The Loss of Her · The Gain of Me: The Wriggling Fear (Part Two)

I... what exactly...?

Close your eyes. Then open them again.

"... ah!"

The world has changed.

I could barely sense the presence of my companions before, but now they have completely disappeared, leaving me all alone, thrown into an unknown world.

A sea of blood.

If the seawater surrounding a person who has sunk to the Deep Sea were replaced entirely with blood, that's probably what I'd see now.

The crimson fountain of life pressed in from all directions, and the dark red shadows blocked any attempt to see further, as if one had been thrown into the body of some giant monster, almost crushed by the relentless pressure.

It was only then that I felt fear.

This fear is not Deep Sea, but rather a fear of something vast and unknown.

The presence emanating from below grew stronger and larger. Because of the surrounding blood, I couldn't confirm its size by sensing the Blood Energy, but it was definitely larger than any creature I had ever seen, not even comparable to the Sea Emperor Clan, who were known for their immense size.

... arrive.

I was incredibly close to that thing that exuded such a powerful presence; we were practically overlapping, but the dark red blood made it impossible for me to see anything.

Where is it? Where exactly is it?

Just then, I stepped on something.

It has a very hard feel, yet within that hardness there seems to be a subtle degree of flexibility.

I bent down and strained to see through the thick blood, and could barely make out that what I had stepped on was... a large, grayish-white thing? It looked like the grayish-white shell of some ancient marine creature, mixed with black marks, and it felt very hard to the touch.

But this hard substance is covered by a "net", like many bright red blood vessels and meridians, firmly attached to this "shell", which looks very strange, but has a kind of bizarre beauty like modern abstract art.

I slid along the network of blood vessels and meridians for a distance. This thing, which I didn't know what it was, seemed to be an irregular cylinder, at least as thick as the fuselage of a commercial airliner, and very long, extremely long. I initially landed at its tip, and while climbing the "net" towards the end, I struggled for quite some time before finally reaching the bottom, despite the interference of the blood.

Before me was a dark blue "wall," which I could clearly see even though it was submerged in blood, because it was so enormous. It was located at the "upper part" of the "path" I was walking on, and the lower part was a shell-like substance similar in material to the "path."

Touching it, the massive blue-black wall had a rough, smooth texture and seemed to have some reflective properties. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that it was made up of countless tiny, honeycomb-like "cells," making it extremely intricate and complex.

It reminds me of something I'd rather not think about.

The compound eyes of an insect.

"..."

Hey, wait a minute.

Stop joking.

If a compound eye is this big... just how big is this insect?

I'm even scaring myself with my own imagination. Let me tell you a corny joke to relax.

Someone give me a size large shoe so I can stomp it to death!

--That's all, haha, funny, right? Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hahahaha.

Ha ha ha ha...

My silly grin didn't calm me down.

This overwhelming presence almost crushed me.

The intense curiosity I felt a few minutes ago about the enormous creature had vanished without a trace. Now, I just want to leave this place immediately and throw that damned amulet down the drain.

"I believe that the most merciful thing in the world is the human mind's inability to connect known things. Humanity lives on an island called ignorance in a dark ocean, a vast ocean full of endless secrets, but we should not sail too far or explore too deeply."

This is a famous quote by H. P. Lovecraft, and it's the first sentence that comes to mind right now.

Completely discard your pointless curiosity.

Let's run away.

Every cell in my brain was screaming a warning that if I continued to explore, I would step into territory I shouldn't have, come into contact with things I shouldn't have, and that if I rashly ventured into the overwhelming unknown, what awaited me at the end would likely be my grave, if I still had a corpse to bury.

Let's go quickly.

Let my spirit leave this blood-soaked, Deep Sea -within-a-deep Deep Sea, and tell them my exploration yielded nothing; that will suffice.

--Splash!!!!!!

Just as I made up my mind, it was as if a mischievous god had timed it perfectly.

The oppressive weight of the Blood Sea has vanished.

The murky blood water completely disappeared.

It was like the stage curtain suddenly being pulled away.

A CD player, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, entered a chilling, blood-red darkness.

It illuminated an even more terrifying existence.

The shell-like substance, tightly covered by a network of nerves and blood vessels, is a small part of the epidermis—a vast epidermis as large as a giant plain.

"Hello, hello..."

The dark blue wall, composed of countless honeycomb-like structural units, appears large enough to cover an entire dormitory building; in fact, it is a compound eye—one of countless compound eyes.

"This... is this... really not..."

The "road" beneath my feet, even just the part near the tip, is as thick as the fuselage of a commercial airliner; that's just one of countless tentacles.

"Don't joke around... Blood Fiend... you..."

Below, an enormous void, its boundaries indiscernible to the naked eye, stretches far and wide and is incredibly deep; this is its mouth—its largest mouth ever.

"What exactly... what exactly..."

