Heir Of The Supreme
Chapter 58: Underground Odyssey (3)

Chapter 58: Underground Odyssey (3)

"That is... Exactly what I am."

Cecelia narrowed her eyes with a mixture of anger and annoyance.

"Are you taking me for a fool?"

"..."

"I guess it’s true what the rumours say... You really do look down on everyone around you!"

Cecelia’s lips curved into a scowl.

"Being as gifted as you are, you must also look down on me. You claim to have done this for the mission, but in truth... It was just to satiate your own ego, wasn’t it?"

"..."

"...You won’t even deny it."

Cecelia shoved the bucket of water back at Blaine.

"If the only reason you went so far as to protect me... Was so that you could enjoy some fantasy of saving a ’damsel in distress’, you might as well leave me. I would much rather die."

Without waiting for a response, Cecelia angrily turned away from Blaine.

Too full of rage, Cecelia no longer had any desire to keep up her one-sided conversation with the auburn-haired youth.

Just the sight of his irritatingly handsome face was enough to make her blood boil.

On the other hand, Blaine silently looked at her before deciding to step away and give her some personal space.

Bringing the water bucket to his lips, he took some sips of water, feeling the cool moisture seep down his throat.

Drinking his fill, Blaine was about to put the bucket on the ground, but something caught his eye, causing him to stop midway through.

Blaine could see his reflection staring aimlessly back at him on the water’s surface, but it wasn’t alone.

Right next to it, there was a rotting corpse with hallowed-out eyes.

Blaine’s lips curved into a slight frown.

Placing down the water bucket, Blaine turned to greet the ghastly apparition.

Studying the corpse, he soon recognized it as none other than Rick.

"...Why not... Just leave her?" The figure asked, "she... Will die... Soon enough... Anyways..."

Blaine pursed his lips slightly.

Not finished with his speech, Rick continued:

"If you... Believe you can... Protect her...Just look at...Me... Your mission... Will fail... You might... As well... Give up... Now..."

The figure’s words caused Blaine to have a feeling of déjà vu for some reason as if he had heard something similar not long ago, but he couldn’t remember.

Seeing Blaine’s expression, the figure’s smile grew.

"That’s right... You ♒︎♋︎❖︎♏︎ ♒︎♏︎♋︎❒︎♎︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♌︎♏︎♐︎□︎❒︎♏︎. Back when ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♑︎♋︎❖︎♏︎ ♓︎■︎ ⧫︎□︎ ♍︎♒︎♋︎□︎⬧︎..."

Blaine narrowed his eyes as he heard the corpse’s ’words.’

He could see the figure’s mouth move and hear it make noises, but his brain refused to assign them any meaning.

Even trying to read the corpse’s mouth didn’t work.

Perplexed by Blaine’s reaction, Rick’s rotting lips curved into a frown.

Just as he was about to say something else... the figure stopped himself. Instead, it focused his eyes on Blaine’s body as if trying to burn a hole straight through the youth with his cold eyeless sockets.

Its gaze scanned Blaine’s Mana Core before focusing on a small ash-grey speck and the black one beside it.

Even now, the black speck was suppressing the grey speck, like a muzzle on a rabid dog.

The figure’s frown worsened.

"It seems... It is not... Yet time... However... The seal... Won’t hold on... Forever..."

Puzzled by the corpse’s cryptic words, Blaine stared at it in confusion.

This was the first time he’d ever heard one of ’them’ talk like this.

Usually, they would only say things to break him mentally, but this time, it was different.

The figure seemed more fixated on some kind of ’seal.’

Just as Blaine debated asking the figure for information, the figure seemingly vanished into thin air just as he blinked his eyes.

While the figure disappeared just as enigmatically as it had appeared in the first place, Blaine was more than sure that it or one of its ’companions’ would pay him another visit sooner rather than later.

They never seemed to leave him alone after all.

***

After their ’dispute,’ the two of them sat separately.

Or it would be more accurate to say that Cecelia sat alone while Blaine gave her distance and sat by the river’s edge.

While neither of them said a word to each other, they both knew that their current situation was precarious.

After all, neither of them had eaten a bite in a while.

If they kept this on... They would be far too weak to escape.

They needed to start looking for something to eat.

With the exception of the bioluminescent moss that decorated the walls and ceiling, and the tree roots from the jungle above, there wasn’t any other source of vegetation nearby.

If the worst had happened, eating the moss would have been an option, but this specific breed of moss was toxic for humans to consume.

Doing that would just hasten their end.

However, travelling away from the stream was too dangerous.

Without the sound buffer, it would be extremely hard to kill their prey without accidentally alerting the creature that hid in the dark.

They needed to somehow find something to eat while staying near the river.

As such, Blaine’s best bet was to somehow fish for something to eat, and it just so happened that he was pretty proficient in fishing.

Which was precisely what he was doing at the moment.

Having fastened a fishing rod using his Mana Art, Blaine was sitting next to the river’s edge, staring at the flowing water.

The area they picked out for their camp was where the water flow wasn’t nearly as strong as the place they had initially woken up at, so fishing here was still somewhat possible.

However, there was still one glaring issue.

Blaine’s mana reserves.

In order to fish, he needed a fishing rod, and without a proper one, he had to craft it using his mana.

It rapidly burned through his mana to keep his fishing rod materialized, creating a serious problem.

He’d only been at it for about 10 minutes but was already halfway through his total capacity.

Blaine had cut several sections of tree roots to give them a chance to dry before being used as makeshift firewood, but trying to carve a fishing rod out of them was far too tedious and timeconsuming of a task.

As Blaine began thinking about finding alternative methods to collect food, he suddenly felt his line grow taut.

He finally had a bite!

As he tried to fish it out, he soon realized that pulling his rod required considerable strength.

Realizing the implication of this, Blaine hastily tried to dismiss his fishing rod.

However, it was already too late by then.

As Blaine’s fishing rod began to dematerialize, a long ash-grey dorsal fin poked its way out of the water, soon followed by the rest of its body.

Blaine’s expression tensed as he quickly distanced himself from the riverside.

Arming himself with daggers, he stood between the oncoming creature and Cecelia.

With more of the creature’s body surfacing above the water, Blaine saw a nine-eyed creature with bat-like ears and a mouth full of numerous rows of razor-sharp teeth.

It seems that the ’fish’ he hooked was actually an Unknown.

A familiar one at that.