Chapter 37: What Has Been Awakened?

The corridors of Kamar-Taj were paved with those traditional, timeworn bluestone tiles. Walking on them, even barefoot, it was easy to step on the small pebbles lodged in the sunken grooves, producing a persistent creaking sound.

Stealth was never something Mu Mu had learned; he could only grit his teeth and press on.

To be cautious, he didn’t go straight to the warehouse door.

Throughout history, villains have died from talking too much.

And in horror stories, it’s curiosity that kills the victims.

Mu Mu had no intention of letting some monstrous thing burst out from the warehouse and leave him with no chance to escape.

He circled around to the side of the warehouse, where a long bluestone flowerbed stood, its flowers long withered. Bracing himself on the edge, he leaped up, balancing on the ledge.

Once stable, he slowly straightened up, shielding his face with the Vatu Demon Sword while peering through the high window above the flowerbed. With luck, he would be able to see what exactly was making the noise inside!

Closer.

Getting closer still.

He could sense the sound within the warehouse was moving toward the center. Finally, Mu Mu steeled himself and peeked inside.

Good heavens!

The scene inside was grotesque to the extreme.

A mass of pitch-black tentacles was repeatedly piercing the carcass of a freshly dead bull.

In through the left abdomen, out through the right, over and over, emitting a sickening squelch with each thrust.

The only comfort was that the mass of tentacles wasn’t very large—perhaps small enough to fit in a washbasin.

Mu Mu, stunned, forgot to breathe.

In the warehouse’s dim light, the spectacle appeared eerily sinister.

He leaned closer to the window, hoping for a clearer view, and unexpectedly caught sight of a silvery metal locker beside the bull. Reflected on the surface of one of its drawers was his own image.

Black, short hair. Sallow skin. Eyes glimmering with a silvery sheen. As he stared at his reflection, Mu Mu was overtaken by a sudden sense of foreboding.

Sure enough, in the next instant, the tentacles froze. At the heart of the knot—a mass the size of a fist, formed by countless intertwined tendrils—an uncanny eyeball snapped open: yellow sclera, blood-red pupil.

Mu Mu’s face paled with shock, and he instinctively raised the Demon Sword to shield himself.

His reaction was quick, but the attack from the eyeball monster was far stranger. It didn’t attack him directly. Instead, four or five tentacles shot out with a shrill whoosh, stabbing straight at Mu Mu’s reflection on the metal locker.

Each tentacle was tipped with a sucker, no larger than a pinky nail. These suddenly gaped open to reveal tiny, jagged mouths, clamping down on Mu Mu’s reflected left hand.

“Ah!” Mu Mu sprang back, and midair, wracked by pain, he gripped the Demon Sword with his right hand and clutched the back of his left with the palm of his hand.

Crimson blood welled up between his right fingers.

The blood gushed freely; it was clear that at least three holes, each the size of a pen tip, had been gouged into the back of his left hand.

“Damn it, what is that thing!”

Despite the agony, Mu Mu managed not to lose his head. Rolling across the ground, sweating from pain, he quickly shoved his left hand into his belt pouch—stuffed with salves for cuts and sprains issued to apprentices at Kamar-Taj. With no time for subtlety, he pressed a lump of ointment onto the wound, hoping at least to stanch the bleeding.

A shrill, eerie screech cut through the air as the small eyeball creature suddenly smashed through the window and shot out, chasing after Mu Mu.

“What the hell!”

He had never seen anything so bizarre—a flying, octopus-like monster moving with uncanny agility.

It was far too fast, outpacing Mu Mu’s frantic retreat.

As the eyeball creature hurtled toward him like a bullet, Mu Mu could only react by swinging the Demon Sword.

But the monster twisted midair, zigzagging in a Z-shaped pattern, deftly dodging the blade.

“This is it,” Mu Mu thought, a chill gripping his heart.

Just as he resigned himself to certain death, the eyeball monster unleashed its attack.

Within its massive eye, a mocking glint appeared—the gaze of a top predator toying with its prey.

Less than a meter from Mu Mu’s face, the creature suddenly tensed, and a piercing scarlet beam flared from its eye.

It unleashed a blazing ray!

“Are you kidding me? Point-blank blast? Is this really necessary?” Mu Mu wailed inwardly, convinced he was done for.

A thunderous boom resounded as the red light flashed.

Mu Mu was momentarily stunned; fiery red sparks spattered from his chest, his limbs shuddered with the impact, and his ears rang—but oddly, there was no pain in his chest.

Looking down in disbelief, he saw that the white mist shrouding his body had formed a shield in front of his chest, as soft as spun sugar.

The seemingly flimsy mist shield had blocked the monster’s crimson beam.

Waves of scorching air rebounded from the explosion, surging back toward the eyeball creature, so fierce that the stone tiles beneath Mu Mu’s feet almost ignited.

A strange thing happened: the white mist began to seethe, wrapping itself around the eyeball monster with a sudden fury.

Though it looked harmless, the mist proved more lethal than any saw. In a dizzying whirl of twisting and constriction, chunks of severed tentacles tumbled onto the flagstones at Mu Mu’s feet.

These fleshy fragments were quickly engulfed by the mist; after a few spasms and a wisp of steam, they shriveled and dried out.

“What is this…”

In mere seconds, the eyeball monster had withered into a ghastly, mummified ornament, dropping to the ground with a thud and moving no more.

“Mu Mu!”

Huh? That was the voice of the Ancient One.

“Master, I’m over here!” The moment Mu Mu replied, he was startled to see his own feet vanish rapidly, then his hands, and finally, his entire self disappeared.

The next instant, his consciousness faded.

…

“Soul reconnection in progress…”

“Host consciousness restoring…”

“Ten, nine, eight, seven… zero!”

Mu Mu snapped awake with a strangled cry, his upper body jolting upright as if electrocuted. He found himself surrounded by the concerned faces of the Ancient One, Mordo, and Hamir.

“Thank heaven, you’re finally back,” the dark-skinned man breathed a long sigh of relief.

“What… happened to me?”

The Ancient One’s expression shifted from concern to gravity: “Clearly, in awakening the mysterious gift within you, you’ve also activated a hidden power in your bloodline.”