Keeping track of his location was getting tougher as he explored the marsh. To counter this and make traversing easier for himself, Damu was forming mental markers as well as physical ones. Using drops of blood to mark trees and other unmoving items -random large boulders, odd snails that would remain at one spot and more-. Damu had used blood, much undesirably, his own. Using a crude dagger crafted of stone, he pierced his fingertip to get some blood. His new healing ability was quite handy here too. Damu had thought of using the stars in the night sky to navigate his way through the forest. However, despite the trees not being so abundant where water was present in greater amounts, the leaves and branches were spread extremely far and wide. A canopy of green stretched across the expanse of the marsh. So much so that the sunlight was scarce even at noon.
He had mainly relied on jumping across branches since it felt quicker with his new physique. There was also the fact that he didn't know how to swim. But there were certainly bigger problems at hand.
At certain points nearing the center, Damu felt an ominous notion emanating from the waters. He'd developed a keen sense on how to be cautious over his years in the slums and this helped him greatly. Even now. Obviously, there were instances where he got careless... And that was also how he ended up here in the first place but he didn't exactly regret it. Well, apart from the painful experiences. At this instant, this very sense made Damu feel like he was being watched. He could not tell with complete certainty, but he felt like he was being observed. By more than one observers at that. The origin of his feeling was unknown but it was firm. It might be related to his heightened physical ability translating to sharper senses but it wasn't enough to pinpoint anything further. His intuition did however lead him to believe that one of his stalkers might have been the madman he met on his first day. He felt like there were eyes on him since he parted ways with the tanned man. The other more ominous feeling however… the only relatively reasonable connection he could make was with the ominous feeling he had earlier. He couldn't recall anything else.
-"I should probably stay on guard just in case." he muttered under his breath, "I mean I've already suffered the consequences of not having done that."
As Damu continued hopping onwards from tree to tree, the sound of water crashing became clearer and clearer.
-"Huh…"
As he approached the sound nearing towards the center, a bizarre scene awaited him. A wide arc was visible where the water was flowing down. Damu stood atop the tree closest to the start of it, in the direction he came from, and he would've guessed it was about a kilometer away from the edge. Even from this distance a he could make out streams of water flowing down into a monstrously large circle.
As he was peering into the distance trying to further understand the landscape… well more accurately the waterscape, a notification popped up in front of him.
•New quest unlocked!•
*You have stumbled across the remains of a wound of the past. Uncover the secrets behind it's existence to gain access to a portion of your power*
A glint of excitement appeared in his eyes as he came one step closer to his currently mysterious power. He would've avoided going near this place if he hadn't been made aware of this but given the situation he had to make a move. This might be the first step he needed to take to approach the 'ending' of this place. He did suddenly feel curious too.
-"Let's just hope that curiosity doesn't kill the cat this time."
He'd had been stationary for the duration of his thoughts but he noticed the lack of one of the pairs of eyes on him. The ominous feeling was still there though but he assumed that his tanned stalker had given up on chasing after him while he speeded across the tree stumps. Could be because he couldn't keep up with him or didn't want to. Regardless, that was one less source of danger.
Getting something off his radar felt relieving. Damu was still vary of his surroundings and he felt something odd about this entire marsh. He felt like there should have been been more living creatures around but they were scarce and far apart. He hadn't given it much thought initially but having taken his time to slowly adapt, one thing became clear. This place was anything but normal. So many abrupt things had occurred to him in such a short span that he had not given attention to the simplest details - The lack of living creatures apart from the snails and insects, and a creepy sensation abundant in the forest.
-"Well, the inevitable is bound to happen, no point in fretting about it. I guess the first thing I'll have to do is find a way down there."
This was clearly not going to be easy. He decided to move across adjacent trees in hopes of discovering anything that could be a clue.
Damu moved swiftly while keeping his eyes peeled to find any possible path down. He kept his focus on his surroundings while keeping up his pace. His eyes looked sharp like a bird of prey eager to scan out any possible detail.
His concentration led him to overlook one factor. That something was lurking within the water around him that matched his speed, perhaps even surpassed.
It was almost as if the beast could tell that it's prey's attention was lowest on it at this point as it lunged out of the water in a deceptively beautiful arc. It's beauty concealed by it's appearance.
A morbidly scaled figure emerged from the murky water leaving Tear suspended mid-air completely shocked. The scaly beast had come at him from the side and it miscalculated his speed and ended up missing him. It re-entered the water with a loud splash while Tear slammed face first into the tree he was previously aiming to land on. A second splash followed the initial splash made by the scaly beast. Tear was taken aback by the sudden jump-scare but he did his best to collect himself as the scaly gigantic... fish? Fish... somehow swirled around without losing any of it's momentum and tore through the water with great speed to approach him. Tear had no experience with swimming and flailed his limbs in a futile attempt to move away from its stride. His flails did somewhat change his position as the morbid fish managed to slam into his left arm and gripped it with its teeth. It shook its head with immense strength in an attempt to rip its prey's arms off but they remained rigidly in position; however, that did manage to make Tear let go of his only weapon, the stone dagger. Tear repeatedly punched the beast with his free arm while holding back his yell. He was rapidly running out of breath and the fish seemed to sense it as the strength of his struggles continuously grew weaker. Each passing second sapping away his strength. Tear was doing his best to hold on to his consciousness but there was little he could do to prevent the gruesome beast from carrying him deeper and deeper into the water. Come to think of it. He didn't know how deep it would go down. As the light continued to grow dimmer, Tear felt the weight of water on him increase. He was once again feeling himself losing the control of his limbs. The only upside being his pain grew numb.
At one point, the last glimmer of light disappeared too but at that very instant, a faint, eerie red glow took its place from the very depths of the water almost like a glint of light escaping through a tiny hole. Tear was still conscious, hanging on by a thread. The meagre oxygen barely keeping his mind awake. But by the slit in his squinted eyes, he could make out a silhouette, in the shape of a gigantic 8 finned monster, so dark it was unimaginable how it looked darker than the lightless depths of the waters. A boundlessly vile sensation enveloped their surroundings. The currents started accelerating and the feeling of the chilling water brushing by him became so much more vivid and powerful. It seemed like whatever that titanic thing was had scared away this 'tiny' beast.
Being the petty little creature he was, Tear expressed a weak grin.
-"Not so tough are you now?"
Rough, jagged teeth dug deeper and deeper into his arm until they managed to scrape the humerus in his left arm. Uneager to let it's prey go even in the face of greater danger, it latched onto his arm with an even greater bite force almost crushing the bone.
-*urgh*
A groan escaped his closed mouth.
-'Q-uite.. commendable tenaciousness.'
Tear had completely stopped struggling at this point, with no feelings of pain or fatigue, and was on the verge of passing out and yet, he still had not.
An overwhelming force struck Tear once more, seemingly emanating from the direction the silhouette lurked. The currents of water suddenly surged forward as the silhouette grew larger at a terrifying speed. The red dots seemingly materialized in front of Tear's eyes. Rows of mountain sized, razor sharp, regularly arranged teeth revealed themselves as everything else grew dim; while his surrounding went from wet and disgusting to wet, slimy and disgusting.
As his disgust grew, something else grew faint. Tear finally felt his conscious slither away...