CHAPTER 208: THE THING BENEATH THE LAKE

Even without sensing magic directly, the sheer pressure of the force was impossible to ignore, it could be felt in the bones.

Then they saw it.

The lake below began to churn violently, the surface bubbling and frothing.

Something massive was rising from its depths.

The surge of magic from Dominic’s earlier attack, the one that had pierced the rock wall, might have drawn it out.

He realized in an instant, it was coming straight for them.

"Shiao Yi!"

Calling out to him, Dominic drew his sword and leaped from the cave entrance. His body soared through the air as he swung the blade overhead.

A jet of water exploded upward from the lake and from it a long black mass extended toward him.

Dominic’s sword blazed with fire as he slashed through it in one sweeping arc, slicing off the creature’s tip.

As he fell, Shiao Yi caught him midair using telekinesis. X gently guiding his descent until Dominic landed safely on the grassy ground below.

The severed piece of the creature didn’t bleed.

Instead, it twisted, its form shifting grotesquely.

It had no arms, no legs, no face—just a formless, oily shape, like molten clay that refused to solidify.

But Dominic didn’t need eyes or logic to understand.

This thing is the enemy.

His instincts screamed it.

No matter how massive it was, no matter how hopelessly strong, he knew he had to fight.

If he didn’t, he and Shiao Yi would be devoured.

And that dark, writhing shape reaching from the lake was only a fraction of its true body.

The monster turned around, its tip pointing straight at them, at him and Shiao Yi.

It’s coming.

Dominic gritted his teeth, forcing courage into his veins.

He raised his sword high, the blade blazing once again and charged straight toward the creature.

....

What was that?

Something monstrous burst upward from the lake stretching high into the air.

The pressure from its power was crushing.

Shiao Yi could feel it vibrating through the ground and the air itself.

Dominic who is standing beside him was no doubt sensing the raw magic more clearly than he was.

Without hesitation, Dominic kicked off from the edge of the cave that was thirty meters above the ground and leapt straight into the open air while slashing at the creature as he fell.

Shiao Yi teleported to his side midair and caught him with telekinesis, which slowing his fall and gently setting him down on the ground.

Dominic hadn’t hesitated to jump directly, because he trusted Shiao Yi completely not to let him fall.

That trust hit Shiao Yi deeply, his commander had placed absolute faith in him.

What soldier wouldn’t be proud of that?

Their coordination was flawless.

But the monster didn’t seem affected at all.

It wasn’t like any normal living creature.

Its body looked like boiling slime, it’s thick, black and oozing, with a molten texture that shifted and flowed like half-cooled magma.

Yet it moved and pulsing with a disturbing vitality.

Was it thinking? Did it even have a mind? Or was it just a mass of living matter with no will of its own?

Looking at that black slimy shape made Shiao Yi think of enemies from his previous life, it was inhuman beings that had no faces, no familiar forms, no trace of understanding or emotion.

The creatures so alien that they couldn’t be reasoned with.

It was that same feeling, it was an overwhelming sense of wrongness, oozed from this slime.

A chill ran down his spine, his stomach tightening with instinctive fear.

Then Dominic charged straight toward it.

No! Shiao Yi’s mind screamed.

That thing wasn’t something you could cut down with a sword!

No matter how powerful Dominic’s magic was, this wasn’t an enemy he could defeat that way.

But there was no time to stop him.

The black slime twisted its body while stretching and reshaping surging toward Dominic like a living wave.

Acting on pure instinct, Shiao Yi extended his telekinetic force and froze the creature mid-motion.

The resistance was immense, its mass fought back against his power and he could feel it slipping already.

He wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.

He leapt forward, reaching Dominic’s side in a flash, wrapped an arm around his waist, and without hesitation teleported them both out of danger in a burst of motion.

They appeared high in the air, far from the ground below.

The moment they vanished, the massive black slime crashed down with a heavy wet sound onto the place where Dominic had just been standing.

If they’d stayed even a second longer, they would have been swallowed whole.

Shiao Yi stared at the thing below, a cold chill running down his spine.

The black slime still hid most of its true body beneath the lake while spreading its dark viscous mass outward across the ground.

The way it moved, sliding and stretching as if searching for prey reminded Shiao Yi not of a living organism but of thick molten magma that was consumed and burning everything it touched.

Dominic had his arm around Shiao Yi’s waist holding him steady.

He said nothing, his sharp eyes fixed silently on the monster below.

The black slime realizing that its prey had escaped, it lifted one part of its body like a head and waving it through the air as if probing its surroundings.

It didn’t seem to have eyes or anything that could function as sight.

Like many of the creatures and trees in this demon world, it must have been tracking magic energy instead.

Even from this distance, Shiao Yi wondered if they should move farther away.

However, before he could act, the black slime suddenly turned in another direction and lunged tretching its enormous form with surprising speed.

Shiao Yi followed its movement with his gaze and then saw what it was after.

A colossal snake had appeared on the other side of the plain.

Its scales were striped red and brown, its raised head the size of a large dog.