As Sezel stood there, excitedly looking at the reward of his haul, suddenly revered footsteps echoed through the chamber—slow and deliberate. Each step was a stone dropped in a well, sending sharp ripples through the oppressive gloom.
Sezel's skin prickled with cold dread.
He suddenly alerted, he banished the screen with a flickering thought, the card dissolving into smoke. The glasses remained clutched in his hand. His body froze, the fear of the unknown pressing upon him. He gulped hard and with deliberate movements put the glasses on.
His view suddenly cleared, the darkness retreating back and the walls revealed themselves. The faint light from above had long since shrunk to little more than a memory; now, with his new vision, the world was painted in uncanny highlights, that stunned Sezel. This place was nothing like he could have imagined.
Now he could see: walls soaring a hundred meters high, every surface carved in ancient, jagged symbols that twisted in the half-light. The room was vast, sealed but for a single exit—its door torn loose, hanging by a single bent hinge, there were large spider web all across the place, dust settled over things like a second skin.
Cold dread settled over Sezel, the footsteps echoed again as if walking closer to him. He pressed his palm to the hilt of the katana, heart suddenly racing. Alone, in a graveyard he'd helped create, Sezel drew one shallow breath after another. Breath shallow, he drifted through the maze of broken tables and scattered debris, each step so cautious it barely stirred the choking dust.
The footsteps drew closer, the silence shattered and sharpened with every step and then they halted. He dropped, hiding behind the shell of a massive stone table. Every muscle locked, his body shivering from fear, instincts screaming, if he moved he is dead. He didn't even let out a breath.
The footsteps continued, something entered inside the chamber from the gate, a form clad in darkness, moving like shadows. Its every step sent shrieks through the air, as if metal screeching against rock. The thing walked over to the mess.
It halted between the corpses of the beasts and the several rocks surrounding them. Sezel didn't dare look behind at it, the image he saw in a mirror in front of him was enough to send a creep through his body.
A red scythe for an arm, glinting in the shallow light that escaped the hole high above. The sharp edge, terrifying enough to make Sezel think of death. 'If it finds me, my death is a certainty written on a rock.' The thought was cold, detached, and absolute.
He wasn't sure, not even once did the thought cross his mind that he could stop that thing with his katana, the only aftermath he could think of was a quick slash, sharp enough to cut through both the steel of the weapon and his body.
THUD!
A noise as strong as a cannonball's echoed in Sezel's ears, every hair on his body stood in reverence, the thing just kicked a rock as large as a human and sent it crashing into a wall with such force that it turned to dust.
The wall stood unhinged, with just little cracks running through it.
'What kind of monster is this?'
Sezel hid frozen like a statue, not even letting the faintest gasp escape his lips. Right now he just hoped for one thing, his assessment device shouldn't chime at a time like this.
The Beast however didn't seem to show much interest in anything else. The shadowed creature inspected the bodies in silence—pausing at the corpse of a White Hunter. Then, without warning, it reached down, hooked the beast's body with its crimson limb, and lifted it easily, as if picking a fruit from the ground.
And then left just as silently as it came.
Sezel didn't dare move until its footsteps vanished completely and silence once again claimed the dark chamber. Finally, he gasped, taking in a few heavy breaths.
Just being in the presence of that thing had made him feel so much anxious and uneasy. He gulped hard, sweat dripped into his eyes, looking at the floor, his expression dark.
'I wouldn't want to confront that thing.' The picture of its blood-red scythe-like hands was painted clear as day in his mind, a threat so vivid that he could feel it cutting through his flesh even when he imagined it. Its blade made his flesh crawl, as if the mere idea could cut him to ribbons.
Suddenly, his assessment device chimed, startling him.
[Common beast - Fanged serpent Detected]
[Rank - 1]
A common beast of Rank -1, and it was so close to him that the device had detected it. Sezel's eyes flashed wide. Adrenaline sharpened his vision again; he scanned the room. And there, slung from the edge of a fallen pillar above—motionless, a serpent, ordinary by nightmare standards but not even a bit less menacing, locked at him.
Its jaws split impossibly wide, fangs glistening with fresh poison, and Sezel was just in the perfect position for a bite and the snake lunged without any warning.
Sezel clenched his jaw and, pivoting, brought the katana up in a sharp, reverse-edged swing. The steel met flesh, not with the resistance he'd braced for, but almost cleanly, sending the beast arcing away in a writhing coil.
The strike hadn't cut deep, but it bought him space to find his footing and shake off the panic.
The snake coiled on the ground, raising its head high, the fangs glistening with poison. 'You don't see such creepy snakes everyday.' He tried to steady his breath as the creature advanced.
The beast crawled towards Sezel with astounding speed, its body slithering on stone like a thread, running free in air.
In just a mere moment, the snake was just beneath Sezel, with a slight push, its body flung in the sky, teeth bared.
SLASH!
Sezel swung the katana in a precise movement, the blade cut through the air, and sliced the creature in half, its head died of light before it could reach Sezel's body.
The tail part twitched a little before going completely silent, relief hit Sezel in a wave so fierce his knees nearly buckled. For a moment all he could do was exhale, chest heaving.
[Congratulations you have slain a Fanged Serpent] the metallic voice rang in the back of his head, confirming his kill.
Then he crouched low to take his rewards from the dead beast, but he stopped mid-motion, he stood back up, eyes squinted and summoned his card. There was an absolute thing he needed to check before he could enjoy his reward.