Headed by a Snake

The giant, glowing eel(?) got impatient-- going straight for the killing chomp.

Krysaos felt his heart pounding out of his chest.

Still, he was as calm as a man could be in his very specific circumstances.

On the voyage over to the Lake Goddess' sh*thole of an island, Lieutenant Tycon taught him a few new Skills.

Well... they weren't *Skills* so much as they were different applications of other things he already knew how to do.

"⌈Water Sphere,⌋" Krysaos whispered.

--He said it as an afterthought.

He was already making the incantation gesture with his left hand and focusing mana in front of him.

Tycon called it... a 'perfect block'? It had something to do with summoning a half-ass ⌈Water Sphere⌋... but precise? Its shape had to cover the enemy's attack range... and it only had to last for an instant.

In theory, it was faster and took way less mana to execute.

--but he had to do it right.

It made his head hurt trying to find and pull or slacken the right mana threads to do exactly what he wanted.

...Still, the LT insisted that Krysaos practice his ⌈Perfect Water Sphere⌋ until he started calling it 'Middle Completion'-- whatever that meant.

The eel-thing looked even bigger up close, each of its empty eyes almost as big as Krysaos' head and filled with hunger.

It tried to sink its teeth into him-- but a Middle Completion mana shield made that not work out too well.

And the *reason* Krysaos got that thing to Middle-Completed... was to give him an opportunity for an instant counterattack.

...An attack.

Huh.

Krysaos shot his palm forward, feeling a boatload of mana circulating throughout his body. First, it went through his abdomen... then his chest, and finally, prickly and damn-near-freezing through the length of his arm.

"⌈Icy Maw!!⌋"

Several rows of icy teeth sank into the eel's... neck? Eels have necks, right?

It was... a weird Skill he didn't know he had until just then.

And... for whatever reason, it looked a lot like the inside of a Whitesabre Tuna's mouth.

The thing went back down in its pit-- not dead though. Its shrill, echoing scream drilled deep into Krysaos' ears, shaking the insides of his skull and sticking to the back of it.

"Sorry, boyo," Krysaos stood up, brushing dust and frost off his coat. "A guy's gotta eat, I know, but... I got some-place to be."

Carefully judging the distance, he performed a standing leap over the eel pit.

He made it.

...He'd just f*cked up a big-arse eel. He'd have had a real shite time if he'd just fallen in after it.

"Sea god's socks," Krysaos sighed.

The corridor looked like it stretched for bells... "Anyroad... where was I?"

⁆ So there I was... ⁅

⁆ Cold. In the dark. F*cking miserable. ⁅

⁆ Tired. ⁅

⁆ ... ⁅

⁆ Slightly aroused. ⁅

⁆ All the usual shite. ⁅

⁆ ...in a place where even the gods feared to tread. ⁅

⁆ Tycon called it... the Water Temple, an ancient, brackish-water Dungeon made of stones and bricks and caves even more ancient than the god imprisoned here. ⁅

⁆ That girlie's just the ends to a means, though. Once we get to her-- ⁅

⁆ Or rather-- once *I* get to her, since I haven't seen the LT in bells...  ⁅

⁆ --we dangle her as bait until the sea god shows his ugly face. ⁅

⁆ Then, I put a f*cking bullet through his divine brain-housing. ⁅

⁆ Funny thing. When me and the LT crossed over... that guy was nowhere to be found. ⁅

⁆ ...but a lot of the shite he talked about, they keep coming up. ⁅

⁆ The LT was right about a lot of things. That guy-- he's always right about everything. ⁅

⁆ It's almost annoying, sometimes. ⁅

⁆ Anyroad, I seen a lot of shite down here the guy drilled into my head... or maybe even shite I just imagined him saying. ⁅

⁆ There were traps, down here. ⁅

⁆ Of f*cking course there were going to be f*cking traps. ⁅

⁆ ...Most of them, I've seen before. ⁅

⁆ The Trap Path wasn't a joke, after all. ⁅

⁆ And anyroad, most traps are the same. ⁅

⁆ There's almost always a clear and present danger. If there's not, you gotta find it. ⁅

⁆ Sometimes, there's a got'cha. Sometimes there's two. There's never more than three, though. It's some kind of rule. ⁅

⁆ Some of the Dungeon's traps were... weird sh*t. ⁅

⁆ All weird sh*t was just the same as the regular sh*t, though.⁅

⁆ Stay out of sight. ⁅

⁆ Run if necessary-- which was more often than not. ⁅

⁆ Don't think about the thing that's chasing you-- not what it looked like, not what it was made of or how it breathed or the logic of its physiology. ⁅

⁆ You don't even try to discern if that *sound* you heard was supposed to be *breathing.* ⁅

⁆ As long as you think of it like that-- it was just another stupid trap. ⁅

⁆ ...And weeks and weeks of sleepless nights and nightmares...⁅

...Krysaos was worried about that... but he figured he could rely on rum or drugs or furious masturbation to alleviate whatever issues he picked up along the way.

The most f*cked up shite in the Dungeon, though... wasn't even the dangerous shite.

Stories of over a dozen different ages past were etched into the walls.

There were drawings of people that looked like... common guys and gals. In them, they were doing common guy and gal things... swinging swords, slinging sorcery... looting labyrinths-- uh... laying lizards.

Then there were scenes of places and things that... Krysaos wasn't sure what he was looking at.

Some people didn't look like people. They didn't look like damn near *anything* he knew.

...or anything he wanted to know.

One thing didn't seem to change, of course.

It was war. "People" were pitted against other "people."

Both sides got f*cked.

A very small subset of the population made coin off it.

There was a lot of fire... the people, their homes, their entire nations... turned to ash.

There were no heroes to save the sun. There weren't even any villains to curse and scream at... unless you count the gods.

Things happened-- inevitable things.

That was just the way it was.

Krysaos took a deep breath as he trudged onward, only his thoughts and the sound of his boots on the Dungeon tiles keeping him company.

A shite thought nagged at him, though... of the stories on the walls.

Krysaos hoped that... they were records of the past.

He didn't want to live in that kind of f*cked up future.