Reincarnated as an Apocalyptic Catalyst-Chapter 110: Drip. Drip. Death.

Ronan was the first to move, as usual, throwing caution to the wind. Without hesitation, he stepped forward, boots splashing through what was left of the scalded water. He barely made a sound as he walked, his eerie stillness making him seem like a wraith slipping through the steam.

Vance shot me a glance. "You think he actually needs air?"

I sighed. "If he did, he’d probably find a way to discover it was inefficient and manipulate the air into some easier-to-digest atoms that he could photosynthesize into a source he could effortlessly intake."

Vance snorted but didn’t argue.

I rolled my shoulders, still feeling the pressure of those cold, skeletal fingers brushing against my skin. My body ached, not from wounds, but from the sheer exhaustion of keeping myself from drowning and getting torn apart in the same five-minute span.

"You doing alright Nythera?" I took the time to question.

She nodded quickly, but I could see the tension in her face. She was drained, pushing herself to move forward despite the sheer horror of what we just went through.

"Then let’s move."

She took a deep breath and followed.

The tunnel stretched forward, narrowing slightly, the ceiling arching lower. The walls here were older, worn smooth by centuries of water and time. Strange carvings lined the stone, faint glyphs that had been long eroded by the elements. It all seemed rather important, but at the moment, the undead menace that threatened us was the greater threat.

Whatever civilization built these tunnels had been gone for a long time, but something else had taken its place.

The deeper we walked, the thicker the air became. Not just the dampness of the sewers, but something otherworldly. The same unnatural energy that had been in the undead lingered here, pressing against my skin like an unseen force watching from the dark. This wasn’t just a dungeon, it was a living entity that plotted and planned our demise.

Ronan paused suddenly, he turned his head in that unnerving, not-quite-human tilt that always made my instincts scream causing me to stop immediately in my place. I looked around, trying to assess what was going on, what was firing warning alarms in Ronan’s mind.

Vance and Nythera caught on, slowing to a halt, eyes flicking around the pitch-black corridor.

"What is it?" I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Ronan didn’t answer at first.

Then, quietly—too quietly—he said, "The water is moving, it’s alive, or rather, something within it is alive."

A chill crawled down my spine.

"...It’s a sewer, Ronan," Vance muttered. "Water moves. That’s kinda its thing."

But Ronan wasn’t looking at the water, he was looking up, which is when I heard it, a slow, wet sound.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

At first, I thought it was just the remains of the fight, steam condensing against the ceiling, and then I noticed the smell It wasn’t just decay it was something far more rancid. I followed Ronan’s gaze and that’s when I saw them.

The ceiling wasn’t stone, or at least, not all of it.

In the dim glow of our magic, I could see figures pressed into the ceiling, half-embedded in the damp, rotting stone. Their bodies were twisted, arms hanging limply, their skin sagging like wet cloth. Their jaws hung open, filled with rows of needle-like teeth, but they didn’t move, at least not yet.

Nythera gasped, stepping back instinctively. "They’re... they’re part of the walls..."

"They aren’t just part of the walls, the walls are part of them,," I corrected, my stomach twisting into a knot. "They’re watching us."

Vance’s grip tightened on his sword. "You think they’re gonna—"

One of them twitched, a slow, agonizing movement, like a corpse finally understanding what it took to wake up, to achieve sentience on its own.

The stone cracked, and then, they started to move.

Ronan was the first to move, as usual, throwing caution into the abyss. He stepped forward like he wasn’t walking through a putrid stew of half-melted corpses and liquified disease. His boots barely made a sound, his movements so smooth it looked like he was gliding over the surface of the water rather than slogging through it. The steam coiled around him like he was some elemental being of steam that commanded the very state of matter itself... Creepy bastard.

Vance edged closer to me and whispered, "You think he actually needs air?"

I sighed. "If he did, he’d probably just figure out how to photosynthesize and start leeching nutrients from radiation or dirt or whatever other horror-movie nonsense he’s made of."

Vance snorted. "Not impossible."

We were joking, but barely. My nerves were fried, my skin still crawled where one of those bloated nightmares had touched me, and my limbs ached like I’d been swimming through gravel with a boulder tied to my hip. I wasn’t bleeding, but I wasn’t okay.

I glanced at Nythera. "Can you still walk?"

She gave me a quick nod, but her face was pale and tight with exhaustion. Her staff shook just a little in her hand. Still, she moved. Brave girl.

"Then let’s go. Slowly."

