I gasped at the sight of the dark silhouette of the being hidden in the fog. Then, something happened. One of the clones noticed the movement and charged right after I commanded it.
Nico also jumped into action, his initial step cracking the black stone as he drew out the full potential of his inhuman strength.
The silhouette moved at our notice and turned into a tall black tentacles that shot towards us at incredible speed.
Nico pounced forward like a deadly predator and swung his gladius with lethal intent. The hate in his eyes burned he dodged one of the tentacles and slashed at another, drawing a black liquid that must have been blood.
At the same time, the clone with the bone spear struck one of the tentacles. I was impressed by the spear's sharpness because what followed next was a painful roar.
But our celebration didn't last long as one of the tentacles immediately attacked my double.
Before I could sent a command, Nico held my hand by the wrist and started running. Dragging me along with him.
There was no time to complain about the force he used on me. The only thing we could see in this fog were the black tentacles which were getting more and more like hungry living vines. I wasn't sure of what creature it was exactly, but its presence was enough to inform us of its power.
Nico and we're dormant humans. We only relied on physical strength and skill….nothing more. We were the lucky ones though because most humans relied on skill alone during Nexus events.
[Your Clone has been destroyed]
I couldn't tell which one exactly but the feeling of losing one of them hurt me.
As we were running, one of the creature's black limbs emerged from the fog in front of us. Taking us by surprise, Nico didn't hesitate to push me out of the way and summon an energy shield. The shield blocked the tentacle but the brutal collision sent him flying and hitting one of the rocky walls around us.
Luckily, the shield had done its job and he was still alive.
Me on the other hand, I quickly got back on my feet once I confirmed my partner was breathing. I didn't panic as I watched the black tentacle sweep through the fog like a loose water hose. This thing was too fast for us to outrun in a space it could control. It could probably sense us thanks to the white fog.
After a brief moment of thought, I had a bizarre idea come to mind.
"I am going to find the main body!" I bellowed in a low tone to inform Nico before I ran off into the fog without hesitation as I followed the black tentacle that had just attacked us.
I summoned Trusted Dagger.
I tried as hard as I could to conceal my presence while I navigated the fog. At the same time, I kept a fair distance away from the black tentacle in case it had multiple eyes on it.
Gaaarrrrrrrrrr!
I stopped when I heard low growls coming from nearby. My blood was suddenly cold when I felt the bloodlust directed at us.
"This sucks." I whispered a curse as I slowly approached my fateful adversary. I didn't see it properly thanks to the fog. But in my eyes, it looked like a giant black mass of about the same size as a house.
Gulp.
I wasn't planning on killing it of course. All I had to do was buy some time for us to escape this mountain.
So, when I was sure I was close to its body, I inhaled a sharp breath and yelled at the top of my voice. "Hey! Over here!"
As soon as I made myself noticeable, all tentacles stopped and the creature's main body moved.
The fog became less thick and I started to catch a glimpse of what the creature looked like aside from its size. It was horrifying enough to make me scream. Which I didn't, thankfully. The creature was gigantic with long black spikes growing on its body. And multiple wiggling tentacles that looked like large cables.
That's all I could see before I turned away and commanded the last clone to attack as I returned to Nico.
I felt bad for leaving my spear but we needed to survive and that was the only way we were getting out of this place alive.
I helped Nico up and we both made a run for it without looking back or wondering what was happening behind us. And soon, the system's monotone voice announced the destruction of my clone.
By the time the announcement came in, we were already out of the mountains, desperately running in hopes that the creature wouldn't come after us.
***
On the other side of the mountain was a desert and an ominous red sky that seemed harmless for now. We ran till we made sure we were as far away as possible from the Death Mountains.
When we stopped, we were too exhausted that we fell on the sand just so we could catch our breaths.
"We made it." Nico's breaths were ragged as he tried to breathe in his current state.
"Yes, we did." I sighed a little and tried cleaning the sweat off my face. We had created some distance between us and the mountains and now we were sure that the creature was never going to find us or even try to.
To cut the story short, we had made it to a place that seemed to have had a civilization a long time ago. Although the architecture was very old-fashioned, you could see the work of hands with the care placed into creating the small stone buildings that made up the former village.
"Do you remember anything from the History classes?" I asked Nico.
"Yes…this is one of the Agani civilizations," he answered tiredly. "And it's not history class. It's exploration and survival class!" he argued.
"Whatever… you should be grateful that I saved your life." I hissed.
Back in Bloodhaul, they made sure to educate us about what humans had discovered about the Nether Realm before we were sent here. There was no specific map about it to be exact, but the information gained was efficient enough.
Through the Nexus system, translating foreign languages wasn't that hard due to its magical nature.
Nico lifted himself from the sandy floor and let out a loud groan as he stretched. "Do you even know what Agani means?"
With a proud nod, I answered. "Demigod of course."
He gave me a skeptical look and then sighed. "Demihuman. It means demihuman. The Agani were a race of Demihumans."
I forced a laugh and shrugged. "Hehe…must have confused those two."
