"For heaven's sake... trying to swim back to the surface was more exhausting than fighting that Naga. I nearly drowned in that freezing, lightless current."
The pressure of the water felt like a physical weight, crushing my lungs as I fought my way upward. When my head finally broke the surface, the first thing I saw was the Abyss Warden. It was still standing there on the far bank, a silent, armored sentinel of the dark. It stared at me with those unmoving, knight-like features, but it wouldn't step into the water. For a brief, delusional second, I thought I was safe.
I was wrong.
Just as I took my first desperate breath of air, something cold and slimy wrapped around my ankle. Before I could even scream, I was yanked back under the surface.
It was a Grell. A bloated, multi-tentacled horror of the deep, its body glowing with a faint, sickly bioluminescence. These things are the scavengers of the underground rivers, and this one clearly thought I was a wounded, easy meal.
The Grell immediately tried to coil its tentacles around my throat and chest, sending rhythmic pulses of paralyzing electricity through my skin. My vision began to spark and fade. If I went numb now, I was dead.
Thank the gods for Ilea's mother, I thought, pushing through the fog of paralysis.
Hidden deep within my mana circuits was the Cryokinesis—the ice magic that the matriarch had bestowed upon me. It was reinforced by her ancient power, and now, it was my only lifeline. I reached out with my right hand, grabbing the Grell's main bulbous mass.
I didn't just chill it. I focused every scrap of cold energy I had into the area surrounding the Grell's central nervous cluster. A cage of jagged ice erupted instantly, encasing the creature's head. I heard—or rather felt—its internal systems shatter as the ice expanded, destroying its ability to coordinate its limbs.
While the creature was spasming, trying to claw the frozen shards from its flesh, I didn't hesitate. I summoned my Shadow Blades and drove them repeatedly into its pulsating core. I used my Shadow Shaping to anchor the carcass to me, refusing to let the current sweep it away.
I dragged the dead Grell toward the bank opposite the Warden. I needed to test the waters—literally. I threw a piece of the Grell's meat onto the shore to see if anything would jump out. Nothing. The Warden just watched from across the river, unmoving.
I scrambled out of the water, coughing and heaving, my body shivering with a bone-deep cold.
"Hah... how the hell did I survive that?" I wheezed, collapsing onto the dry silt.
I didn't waste time. I activated the lingering healing effect of the White Flames I'd stolen from Jessica. The jagged wound in my shoulder closed with a hiss of steam, and the stump of my left arm—the one I'd partially lost to the solar backwash—stopped bleeding. It was still a mess of charred tissue and shadow-grafts, but at least I wasn't leaking my life force into the mud anymore.
I spent the next two hours scouting the immediate area. Once I was sure no other Sovereigns were lurking in the nearby shadows, I gathered some bioluminescent moss and dry driftwood to start a small fire.
I roasted the Grell. To my surprise, it tasted... good. Better than the Naga. It was sweet, like shellfish, but with a metallic tang that made my teeth tingle. As I ate, a strange sensation washed over me—a humming vibration in my bone marrow. My body felt light, almost electric.
I looked at the remaining tentacles. An idea started to form in my twisted mind. I left one large tentacle aside, wrapping it in a piece of Oger hide. If I find other thinking life forms... maybe I can convince them to use absorption magic on this. And then? Hello, lightning magic. I laughed, a dry, raspy sound that echoed through the tunnel. That was the last thing I remembered before the exhaustion finally won. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When I woke up, the world was moving.
I wasn't lying on the mud. I was being carried. My hands and feet were bound with thick, fibrous ropes that smelled of damp earth and lye. I opened my eyes a crack and saw boots. Leather boots. Not Oger tusks, not Naga scales.
Humans?
I froze. How could there be humans down here? Did they fall, like I did? Or were these "Abyss Humans"—a subspecies that had evolved in the dark?
"I'll find out," I whispered to myself, my shadow-magic beginning to churn beneath my skin. "And if they try anything, I'll slaughter every last one of them."
"Are you afraid, child?"
The voice was feminine, soft but firm. I looked up and saw a woman walking beside the men who were carrying me. She looked... normal. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, but her eyes were sharp.
Is she serious? I thought. Does she really think I'm a scared little kid?
One of the men carrying me let out a derisive snort. "Look at this half-portion," he grumbled, his voice like grinding gravel. "I can't for the life of me understand why the HOLY GUARDIAN would bother bringing someone so weak down here. He looks like he'd break if the wind blew too hard."
My blood boiled. Shut your mouth, you oversized bastard. I'll show you who's a half-portion.
"I'll show you who the weakling is," I muttered, but apparently, my internal monologue wasn't as internal as I thought.
"What was that?" the man roared, stopping in his tracks. He leaned down, his face inches from mine. "What did you call me, you little brat? I'll slit your throat right here and leave you for the crawlers!"
"Enough!"
A man the others called Alparius stepped forward. He delivered a sharp backhand to the man who was threatening me, sending him staggering back.
"Get a grip on yourself," Alparius commanded. His voice carried a natural authority that even made me pause. He looked at me with a calculating gaze. "Of course the boy has a big mouth. The Guardian wouldn't have brought him along if he didn't have something inside him. He's survived the descent—that alone makes him more than he appears."
Alparius looked like the leader. He was covered in scars, and his eyes held a weariness that only comes from living in a place that wants to eat you.
"Keep moving," he ordered. "The Guardian is waiting."
I lay back in my bindings, my mind racing. The Holy Guardian? Who the hell is that? And why do they think she 'brought' me here? I flexed my shadow-arm beneath the ropes. They had no idea what they had picked up. They thought they had a stray child. They were about to find out they were carrying a cockroach with the bite of a dragon.
Until next time.