Chapter 103: Leviathans Underpass, and The Raven (1/2)
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The link is also in the synopsis.
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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]
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「90%」
A very calm Quinn horizontally floated at the near bottom of Hadal Encumbrance and gazed at the triangular entrance in front of him.
「Leviathan's Underpass」
'This time it's a monster,' noticed Quinn as he stared at the words written above the dark entrance. He had read that after keeping his eyes open at 70% and had, consequently, done some research on the Leviathan.
The Leviathan. A mythical creature with the form of a sea serpent. Known originally as a 'great sea monster' in the first chapter of Genesis, the Leviathan has become synonymous with any enormous monster or creature. It was occasionally invoked to accept blame for tsunamis.
According to legends, the Leviathan was a fire-breathing creature with such immense size that the sea boiled when it swam on the surface. It ruthlessly and fearlessly rules over all the creatures of the sea. The Leviathan's skin is like a double coat of mail with overlapping scales as large as shields on its back and as sharp and tough as broken pottery on its under-parts. Swords and harpoons would simply bounce off such protection. It breathed smoke from its nostrils and expelled flames from its mouth, which was rimmed with teeth. Its fins radiated a brilliant light, and its eyes were like the glimmerings of dawn.
In the magical world, the Leviathan was a type of dragon that lived in the deep oceans. The non-magical legends had gotten the description right; it was an enormous, long, thick serpent-type dragon and, according to the records, it weighed five tonnes (five thousand kilograms), clocking at just one tonne less than the largest dragon species in the world, The Ukrainian Ironbelly.
Even though the Leviathan was an aquatic species, they were just like any other dragon species; it was magic-resistant, had resilient scales and had fire-breath. On a side note, every part of its body had magical properties.
Quinn had thought about the upcoming trial, and one of his worries was to come across an actual Leviathan. If a Basilisk could be kept alive for a thousand years through deep hibernation, then there was no reason a Leviathan couldn't be kept alive the same way.
After thinking it thoroughly, Quinn was ninety percent sure that a Leviathan wouldn't be in there because of the trials he had been through. It didn't make sense to put a Leviathan inside because of the prevailing water concept themes.
'Well, the Leviathan is a predator species in the ocean. It might be a guardian-type trial,' thought Quinn, followed by another curious line of thought: 'Who would win between a Kraken and Leviathan, I wonder?'
Quinn flexed his muscles, and immediately arctic blue magic flashed. The magic originated from his body and went towards the triangular entrance, which created a glowing arctic blue tunnel of water.
'Let's go in there with the hope that there's no Leviathan,' wished Quinn, but there was a sharp glint in his eyes. He was prepared to do what must be done, even if it meant killing a dragon.
He floated down. His hands touched the edges of the entrance, and though he was at 100% depth, Quinn wasn't feeling an iota of it. The 100% of the pressure intensity was being thwarted by Quinn's magic, where he was applying an equal and opposite force to cancel the weight bearing down on him.
Pulling his feet to his front, Quinn went in the entrance to Leviathan's Underpass.
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- (Scene Break) -
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Quinn found himself teleported to the trial, and like in most Tehom's Delight, he was directly transported underwater. However, unlike Tehom's Delight, this room was lit brightly.
Quinn looked down and saw that his feet were touching a white marble floor. When he advanced, the white floor extended ahead for around fifty meters. The entire passage was covered with a circular wall of water. It was a tunnel with a white marble straight path as the floor. The space outside the water tunnel was an expanse of blue, and Quinn couldn't see an end to the expanse.
”Ah, so this is the underpass, huh. A tunnel through the water. Though I am still underwater,” noted Quinn as he took in the surrounding scene.
He looked straight ahead to the other end of the tunnel and saw another triangular entrance, but this one without a title above it. This entrance was like the one in Tehom's Delight; although it had another patch of water with a different flow than the surrounding water, there was nothing solid at the end of the tunnel and a wall of water sealed off the end.
Noticing that, Quinn looked back and saw the same wall of water. He raised his hand to touch the water wall. He found that the water wall was solid, and his hand didn't cross through the water wall.
”Now, what is the deal here? I can see that I have to walk to the other end of the tunnel and enter that entrance,” observed Quinn and thought about what this trial was composed of, but nothing popped out to him from the get-go. ”No way, this is a simple path. What is the catch here?”
