Chapter 35: The Old Man

“Let the pain cling to you, like a mother’s love, and welcome the gift of the gods.”

The sentence wasn’t finished.
There were faint traces of writing after it, but due to the erosion from the damp environment, I couldn’t make out what it was.

I frowned and thought for a long time but couldn’t figure out the meaning of this sentence.
It seemed like the ravings of someone who deeply believed in a religious faith, but in this scene, it was incredibly strange.

To leave this note before committing suicide…

My gaze returned to the three skeletons.
Now, looking closely at a close distance, I found that there were white parasites in the skulls.
Transparent mucus flowed out from the skulls, giving the impression that the skeletons were crying.

There were scratch marks around the empty eye sockets, indicating that something had brutally removed the eyeballs from within the skulls.
All three corpses were like this.

Their bodies had been tampered with after death, their eyeballs gouged out?
Even I only say such things.
What kind of person would be so perverted?

“Let’s go. What happened here has nothing to do with us.
Let’s go see if there are any usable fishing boats on the coast,” I urged Elvira to leave, but the next second…

Slosh— Slosh—

A sticky, slippery sound, like churning brains, suddenly came.
Something crawled out from a dark corner deeper in the room.
Elvira reacted quickly.
The light of her lightning illuminated the darkness, revealing the true form of the twisted humanoid figure.

It was a humanoid creature crawling on the ground.
Its scales and mucus shone with an eerie light.
Its legs were elongated and tangled together, as if they had degenerated.
A thin membrane could be seen between its spread fingers.
Fins grew on its back and sides.

The exposed skin on its shoulders was more delicate than a baby’s, but its face was that of an eighty-year-old man.
Its eye sockets were deep-set, and its yellowish eyeballs rolled around, finally settling on us.

“Cough, cough… mmm… uwaaaah!”

The monster opened its mouth, and its cry was like the wail of a baby, sharp and piercing.
To hear such a sound come from the mouth of an eighty-year-old man, I got goosebumps all over, and my scalp was about to explode!

Boom, crackle—

Crimson lightning surged.
A bolt of lightning as thick as a calf flashed past, directly striking the monster.
The huge impact overturned all the objects in the room, and the monster crashed through the rotten wall, flying out.

The monster’s body was not as fragile as it looked.
Not only was it unharmed after taking Elvira’s attack head-on, but it was also alive and kicking.
It twitched a couple of times on the seawater-covered ground, then twisted its body and swam away like a snake, very fast.

Looking at the back of the strange monster that was quickly moving away, swimming towards the coast, my steps froze.
It was as if I were tightly sucked to the floor.
My legs couldn’t lift at all.
I could only shake Elvira’s arm.

“Never mind that thing that’s neither human nor ghost.
I don’t think there are any boats here.
Let’s go look somewhere else…”

Seeing me so nervous, Elvira didn’t say anything.
After a slight nod, she led me back the way we came.
And it was at that moment that a strange change occurred.

An eerie green light appeared.
My body was uncontrollably lifted up, my toes leaving the ground and pausing in mid-air.
More flames of light drilled out of my body.
The strands of eerie light merged and condensed in mid-air, and an eyeball formed in an instant.

I looked at the suddenly appearing eyeball with great confusion.
“The Ancient Gaze” was looking left and right in a human-like manner.
Finally, it looked at me, floated up and down twice, then went out through the large hole the monster had crashed through, flying towards the coast.

Is it… signaling for me to follow it?
To find that monster??
Are you kidding me?!
Looking at a species that looks like a cross between a slug and a murloc for too long will give me nightmares!

That is definitely not a normal creature.
Even if this is another world, that kind of deformed creature could never be the result of natural evolution.

“Should we chase after it?” Elvira turned her head and whispered in my ear.

I was very conflicted about this question.
I didn’t want to lose this divine artifact, “The Ancient Gaze,” inexplicably, and I couldn’t let the church get it again.
But a fear that I didn’t want to admit in my heart made me hesitate.

Logically, after experiencing the scene of corpses strewn all over the church in Norn City, my resistance should be very strong.
A mere monster is just a bit ugly and disgusting.
How could it scare me into this state?
How is that possible?

I’m really… it’s quite something.

The thought of slimy slugs made my teeth ache.
And salty sea fish… eww! No, no, I can’t think about it anymore.

“You don’t seem to be in a good state, Verona. Do you still want to chase it?”

“I… I… will chase.”

Just three simple words, but it felt like I was moving a thousand-pound weight to say them.
Every word was squeezed out from between my teeth.
At the same time, I made a mental note—when I find that damn eye, I’ll definitely give it an unforgettable memory.

“Hide behind me. We’ll follow it.”

“Mm.”

The two of us walked out of the hole and stepped onto the seawater-covered ground, slowly walking towards the coast.
The houses gradually became sparse.
The waves crashed against the beach, washing away the sand and revealing the bleached bones buried underneath.
There were so many that they almost covered the entire beach.
I think… most of the villagers of this fishing village are probably here.
The dim yellow moon over the sea was like a dilated pupil, always watching the wreckage of the ships piled up on the beach.

The wreckage had been deliberately piled up on the left and right sides of the beach, leaving a large open space in the middle.
I always felt that I should have seen such a scene somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember.

But I could still distinguish the slight differences.
For example… the eye floating in mid-air in the open space, and the monster that was being watched by the eye, lying prone on the ground and looking up at the moon.

The old-faced monster was groaning, which sounded like sobbing, crying at the dim yellow moon.

Our arrival seemed to have disturbed the monster’s refined mood.
It stopped its whimpering, turned its head to glance at us.
The wrinkles on its old, pale face gradually became ferocious.
Its skin cracked, and blue blood flowed out.
Dense eyeballs squeezed out from the wounds and hung on its face like swollen pustules.

“Wuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The baby-like cry echoed along the coast.
A powerful aura suddenly erupted from the monster’s body.
An invisible wave of wind shook the wreckage of the ships on both sides.
I held on to Elvira tightly, our black and white hair flying and intertwining.
Through the gaps, I saw the monster stand up?!

Its long, thin legs supported it.
The monster turned to face us, its back hunched…
Its body now looked like a random patchwork of several creatures: fins, human limbs, mucus, and a slug-like body…

I subconsciously swallowed and stammered, “Elvira! The situation is not right.
This monster doesn’t seem weak…”

“Can you stand on your own?”

“I’m okay. What are you planning to do?”

The black dragon tail slowly withdrew.
Elvira took two steps forward, crimson lightning clinging to her, and her scales manifested.
She said without turning her head, “This thing has no intention of letting us go.
Stay back. I’ll take care of it.”

“Alright. You… be careful.”

I knew I was just a burden right now and couldn’t help Elvira at all.
It would be better to stay far away than to hold her back.
I was also confident in Elvira’s strength.

In mid-air, the green eye shone with an eerie light.
With a “swish, swish, swish,” it shot out several beams of light, forcing the monster back.
Then it quickly flew back and entered my body.
But the monster was enraged by this.

The deformed figure suddenly shot up.
Its legs, as thin as withered branches, pushed off the ground and leaped twenty meters into the air.
It smashed down towards Elvira, swinging its claws!

The slender black figure twisted her body and raised her leg.
Her long leg, wrapped in a fierce wind and crimson lightning, suddenly swept out, meeting the monster head-on.