Crawling Singer

Kraft quickly weighed the cost-effectiveness of the front door versus the kitchen in his mind and charged toward the main entrance.

The knee-deep water drastically slowed his pace; the door, which should have been reachable in two breaths, felt like it was miles away.

He slammed his shoulder into the closed door, but the entrance—which he had expected to be ajar—remained immovable, and Kraft himself was knocked back two steps. A few splashes of water landed in his mouth; it tasted briny and foul. It was seawater.

Wenden Port had never experienced such a terrifying seawater backflow. Even if it had, it would have been limited to the harbor and the Salt Tide District. If the water level reached the inn where he was staying, not even a rooftop would be left in the Salt Tide District.

A roar echoed from upstairs as a door shattered and collapsed. Diffused light illuminated the entire second-floor corridor, and with the reflection from the water on the first floor, the entire lobby was lit up, allowing Kraft to see the door before him clearly.

There was no bolt on the inside, yet he refused to believe it and slammed into it again. This time, he heard a metallic chime amidst the impact; the lock clicked against the wood, bounced, and fell back into place. The door was actually locked from the outside.

He could now basically confirm that he had been moved in his sleep to a place that was similar yet different; this was clearly an inn that was closed for business while the owner was away.

But knowing this was of no use to his current situation. The light at the top of the stairs intensified rapidly. The thing's speed had increased, and it was rushing toward him; the moist, viscous soft tissue made heavy, disgusting sounds as it moved.

It had abandoned its disguise, advancing down the corridor without concealment. Its boneless, fleshy limbs slapped and stretched—not just one, but many—producing overlapping, wet, sticky "pat-pat" sounds against the floor.

The hard, angular structures on its surface bit into the wood and the earth-and-stone walls with every strike, destroying and pinning down whatever they touched. The sound of piercing and impact was continuous, as the bone-like structures—which should have been contained within—punctured the muscle and mucosa to form auxiliary organs for walking and gripping.

All that softness was a facade, a maliciously twisted exterior designed to hide the predatory parts wrapped inside.

It was making its own sound, an unmasked sound.

The hissing was a cacophony of countless voices; it seemed as if multiple vocal organs were vibrating, with a cluster of writhing throats emitting fragmented whispers, rising and falling in an endless cycle.

Resonance and amplification formed a gloomy song across several tracks like a choir, containing patterns incomprehensible to ordinary people, transmitted through the air as sound waves to every creature with a sense of hearing.

The song did not conform to human musical aesthetics; it always followed a deep or high-pitched rhythm with the most ill-fitting continuation, lacking a conductor to coordinate the discordant performance, like a fractured will where every fragment had gained its own tongue.

An irrepressible sense of irritability surged from the depths of his heart, clawing at his subjective consciousness. He wanted to draw his sword on the spot to hack and mince the source of the sound, to destroy it by any means imaginable, unable to endure even a second more of the noise.

Kraft clutched his head, feeling his long-dormant obsessive-compulsive disorder flaring up, attempting to control him to realize the non-self thoughts in his mind and terminate the sound.

He pressed his knuckles against the weak points of his skull on both sides, using pain to suppress this irrational tendency. His thoughts were filled with anger and clamorous noise, requiring all his energy to resist the interference, leaving him unable to think of anything else.

The blasphemous singing drew closer, and the light followed, becoming brighter and brighter, to the point of being somewhat blinding.

It poured down from the second floor, flowing across the water and beneath it, as if it had gained substance. It moved within the fluid, spreading along the briny seawater, surging toward Kraft.

The glowing liquid and flowing light gathered in the transparent water into something resembling an oily film, reminiscent of the stubborn grease on a water surface—a sign of deteriorating water quality, bringing with it oiliness and the stench of decay that followed.

The previously gentle, pure white was now mixed with uneven colors, becoming jagged. Different shades of white kneaded into a mass, with gray-white rolling out from within like a gaping, mangled wound, or like the fissure-like mouthparts opening beneath a smooth epidermis.

Realizing its target had nowhere to run, it no longer bothered to hide itself, instead stretching out fully and approaching the stairs with a slow, measured gait along the corridor.

The complex, noisy sound continued to echo, conducting through the eardrum and the chain of auditory ossicles into his skull, carrying vibrations that confused his sensors.

Kraft released his head, steadied himself against a nearby table, drew his longsword, and jammed it into the door gap, attempting to pry the door open.

The craftsman who forged this sword had used the best materials at his grandfather's request, repeatedly hammering and tempering it. The sharp blade could slice through leather armor, and if one didn't care about its lifespan, it could even trade blows with metal.

However, it was clearly not designed to be a crowbar, nor could it cut through an iron lock in such a narrow gap. Kraft pressed his entire body weight against the blade, bending it into a large arc; it was nearing its elastic limit, yet it remained completely ineffective.

He felt he could no longer escape, unless the owner had built a second door somewhere—a suggestion he could make in his next life. But as the saying goes, "When facing a beast, face it head-on, look it in the eye... that way, you can die with some dignity."