Quinn raised his hand, and some of the surrounding water 5 to form a long ice spear in front of him. ”Let's see how this does.” Saying that Quinn shot the ice lance straight ahead towards the other end.
The ice lance raced through the water, and contrary to Quinn's expectation, the ice lance didn't face any obstructions, didn't trigger anything before it entered the triangular entrance, and disappeared.
'Hmm, unexpected, really unexpected,' thought Quinn before turning his eyes to the floor. Another seven ice lances manifested from the water and shot towards seven different parts of the path, but every one of them bounced off without scratching the marble. 'Nothing at that, too? Ah, I need to go in myself. Don't want to do that, really don't.'
Quinn sighed and took a step forward on the whiter marble, one more, and then another. As he moved forward, a very faint blue line shone on the marble floor. That delicate line on the floor went unnoticed by the boy as he walked ahead.
*Fwipp.*
Ten strides in the walk towards the other end of the white floor, Quinn felt something on his body, the feeling was confusing and sudden, and it was only after two additional steps that he abruptly stopped and looked down on his shoulder.
There he saw red coming out of his shoulder. He couldn't see his shoulder because of the red staining the water, but Quinn could feel a deep gash above his collarbone.
As the realization hit and the pain set in, Quinn felt two more parts of his body rip; more blood spurted out from his calf and waist as deep gashes marred his body. One of Quinn's transfigured gills also got cut, creating further complications.
'W-What the hell-l!!' Alarms blared inside Quinn's head as his eyes showed panic and alertness muddled with pain and onsetting heaviness because of the continuous blood loss.
His mind was slowing down because of his condition: it took Quinn a few moments to focus through the pain and channel his magic into the safety insignia.
And as he did that, Quinn's darkening vision saw a swirl of water fissure come into existence ten meters in front of him, and from the center of that swirl a pressurized jet of water appeared, ripping through the water towards Quinn.
In defense, Quinn was only able to raise his hand; it didn't help much because the jet of water had cut through the muscles of his arm and pierced his body below his chest, just out of the heart's vicinity.
He activated the teleportation, and before disappearing from the Leviathan's Underpass, Quinn saw four more swirls forming in the water, ready to shoot lethal, cutting jets of water.
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- (Scene Break) -
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The water from the triangular entrance set Quinn down on the floor of the stone cave. For a moment, Quinn's eyes remained close as he leaked red blood on the floor. Then his eyes snapped open, and no emotion could be seen in his eyes or on his face.
Pain.
Pain was something Quinn was familiar with; it was something that he had constantly felt during the time he was trying to get his magic back. Every time he loosened the hold on magic, his magic would rush out, and that would cause pain.
With the volume of magic inside Quinn's magical core, the rampant magic had enough juice to cause pain for hours before it drained the core of magic. When Quinn finally decided to confront his magic, that pain followed him for hours every day, and Quinn had to bear with it for a good chunk of the day, every day, till he was able to get his magic back under his control.
But in those unpleasant days, the pain was Quinn's primary motivator. It was something that Quinn didn't want to feel; as such, Quinn focused on his emotions to ignore the pain.
And now, the pain had returned because of injuries. And with those injuries came back panic, a rush of urgency, and fear among multitudes of emotions.
Negative emotions were absent from Quinn's regular, peaceful life, but under the current circumstances, they surfaced and came back to his life.
Occlumency detached Quinn's emotions to the second level so that they were all but a buzz at the back of his head, but his magic remained firmly connected to his emotions.
'Five points of injury: shoulder, flank, calf, upper abdomen, and forearm.' Quinn's mind sunk into an analytical mode as he analysed his body.
Quinn slightly moved his shoulder and felt the first point of injury. 'Shoulder: deep cut in the Trapezius muscle. Left shoulder disabled. The clavicle bone is safe and unharmed.'
His attention moved down his body to his waist, and Quinn slightly flexed his abdominal muscles. 'F-Flank muscles: External oblique, internal oblique, transversus abdominis; three-layer of muscle penetration.' Quinn groaned in pain because of the injury. 'I-Internal injury: large intestine injury possible, degree of injury unknown.'