I glanced at the tall octopus tendrils rising, then at the Revenant's towering form. This thing could probably warp reality, and it was targeting specifically.
I needed to think fast—keep it distracted, keep moving. The tendrils weren't just weapons; they were extensions of the Revenant itself, an extension of its reach into this twisted duel he declared.
But then, just as I dodged another tendril, sothing strange happened—the space between and the Revenant stretched, distorting impossibly as if the distance between us was increasing with each step I took. The more I advanced, the further away it seed to get, as if the battlefield itself was betraying .
I couldn't help but laugh bitterly. "You're a real piece of work, aren't you?" I muttered under my breath, catching the sight of those cursed tendrils snaking through the brackish water, still hot on my trail. "For a nacing guy, you're a shitty coward."
Instinctively, I threw myself into a reckless dive, narrowly avoiding the tendrils as they snapped together where I had been monts before.
My mind still raced, searching for any weakness, any crack in the Revenant's manipulation of space, or at least information that could ensure my safety.
But I knew that in this mont, I had no choice but to keep moving, to keep pressing forward.
"Darling, can you hear ?"
Kuzunoha's voice was transferred into my mind.
"Can you even hear my voice back?"
"I can, but won't be any longer," Kuzunoha's tone was lower than usual. "I have started the soul-mapping process of the Revenant. Looking at how it's acting defensively, I guess it is starting to beco wary since I hid my presence well enough for it to notice the source of discomfort."
"Can a Qliphoth Object feel discomfort?" I chuckled, while I was leaping back and forth while swashbuckling the increasingly aggressive tendrils coming on my way.
"It can, severely!" I heard a quick giggle from the other side. "While I'm at it, I will also be casting so extra spells that will further disconvenient the Revenant while you fight it.
"One thing I noticed for sure. It seems that the Revenant is trying to make you retreat to the opposite direction. If it's sothing that the Revenant wanted to happen, make sure to not make it happen at all cost."
"With that, I pray that you can handle a high level of torture when the Revenant start to beco serious."
"Heh, I can't wait." A tsunami of tendrils sward down on like a tidal wave, only to be harvested by my silent Stormhooks as I wreak havoc with a grin on my face. "I appreciate the information."
"Verina worries you to death, by the way." There was a smug tone in her voice. "But she is doing a good job fending off so stray Calamity Objects that spawned amidst all of this."
"Hehehe, convey my appreciation to that adorable cutiepie of mine."
"Will try~"
The communication ended, and I went back focusing on the horror at hand.
The Revenant lood ahead, its presence warping the world like a sickness. And as the distance stretched and twisted before , the world turned bright with the color of sickness and plague.
Then, without warning, the world flipped.
It wasn't just the air or the horizon bending; it felt like reality itself was upended, the very fabric of ti and space spinning wildly around .
My vision blurred, the scene folding and warping as though soone had pressed fast-forward on existence. Everything around accelerated—water churned, waves crashed, the sky itself whirled into a chaotic swirl of muted colors. Ti had no aning here; seconds were hours, and yet they passed in a blink.
I staggered, struggling to keep my balance as my boots lost their arcane grip. I wasn't sure if I was falling, flying, or just being yanked through so incomprehensible void. My surroundings shifted with every heartbeat until, in the blink of an eye, I was elsewhere.
I found myself standing on a deck. Not just any deck—a ship, ancient, massive, and rotting, with the unmistakable stench of salt and death. The sea stretched around in every direction, but this was no ordinary ocean. The water, thick and black like oil, churned violently beneath the ship, as though the entire world was at war beneath the waves.
The ship creaked and groaned as though alive, and the air was thick with an eerie stillness. But I wasn't alone. Shadows moved in the corners of my vision, and from below, I heard the rhythmic stomping of heavy boots.
A cold gust of wind swept past , and with it ca a voice—a hollow, raspy whisper that sent shivers crawling up my spine.
"Om… mani… pad… hum"
I turned slowly, and my stimulated Valtherion's Blood was churning in pain even further.
Figures began to rise, one after another, from the deck of the ship—ghastly, ghostly crewn, their skin pale and mottled like rotting fish, their eyes hollow and gleaming with an unnatural light. So were skeletal, their flesh barely clinging to their bones, while others seed to have drowned not long ago, their skin bloated and sickly blue.
They moved with the slow, deliberate steps of the dead, but their eyes were filled with the fury of those long denied peace.
The closest one lurched toward , dragging an ancient cutlass behind him, its rusted blade scraping against the deck with a screech. His voice was barely a whisper, but his words were clear.
"Gate gate… pāragate… pārasamgate… bodhi svāhā…"
Before I could react, he lunged at with surprising speed. I parried his attack with one of my Stormhooks, the sound of silent tal clashing against tal one-sidedly echoing across the deck.
But more of them were coming—dozens of them, each one more wretched and desperate than the last.
The ghostly crew sward , their weapons dull and chipped but driven by an unholy strength. Each ti I struck one down, they seed to rise again, as if bound by so cursed oath that kept them from ever truly dying.
One of the sailors, his face twisted in eternal agony, mumbled through gritted teeth as he swung a rusty ax at . "Namu… amida butsu..."
I dodged, barely avoiding the blow, and countered with a slash of my own, cutting him down. But it didn't matter. Another sailor replaced him, this one with a harpoon lodged deep into his chest, as though he had been speared in life and dragged to this ship to serve in death.
"Namo tassa… bhagavato arahato… samma sambuddhassa…"
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