33: invading horror

Drawn by the sudden burst of light and Sunny's belligerent shouts, the Shell Demon appeared out of nowhere in a storm of fury. Its towering legs pierced the ashen sand, sending clouds of it into the air. Two scarlet eyes immediately focused on the screaming human, sending a nervous chill through Sunny's legs.

"Yes, right here, pile of scrap! Come and get it, fat lobster! This is my island now!" he yelled, pretending not to be terrified.

The demon charged at him. This giant was as tall as a house but still not tall enough to reach the branches of the great tree with its scythes. So, for the moment, Sunny was still safe.

He was quite sure this wouldn't last long, but it was enough time to make the plan a reality.

If it didn't fail...

Just as the Shell Demon was about to appear right below the branch where Sunny was standing, he took a deep breath, aimed, and threw both flasks to the ground.

The creature reacted at lightning speed, slicing both flasks into pieces with its horrible scythes.

However, it was to no avail: the oily liquids contained inside still fell in torrents over its shell, followed by scattered shards of clay.

If anything, it only made the impact surface larger, covering most of the demon's metallic shell with a layer of liquid.

The two components mixed, producing deadly corrosive oil, which then burned the lustrous armor. Everyone held their breath.

... However, the centipede monster oil, capable of destroying the unbreakable chitin of both scavengers and centurions, proved completely ineffective against the strange alloy covering the Shell Demon's body. It didn't leave a scratch.

Sunny's face darkened.

"That's..."

Nephis appeared silently by his side, raising an arm.

"...just as we expected."

Fortunately, they hadn't put much stock in the oil's corrosive properties to begin with.

They needed the oil for its other quality.

Its flammability.

Guided by the loud sounds produced by the huge monster, Nephis moved and threw the torch with a powerful arm swing. Whirling, the torch whistled through the air like a meteor and landed right in the middle of the demon's shell.

... In the next second, the giant creature was engulfed in flames.

The cohort didn't really expect the fire to harm the demon. They were sure the giant could withstand much more than simple heat.

But now, covered in burning oil, the Shell Demon glowed brightly in the dark night of the Forgotten Coast.

It had become a beacon of fire, calling all the monsters of the cursed dark sea to crawl out from their black depths.

...

The demon, as tall as a house, now ablaze and lighting up a vast expanse of the black ocean, looked at the seven sleepers who had dared to invade the tree.

Red eyes shone brighter than the firelight covering its enormous polished steel body, looking through the flames at Sunny and Nephis, who had set it on fire.

The demon understood what they wanted to do and threw itself to the ground, rolling in the ashen sand, trying to put out the flames covering it.

Suddenly, Jonathan and Nephis turned towards the dark surface of the sea. Their faces turned slightly pale. Sunny took a second to react, but almost instantly, he also felt a strange change in the world around them.

The rest of the cohort was a second slower before they also noticed this change and looked at the dark sea.

It was hard to describe in words. The whisper of the scarlet leaves suddenly felt quieter, and the sound of waves breaking against the shores of the ashen island grew louder.

It was as if an invisible pressure descended upon the world, making everything feel slightly different.

Then, the air grew colder, and a wall of thick fog appeared over the dark waters.

The Shell Demon had also noticed this change. It stopped trying to extinguish the flames and rose from the sand, with oil still burning on its shell. Without paying it any more attention, the demon turned towards the sea, a sense of grim resignation radiating from its stance.

Then, it was replaced by a dark resolve and frenzied bloodlust.

The fog moved slowly, creeping towards the island. Sunny felt a chill run down his spine as he realized it flowed against the wind. The sound of the waves was now muffled and altered, almost imperceptibly.

And there, in the fog, something moved. He could almost make out a figure.

It was... it was...

Suddenly, Cassie's small palm covered his eyes. With her voice trembling with tension, she whispered:

"Don't look. Whatever happens, don't open your eyes."

Everyone froze and obediently closed their eyes. A cold sense of fear enveloped their hearts. They had never heard the blind girl's voice sound like this, not even when she recalled her terrifying visions.

