Chapter 54: Sunken City (4) - Demon?

As soon as the stone broke, we saw what was inside. A stone tablet with some drawings on it. They were the same statues that were on the platform.

Each statue had a number underneath it. It was easy to understand that this was the order we needed to choose.

I showed it to the others.

We followed the indicated order. When we touched one of the statues, pressing a button at the bottom of the base the statues stood on, each one glowed intensely with a blue color, similar to that sphere I had found down below.

And then they moved, looking toward one of the walls. As soon as all 3 statues were facing the same wall, blue beams shot out of their eyes and went straight into the wall like lasers. And then, the wall slowly opened, revealing the path we were meant to follow.

The first puzzle wasn’t all that hard. I expected the others to have a similar difficulty.

"Let’s keep moving," the octopus said. "We’ve already wasted too much time on this."

The creature moved ahead, completely ignoring us. I was getting seriously pissed off at that damn octopus.

My fists were raw flesh, recovering thanks to my high regeneration, of course, but it still hurt a lot and would take at least 30 minutes to get back to normal.

Ethan and Tom were walking beside me, and at that moment, a voice spoke to me mentally. Or rather, was trying to make contact. It was Ethan. He was using his powers to communicate with me.

"We need to come up with a plan to kill that octopus. Do you have any ideas?"

Oh, I had an idea. That bastard couldn’t control my mind, which meant I already had that advantage. And my secret weapon was my poison. My plan was to poison that son of a bitch in the worst way possible and hope it would be enough to weaken him so we could kill him.

I gave Ethan a thumbs up to show him I already had something in mind. He seemed calmer, but he still wasn’t confident we would win. Tom felt the same way. That octopus was really strong compared to them, and I was their only hope of making it out of that place alive.

We continued through a corridor similar to the previous ones. This time, however, something was different. Ink marks on the ground, and signs that a fight had happened in that corridor.

"Those bastards were here," the octopus said, looking at the marks on the ground. "Let’s hurry. We might catch up to them."

We started running down the corridor. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea. On one hand, we were moving faster, but on the other, the chance of triggering some trap in the process was relatively high. And only God knew how lethal the traps in that place were.

Even so, we pushed forward, without fear. At the end of the corridor, we saw something that gave us an extra push of gas to keep running. Mary and Maison turned into a corridor to the right. We exchanged looks. Mary realized we were hot on her trail and couldn’t believe it. The shock on her face was clear.

Up until that moment, she had no idea we were so close. It was the first time one group had seen the other.

The octopus started running even faster than before. I noticed something peculiar happening. The octopus needed to return to the water, or else it would start to weaken. It had said that before.

I thought the place would be full of water, but no, and that could work in our favor. Maybe if he went without entering the water, we’d have an even better chance of winning the fight.

Anyway, we had to run even faster than before. Tom and Ethan were starting to get winded, while I was fine. That didn’t demand much from my physique. My high vitality gave me the stamina, and my agility the speed.

I was faster than the octopus, but I stayed behind just to let him go first. What if some trap got triggered? At least I wouldn’t be the first one hit.

We turned down that same corridor Mary and Maison had gone through and saw, in the distance, an open area again with an enormous temple. The staircase was really long, certainly more than 1000 steps. Mary and Maison were flying on a bird made of ink, moving much faster than normal toward the temple.

The octopus shouted, "Fly us up there."

I was already calculating. If the octopus climbed normally, it would take at least 10 minutes to reach the top, or even more.

Flying, we’d get there in 1. This was the perfect moment to stop following everything he said. I needed to decide.

I stopped running, so the octopus was farther ahead while I was closer to Tom and Ethan. I created the platform using the cube and the 3 of us jumped on top of it.

While doing that, I also took a small part of the cube and created a needle. I used my glands to coat it with poison. Ethan and Tom were completely freaked out watching it.

I controlled the cube to fly us toward the top of the temple, and at the same time, the needle flew toward the octopus. He wasn’t expecting the betrayal to happen at that moment, so he had no time to dodge the needle.

The moment it touched his body, the toxin spread rapidly, and a burning sensation took over him. The octopus screamed in pain, and because of that pain, he was unable to attack us as we flew away.

The damage definitely wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but it would already weaken him for what was to come.

We flew toward the temple really fast. Mary and Maison had already entered it.

"What the hell was that?" Ethan asked. "Your teeth looked like fangs or something. Are you human or what?"

They were starting to see me as a monster. And honestly, part of me was, but I tried to keep them calm.

"Relax, I’m still me, okay? I’m not some monster in disguise. I just have a few peculiar abilities. Let’s focus on the problem in front of us."

They definitely didn’t believe what I said, but they didn’t say anything and focused on what we needed to focus on.

"And now? What do we do? If we catch up to Mary, we’ll have to fight her, and when that octopus reaches us, he’ll try to kill us," Ethan said. "I can protect myself from mind control, and so can you. Tom will be the most affected."

Indeed, out of the 3 of us, only Tom couldn’t resist mind control. But that wasn’t that big of a problem. If I needed to, knocking him out wouldn’t be that hard. Last time it was pretty easy, actually.

"We’ll catch up to them and try to grab the key as soon as possible. With it, we can access the treasure room, and possibly lock the door behind us. Then we wait for the two of them to fight each other, and we only come out to fight whoever’s left," I said.

That was my plan. In my head, it was our best chance.

"I like the plan, but how do we get the key? They’ll want to fight us."

He was right. Stealing the key just like that wouldn’t be so easy. They would do everything to protect the key. But there was something working in our favor.

"I’m almost sure the key is in Maison’s hands," I said. "When we ran into them in that corridor, I could swear I saw him saying something to Mary, like he was giving directions. And he was the one who stole it in the first place. Since he’s the weaker one, stealing from him might be easier."

It was just a hunch. Nothing stopped Maison from handing the key over to Mary, so I wasn’t 100% sure the key would be with him. I’d only find out once I faced them.

Anyway, we jumped off the platform once we reached the temple. I didn’t want to waste too much energy flying us around. Saving it for the battle ahead was the wiser move.

We ran into the temple. There were several thick stone columns, and the ceiling was very high. The sheer scale of that temple was breathtaking.

Why would they build all of that just to store a few treasures? It didn’t seem to make much sense. At least not in my head.

And it didn’t take long for us to find out something was wrong in that temple. In the end, we came across an altar with a really bizarre statue of a horned creature. It looked like some kind of demon. That’s what I thought the moment I saw it.

Tom and Ethan thought the same. The energy in that place felt heavy. I couldn’t explain it, but something was very wrong in that place.

Standing in front of the altar were Mary and Maison. Neither of them was moving. I found that pretty strange.

And then, the two of them dropped to the ground, dead. There was a huge hole in each of their chests, their hearts torn out.

Right after, a horned creature slowly emerged from the darkness of the temple, with a macabre smile, carrying two hearts in its hands, and devouring them right after.