Chapter 70: Mysterious Stranger
He readied himself as it stomped towards him, though Florentine’s hammer found its way to the beast’s head. A smack from behind sent chunks of its skull flying, though the savage creature lashed out, swiping at the warrior as she was sent flying back.
"Watch out!" Gael shouted, moving in.
Matteo intercepted the man-shark first, flinging a handful of small, red runes that exploded against its body. It served only to momentarily concuss it as Gael closed in, piercing its chest with the dagger.
The moment the blade was plunged into its body, he felt zero feedback; no warmth, no pulse–only emptiness.
’Shit,’ he thought, withdrawing the dagger.
At the same moment he drew it out, he ducked down as the shark’s jaws snapped right over his head. Dismissing the dagger, he instead summoned the scythe into hand, feeling a much larger edge as needed.
With reckless abandon, the mutilated brute moved with its head first, parting its hungering jaws as it mindlessly sought something to crunch between them–
Maximizing his arms, he swung the weapon of the reaper, guiding the crescent steel through the undead one’s nostril. Straight down the middle, the scythe split its face, carving right through it as it met him halfway in its lunge.
It practically did half the work for him, walking forward as it tried reaching him, only to be split by the scythe as it collapsed into two halves. As he stood there, looking at the now lifeless parts of the man-shark as his curved blade dripped with its foul blood, the smell of it besmirched his nose.
[EXP: +3000] [7100/12500]
"Didn’t know if it’d ever go down," Matteo commented, straightening his belt of trinkets.
Florentine picked herself up from the cracked wall of stone neighboring the deathly cobblestone, groaning, "...Damn thing hit harder than I would’ve thought. What was up with that guy?"
He cast the scythe away, looking at the mess left of the zombified brute on the street before looking to the others, "This is worse than I thought. These things are damn strong–stronger than the ones on the island. It seems like destroying the brain worked though."
"Peculiar," Matteo remarked, kneeling by the destroyed undead, poking at the flaps of flesh. "If this creature truly is the "living" dead, decayed as it was, I wonder how it’s possible it still presented such vigor."
"Think the cause is more magical rather than just a physical disease?" Gael asked the curious adventurer.
"Seeing as it surpasses the logic of anatomy, I’d venture to guess it borders more in the realm of magic," Matteo answered, digging around the bisected fish-man. "--Oh, look here–interesting."
Though he hardly wanted to get a closer view of the repulsive innards of the repugnant creature, Gael squatted to get a look. Where Matteo peeled back a fold of skin, black threads pulsated within the bloodied flesh, moving like tendrils of a parasite.
"Yuck...What is that?" Florentine asked, leaning over.
As they all observed the enigmatic, black mass burrowed within the man-shark’s chest, it suddenly lashed out, grabbing onto Matteo’s finger.
"Woah–" Gael watched.
The man in glasses immediately slapped it off his hand, tossing the parasite to the ground. It crawled on the cobblestone with its countless tendrils like a twitching insect.
Gael stood up, not wasting a moment to squish it beneath his boot, "--There."
"Oh, I was going to analyze it some more, but...Probably not a bad call," Matteo said, adjusting his glasses.
As he lifted his boot, scraping the black gunk off from the bottom, he watched the squashed parasite split into five different chunks, crawling away, "What the–?"
"Would you look at that...Intriguing," Matteo watched as well.
"More like disgusting," Florentine added.
Gael looked around the broken street, finding nothing but the toppled carriages and remnants of the undead carnage left on the cobblestone, "Yet another thing to watch out for."
"That’s what we’re here for," Matteo said. "At the very least, more pairs of eyes."
It wasn’t difficult to understand just what the curious adventurer was implying as Gael looked at him, glancing over to see Florentine with an agreeing expression.
"If I let you two go on your own, you’ll make sure to dematerialize if things go south, right?" Gael asked.
"’Course!" Florentine assured.
Matteo tapped his own head, "I’m not in the business of dying in the jaws of one of these undead fish, so I’ll have to agree."
"Find out what you can about what’s going on down here. Same thing if you find anybody from Mastorn–I wouldn’t try fighting them. Just report back," Gael advised.
"Got it," Matteo said with a casual salute.
It was a somewhat concerning concept to let the two off on their own in the dangerous territory of Atlantis, but he felt it was a risk he needed to trust them with. At the very least, he still had the capybara with him as Pucha rode on his shoulder.
"Let’s get moving," he quietly remarked, tapping the brown-furred creature’s head as he traversed the cobblestone path.
As he found his way into the depths of the subaquatic cityscape, overlooked by bridges of seastone and bubbles that glistened in the air, the presence of the scenery took hold. Even in the world he found himself in, it felt as if he stepped into another, farther away.
It wasn’t hard to tell by the empty stands with toppled over, foreign fruit, shops ransacked with broken pottery, that it was once a flourishing place. He entered the closest establishment, passing the shattered panes of cerulean glass, finding shelves of shells, each unique in appearance.
’I wonder how long it’s been like this. It can’t have been that long, but...it’s just so eerily quiet. Is there anybody even left alive from Atlantis?’ He questioned.
As he gazed up at a shelf of colorful seashells, the crunching of glass immediately forced him to turn around, calling his dagger into his hand–
"Woah, woah–I’m not here to take a bite out of ya, promise."
He found a young man standing in the shattered doorway of the shop, similar in age to himself with curly, silver hair and baby-blue eyes. It was peculiar enough seeing another person in the city beneath the surface, bringing him to gauge his appearance–
There was no sight of a Venator’s uniform; the stranger wore a torn, white shirt with his torso heavily bandaged as blood stained the area around his right side.
"Are you from Mastorn?" Gael immediately asked, not lowering his weapon.
"Ah, yeah–just a basic soldier, y’know...cannon fodder sent on this suicide mission," the young man answered with a wry chuckle, grabbing his own side with a wince. "I’m Elijah, by the way."