Although the situation was slightly different now, the principle remained the same.

The educational environment of an otherworldly soul had formed his fearless attitude toward ghosts and gods, firmly believing that whatever was alive would eventually die. Unless it was a whale, he didn't know of any creature that could survive a sword strike to its vitals.

And as the descendant of a well-trained head-cracker, his familiarity with the sword was perhaps no less than that of pen and ink, carrying the bloodthirstiness of the third generation of his family that had yet to fade.

He abandoned thoughts of escape and concentrated his remaining energy to make a more rational choice.

The irritation stirred up by the annoying noise and the courage born from extreme, unknown fear mixed together, bringing a sense of burning his bridges and confirming his only choice.

Kraft straightened up and took a deep, long breath. The cold, damp air poured into his lungs, bringing a cooling effect to both his body and spirit.

The sword, relieved of pressure, sprang back into position, vibrating with a metallic hum as it remained wedged in the door gap.

"It wasn't meant for wood, anyway."

He gripped the hilt tightly, calming the slight itching tremor in his palm, and pulled the longsword back out of the door gap with a backhand motion; the familiar center of gravity brought him peace of mind.

The Kraft of this world had imagined his first real battle countless times, tirelessly practicing with a training sword for over a decade, hoping to achieve glory on the battlefield that would be passed down through the ages.

He still remembered that he was fourteen, his growing body finally reaching the age suitable for wielding standard weapons. Old Wood had handed him this specially crafted sword without a hint of a smile on his face, a look that had left him deeply puzzled.

["I never wanted to give this to you..."]

At the time, Kraft had been immersed in the joy of receiving his dream gift, eager to draw it and test it outside, and his confusion regarding his grandfather's words was quickly cast to the back of his mind.

From then on, he used this sword day after day, maintaining it meticulously until it was as responsive as his own arm, more familiar to him than his own limb.

But at this moment, he inexplicably recalled that memory and understood that contradictory look; the second half of the sentence, hidden behind the gray beard, was no longer unclear.

[...but I was afraid that one day you would have to use it.]

Well, today was that day. The only regret was that the enemy never played by the rules of progression, nor did they care about the chivalrous code of a duel.

He had thought he would start by charging infantry on horseback in full armor; he hadn't expected his first time in life to be such a high-difficulty operation, forced to fight an unknown creature in light gear without squires or plate armor.

But it wasn't all bad. An optimist would say that when fighting an animal with physical advantages far exceeding one's own—especially the kind that would kill you with one swipe regardless of armor—staying agile might not be inferior to wearing plate.

The credibility of this statement was questionable; it was only half a notch higher than sliding toward a tiger, but he didn't need credibility right now—he just needed a little psychological comfort to face the light source on the stairs.

For the first time tonight, he did not retreat; instead, he approached the existence.

In the face of a life-or-death crisis, his spirit was focused as never before. Muscle memory was transformed into standard, powerful movements as he gripped the sword with both hands and advanced steadily through the water.

Consciousness was mobilized, pushing against the frantic screeching to memorize the positions of the surrounding tables and chairs; the scattered light happened to facilitate his observation. The entire foyer was reconstructed in his mind, forming a three-dimensional structure that could be utilized.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but as his rationality urged his consciousness to recover, his body felt more powerful, and the strength in his frame further emboldened the growth of his will to resist.

Kraft stared at the staircase, forcing his spirit to adapt to this sensation; he had to possess the ability to face it head-on.

The filthy white light spread further, and the distorted, overlapping sounds grew closer; that malicious existence crawled to the upper level of the stairs, its flexible body stretching downward—it was an indescribable, anti-natural thing.

Following his sense of hearing, Kraft's vision suffered immense torment; merely witnessing this thing made him feel incredibly wretched.

It was a tentacle-like structure growing from a massive main body, devoid of suction cups, its uneven, ghastly pale skin covered in crowded grooves, with glowing tumors of various sizes distributed randomly, clustered in bunches upon the protrusions.

It hung down stiffly, its tip twitching and curling.

In contrast, the hair-like, dense branches dancing wildly on its skin displayed an activity diametrically opposed to the main trunk. They struggled, reaching out in all directions as if possessing their own self-awareness, grasping at everything they could cling to.

As this limb appeared, the song of screeching reached a new climax; the sound emanated from worm-eaten cavities on the thicker, longer tentacle branches, which spewed white glowing mucus along with air currents, like the playing of alien flutes.

Yet, these were not the most unacceptable, vile organs among them.

Many branches squeezed out exceptionally sharp, pale-yellow bony matter as they contracted; the longitudinally distributed slit-like mouthparts were stuffed with such things, mercilessly biting into the surrounding tissue as they swayed, dragging it into their sacs to chew, leaving nothing but severed remains of their own kind all around.

On the broken ends of the branches, new white granulation grew at a visible rate, filling the gaps and sustaining this incomprehensible feast.

Not even in the deepest, darkest nightmares of humanity had such a chaotic and terrifying thing ever been seen.