I Possess the SSS Skill: Future Sight-Chapter 24: The Black River

- Kyle Valtier’s POV -

My bleak philosophical thoughts

I started walking.

And it was not walking—it was vertical crawling.

Finding water in the Erebus Mountains was not as simple as searching for a spring in a forest.

This place was cursed—even its water hid as if it feared its own monsters.

I walked for hours. Or perhaps minutes that felt like hours. I lost all sense of time.

My feet, whose soles had been melted in the palace fire and torn apart during my blind escape, left faint bloody prints on the jagged volcanic rocks.

Every step sent an electric shock of pain through my spine.

I dragged my legs, stumbling over rough gravel and falling on my face, only to rise again with bleeding hands from trying to cling to the icy rocks.

The darkness toyed with my mind.

I saw shadows moving at the edges of my vision.

I heard the footsteps of that long-limbed entity behind me, turning in terror only to find emptiness.

Thirst and fear blended reality with hallucination.

My throat had completely closed, and I could no longer even swallow my saliva, which had turned into a thick, glue-like substance.

"Water... anything..." I whispered in my mind, because my lips refused to part.

After a grueling, exhausting climb up a steep rocky hill—one that tore my nails apart—I reached the top and collapsed onto my stomach, gasping.

And there... my ears caught a sound.

It was not a roar. Not something nightmarish.

It was the sound of rushing water—strong, violent, yet carrying a promise of life.

I crawled on my stomach to the edge of the slope and looked down.

There was a river.

A raging black river, carving its way violently through the rocks, its waters crashing harshly and spraying white foam that resembled the fangs of a rabid dog.

It was not a calm river—it was a wild artery pulsing through the heart of the mountain.

I rolled down the slope, ignoring the cuts the sharp rocks added to my body.

I crashed hard onto the cold, smooth pebble-covered riverbank.

I threw my face directly into the dark current.

And I drank.

I drank with an animalistic madness that had nothing to do with humanity.

The water was freezing—so cold it struck my brain with sharp, nail-like pain. Its taste was heavy, carrying the flavor of sharp metals, ash, and something ancient and rotten.

But in that moment, it was more delicious and pure than the wine of transcendents.

I felt the icy water slide down my esophagus, extinguishing the fire burning in my stomach, awakening my deadened cells.

I drank and drank, choking and coughing, then returning to drink again, until I felt my stomach might burst.

I finally lifted my head, gasping with primal satisfaction, black water dripping from my chin and from my dark hair stuck to my forehead.

I leaned back and sat on the cold pebbles.

I looked at my feet.

My tactical boots were torn, melted, and fused to the blistered flesh.

Slowly—through pain that made me bite my lip until it bled again—I removed what remained of my boots and blood-soaked socks.

The soles of my feet were a canvas of peeled flesh, festering burns, and deep gashes.

I crawled toward the river’s edge and dipped my ruined feet into the icy current.

"Ahh..."

A long, deep sigh escaped me, carrying the weight of the mountains surrounding me.

The freezing cold numbed the burning nerve endings and slowly stopped the bleeding.

It was pain followed by earned relief.

I leaned back on my hands and tilted my head upward, staring at the dead gray sky.

I reflected on my state.

I looked at this being sitting on the bank of a river in hell.

"Look at you, Kyle Valtier..." I whispered with a broken, mocking smile devoid of any joy.

"The great Black Joker. Sitting here, washing your flayed feet in an unknown river, crying and pissing yourself in fear of mountain shadows. Would Morfind feel proud if he saw you now? Or would he pity you?"

I sighed again.

The sigh of a man who realized the bottom he had reached had a basement beneath it.

But... the moment my cells were rehydrated and the pain in my feet subsided, another beast awakened within me.

A deep, painful growl tore from my stomach.

A sharp pain, like a heated blade stabbing into my intestines, made me double over and clutch my abdomen.

The Eitra I had consumed during my frantic escape, and the wounds partially healed by the power of the Purple Shadow Ghoul core I had devoured in that alley—all of it demanded a price.

My body was burning through energy at a sickening rate to avoid cellular collapse.

"I... am hungry."

This was not ordinary hunger for bread or fruit.

It was a hunger awakened by the monster core fused within my blood.

An animalistic hunger.

A craving for flesh.

For concentrated energy.

For predation.

I looked around the dark valley.

Nothing. No plants, no normal animals.

Then... I shifted my gaze to the black water flowing beneath my feet.

The current was fast, but near the bank it formed small pools and relatively calm eddies.

And as I stared into the watery darkness, I saw movement.

Something fast.

Shadows sliding beneath the surface against the current.

Fish?

"In this cursed river?" I muttered, predatory instinct igniting in my crimson eyes.

I slowly pulled my feet out of the water.

I lay flat on my stomach over the pebbles, bringing my face close to the surface, extending my right hand above the water.

I focused what remained of my Shadow Eitra into my hand, forming a thin, hardened layer around my fingers like an invisible glove.

I watched the shadows beneath the water.

They moved in sharp, erratic patterns.

I waited.

I waited until one shadow came close to the surface in a nearby eddy.

With a savage speed that had nothing to do with humanity, I struck my hand into the freezing water.

