Gacha System: Reborn In The Hardest World
Chapter 68: Atlantis’ Truth

Chapter 68: Atlantis’ Truth

"This is Atlantis?" Gael remarked.

It truly felt like staring at the manifestation of childhood wonder, though that colorful glee was quickly washed away—

The sight of a serpentine creature of the depths swimming through the air made his stomach sink. Chunks were removed from its flesh, with its bones exposed while it swam.

"What...is that?" Gael asked quietly, watching through the window.

From the mouth of the serpentine colossus, the remnants of chewed up bodies hung, with blood dripping.

"A leviathan," Matteo answered. "—One that has rejected death, as that whale warned us."

It was the sighting of the undead colossus that the state of the mystical city became clear—crumbled buildings, tiled roads stained in blood, and a hollow atmosphere.

"Damn...It’s completely gone to hell," Gael observed before looking at the others. "You two...You can still observe things around me while not manifested, right?"

Florentine folded her arms in thought, "Yeah, kinda. Why?"

"It’ll be better if I scope out the area by myself. I can move pretty much undetected. You two though..." Gael said.

"Gotcha. You want us to stay ready though," Matteo acknowledged.

"Yeah. Thanks," Gael dismissed.

Placing his familiars quietly into their astral forms, he left the room, exploring the quiet home of the mythical city. To his surprise, there was furniture like that of a normal home; a verdant sofa, a chalky floor, but peculiar decorations.

Seashells were displayed on the wall, along with paintings of scenes in the sea.

’They live like normal people, or...they did,’ he thought.

As he looked around the living quarters, an aggressive footstep instantly made him withdraw into the unseen. Right as he turned invisible, the front door was torn off its hinges as in came a hulking shark-man.

"Gruuu..." It slowly growled as its gills twitched.

It was practically painted in blood, missing the left side of its face as it somehow walked without a part of its brain. The frame of the hunched-over, undead fish-man barely fit through the door as it squeezed its shoulders through before stomping its way in.

Gael remained close to the walls, holding his dagger in his hand as he stayed out of sight. As he watched it, he found himself repulsed by its death-defying body.

’It can’t see me...It’s smelling the area though—I hope it can’t smell me,’ he thought, keeping his dagger ready.

Each step it took slammed against the tiles with squelches of its rotten flesh sticking to the ground. Different from the previous he encountered, the shark-man had a larger build, hardly fitting underneath the ceiling of the abandoned home.

’I’d like to avoid conflict, if possible,’ he thought.

The rotten savage sniffed around, slapping the furniture as it casually flipped the sofa over. He quietly maneuvered past it as it searched the room, slipping through the cracked doorway.

As soon as he left, the scenery of the Atlantis roads greeted him; carriages abandoned, toppled over and stained with blood. The stench was awful; a war commuted to his nostrils—decaying flesh, of meat and fish alike.

"Ghh—"

He covered his mouth, ducking his body against a toppled carriage as he relinquished his invisibility. As he fought to regain his breath, the sounds of gnashing teeth creeped from the alleyway directly ahead.

No part of him felt like investigating the noise, turning his attention towards the structure at the city’s heart—

A towering castle built of glistening sea-stone, with multiple towers shaped like tridents that reached near the boundaries of the sub-aquatic barrier.

’That’s the castle. No doubt about it,’ he realized.

Following the bloodied road, overlooked by ransacked homes, it was oddly quiet in the area. He questioned if there was anybody left alive, or if it was truly a graveyard for the undead.

Looking above at the sky of water, he could make out marine life that swam outside of the barrier. While observing, the air flexed, finding a shadow casting over him—

He quickly slipped back into invisibility upon realizing what the shadow originated from. As he moved towards one of the pale-white, oval homes, he watched the undead leviathan swim in the air just above him.

It slithered its enormous body over the lifeless houses, emitting a hiss-like sound as it moved. The sheer scale of the creature felt impossible to fight; a roaming disaster.

He didn’t so much as breathe as it traverses the area above, only gasping out as it made it away.

’If this is a zombie outbreak scenario, then the question is if it also spreads to humans. That whale said Mastorn already got inside this city, too...This could get ugly,’ he thought, watching the leviathan roam into the distant bounds of the cityscape.

Though his sights were set on the castle, his stomach dropped as he watched the colossal, undead creature wrap around one of the exuberant towers. It rested there, ever watchful with its hollow eyes of obsidian.

"Shit," he mumbled.

It wasn’t just the one; multiple of the impossibly vast creatures of the depths floated around the pearlescent castle. He kept himself tucked against the wall of the home, watching the structure from afar.

’At the very least. I don’t think anybody from Mastorn is in there yet. If they were, I doubt those things would be so relaxed—they seem to be guarding the castle,’ he observed.

There was no way of telling when he could expect the others to arrive as well, though trying to figure that out would only lead to a headache. If it was something he could handle by himself in a manner of time, it was the best route in his mind.

As he followed the deathly roads, paved of blood and stone, the fallen bodies of those that dwelled in Atlantis only became more frequent. To his surprise, not all resembled fish-men, but normal humans that wore white robes, left with clear wounds marked of vicious teeth.

He knelt down, looking at one of the bodies of a middle-aged man missing his own heart; a saddening, concerning sight.

’Just what the hell is going on down here? This world in general–it’s not right,’ he thought.