As they were coming closer to the gate, they could see some blurry silhouettes through the gate, most likely the harvest Gerald spoke off.
But suddenly kai groaned and stumbled, he felt weakness creeping inside him, as he was struggling to stand.
"What happened...?"
Kai witnessed the most creepy thing, the semi-circular metal object with a horizontal seam, latched onto his hand and suddenly opened up from the middle.
What looked like a singular big eye was staring at him without blinking from the back of his hand.
"T-This was a creature all along, I thought it to be a device like a key for this spaceship..." Kai said with a hint of dread.
"Fuck!, get off me you leech"
Then he turned to the wall and struck the back of his hand repeatedly onto the wall in an attempt to kill this...creepy creature.
Gerald and Fred saw Kai repeatedly banging his hand on the wall and were puzzled.
"What happened Kai?"
"Remember the device stuck on my hand!, it's not a device at all but a fucking creature and it's sucking me dry right this moment!" Kai yelled frantically.
Gerald and Fred were horrified by this discovery and came rushing towards him.
"Kai, give me your dagger," Fred said as soon he came near him.
Kai did so without hesitation
"Also, Gerald hold him tightly"
When Fred saw Kai's pale body as if all his blood was being sucked out, he hurried in his attempt to kill the creature.
Fred put the dagger beneath the creature and started pulling it out and with that, Kai screamed miserably.
"Aghhh!!"
"Hold on just for a second!" Gerald consoled him.
"What do you think I am doing!!"
Still, he clenched his teeth and stopped screaming after a snarky remark to Gerald.
And after a long arduous ten seconds, Fred successfully pried out the creature from his hand and it fell to the ground.
Kai suddenly felt as if a huge burden has been lifted off him but after this inexplicable feeling of weightlessness, he felt unsteady.
But still, he forced himself and looked at the creature on the ground, it was trying to tilt itself to its feet, but he also something else at its feet.
...There were thin vein-like tendrils branching off its feet and now he knew how it was sucking his blood and also feeling dread.
"...Damned leech was trying to parasitize me!" Kai felt chills coursing his veins at the thought that he was this close to being a mindless puppet.
He looked at himself and was scared to see his whole body deathly pale.
Suddenly he felt a never before seen anger for the leech for giving him the most horrific pain he had experienced in his life and a brush against death.
He looked towards Gerald and said with suppressed anger "Give me your longsword"
Gerald looked at him worried and took out the sword from its sheath and said "Here take it, but its..."
"Just give it to me " Kai interrupted Gerald and snatched it from him and nearly lost balance because it was so heavy.
"...Heavy, because I used strength type Ichor, so it's specifically made for me..." Gerald finished and looked at him with embarrassment.
Kai glared at Gerald, but he knew deep down that this was his own fault for being too impulsive.
However wobbly he was with the heavy longsword, he did not drop it but instead used its momentum to impale the one-eyed each and killed it.
It spat out disgusting fluids mixed with blood when killed on the ground and it caused the ground to emit smoke.
"That's why I didn't do that when it was on your hand, you never know, how these creatures differ from each other and their bodies react" Fred smiled slightly.
But just as he was unsure of why the Psion did not announce his kill, it said:
[Killed Ruinic Lifesucker]
He was disappointed at not receiving anything despite being on the verge of death from, but he knew that not every effort was awarded and he was already very lucky for surviving this.
"Ughhh... These godforsaken ruins will be the end of me" Kai sighed.
Gerald came forward and took his sword back without saying anything and then helped him stand steadily.
"Thanks, Gerald" Finally freed from the heavy sword, Kai thanked Gerald for helping him stand up.
While Gerald helped him, Fred was already going ahead in the gate with rigid steps so as to not show worry on his face.
Fred thought to himself ' I will tell him when we get out of this Ruin'
Starting at the back of Fred, Kai was confused and thought that Fred was acting weirdly.
But he put it into the back of his mind as he was already very exhausted from the excruciating experience he had gone through, and did not want to think more about it.
"Let us also go inside" Gerald said as he watched Fred disappear in the blinding light coming from the gate and made Kai slowly walk with him.
While going there slowly Kai had a thought and concentrated on his name and the same mystical scene of illegible words forming into a coherent words appeared:
[Name: Kai
Rank: Sequence 0
Class: Mortal
Astrix: Unknown
Astritems: Forgotten orb, Drop of ichor, Life essence crystal
Attributes: Crest of the Watchers]
As Kai was perusing through the information, He found a new tab called Attributes, and something called 'crest of the watchers' written there.
He focused on it and information about it appeared:
[Crest of the Watchers: Crest belonging to a rogue clan which had their cogs of *unknown* taken due to excessive tampering in the *unknown*
(The Ruinic leech had finally found a new host after consuming its previous ones. However, its time had come to an end, and as a result, the path to the Rogue Watcher's laboratory in the spaceship had opened up.)]
"...Huh?" This time kai was completely baffled to his core as he did not how he got this attribute, but then he looked at his left hand and his eyes widened in disbelief.
While he was still feeling shocked, he and Gerald entered the tge and what greeted them was not some riches but highly complex and advanced instruments and apparatuses.
Kai was not disappointed as much as Gerald and Fred as he already knew from the description of the crest that this was a lab of some sort of a different species.
But still, this did not mean that he was not amazed by devices in front of him, in fact he was in awe at the workmanship of these sophisticated devices.
What struck him the most was the cylindrically shaped glass enclosure which had a...creature locked in it.
Fred was also standing besides it, apparently fascinated by it.
He focused on it and saw that it was a It was a strange humanoid jellyfish like creature, which had 2 tentacle like arms and 2 legs.Two hood-like parts made up its head and torso, with the uppermost being the head and the lower one being the torso. It had two red colored eyes. It was black in colour with strange runes covering its body.
At this moment, it was this humanoid jellyfish that was emitting such intense light.
Suddenly a strange mechanical voice greeted him and the others.
[Scanning complete]
[Welcome back Master]
"Master...?" Then he glanced at the Ouroboros mark in hand "Is it because of this...?"
After a pause the mechanical voice said solemnly:
[Life signs found critical...emergency procedure initiated]
With that he was suddenly yanked up from Gerald and was floating towards...what looked like a strange spherical sleeping pod with different sophisticated devices-he had no idea of connected to it.
But what struck him the most was the large transparent tube connected to the sleeping pod from the circular glass enclosure of the humanoid jellyfish.
"Huh!?, why does every inopportune thing happen to you!!" Gerald yelled with frustration as he ran behind Kai.