simpler!’ Arthur cursed.
However, as if the situation wasn’t already confusing enough, Arthur suddenly heard a familiar clicking sound in his ear. The monster stopped speaking instantly as if it also heard that noise.
‘Huh? Is it hearing the shard too? Wait, why did the shard even react now?’ Many questions popped into Arthur’s head. But, he didn’t bother to remain like that as he quickly opened his menu and made the shard manifest out of his inventory.
Almost immediately, the shard appeared extremely bright, shining like the sun in the darkness.
The monster’s eye visibly widened upon seeing the shard and Arthur could see that as clear as day. The tentacles instinctively pulled him away from the giant a little.
Then, it suddenly clicked in Arthur’s head.
‘Wait… Is this shard doing something?’
A//N: Don’t forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3