The tunnel ahead was darker than the ones before, the walls closing in and the ceiling arching lower. Strange markings covered the stone—faded glyphs etched into the slime-crusted masonry. Old, ancient. Magic maybe, or just the graffiti of some long-dead sewer cult. Didn’t matter. Whatever history this place had, it was buried under centuries of rot, both literal and metaphorical.

But there was something else, too, something heavier than air. It clung to my skin like mold and made every breath taste like iron and old blood. That same pressure I’d felt from the drowned—it was thicker here. More focused. The dungeon was watching us again. I could feel it, like a breath on the back of my neck.

Then Ronan stopped, and when Ronan stopped, I paid attention, due to multiple instances where shit really hit the fan.

He tilted his head in that uncanny, insectoid way he does like someone turned his neck on a hinge and forgot to stop. Every hair on my body stood up.

I halted. "What is it?"

He didn’t answer right away, but then, almost too softly to hear, he murmured, "The water is alive. Or rather... something within it is."

I stared at him as if repeating our previous interaction, "It’s a fucking sewer, Ronan, this is normal shit for a sewer.

But he wasn’t looking at the water, he was looking up, and that’s when I heard it.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

A wet sound, thick and slow. I looked up, following his gaze, and almost wished I hadn’t. At first, it just looked like more stone, damp and rotted like everything else—but then I noticed the shapes.

Bodies.

Fused into the ceiling like roots swallowed by concrete. Arms drooping. Faces slack. Flesh melted into the stone like wax. Their mouths hung open, lips split and peeling, teeth like needles arranged in a permanent, predatory grin.

"Gods..." Nythera whispered, stepping back. "They’re... they’re part of the walls."

"Part of the ship, part of the crew," I mentioned half-heartedly, not expecting anyone to understand the reference.

Vance’s fingers tightened on his sword. "You think they’re gonna—" One of them twitched and I flinched. A crack echoed overhead. Then another. Like bones snapping, and then the first one fell.

It peeled free from the stone with a hideous, wet sound, hitting the water with a splash that drenched my boots in a layer of pure disease. Another dropped beside it, landing on all fours, its back arched like a spider ready to pounce. The limbs were too long. Fingers were too thin. Eyes empty, but aware.

I stepped in front of Nythera, blades drawn, Phantom Edge humming faintly in my hand.

"Oh good," I muttered. "Ceiling zombies. I was worried this place was gonna run out of surprises."

Vance didn’t reply. He was too busy dodging the first one that lunged at him, its claws slicing through the air where his face had been a second before. He brought his sword around, slashing its chest wide open—and, of course, it didn’t care. It just twisted around the wound and kept coming.

I met my own attacker with a feint, ducked low, and swung my blade upward in a clean arc. Phantom Edge carved through its gut like water, and once again, it staggered—not from pain, but like it hadn’t expected resistance.

"They’re not drowned," I growled. "They’re something else. Something built for just this instance."

"They were part of the environment," Ronan added calmly, even as he blasted one through the shoulder with a bolt of fire. "Adapted to architecture. Designed to observe and respond."

"Thanks, Professor," I snapped. "Next time just scream ’incoming’ like a normal person!"

We fell into formation fast. Ronan and Nythera held the rear, hurling fire and light whenever something moved. Vance and I kept the front. Every slash of my blade aimed not at their bodies, but the strange black liquid that pulsed under their skin—just like with the drowned. When I cut through it, they faltered. Slowed. Disconnected.

And that gave us just enough edge to survive.

They were fast. Unnatural and coordinated, but we were pissed off and experienced, and sometimes that’s enough.

Eventually, the last one fell, twitching in the water before it dissolved into a mess of sludge and hissing decay.

I stood there, panting, drenched in sweat and sewer grime, my daggers dripping with ichor that smelled like burned corpses and regret.

"Well," I muttered. "Screw those guys."

Vance groaned. "I liked the water ones better. These ones were too... squishy."

Ronan nodded slightly. "There may be more."

Nythera didn’t respond. She was staring at the ceiling, her face pale, eyes wide.

I walked over and gently touched her arm. "You okay?"

She blinked, shaking her head. "No. But I’ll keep moving."

"Good," I said. "Because I’m betting the next thing in this dungeon has teeth in places teeth should never be."

And with that delightful thought, we kept moving. Deeper into the tunnel. Deeper into the dark.

Because whatever was ahead?

Yeah... it wasn’t done with us yet.

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