Cassie slowly withdrew her hand. Blinded, they could only rely on their hearing...

At least that's what they thought until the cold mist touched their skin. Then, in the muffled silence, they heard Cassie's voice again.

Only this time it was distorted and came from the wrong direction.

"Don't look... don't look... don't look..."

Sunny swallowed, feeling the hairs on his body stand up. The sound of the blind girl's distorted voice echoed in the fog, surrounding him from all sides. Instead of growing quieter, it was growing louder, overlapping itself.

"Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look!"

Then, it grew even louder and turned into a cacophony of screams, crashing into Sunny like a wave, sounding nothing like what human vocal cords could produce:

"DON'T LOOK, DON'T LOOK, DON'T LOOK, NO!!!"

...

On the other end of the branch, screams were heard everywhere. Jonathan didn't know what was happening; he believed that the fog's attack in the novel was a mental attack, thinking he could withstand it without issue. Oh, how wrong he was!

"OPEN YOUR EYES, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!" The voice Jonathan heard was blurry and distorted, but he could recognize that voice. It was a voice he hadn't heard in what felt like decades.

It was the voice of his mother, his father, his family. He had no idea why his family's voice was in this place, sounding now when an unknown creature attacked him.

He was supposed to be immune to mental attacks below the divine rank. So why was his family's voice here? Why was his family's voice shouting at him to look at them? He was confused and doubtful.

He really hesitated to keep his eyes closed. Despite knowing well that this could be just an illusion created by some horror to kill him, he also believed that everything that happened could well be a dream.

A damned dream, or perhaps a coma after the pain he felt before appearing in this world, and now his mother was shouting for him to look at her, to see her perhaps in her last moments of life.

He opened his eyes, with the childish hope of a boy who had lost in just a few months. He opened his eyes hoping to see his mother's face, which he hadn't seen in months but still remembered vividly and clearly in his mind.

When he opened his eyes, what he saw left him horrified.

Not by what he saw in the fog, nor because he didn't see his mother, friends, or even a monster of horror. At least, not yet.

What he saw was his soul sea, that place filled with a mist that covered everything and where his soul, made of ethereal threads hanging in its dark sky, resided.

Countless threads hung from the dark sky of his soul; some had scavengers hanging, others had centipedes, one had a centurion, and others had more monsters he himself had killed.

But what horrified him even more was in the black sky.

Above his head, Jonathan could see a crack forming in the dark sky of his soul.

And from that crack, the form of a being of horrors was peeking, trying to devour him from his soul.

Jonathan felt a despair that a boy from his world should never experience. He felt powerless, searching his knowledge for anything that might help, no matter how minimal the help.

He only watched helplessly as that horrendous being entered his soul.

Its appearance was like a being born from the deepest nightmares, an amalgamation of shapes and appearances that defy logic and reason. This monster moved as if floating and crawling at the same time, leaving a trail of viscous darkness in its wake. Its body was a shapeless mass of twisted flesh, covered in scars and lacerations.

On its surface, eyes of different sizes and colors could be seen, blinking and moving in a disjointed manner. These eyes seemed to belong to different creatures, some human, some beastly, and some inhuman, glowing with an infernal light.

Its face was a mix of muzzles with sharp teeth and jaws that opened at impossible angles. From its mouth, tentacles covered in suckers and spines emerged, seeking in all directions from its prey's soul.

He almost lost consciousness just seeing its horrendous appearance.

But, surprisingly, something in his soul moved.

It was a subtle change, but he felt it.

It was the same feeling he had when he controlled another being's soul.

That power over the soul that gave him total control over a being, he could feel it from his own soul.

Clinging to this sensation in search of some unknown power, he began to grasp this feeling.

Around him, in his soul sea, things changed.

The threads, once gently swaying, now tightened with extreme force. The mist of his soul began to boil and became thicker.

His soul, the core of countless threads, began to separate part of itself and move.

The mist, the threads hanging from his dark sky, and the threads of his own soul's

Jonathan was controlling his own soul.