"What is this thing?" Was the only question on Mr. Valen's mind at the moment, one without an answer that would satiate him.
Quickly making a decision, Mr. Valen stepped back, his sudden movement causing a splash in the water.
'It can't hurt me as long as I'm watching—' Mr. Valen thought but his thoughts were forced down his throat as the thing moved, shattering the laws it seemed to have established.
It was not a subtle movement, either; rather, it was a sudden step at full speed.
Upon seeing this, Mr. Valen felt a jolt rush through his system and commanded his body to run.
Both moved in a flash at speeds impossible for any ordinary human to muster, but in his fear, Mr. Valen did not realize this.
As he pushed his leg against the ground, his eyes took one good look at the grinning abomination that was already upon him, then he twisted his form and stepped on the ground with so much force that the knee-level blackwater gave way propelling him forward.
For the first time in his life, Mr. Valen's body reacted before his mind could—
"Whoosh!"
The chase had begun, with each of Mr. Valen's steps dividing the water—his legs touching the ground in quick succession.
But the thing was not slow either, unlike the human, it seemed to glide forward like a shadow unbounded by physics, having no need to use force to tear the water.
Both ran for miles, with neither letting up, Mr. Valen did not care where his feet carried him, only that it was away from the creature.
Up ahead, he saw an elevated landscape that was too high for him to scale without getting caught.
It was a dead end, but then he spotted a cave entrance and threw caution to the wind, the thing following after him.
The cave's tunnel was dark and pitch black, but his eyes quickly adjusted with a small glow, and he was able to see with the help of some glowing fungi.
Through the jagged corridors of the caves, down pitch-dark tunnels that smelled of mold and rot, Mr. Valen exhibited impressive acrobatics.
But the thing was still upon him, a quick look behind him confirmed that, but just when he felt his energy reserves start to wane, the ground vanished beneath him.
He had taken the wrong step.
"Ahh," a scream tore from Mr. Valen's throat as he plunged into a hole of freezing black water, smashing through what felt like a thick, sludgy waterway that sucked him, leaving no room for thought.
It was freezing, like a thousand needles biting at his skin, causing an intense—involuntary tremor to wash over him.
The water tasted like death, thick and oily, clinging to his skin like it wanted inside, and in a moment, even though he could not see, he felt himself shot into a humongous body of water, where he was still sinking deeper and deeper.
At the bottom of this vast body of water was a small bead of light that gave him an overwhelmingly bad feeling, so Mr. Valen decided to swim in the opposite direction into the pitch black darkness.
He swam for an unknown amount of time, and when he looked up or down, he saw that the light was growing closer.
Fortunately, as he lifted his hand again, he felt air, gasping as he broke the surface.
'I-i survived,' Mr. Valen thought, release in his breath as he observed his surroundings—but the moment was short-lived.
Something massive shifted beneath him, and all it took was the time of a single blink.
After that, pain exploded through his leg as he felt it.
That thing.
Something with jagged, barnacle-covered jaws had bitten through his flesh like paper.
His blood clouded the water, dark and spreading fast, practically unnoticeable with the water's natural color.
He thrashed, kicked, screamed—but the creature was gone, leaving only agony and the sudden, nauseating weightlessness where his left leg used to be.
His exhaustion grew.
In a moment, his exhaustion overcame his pain, so Mr. Valen floated, barely conscious, sinking beneath the ink-black surface.
And then the hunger surged—no, it had always been there, growing each time he healed, each moment he survived.
And now it has grown almost unbearable.
His vision pulsed black, his stomach convulsed and a strange, new feeling stirred inside him.
By now, he had drifted towards some semblance of land, so he dragged himself upon it, his leg already twitching, bone splitting and regrowing in slow, painful bursts.
His body was repairing itself, but at the cost of a detestable feeling of hunger, one that disoriented him.
By now, his leg had fully healed, so he got to his feet and looked around, noting that his vision was obscured by thick mist.
The ground was rocky though, he could see that and figured that—
"Argh," Mr. Valen grunted as intense thought reawakened the pain of his injury.
