Art stepped out of the shimring veil of his portal and was imdiately greeted by silence. His boots crunched against the ashen soil, brittle and cracked beneath his weight like paper-thin glass.
The academy grounds were no longer recognizable.
A flat, desolate plain stretched endlessly around him. The wind carried dust, but no scent of life. Just dryness and ruin.
Except for one thing.
The library.
Sohow, impossibly, it still stood.
His eyes narrowed, the crackle of mana briefly dancing along his fingertips.
’Why is the library still intact?’ he thought. ’And where the hell are the monsters? No corruption, no blood, no signs of battle... this place is too quiet. Too clean. It’s like the disaster skipped this spot on purpose.’
But now wasn’t the ti to unravel mysteries.
He wasn’t here to dissect the why—he was here for Cassius. Who was presumably dead by Miss Celia. Which Art refused to accept... A guy who faced the entity of the horde? Surely he wouldn’t because of so Rank ★★★★★★★★ monster.
Art’s jaw clenched.
The silence only served to amplify the urgency in his mind. The fact that the library still stood, at least, gave him a fra of reference. A cornerstone to orient his search.
Kaelira’s information had pointed him northwest. So, northwest he went
The barren land stretched endlessly as he moved. Kiloters blurred beneath his steps, ti bleeding forward in anxious incrents.
And yet—nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
There was absolutely no sign of vegetation, absolutely zero sign of life.
It was dead.
The land was dead.
It was as if sothing had peeled the soul from the earth itself and left behind this hollow crust.
’This isn’t natural...’ he thought, but again, pushed the thought aside. There would be ti for that later.
His focus tunneled into a singularity: Find Cassius.
If Cassius was eaten, he’d find what ate him.
If the bastard that did it was too strong, he’d mark it—so that one day, when his own power was enough, he’d tear it apart piece by piece.
Five hours passed.
And then—he saw it.
The ocean.
A line of blue separating gray land and gray sky. Unlike everything he’d just crossed, here there was life. Plants swayed in the wind. Moss clung to rocks. Birds flew overhead in cautious flocks.
The land was alive here.
And for the first ti in hours, Art’s lungs felt lighter as he inhaled the salty breeze. The rhythmic sound of waves slapping against the shoreline grounded him.
But it was short-lived.
Because in the sky above the ocean, hanging like an on stitched into the clouds, was it.
Art’s eyes locked onto the abomination, and a cold weight dropped into his stomach.
It towered over the world like a curse given shape—an impossibly long, undulating pillar of flesh and void that spiraled upward, vanishing into the clouds. It looked like a malford umbilical cord tethering this world to sothing that had no na.
Its "skin"—if it could even be called that—was wrong.
It grated against the eye. Like rusted wire braided from shards of bone. Needle-like growths twitched along its sides, each of them pulsing, writhing, as if breathing.
Its hue was not gray. Not white. It was sickness made visible—a nauseating shade sowhere between corpse-pale and infected pus.
And at the base—its mouth.
It wasn’t a maw, it was a tunnel. A ragged, moist aperture lined with human teeth that clicked and clattered.
Art’s veins bulged as he stared.
This was the thing.
The entity Kaelira had described. The one that took Cassius. The one that killed him, maybe.
Art’s hand twitched. But he didn’t move.
He couldn’t move.
Part of him knew—the rational part—that he couldn’t win. Art was at Rank ★★★★★★ in reality while he maintained a fake persona of Rank ★★★ outwardly.
Reason? He liked feeding his enemies with false information. So, when the ti ca... He would have the last laugh.
The entity wasn’t just still—it was watching. Not him, but sothing. Its gaze fixed on the ocean’s surface, unmoving, as if hypnotized. It was the sa creature —who according to Kaelria, attacked her and Cassius first.
That unsettled him even more.
’It’s too quiet... too ta. Why is it just floating there?’
His thoughts spiraled.
Sothing was off.
And then he saw it.
A figure rose from the water.
At first it was just a silhouette—humanoid. But as it stepped onto the shore, Art could make out more details. A man, bare-chested, with smooth skin tinged a light blue. His ears were finned, almost fish-like, and water dripped from every inch of him like he belonged to the sea.
In his arms, he carried... sothing.
A creature. No—a mold. A makeshift mold.
