Immortal Paladin-Chapter 143 – Inside the mist [8]

Emily wasn't the only one in the room feeling tense. The air was heavy, and discomfort was clearly visible on everyone's faces as they watched the "thing" being displayed on the massive screen.

Laura, for example, nervously chewed her nails, her fingers trembling slightly with every movement. Her eyes were glued to the screen, unable to look away for even a second, as if she feared missing any detail of what was unfolding before them.

"Well... I guess that explains why none of the teams we sent out came back" Victor commented, standing beside Emily. His gaze held a clear irony, almost mocking, given the absurd situation they found themselves in.

Emily simply nodded at Victor’s words. Deep down, she didn’t know what to say—or rather, was there really anything she could say? After all, it was her orders that had sent all those people to their deaths. All because she hadn’t had enough information about what was actually happening outside.

When the first team failed to return, Emily acted immediately: she altered the plan and requested the deployment of the [Angel of Death]. However, the higher-ups blocked her decision. According to them, there was no concrete proof that the situation had escalated to that level. Bureaucracy triumphed over urgency—and lives were lost because of it.

Although Emily knew the higher-ups saw practically all the organization's personnel as expendable, she never imagined they would go this far. It took more than six teams disappearing into the mist before they finally authorized the release of the anomaly. In the end, Emily just took a deep breath. Despite the lost lives, she knew she still had a duty to fulfill.

With these thoughts still echoing in her mind, Emily blinked slowly before returning her gaze to the screen. The moment she did, her eyes widened. The anomalous creature from before had reappeared, now displayed more clearly.

Its skull, vaguely resembling a human's but with disturbing proportions and contours, was directly facing the anomaly on display. However, there was something about the way its eyes—if they could be called that—were positioned that gave the unsettling impression they were staring directly at Emily.

For a brief moment, she felt as though she was being watched. Then, the thing opened its mouth. The sound that followed was dry and cutting: the harsh creak of bones rubbing against each other, like old wood being forced to give way. Emily shuddered. The noise seemed to echo in her mind, as if the skull were right there, behind her.

In the next moment, something made Emily flinch. The anomalous creature slowly opened its mouth, and from within, a bright red light began to emanate, pulsating as though it were alive. Emily couldn’t explain why, but from that moment on, her mind plunged into a fog—her thoughts jumbled, and all she could feel was an irrational desire to move closer to that warm light.

Her vision blurred, the outlines of the world around her losing definition, except for the creature before her. Its mouth still open, the red light pouring out like liquid embers, almost bubbling, hypnotic. Was it heat? Energy? She couldn’t say. She could only feel... that she wanted to be inside it. Surrounded by that burning presence, as if something there was silently calling her name.

However, in the next instant, the creature’s mouth snapped shut abruptly, as though an invisible force was forcing it to silence. Emily blinked, snapping back to reality with a start. That’s when she realized—with a shiver running down her spine—that she had been mentally corrupted.

The memory and the sensation were still vivid in her mind, too clear to be a dream. And the most disturbing part: she had willingly followed the red light emanating from the creature’s mouth, like a puppet hypnotized by its master.

When she looked back at the screen, Emily’s eyes widened at what she saw. The anomalous creature, previously in a rage, had suddenly closed its mouth— the reason was terrifying. Hundreds of black hands, shrouded in thick, dark smoke, appeared around the creature, as if they wanted to contain it or crush it.

The camera’s viewpoint, attached to the [Angel of Death], now seemed to be higher, offering a wide view, as if it were positioned on some kind of elevated platform. However, Emily knew there was no structure in that area capable of sustaining that angle. In other words, the anomaly was floating.

And as it floated, the anomalous creature became increasingly visible—a colossal being, over six meters tall, as if it had stepped right out of a horror movie, a nightmare incarnate from the depths of hell.

Even with all the names and titles Emily’s mind could come up with to define such a monstrosity, at that exact moment, it was being reduced to nothing more than a mere toy in the face of the hundreds of smoldering hands emerging from the body of the [Angel of Death], dancing around the creature with ruthless precision.

***

(POV – Protagonist)

The moment I was captured by that creature, which had a grotesque, spider-human hybrid appearance, a series of thoughts quickly crossed my mind about what it might do to me... Too many, to be honest.

However, when it finally grabbed me and opened its mouth, something even stranger happened. Instead of simply devouring me, as I had imagined, an intense red light began to emanate from its throat.

The glow was so vivid it almost seemed to consume the darkness around us, but strangely, I couldn’t understand the purpose of such an action. Why had it opened its mouth if it didn’t seem interested in swallowing me?.

I realized that this light had to have some effect on me. I figured this out when the human-spider—whatever that thing was—began intensifying the light, drawing closer and closer. However, to my surprise, I didn’t feel any different in my body. Still, I stayed there, waiting. Maybe it was a delayed effect, I thought. Time passed, but no matter how long I waited, nothing happened. There was no change at all.

Since it seemed like nothing was going to happen, I decided to give a simple command to my Alter Ego, to get rid of whatever was blocking my path. The moment I uttered the command, my body began to emit a dark, thick, and unsettling mist that spread through the air like dense smoke. Gradually, the mist wrapped around me, growing thicker and thicker.