Countless towering, sharp, red and white Giant Peak spread out along the edge of the void, some large, some small, stretching endlessly. In the distance, one can vaguely see the shadows of what appear to be colossal pillars supporting the sky—those are teeth, a few main teeth and countless secondary teeth.

"What on earth did you swallow? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

"--!?"

On the old iron-framed bed covered with faded bedding, Yusuo Zai suddenly shuddered, dropping the half-eaten Roujiamo Chinese hamburger) he was holding to the ground.

The murky gray pupil of the single eye contracted as it gazed into the distant void.

"Did you get it...?"

His voice trembled slightly, filled with a long-dormant excitement.

"Interesting... interesting... this is really interesting! Hahaha!"

Yusuo Zai his usual behavior, slapped his thigh and laughed loudly. The laughter, combined with the room being dyed orange-red by the exaggerated afterglow of the sunset, was quite eerie.

"The last 'scepter' I left behind is divided into two parts. Whether it's you or Jili Li, your chances of obtaining it are completely equal, and even I won't interfere! But now..."

Ye has already obtained half of them, Jili is unaware that he has missed an opportunity.

So, to whom will the other half belong?

"Hurry up and realize it, Ye or Ji Jili, whichever one of you, please realize it quickly, don't waste my efforts, don't squander... this power!"

A bright night, the fields adorned with the chirping of insects.

The girl sat on the railing beside the wheat field, gazing absently in the direction of the mountains.

The helpless peasant woman asked her--

"Hey, what are you looking at?"

The girl answered softly--

"The... ruler of blood."

"You have nothing, yet you—huh? What did you say?"

He has arrived...

However, the peasant woman could not see anything from the mountain at night.

"So there's nothing there. What could you possibly see?"

"As for the Lycoris radiata... it's too far away to see clearly. From here, we can only see its general shape."

"... ha?"

"Directly above the mountaintop, there was a huge hole in the air, like shattered glass... Some enormous insects clung to the edge of the hole, gnawing and gnawing at the space... 'He' was hanging down from the middle of the hole."

Yes, the debris is in that spatial rift torn open from the outside, about to fall into this world.

It is a treasure that, while not directly granting power, bestows upon the chosen one limitless possibilities.

However, the girl's gaze fell on something else.

She murmured in a very soft, very quiet voice.

"O great insect that swam among the fragments, you have finally..."

"Hey, Winsani."

"Oh my, you actually took the initiative to talk to me? That's quite rare, Warrensding. May I take this as a sign that you're showing weakness?"

"Whatever you like, I just suddenly wanted to ask you a question."

"A question? Then you're just showing me your ignorance?"

"Think what you want, it just so happens that I thought of it and wanted to hear your opinion."

Ask away! There are only a handful of things in this world that I don't know!

"It seems there are nearly five things you don't know."

"Huh? What did you say--"

"Then let me ask you, what do you know about the 'Ten Great Clans of Demonic Beasts'?"

"... Huh? I thought you were going to test me on something. Isn't this something even ordinary people know? Anyone with even a little interest in miscellaneous knowledge would know it."

"Then do you know?"

"Are you kidding me... Fine, I'll just give you a rundown. The tenth of the ten great demon beast clans is constantly changing and hard to pinpoint, the ninth is the Desolate Beast, the eighth is the Dragon Clan, the seventh is the Ghost Clan, the sixth is the Phoenix Clan, the fifth is the Blood Tree, the fourth is the Black Abyss Tribe, the third is the Sea Emperor Clan, and the second is the Otherworldly Spirit."

"Oh ho, so which one do you think is the highest grade?"

"I think you're just being unreasonable... There's no doubt about it, it's definitely an alien spirit. From the perspective of biological evolution alone, no species is more advanced than an alien spirit that is purely an energy being."

"But... what if it's 'first place'?"

"First? Don't make me laugh. The so-called first doesn't even exist. Legend has it that the Craft God of yesteryear insisted on adding 'first' before it for some reason, but thousands of years have passed, and no one knows what that so-called first is, so it's just an empty spot at most."

"... So that's what you think too? That's a pity."

"What a pity? What's there to regret?"

"Nothing, just bored, I'm leaving."

"Wait a minute! This time I'm going to show you my superb tea skills—I already said wait!!"

Thousands of years ago, the peerless Craft God, with the help of the most powerful people on the entire Spirit Star, finally built the World Crossing Gate and briefly glimpsed "the scenery beyond this fragment of the human world" through it.

That one glance completely overturned his understanding of the world.

Besides the breathtaking scenery that no brain could imagine, there was something else that greatly impacted his worldview.

It was a gigantic creature swimming in the sea of fragments, its enormous mouth wide open, devouring something.

The Craft God, overwhelmed by its majesty, concluded that it was the most powerful creature in the world.

At that time, he gave it a name, a very simple and descriptive one.

"World Devouring Worm"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After racking my brains for ages without coming up with a good name, I had to settle for this one—it's lowbrow, but straightforward and easy to remember...