Additionally, he felt his vision falter, the green of his eyes darkening slightly.
It was then that he heard a splash in the water behind him so he turned around, watching as a certain familiar figure arose from it, crawling onto shore.
Upon registering this figure, he became sure of it. It had returned, the bone-white monster.
The one that moved when it shouldn't, the one he had left behind—begging the question of how it had managed to even follow Mr. Valen.
Like the creature it was, it crept toward him from the mist, limbs rattling, its skull's smile wider than before.
But oddly enough, when Mr. Valen looked at it, a single thought driven by instincts overwhelmed him. 'It looks delicious."
He was not thinking about the beast itself, rather, as the green in his eyes dimmed even more, he saw them:
Strands.
Milky white threads swirling around the monster's body like spider silk in the wind, all leading inward, pulled taut toward a glowing, twitching core in its chest.
That core captivated him, making him unaware when the beast moved like a phantom, striking him with its blade-like limb.
"Crack!"
Mr. Valen caught the blade with his bare hand, and of course, the blade sank into his skin, but was stopped by sturdy bone.
"Shit," a curse escaped Mr. Valen's lips as his muscles trembled; he had not acted on purpose. Rather, his actions had been fueled by instincts.
Instincts that led him to discover something that had eluded him: he was physically stronger than whatever this thing was.
"Whooh!"
The thing struck its second limb, but once again, Mr. Valen caught it, wincing in pain as the blade cut into his flesh as well.
The creature, taken aback by this, tried to pull back with a crackling sound, its legs scratching the rocky earth, but its captor was unmoving.
Now holding the two limbs, Mr. Valen bent them until they cracked, and as his hunger intensified, he pulled the beast towards him, lunging forward at the same time.
In that moment, his teeth sank into the thing's exposed spine, past the bone, past the rot, deep into the invisible thread pulsing with unnatural light.
Of course, the thing resisted. It spasmed violently, thrashed even, but the moment Valen's teeth came in contact with that thread, the beast became paralyzed.
He fed, and as he did, the glow of that core dimmed slightly while the deep cuts on his palm healed slowly, until the core dimmed entirely.
The monster fell to the ground with a crackling thud and after that, Mr. Valen stepped back, his form still, his eyes widened in shock.
'This taste,' he thought, smacking his lips. It was the beast thing he'd ever tasted, it tasted like warm milk, like grilled steak, like heavily broth, like everything and nothing he'd had before.
If he imagined it, the taste could be anything he wanted it to be.
As though realizing something Mr. Valen shook his head taking a shaky gulp.
His immediate trouble had been resolved, and his fear was giving him a break, but the world wasn't.
He had an ominous feeling and sure enough—
"Croak!"
The ground beneath him cracked with a sudden snap, folding open, revealing a black ichor-filled maw with thousands of rotating teeth.
Fortunately, he leapt and landed safely dodging it in the nick of time, but the ground he landed on opened again, forcing Mr. Valen to repeat the process and for a while, he was constantly moving.
Ducking, jumping, slipping past the death traps with inhuman reflex, his body alive with something new.
Step. Open. Dodge.
Step. Crack. Leap.
The zone tried to consume him, again and again, but he always managed to slip through.
This went on until he had managed to exit the area, the ground beneath him transitioning from stone to black soil—miles upon miles of it.
He had escaped, for now, so he took a breath, letting the bad feeling pass before he moved on.
'My god, did I just do all that?' Mr. Valen thought as he let out a breath, noting that the restriction on his intelligence was hindering his ability to dull his emotions.
At the moment he felt as excited as any man would be, having this kind of power at their grasp.
Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he saw something pop out of the soil, and for a moment, he thought it was a threat, but that feeling quickly disappeared when he observed the thing in its entirety.
It looked like a...
In fact, he didn't quite know what to make of it, it looked like a blob of fur?
It was indeed a blob of black fur, and despite the black rain that continuously fell, it managed to maintain a lush and fluffy appearance.