Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 223

Chapter 223: Rakshasa (9)

TL/ED – Miso

All Deep Sea Creatures knew how to handle the Deep Sea.

They wielded Water Pressure and Current, and some even used Current Sense to perceive their surroundings.

In a way, it was only natural. Without such abilities, nothing could survive in this dark, heavy ocean.

I too had gained such abilities upon becoming a resident of the Deep Sea.

That was why I could tell, to some extent.

Just how ant-like my current self was before this creature.

“What the fuck… what did you do??”

Watching the legs that had begun emerging endlessly from a Depth that seemed to have no end, I glared at Agnes.

There was no doubt this guy had done something. Judging from his flustered expression, it didn’t seem he had wanted this outcome either.

But instead, he got angry at me.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? To deceive me into fighting an Outer God.”

“This isn’t what I wanted- wait, Outer God?”

“Yes. A god from another world, hence Outer God.”

Agnes looked down at the floor and slowly raised his hand.

“I’ll say it again: if you don’t want to die, cooperate. If we don’t take that thing down, neither you nor I can escape.”

“…”

At the very least, that much seemed to be true.

We couldn’t return to reality right now to begin with.

Normally, to return to the Real World from the Deep Sea, one would invert a captured fragment of the Real World to expand the world, but I hadn’t brought anything like that with me.

“Fine, okay… but can you actually do it?”

I let out a sigh and looked at the enormous sucker vaguely visible before my eyes.

The Outer God’s sucker, the thing normally thought of as an octopus’s suction cup, was, no matter how I looked at it, closer in size to a mountain. Without Current Sense, no person could have deduced that this was a sucker.

At that size, fleeing was pointless. Wherever I ran, I’d still be in the palm of Buddha’s hand.

Agnes nodded and drew the sword slung on his back.

“I won’t explain this twice. These are the Former Rulers that lay dormant in your World.”

“…Former Rulers?”

“Yes. It means this is what you’ll ultimately become.”

“?”

What was he talking about.

As I tilted my head, Agnes stared at me with emotionless eyes before turning his head again.

“You’ll understand.”

“So, you’re saying this is a Fallen of the Deep Sea that existed before me? But why does it look like that…”

Mid-sentence, I realized his meaning and furrowed my brow.

“…to survive?”

“If you can even call that thing a living being.”

In other words,

The Deep Sea gradually pulls Fallen toward greater and greater Depths.

To adapt to that place, the Fallen had to swallow, use, and utilize more and more.

Enduring, bearing, and withstanding ever greater Water Pressure…

Eventually they became something like that, was what he was saying.

As I stared at that massive leg with a stunned expression, Agnes sneered as though exasperated.

“Once it falls that far, it can no longer interfere with the Real World. It can’t even leave the tiniest crack open.”

“…How do you know these things?”

“What matters now is two things. That you deceived me, and that right now, the tiny crack that Outer God so desperately wants is you.”

Agnes closed his eyes and let his sword flow.

“-Long enough to cut it down.”

The sword trembled as if resonating, and in an instant began extending to a length that couldn’t be captured by sight.

Even though the sword’s tip had stretched beyond the reach of Current Sense, Agnes swung it powerfully through the resistance of the water without any apparent effort.

-Slash!

[ Mmmmm… ]

The leg, thicker than a mountain, was severed as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

As I was wondering how he could swing such a heavy sword, he tossed the blade to me.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Cut down every leg that comes up like this. While I devise a way to escape.”

I grasped the hilt with suspicious eyes, and despite being in the Deep Sea, I was startled by its tremendous weight. I nearly dropped it and hastily caught it with Water Pressure.

It seemed he hadn’t just extended the length but also increased the weight.

“You want me to cut with this?”

“Ten minutes. Hold out for that long. By any means necessary. If those legs wrap around us, everything ends.”

Having bluntly tossed out his piece, Agnes immediately closed his eyes and began concentrating on something.

Watching him, I briefly considered whether I could use this guy as bait and flee, but in the end I had no choice but to grip the sword with Water Pressure.

“Kk…”

Even using Water Pressure, the sword was incredibly difficult to handle.

Still, I couldn’t give up. Clenching my teeth, I raised the sword diagonally and cut down the legs one by one.

-…Slash.

“Hah, haah…”

At least the legs couldn’t resist yet, and because the sword was so heavy, merely touching one to it was enough to sever it.

The problem started from there.