My fingers clamped with crushing force around something slimy, muscular, and hard as stone.

The thing thrashed violently, nearly dragging my arm into the depths.

But I shouted and yanked it out, throwing it onto the pebbles behind me.

I turned quickly to look at my "catch."

And recoiled in disgust that churned my stomach.

It wasn’t a fish.

I was in Erebus—where nothing was natural.

The creature writhing on the stones was a grotesque aquatic nightmare.

It was about the length of a human arm.

It had no scales, but was covered in overlapping gray bony plates like armor.

It did not have a fish tail—instead, fleshy tendrils ended in small bony blades that struck the ground violently.

Worst of all...

It had no eyes.

Its head was nothing but a massive circular mouth, opening and closing rapidly, revealing concentric rows of needle-like teeth spinning like a small mechanical saw.

It hissed like a serpent and spat black saliva that dissolved the pebbles beneath it.

This was a demonic parasite—not a fish.

The creature lunged at me, trying to sink its circular mouth into my leg.

"Get away, you freak!"

I kicked it hard, then drew my empty pistol and, with all the strength, desperation, and hunger I had left, slammed the heavy metal butt of the gun down on its head.

Craaack!

The bony plates shattered.

I struck again. And again.

And again.

Until it stopped moving, and thick black-blue blood oozed from its crushed head, reeking of rotten mud and pus.

I threw the pistol aside.

I was breathing heavily.

I looked at the creature’s corpse.

Its stench was enough to induce immediate vomiting.

But... the hunger in my stomach roared.

The ghoul core in my blood screamed for flesh.

I had no fire to cook it.

And even if I did, I feared fire—its light would draw the nightmares of the mountains.

I grabbed the creature by its middle.

It was slimy and cold.

Using my chipped tactical knife, I struggled to cut open its armored belly.

Its insides spilled out—black and yellow organs hanging, pulsing with grotesque sluggishness.

I shut my eyes tightly so I wouldn’t see the horror.

I held my breath so I wouldn’t smell it.

I lifted the raw flesh, coated in black blood, to my mouth.

And sank my teeth into it.

"Mghh..."

A muffled sound escaped me as I chewed.

The taste was hell.

Rubbery. Revolting. Like chewing a rotten tire soaked in spoiled blood.

The flesh was cold and slimy, the black blood staining my lips and chin.

My stomach convulsed, trying to expel the poison—but I forced myself to swallow.

I swallowed hard, hot tears streaming down my face.

I took another bite. And a third.

I was crying as I ate the raw flesh of a demonic monstrosity in the dark.

This is me now.

Kyle Valtier.

This is what I’ve become to survive.

I abandoned my humanity and became a monster that devours monsters at the bottom of the world.

I am no different from them.

When I had eaten enough to silence the screams in my stomach, I threw the disgusting remains into the river for the current to carry away.

I washed my face and hands in the icy water, trying to remove the taste of rotten blood from my mouth.

I felt a faint, dirty—but necessary—energy flow through my veins.

The flesh contained weak Eitra, but it was enough to keep me standing.

I rose slowly.

I tore pieces from my shirt and wrapped them around the soles of my feet so I could walk, then put on what remained of my boots.

I looked at the path of the dark river.

Where did this wild artery lead?

I began to follow its course.

The current grew faster and more violent, the sound louder.

After about half an hour of walking, I noticed a change in the terrain.

The river was no longer flowing through an open valley.

It cut directly—like a blade through flesh—between two massive black mountains.

The mountains stood extremely close to each other, like colossal gates to an underworld, standing as silent guardians while the raging river flowed between them through a narrow, dark gorge.

The wind here howled like mourning voices, and thick mist rose from the crashing waters.

"This place looks... like an entrance," I muttered as I carefully advanced along the slippery rocky edge beside the river.

I approached the gap between the mountains.

The rock walls rose vertically—black and smooth.

The river bent sharply through this narrow gorge, curving tightly around the base of the right mountain.

I continued forward, carefully navigating the rocky bend so as not to fall into the raging waters.

And when I passed the corner of the right mountain’s base...

My steps froze.

My eyes widened.

Behind the bend—hidden skillfully behind a curtain of dense water mist and jagged rocks hanging like fangs—there was something.

It was not just a crack in the mountain.

It was a cave.

A massive cave.

A black maw that devoured both light and water.

The entire river flowed violently into this abyssal mouth, disappearing into bottomless darkness.

The air flowing out of the cave was not just cold—it was ancient.

It carried the scent of dead ages, and a density of Eitra so heavy it made the air itself feel thick... almost visible.

I opened the red system screen in my mind, rereading the mission.

[Location: Erebus Mountain Range – Entrance leading to the Deep Tunnels.]

I looked at the black cave swallowing the river.

"The Deep Tunnels..." I muttered, a deadly sense of awe washing over me.

This was it.

I didn’t need to return to the bloody waterfall.

This hidden cave behind the mountain—the one devouring the black river...

This was my path.

This was the place where the legendary sword lay in its depths...

And perhaps... other things known only to death.

I stood before the black maw, listening to the echo of water rushing into its depths.

I had found the door.

But did I possess the courage—

—or rather, the madness—to enter it?