From within this dark veil, shadowy hands began to emerge, with long, distorted fingers. The first hand gripped one of the spider's legs with unexpected strength, and without hesitation, three more hands emerged, surrounding its body. More and more hands continued to appear, one after another, until the spider was completely encased, trapped by an unrelenting web of darkness.

In the next moment, the hands started to envelop it, as if they were part of a cocoon made of dense, pulsating shadows. The last thing I saw of the spider was all of its pairs of eyes slowly turning toward me, before, with a final movement, even they were swallowed by the darkness of the smoky hands.

I blinked, trying to understand what was happening, as the scene disappeared before my eyes. My body remained suspended, gently floating in the air, as if time had slowed down. As strange as it was, the wings that had appeared on my tailbone after absorbing Althea's powers now allowed me to hover a few meters above the ground. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

I’m not sure if I can fly, but floating is something I do as effortlessly as breathing. In any case, as soon as my bare feet touched the cold, rough ground, I walked with light, almost silent steps toward the dark orb.

I stopped just a few inches away, crouching down to observe it from underneath, my eyes focused on the smallest details of its surface. A few seconds later, a dark red, viscous liquid began to seep through the cracks in the cocoon, sliding like something alive.

Honestly, I expected some kind of voice to come through the camera attached to my body after that. Maybe something like: "Keep moving out of the base" or something along those lines. However, the only sound that echoed was the absolute silence, broken only by the sound of the liquid dripping through the cracks of the cocoon.

None of the sounds I had expected were present. Confused, I leaned slightly forward, staring at the camera. From the perspective of someone watching through the lens, I probably looked like I had my head down, in a posture of doubt or reflection.

I tilted my head slightly to the side, observing the red light flashing on the camera. It didn’t seem broken, just indicating some kind of activity I didn’t fully understand. However, there were no signs that I would receive new orders. Without further hesitation, I decided it was time to move on. After all, leaving the base had always been my original goal, and I wasn’t about to waste any more time there.

With that thought in mind, I focused my gaze on the cocoon. In the next instant, it dissolved, turning back into a shadow that dissipated like mist in the wind. At the same time, red rain began to fall from the sky, something between the supernatural and the inexplicable.

The liquid, with an almost hypnotic hue, spread in all directions, covering the ground and the air around me, as if the sky itself were bleeding. I didn’t know why, but it felt like each drop carried a strange, silent energy.

Ignoring the scene, I began walking toward the gate, while something resembling a raincoat, made of the very shadows, unfurled around my body, protecting me from the red rain, as if the dark fabric wanted to keep me untouched by that enigmatic liquid.

With every step, I slowly approached the gate, but to my frustration, it was still closed. For a moment, I stopped and thought about how I might get through it.

The doubt lingered in my mind, until, at the exact moment that thought crossed my mind, the shadow around me stretched in a nearly supernatural way, moving toward the gate.

Before I could react, it opened with overwhelming force, creating a gap wide enough for me to pass through with ease.

I blinked, lost in a whirlwind of doubts. Should I have done that? Honestly, I wasn’t sure, but somehow, the idea that they might have paid for the gate gave me some relief.

With that thought, I moved forward and crossed the gate, finally finding myself on the other side. The ground before me was covered by a dusty road that stretched endlessly, with no end in sight. To the left and right, only sand.

After that spider monster, I figured literally anything could come out of that thick mist. With that thought, I hesitated for a moment, but then decided to take another step forward. However, at the exact moment my mind made the decision, a deafening roar echoed around me. It was an extremely loud sound, but at the same time, curious and soft.

The reverberation filled the air, and I felt the ground tremble slightly beneath my feet, as if something immense was touching it. The sound somehow reminded me of the distant roar of a whale, deep and mysterious, as if it was coming from the depths of an unknown ocean.

The next moment, when I looked forward again, the mist distorted in a strange way. It wasn’t a usual distortion; for one, it wasn’t close, but distant, as if it was spreading from a far-off point.

And the most unsettling part: the distortion was so immense that it seemed to stretch beyond the horizon, with no end in sight. The exact moment that thought filled my mind, a fleeting glimpse appeared through the mist, something emerging slowly, as if it was taking shape from the very ethereal substance.

From the middle of the thick mist, something colossal began to emerge. First came the sound — a deep lament, like the echo of a whale dying in some unreachable abyss. Then, the monstrous shape slowly revealed itself: a gigantic head, with the curved, familiar outline of a cetacean, but distorted, as if nature itself had hesitated when shaping it.

The skin was thick, gray, and covered in cracks that pulsed with a faint bluish light, like veins full of static electricity. Where the eyes should have been, there were only long vertical slits, filled with an internal mist that seemed to move of its own accord, as if the creature was looking without seeing — or seeing in a way that the human brain couldn’t comprehend.

At the bottom, instead of a smooth jaw, hung long, thin appendages, resembling whale’s whiskers, but alive — writhing like tentacles, hissing in the air with a wet and anxious sound. And when the creature let out another bellow, the clouds themselves seemed to part in respect, revealing more of that grotesque, incomprehensible mass.