Chapter 1533: The Water Level
The elevator doors opened up to reveal what was basically an indoor water theme park.
Hmm... So it’s the water level next I see.
Also... Ironically... Vastraea thought she needed an entire army to deal with this place. I’m assuming that she thought that way because of... What did she call it? The death and despair she felt when she was trying to sense this place?
I guess because of the ’death and despair’ feeling she got, she probably thought there were a lot of monsters or something that required culling.
But the death and despair really just came from people who might have wandered into this place and could not escape... And who knows how many victims have been claimed here?
I’m more surprised that this place is actually real and not a work of fiction, to be honest...
And right now, I’m regretting not calling my girls for this since I’m sure they would have had a blast here.
I’m also suspecting that to close this place, I have to complete all the levels before the rift could be closed. At least I hope that is the case.
Anyway... This is the water level...
The walls around were white tiles with black lines running through them and right in front of me was a narrow corridor that led to a room with a circular pool of water in the middle.
I stepped to the edge of the pool, looking in to see if it led anywhere but it was just a kiddy splash pool where I could see the bottom of the pool easily.
I turned my gaze to the rest of the room where there were two other exits that I could leave from, both of them having the sound of water splashing echoing from within.
Once again, I didn’t really have a specific destination in mind so I just randomly picked one of the corridors and started walking.
The corridor was a short one as it ended at a flight of stairs that went down a few steps into the waterlogged room.
The water level only reached up to ankle height which wasn’t really a problem for me since I was wearing heeled boots anyway. At least the water was warm.
The sound of the water splashing came from a giant pipe to my right that was dumping water into the pool, but even though there didn’t seem to be a drainage system, the water level remained static.
And aside from the waves made from the splashing, the water was not flowing anywhere either so it literally made no sense for the water to remain still.
I moved through the water, my footsteps creating waves in the pool that disturbed the parts of the pool not already affected by the water splashing down.
I followed the corridor, trudging through the shallow water and looking for a way out while the sounds of the water splashing drowned out any other sound I could hear.
The room was somehow still lit up despite the fact that there weren’t any visible light sources around, which would have been odd if it weren’t for the fact that this entire place was odd.
There were pillars also scattered intermittently throughout the room and I had to move in between them to continue forward, though it wasn’t like I knew where this place led to anyway.
But the further I walked, I noticed that the room was getting darker and darker, though it wasn’t like the darkness affected me anyway so I just kept going.
The sound of the splashing water soon disappeared and the only sound I could hear was the soft swishing from the water beneath my feet as I trudged through them.
Then, right as the darkness seemed to swallow up the entire room, I spotted a peep of light coming from behind a pillar and I stopped to peek around it.
In the distance was another corridor which seemed to lead somewhere else so I went ahead to change my direction to start walking there instead.
But as I got closer to the light, I saw something slide out from the shadows of a pillar, gliding in the water like they were sliding along on wheels.
I stopped in my tracks, watching as I realised that ’something’ was some kind of snake... Only that instead of a snake head, the head was of an old man with disturbingly big eyes that seemed to pop out of its skull.
𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
Not only that, it had a rather disconcerting smile as it slithered its way straight towards me, its large eyes locked onto mine as it slithered through the darkness.
I tilted my head at it, "What the heck are you going to do? Bite me?"
Despite having a human looking... Well... Close to human looking face, it did not say anything and just continued slithering towards me with that disconcerting smile stuck to its face.
I continued walking towards the lighted up corridor, just to see if it would follow me and sure enough, the snake creature altered its path to follow me.
I didn’t slow down and just continued to wade through the pool, acting as though that creature was just some random thing that was just passing by.
When it reached me, it really seemed like I was right that it wanted to bite me because it reared up its head and opened its jaws impossibly wide, as though preparing to swallow me up whole.
I shifted my egg to hold it in one hand to free my other hand, pulling it back into a fist right as the snake creature came down to try and bite me.
I swung my first and smashed it against the side of its face, sending the entire creature flying towards a pillar and smashing into it.
The entire pillar broke apart into pieces and the creature continued flying, smashing and breaking at least three more pillars before it landed back into the water.
I strolled over to it, the creature rolling back upright and making angry hissing noises before it turned back to me.
It was obviously pissed off so it charged straight at me, gliding through the water and leaving waves in its wake as it moved.
Oh? You’re still approaching me? Even after I punched you through those pillars, you’re not running away and instead still choosing to come closer to me?
Well then, since you’re so brave, come as close as you like!
It reared up and tried to bite me again so I did the same thing where I punched it across the face, sending it flying in the direction of the lit up corridor and smashing against the wall.
I guess the second time was the charm as it did not try to come back and attack me again but rather, it tried to slither its way towards the lit up corridor instead.
Oh? Now you’re trying to run away? No, no, no. What do you think this is? A hotel that you can come and go as you pleased?
I went up to its tail and stepped on the end of the tail, watching as the snake creature jerked as it realised it could not go any further.
It strained against my heel but no matter how hard it tugged, it was not able to free itself at all.
It tried for a while more before it turned back, the smiling face now gone to be replaced with a look of fear instead.
Huh... I honestly thought that it couldn’t change its expression at all but apparently it can.
Now it was my turn to smile at it, "Where are you going? Trying to run? Maybe you were thinking of leading me to the exit? You are, aren’t you?"
I’m not sure if it understood me but it remained staring at me instead of trying to continue running away.
That was when I realised it wasn’t looking at me but at something behind me instead.
I turned around, right as I saw a shadowy, humanoid figure sprint out from the darkness to charge towards me.
It let out an ear piercing shriek as it charged towards me, its arms flailing around as it ran which, I suppose, would have been terrifying to a normal person who is seeing that creature run towards them.
But unfortunately for it, it really looked quite hilarious to me.
Just like the snake creature, I waited for it to get close before I lifted up my foot and gave it a good kick in the abdomen, sending it flying all the way back to the other end of the room and crashing into the wall so hard that it shook the entire room, the surface of the water rippling from the shockwave.
The snake creature had taken advantage of the fact that I had lifted up my foot and freed it that it immediately slithered away as quickly as it could.
Oh? Now you’re really running off? No, no, no... Come back here. You don’t get to run away now~