Nico crossed his arms. "Tskt…That's because you keep wasting your time reading those damn webtoons. I'm surprised you made it to the mountains."
"Hey…hey…" I pointed a finger at him as I began my unnecessary ranting. "You don't have to bring my webtoons into this. It's the only form of entertainment I have for myself. Also didn't plan on surviving this far…you ungrateful brat."
He opened his mouth to argue, lingered for a moment, then shook his head. "Never mind. Thank you for saving my life….I will go set up camp. I have some food and water saved up in my storage item. Collect some firewood."
With those words, he sighed and walked off without saying anything else.
I watched him walk away and only hissed.
"Ordering me around just like that. I am only going to help you because I need food." I told myself as I got up with a groan.
I don't know how time exactly worked in this realm because of the difference between day and night. It was very hard to tell due to the thick clouds that blanketed the sky earlier. While in the mountains, I also hadn't experienced nightfall, yet. Or nightfall didn't exist due to the strange skies in this realm.
It was both strange and interesting. And if that's the case, how long exactly had it been since I got to this place?
'About two days.' I guessed as I moved around searching for dry twigs and everything we could use to make a fire. It was getting cold and I don't think we had it in ourselves to push on without any rest.
To capture a soul, we needed to be in peak condition because some souls needed to be fought before merging with them.
I collected many twigs and dry wood and took it to one of the mud houses that were still standing. In there, Nico had already set up the place to look half decent. He probably could've made it cozy to match his perfectionist desires if he had the materials.
Meanwhile, I gathered all the rocks I could find and used them to make a fireplace. In the center, I poured some dry sand and placed the dry wood and twigs on top of it. Once that was done, I hit a few rocks together to make a beautiful orange flame.
"So you really do have survival skills." Nico smiled, supposedly impressed that I was capable of creating a simple flame.
"Are you going to treat your savior like that?"
He rolled his eyes before summoning a large brown treasure chest. "This is my storage item, I acquired it from one of the scientists at Bloodhaul in exchange for knowledge about this realm when I return. I have five months of food and water in here."
With that simple explanation, he opened the chest and tossed me a chicken wrap and a water sack. The aroma of fresh food had my mouth watering instantly. The food from Bloodhaul usually smelled and tasted like medicine because it was usually processed. The chicken wasn't real chicken. But a man-made substitute with the necessary number of calories needed to be in chicken.
I always hated the way the chicken tasted each time I ate it. However, when I shoved it into my mouth, it was the best thing I had eaten in a long time. I almost cried after the first bite. The medicinal taste was gone.
"Are…are you okay?" Nico was staring at me, his look half confused, half concerned.
I sniffed, my small cheeks now stuffed with chicken wrap. "Yesh…" I nodded as I wolfed down on my meal. As soon as I finished it, I grabbed the water sack and emptied it in about five chugs.
"Do you need more?" Nico offered me the rest of his wrap. "I've suddenly lost the appetite after seeing the way you eat."
"More for me then." I shrugged and ate what was left of his wrap. As someone who was feeding on roots and tasteless fauna for the past days, food was something I couldn't turn down at the moment.
When we finished eating up, we tossed the dry water sacks into the flames and set ourselves for some rest. We were going to sleep in shifts of two hours each till we both had six hours of sleep in total.
As I was lying down, preparing to sleep, Nico suddenly spoke. His voice was calm and balanced as it cut through the dreadful atmosphere. "It surprises me that you didn't get a magic item. I always thought you were Wall's favorite."
"Really? I also thought the same." I responded with sarcasm. I didn't usually express my hate for the strange doctor because he was lovable character in the eyes of everyone else at the laboratory.
'He's our creator and I am the rebellious one.' I thought, remembering the pretend smiles usually made. They always angered me. Wasn't it obvious?
Nico sighed loudly. "Do you ever think of what's outside Bloodhaul? Like how it looks like?"
"No, I do not. We already know what Beta 3 looks like…green meadows, cities with buildings that stretch as high as mountains…blue water lakes. It's not much." I responded, feeling slightly annoyed. "The reason why you all thought he favored me wasn't because I was his favorite. Apparently, I am a silver blood…probably the last of my race. I am his greatest success."
Nico was silent for a brief moment as if trying to make sense of what I was saying. His brows curled upwards. "Silver blood? So your hair isn't just dyed to look like that."
"It's not of course. This is my real hair." I corrected him. Silver hair was abnormality I gained from the unique genetic code I was created from. I wasn't sure about what made Silver Bloods special in the first place aside from the fact that there was a connection between them and the Empress of Twilight.
"I see. I'm sure I've heard of the Silver Bloods, before. Is it one of the lost races from Earth?"
"Not lost. Extinct."
Nico frowned slightly. "Oh, I see. Anyway, get some rest. I'm also tried…" he yawned before he made his way out of the small house to take the first watch.
I silently stared at the flames for some time and closed my eyes once again. Almost immediately, tiredness washed down on me instantly.
I hadn't noticed I needed rest until now.