Seeing the horrifying creature, Eric quickly threw a stone at its head and, turning around, ran towards a narrow path he had seen before. The black liquid made his movement difficult, slowing his run.
Eric turned his head and saw the creature relatively close, although it couldn't advance easily due to its enormous size. The creature writhed and growled with fury, and despite its difficulty moving, it used its large tail in an attempt to impale him.
Observing this, Eric pressed himself against the wall to avoid being hit by the tail. With all the strength he could muster in his arms and legs, he grabbed the creature's tail and tried to turn it around, directing it towards its own body. He managed to drive it into the creature's chest, but instead of killing it, it only made it more enraged. The creature jerked violently and pushed Eric away with its tail. Taking advantage of the moment, Eric quickly retreated, choosing the narrowest paths to hinder the creature's passage.
After covering a long distance, Eric decided to rest near the end of the narrow passage, despite the black liquid soaking him up to his knees. He had noticed that the liquid showed no signs of disappearing. After catching his breath for a few minutes, he heard the sound of moving water at the end of the passage. Alarmed, Eric chose to remain completely still. If another of those creatures appeared, he would have no choice but to return the way he came, which would be extremely dangerous. So he sank even deeper into the black liquid, hiding his body up to the lower part of his nose.
As the sound of water grew louder, Eric slowly turned his head towards the end of the passage, trying to discern what was there. He moved his breathing as cautiously as possible. Soon, the figure of a child, noticeably taller than Eric, appeared at the end of his passage. The child, visibly injured, carried a black, curved dagger in his left arm and had a large wound on his right arm, apparently caused by sharp claws. The battle he had faced seemed to have been tough, and now the child turned, frightened, as if preparing to face his fate.
Suddenly, a pale figure lunged at the child, submerging him in the black liquid. It was the same creature Eric had seen before, but now, in addition to the wounds on its head and chest, it had multiple cuts all over its body, from which blue blood flowed. The creature was evidently gravely injured.
Desperate, the child tried to drive his dagger into the side of the creature, and the creature, in turn, plunged its head into the water to bite him with its deadly mouth. Seeing this, Eric decided to seize this valuable opportunity; he quickly emerged from the water and went for the dagger the child was trying to drive into the creature. Perhaps due to exhaustion or because the creature had injured the child too much, Eric had no trouble taking it from his hand.
Thus, Eric raised his hand holding the dagger and with all the strength he could gather in his arm, drove the dagger into the creature's head wound, as this seemed to be the most vulnerable area and would ensure the creature's death. Eric withdrew and drove the curved dagger into various parts of the creature's body that he thought were vulnerable until he was sure it wouldn't move and blue blood flowed continuously from its body.
Exhausted, Eric removed the dagger and proceeded to inspect the creature's body, but not before moving it away to check if the child was alive; he plunged his hands into the liquid and lifted the body. Unfortunately, the child had his entire head crushed due to the creature's repeated bites.
Eric, searching the corpse for anything useful because he couldn't afford to waste anything in this place, found in the pocket of the child's pants a bottle with a red liquid inside; it was similar to the previous one he had found. Both were small glass vials containing strange-colored liquids. Not knowing what either was, he decided to keep the new one with the one he already had and wrapped it carefully in his vest before storing it.
With the dagger in hand, he decided to leave the area since there was a lot of blood and, based on his knowledge of animals, he was sure they would smell the blood or, in some way, find him.
Eric continued moving through the various paths carefully to avoid large disturbances in the water. As he advanced through a large cavernous passage that was a slight incline and where the water level did not rise further, Eric encountered a three-way fork and was undecided on which path to take. He decided to analyze each path to find out what awaited him, until, on the right path, Eric saw a somewhat worn mark on the wall. He approached to see what it was and, upon seeing it, was stunned; it was the same mark with his name carved into it.
Eric's mind filled with questions and doubts: "I carved this mark halfway through a passage and there was absolutely no fork like this one, so how did it get here and why does it look so worn? It's as if the river of time had done its work to erase part of the mark from the black stone wall."
Thus, Eric faced a crossroads: go by the marked path or choose between the two unknown paths. Eric returned to the fork and sat for a while because he was tired from walking for so long; additionally, his eyes scanned the various paths to avoid any danger.
While resting, he felt something akin to a pulse, but it wasn't from the cavern floor or the air; it was more like a part inside his head had sensed a disturbance, but he didn't know what it was or why it happened. Unwilling to investigate whether it was something bad or good, he decided to move and follow the marked path. "As the saying goes, better the devil you know than the devil you don't," Eric murmured as he ventured into the dimly lit passage. After walking for several minutes, the passage began to curve slightly and descend gradually; in the distance, Eric saw that part of the passage was illuminated.
As he approached, Eric saw that the passage had many small golden stones embedded in the black stone, which generated a faint golden light that, due to the number of stones, illuminated the entire passage, revealing the surroundings perfectly. Seeing this, Eric approached one of the stones and tried to remove it; after pulling it a bit, it came out, and he saw that the small stone was rough and somewhat heavy despite its size.
Since the stone emitted light, he wanted to keep it as it might be useful in dark environments. Continuing through the illuminated passage, he saw that at the end of this path there was a fairly large area that was also illuminated, but had a large black lake and a kind of small, damaged rock bridge connecting the passage to a large set of stairs leading to a small opening in the rock from which a faint blue light emanated.