Chapter 49: Chapter Forty-Seven: The Crawler

Kraft quickly weighed the cost-benefit of the front door versus the kitchen and sprinted toward the main entrance.

The knee-deep water drastically slowed his pace; the door, which should have been reachable in two breaths, now took several times longer to reach.

His shoulder slammed into the closed door—instead of yielding as expected, the door didn’t budge, and Kraft himself was shoved back two steps. A few splashed droplets landed in his mouth—salty, fishy. It was seawater.

Hegang had never experienced such a terrifying seawater surge; even if it had happened before, it was always confined to the harbor and salt-tide zones. If the water had reached this level in his inn, the salt-tide district wouldn’t have left half a roof.

A crashing sound echoed from upstairs—doors shattering and falling—and the spreading light illuminated the entire second-floor corridor. Reflected off the water on the first floor, it bathed the entire foyer in glow, allowing Kraft to clearly see the door before him.

There was no bolt on the inside, yet he slammed into it again, stubbornly. This time he heard a metallic clang amid the impact—the lock sprang open from the wood and snapped back. The door had been locked from the outside.

He could now confirm with near certainty that he’d been moved during sleep to a place similar yet different—a hotel temporarily closed for lack of its owner.

But knowing this helped nothing. The light at the stairwell intensified rapidly; the thing was accelerating toward him, its damp, viscous soft tissue moving with heavy, nauseating squelches.

It abandoned pretense, advancing down the corridor without concealment—multiple boneless, fleshy limbs stretched and slapped, not just one, producing overlapping, wet, sticky “slap-slap” sounds on the floor.

Hard, angular structures bit into wooden planks and earthen walls with each strike, shattering and pinning whatever they touched, producing a continuous clatter of penetration and impact—bone pierced through muscle membranes, forming auxiliary tissues for locomotion and grip.

All softness was an illusion, concealing the predatory core within, the twisted malice beneath.

It was emitting its own sound—unmasked, unfiltered.

The hissing merged countless overlapping voices—as if multiple vocal organs vibrated simultaneously, a swarm of writhing throats whispering fragmented murmurs, rising and falling without end.

Resonating, amplifying, forming a gloomy song across several audio tracks, governed by patterns incomprehensible to ordinary minds, transmitted through airborne waves to every creature with hearing.

The song violated human musical aesthetics—after every low or high rhythm came the most jarringly inappropriate continuation, lacking any conductor to coordinate the chaotic performers, as if a fractured will had granted each shard its own tongue.

An uncontrollable irritation welled from deep within, clawing at his subjective consciousness, driving him to draw his sword and split the source open, chop it to pieces, destroy it by any means possible—he could no longer endure even a second of the noise.

Kraft clutched his head, feeling his long-dormant OCD resurfacing—the urge to control himself into fulfilling alien thoughts, to silence this sound.

He pressed his knuckles against the thin spots on either side of his skull, using pain to suppress this irrational impulse. His mind was flooded with rage and clamorous noise, demanding all his focus to resist its intrusion, leaving no capacity for other thought.

The blasphemous song drew nearer, its light with it—brighter, until it became almost blinding.

It poured down from the second floor, flowing across and beneath the water, as if gaining substance, moving through the fluid, spreading through the salty seawater, surging toward Kraft.

Luminous liquid, flowing light, coalesced in the clear water into a greasy, film-like substance—like oil stubbornly clinging to a surface, signaling water degradation, bringing greasiness and the inevitable rotting stench.

The previously gentle, pure white had become uneven, stained with irregular hues. Different whites merged into a single mass; grayish white curled outward from within, like a wound splitting skin, or a slit-like mouth opening beneath a smooth surface.

Sensing its prey had no escape, it ceased hiding, unfolding fully as it slowly advanced up the stairs.

The complex, cacophonous sound still echoed, traveling through the eardrum and ossicular chain into the skull, carrying vibrations that scrambled sensory perception.

Kraft released his grip on his head, stood upright leaning on a nearby table, drew his longsword, and jammed it into the door’s crack, attempting to pry it open.

The craftsman who forged this blade had used the finest materials at his grandfather’s insistence, hammering and tempering it repeatedly—the sharp edge could cleave through leather armor, and if durability weren’t a concern, it could even clash with metal.

But clearly, its design never accounted for use as a crowbar, nor could it cut through a lock in such a narrow gap. Kraft’s full body weight bent the blade into a deep arc—further pressure would bring it near its elastic limit—yet still, it yielded nothing.