“No, what the fuck-”

Something writhed at the severed surfaces, and this time, countless legs exactly the size of a wrist began to regenerate.

Worse, unlike the massive legs, these could sense us.

I swept away the ones swarming in with Water Pressure and frantically kept cutting leg after leg, but I couldn’t hold back the enemies multiplying with every cut along with the other massive legs endlessly rising from the Deep Sea.

Despite my best efforts, my Current Sense soon reported a hopeless situation.

Layers upon layers of legs had begun wrapping around us in the shape of an enormous dome.

No matter how fast we ran from now, barely more than a minute remained before the worst possible prison would be completed.

“A hole, at least-”

New legs would grow anyway, but it was better than doing nothing.

As I was digging a possible escape hole just in case, Agnes opened his eyes and let out a small sigh.

“I barely made it in time. Grab on.”

Agnes seized my head.

There was no other option. Having no choice but to accept his grip, I soon realized I hadn’t asked the most important question.

“Hold on, how exactly are you planning to escape from here?”

“Reconstruction. Break apart, then reassemble.”

“?”

Before I could demand further explanation about a word that was very hard to let slide,

-Crack!

Everything turned white.

***

And then, literally, I was reconstructed.

“…Kuhuk! Pfft, pfft!”

How much time had passed.

Spitting out the blood pooled in my mouth, I barely came to my senses.

The surroundings were still the Deep Sea.

Everything dark, silent. A perfectly ordinary Deep Sea where nothing was alive.

The one thing that wasn’t ordinary was-

“Listen. We’ll be discovered again soon.”

Agnes, now nothing but a head floating about.

I glanced around, confirmed that the octopus wasn’t nearby yet, then clenched my teeth, grabbed him by the hair, and shouted at him.

“You’ve got plenty of time now, right? Explain every damn thing you did.”

“In the process of trying to turn you into my Flesh Vessel, the Outer God discovered us.”

“What is an Outer God.”

“A Former Ruler that lived in your World.”

“I heard that part. Do things like that live in every World? Every dead Fallen becomes an Outer God and stays in that World?”

“Hardly. A mere human can never become a god. Absolutely impossible. I explained hastily earlier, but the likes of you could never become such a being.”

“I don’t even want to, you crazy bastard. Just answer the question.”

Uncharacteristically, Agnes hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.

“Outer Gods can only live in Original Worlds.”

“Original?”

“Only three exist: the Original Worlds. Heaven, Earth, and Sea. Three Worlds that have existed since the beginning and will exist at the end of eternity. I never imagined you’d possess an Original. That’s not a World that someone like a human should be able to own.”

“Are you talking about the Three Evils?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

Whether he knew or not, it was clear that what this guy called the Original World was the Three Evils.

And apparently, if the owner of one of the Three Evils survived in that place long enough, they would eventually become what this guy called an Outer God.

“I’ll say it again, there’s no possibility of you becoming an Outer God. At most you’d become something like that jellyfish wandering around over there.”

“I’ll say it again, I don’t need that kind of thing…”

Since he kept pushing something I didn’t even want to become onto me, I shook him around by the hair, but then I heard something I absolutely couldn’t let slide and glared at him.

“…Hey, what did you just say.”

“I said you’d become something like a jellyfish.”

“…”

“We haven’t bought enough time yet. Outer Gods instinctively want to return to the World where they were born. And because all the Original Worlds have been shattered, there are no Outer Gods of the Deep Sea born from it. Those Outer Gods will soon surely find you, split your belly open, and cross over to reality.”

I clenched my teeth tightly. There was plenty I wanted to ask, but the most important thing right now was this.

“What happens if those things use me to cross over into the Real World?”

“Hell will unfold. Everything you love will be crushed by Water Pressure, and even the things you don’t love will meet the same fate. My own kind, my long-cherished wish, all of it. Neither you nor I would want that.”

After saying so, Agnes’s body slowly began regenerating from the neck.

In an instant he was whole again, and that guy slung the sword back on his back and extended his hand.

“Let’s cooperate. I absolutely must get you out of this place. Our terms should align.”

“How am I supposed to trust you.”

“Should I pull out my heart for you?”

“…”

Staring at that clean hand, I had no choice but to take it.

At the moment I had no other means. And this guy seemed to know quite a lot of things.

“So, what do I need to do?”

“Eat me.”

“?”

“Right now.”

I gave up on cooperation.

Dying seemed like the better option.