It glistened in his hands, fluid and shifting, like water made tangible. It moved with grace.
It was beautiful.
And alive.
Huh?
His eyes jolted open.
’Why... why did it feel like the makeshift mold is alive?’
That thought alone made sothing crawl under his skin. His gaze sharpened. There was an uncanny pulse to the object, sothing faint—like it breathed.
’What the hell is that creature holding...?’
Art narrowed his eyes further. He still wasn’t sure what exactly the thing was. Whether it was a human or not—he had no clue. Those fin-like appendages where ears should’ve been? Yeah, not helping with the identification.
Still, he didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound.
Then under his breath, almost absentmindedly, he muttered—
"[Creation: Assimilation]."
The world before him fractured.
A slit in space tore open with an audible hum. And inside it? A strange corridor, liquid and vibrating like the skin of a beast, waiting for him to step through.
He didn’t hesitate.
One step—and he was gone.
Reality blurred.
Suddenly, his eyes were above... looking down on the scene. But his body? His body was elsewhere. Nonexistent. A concept. A consciousness.
He was space itself.
Or... at least, that’s what he thought.
Even he wasn’t completely sure. His shape had no boundaries, no breath. Just a pair of eyes drifting through a plane that may or may not have been real.
Then the creature below—the one holding the strange mold—moved. Slowly, almost reverently, it raised the object before its face, like it was praying to it. Or maybe... mourning it.
Its lips puckered. Words followed.
But Art heard nothing. He couldn’t even decipher what the creature said.
And that irritated him.
Still, he held back. He stayed silent, his curiosity smoldering.
Then others erged.
Similar in form—long, lean bodies, with scales catching dim light. Each wielded a trident, gliding upward from the ocean depths in eerie synchrony.
Art’s eyes narrowed.
Their target?
The one who held the mold.
Their own kind.
And just as the first creature finished its unintelligible words, it happened.
In perfect unison, they hurled their tridents with deadly precision.
One pierced the abdon.
Another—straight through the collarbone.
Then the chest, shoulder, thigh.
Five in total.
Steel impaled flesh. Fins twitched.
Blood—thick and impossibly dark—burst from the wounds. The ocean imdiately drank it in, staining the blue into deep, violent crimson.
The attackers didn’t wait. As quickly as they ca, they vanished—retreating. No... fleeing. Back into the depths like children.
Only fear lingered in their wake.
And the body?
Still, floated above the surface of the water.
The water, once calm, now rippled unnaturally. Almost reverently, the blood slithered upward.
Toward the mold.
It soaked into the mold, saturating it. The once-water that flowed inside the shell? It turned viscous. Dark. Red.
Blood now pulsed through it.
Art’s eyes glead.
He leaned forward—or at least felt like he did.
In searching for his friend... he’d stumbled onto sothing else entirely. His mind spun with half-ford nas, images from old lore, faint echoes of past.
rmaids.
Or more accurately—
rfolk.
His eyes moved back to the sea.
The red tide thickened. It expanded, a slow, deliberate spread—until it cloaked the ocean like a second skin. Like a mbrane.
And from within?
Sothing moved.
A twitch. Then another.
It wasn’t a singular being. No. Art could feel them. Multiple. Dozens? Hundreds?
Shapes. Wriggling. Slithering. Pushing against the inside of the blood-red veil.
Trying to break out.
Trying to be born.
They struggled.
Writhed.
Scread, though no sound escaped the sea.
Pain echoed in the unnatural silence.
Desperation. Endless, howling desperation.
They couldn’t escape.
No matter how much they clawed, how much they wailed—they were trapped. Inside a red womb of suffering.
And then—
A shift above.
The creature in the air—the one from earlier—suddenly began convulsing.
It thrashed mid-sky, twisting and screaming in silent agony.
Its body spasd.
Mouth open in a soundless hiss. Fins flared wildly. It writhed like it was being ripped apart from the inside.
Like sothing was burning it alive. Art watched. Expression unreadable.
His heart raced, but not from fear.
From ecstasy.
Yes, he was cautious. Yes, the red sea below unnerved him—it was more alive now than it had ever been before—but this pain?
This spectacle?
It was beautiful.
Tragic.
Terrifying.
And above all else—
Fascinating.
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