He felt he couldn’t escape—unless the owner had built a second door somewhere, an idea he could propose in his next life. But as the saying goes: “When facing a beast, meet its gaze… that way you die with dignity.”

The situation was slightly different now, but the principle still held.

His alien soul’s upbringing had forged his fearlessness toward spirits and monsters—he firmly believed all living things eventually died. Unless it was a whale; he didn’t know any creature that could survive a blade to the vital spot.

As a descendant of a long line of seasoned skull-splitting experts, his familiarity with the sword was no less than with pen and ink, carrying the still-vivid bloodline of the third generation.

He abandoned thoughts of escape, concentrating all his remaining energy into making the most rational choice.

The rage stirred by the grating noise, combined with courage born of ultimate terror, merged into a grim, decisive resolve—confirming his only option.

Kraft straightened, drew a deep breath—cold, damp air flooded his lungs, cooling both body and mind.

The blade, freed from pressure, snapped back into place, wedged in the door crack, humming with metallic vibration.

“It wasn’t made for wood.”

He gripped the hilt tightly, steadying the faint itch of trembling in his palm, then pulled the sword backward out of the crack—the familiar weight brought him calm.

This world’s Kraft had imagined countless times what his first real battle would be like, endlessly practicing with training swords, day after day for over a decade, hoping to earn a glory worthy of legend on the battlefield.

He remembered being fourteen, his body finally grown enough to wield a standard weapon, when Old Wood handed him this specially forged blade—his face expressionless, that gaze leaving Kraft puzzled.

【“I didn’t want to give this to you…”】

At the time, Kraft was lost in the joy of receiving his long-desired gift, eager to rush outside and draw it—his confusion over his grandfather’s behavior vanished instantly.

From then on, he used this sword daily, caring for it meticulously until it became an extension of his will, more familiar than his own arm.

Now, he unexpectedly recalled that memory, finally understanding the contradiction in that gaze—the half-sentence hidden behind his gray beard no longer vague.

【…but I feared the day you’d have to use it.】

Well, that day had come. The only regret: the enemy never follows gradual progression, nor does it honor knightly dueling codes.

He’d imagined his first battle would begin with a full-armored cavalry charge against infantry—instead, his first real fight was this: high-difficulty, no retinue, no plate armor, lightly armed against an unknown creature.

But it wasn’t all bad. The optimist might argue: facing an animal with far superior strength—especially one where armor or not, a single blow kills—flexibility may be better than plate.

This claim is dubious—only half a tier above sliding under a tiger—but what he needed now wasn’t credibility, just enough psychological comfort to face the light on the stairs.

For the first time tonight, he didn’t retreat—he advanced toward the presence.

Under mortal peril, his mind focused with unprecedented clarity; muscle memory translated into precise, powerful motions—he stepped forward steadily through the water, both hands gripping the sword.

His awareness activated, fighting through the mad screeching to memorize the positions of chairs and tables—the scattered light aided his observation. The entire foyer reconstructed itself in his mind as a three-dimensional, usable structure.

Whether illusion or not, as his reason restored his consciousness, his body grew stronger—physical strength further fueled the growth of his will to resist.

Kraft fixed his gaze on the stairs, forcing his mind to adapt to this sensation—he had to gain the capacity to face it.

The filthy white light spread further; the twisted, overlapping sounds drew closer. The malevolent entity crept onto the upper stairs, its flexible body extending downward—an incomprehensible, unnatural thing.

After hearing, his vision now suffered immense torment—just seeing it made him feel profoundly ill.

It was a tentacle-like structure sprouting from a massive body, lacking suckers, its pitted, pallid skin covered in dense grooves, luminous nodules scattered randomly, clustered in raised areas.

It hung rigidly downward, its tip twitching and curling.

In contrast, the skin erupted with frenzied, hair-thin branches, radiating vitality opposite the main trunk’s stillness—struggling, as if self-aware, reaching out in all directions, grasping anything to cling to.

As this limb appeared, the screeching song reached a new crescendo—sounds emanating from worm-eaten holes along thicker tentacle branches, spewing white luminescent mucus mixed with air, like alien flutes playing.

Yet these were not the most intolerable organs.

Several branches, contracting, expelled sharply pointed pale-yellow bony protrusions—longitudinal slit-mouths packed with these things, swaying mercilessly, biting into surrounding tissue, dragging it into sac-like cavities to chew, leaving only half-eaten remnants of its own kind.

On the severed ends, new white flesh buds grew visibly, filling gaps, sustaining this incomprehensible feast.

Even in humanity’s deepest nightmares, no such chaotic horror had ever been seen.