White Eye in the dark

Listening to Athoi, Nabil started to walk toward her, saying, "What did you find?"

Nabil reached the spot, with some of the GuGu still clinging to him. One GuGu jumped onto Athoi's head.

As soon as the GuGu landed on her head, Athoi felt instant peace, and all her stress faded away in seconds.

"What? What did you see?" asked Nabil.

"Oh... Look at the water," said Athoi.

Nabil looked at the water and saw a small box chained to the ground.

"It's a box. And it's really small," said Nabil.

"Yeah, and look closely—the chain is locked with a key. We need to find the key. Maybe after that, we can find the portal we're looking for," said Athoi.

"Yeah, right... But how will we find the key?" asked Nabil.

"If we can't find the key, we'll break it—simple," said Athoi.

"Do you think it's that easy? There's no way we'll be able to free it that easily. It must be a trap. We need to find the key," said Nabil.

"Good point, but how will we find the key now?" asked Athoi.

"The key must be somewhere nearby. Look, there are a lot of small caves like the one where we found the diamond. We should try to search there," said Nabil.

"Hmm... okay, let's do it tomorrow then," said Athoi.

"Yeah, but in the day, when I looked at the water, I didn't see anything. But now, at night, we found the box. Isn't that weird? I still remember looking at the water in the daytime and seeing the ground too. But I didn't see anything," said Nabil.

"Really?" asked Athoi.

"Yes, I'm sure about this," said Nabil.

"That's strange. Does that mean the box has the same feature as zombies, skeletons, and other mobs that turn to dust in daylight and come back after sunset?" asked Athoi.

"Maybe, or maybe not. We won't know until we figure it out. My gut says that if we want to find the key or do anything, we have to do it now," said Nabil.

"You're overthinking. We can't see if it appears in the day or not until tomorrow morning. So we should go and sleep. Tomorrow we can do something," said Athoi.

"Think of it this way—these GuGu appear at night. I think this box has the same features as zombies and other mobs that can't survive in daylight.

If my guess is right, we won't find the box here in the day. There's a possibility that if the box disappears, the key might also disappear in the day.

Suppose my assumption is correct, then when we try to find the key during the day, we won't find anything. I'm not sure about my assumption, but I see some possibility," said Nabil.

"That's a deep analysis, but if we can't find anything in the day, we can look at night, right?" asked Athoi.

"That's the point. If we try to find it tonight, we can reduce the time. Also, if my assumption is correct, it will take us another two days and slow down our work," said Nabil.

"How?" asked Athoi.

"Suppose we don't find it during the day and start searching at night—we'll feel sleepy because the last time we rested was tonight. And if we find it searching the whole night, we'll have to wait for the next night to do our work," said Nabil.

"Hmm... true," said Athoi.

"Look, if we search tonight until we feel sleepy, we can at least make some progress," said Nabil.

"You're right, I guess," said Athoi.

"There are 13 caves around. No matter how big or small, we can try to search each cave for an hour. If today we split up and search at least one cave, then tomorrow we'll have 11 caves left," said Nabil.

"Yeah, now I understand what you're trying to say. If we can't find anything in the day, we'll have to re-search everything," said Athoi.

"There's more to observe. In the daytime, when we first arrived here, we saw the leaves reflecting light. I clearly remember each reflection hitting different caves around," said Nabil.

"I didn't notice things like that," said Athoi.

"Trust me, I did. But the lights weren't entering all the caves. They were hitting only three caves, creating a triangle," said Nabil.

"Really? A triangle?" asked Athoi.

"Yeah, a triangle. I wanted to show you that, but at that moment, Leon found the diamond cave, so I forgot about it," said Nabil.

"Do you remember which caves the light was hitting?" asked Athoi.

"No, I forgot. But I clearly remember that cave up there, beside the edges on top of every cave," said Nabil.

"Oh, let's go there," said Athoi.

"We should wear armor first," said Nabil, putting on his armor.

Athoi did the same.

Athoi held Nabil's hand and used her teleporting power, but it didn't work.

"Wait, my power—it isn't working," said Athoi.

"What? Why?" asked Nabil.

"Is it because you're holding my hand?" asked Nabil.

"Oh... yeah, maybe. Were you trying to use your no-ability skill on me?" asked Athoi.

"No. I didn't use any ability," said Nabil.

Athoi let go of Nabil's hand and tried to teleport again, but it still didn't work.

"No, it's not because of your power. Look at the smoke inside the cave," said Athoi.

Nabil looked and saw a white glowing eye staring at them from the smoke.

From the darkness, an entity leaped forward. Its structure resembled a human but had four arms and a lean body. Its entire form was composed of dark smoke, and its eyes glowed white.

Nabil and Athoi stepped back, fear evident in their eyes.

The ground beneath them began to swirl with dark smoke, and before they could react, they were teleported to the place where Leon and Whfi were sleeping.

Nabil and Athoi, both in shock, looked around to see the entity standing a few meters away, watching them intently.

"Is it the boss?" Nabil asked, his voice trembling.

"No, the boss was supposed to be inside the portal. This is something else," Athoi replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

In an instant, the entity teleported in front of Nabil and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying through the air.

Athoi, seeing this, instantly attacked the entity with her diamond sword, but the blade shattered on impact.

The entity punched Athoi in the chest, its hand piercing through her torso, destroying every cell in its path. It kicked her away and then teleported in front of Nabil, throwing him to the ground.

Whfi, witnessing this, unleashed his laser on the entity, but it remained unaffected.

Athoi teleported to catch Nabil before he hit the ground.

Leon charged at the entity with his energy, but it still showed no effect.

The entity jumped back, forming a sword out of dark energy.

Nabil, seeing Athoi's severe injury and her chest destroyed, shouted in fear, "Athoi, your chest!"

"I know, but I can regenerate," she said, her voice strained as she healed her wounds.

Leon lunged at the entity, but it swiftly cut him in half with its dark sword.

Nabil screamed Leon's name in horror.

Athoi teleported to attack the entity again with another diamond sword, but it grabbed her effortlessly.

Nabil, running toward the entity with his ruby sword, watched in terror as the entity punched Athoi's head, ripping it off and consuming it with its dark smoke.

Nabil couldn't comprehend what was happening. The entity, after consuming Athoi's head, threw her lifeless body at Nabil, hitting him hard.

< Player - Athoi is dead >

Holding Athoi's body, Nabil was lost in grief and anger. He charged at the entity while Whfi created a fireball and hurled it, but the entity turned and shot a small energy ball at Whfi, destroying him instantly.

The entity vanished, leaving Nabil surrounded by the bodies of his fallen friends. He desperately checked each one, calling their names, but the system confirmed:

< Athoi is killed by (???) >

< Leon is killed by (???) >

< Whfi is killed by (???) >

The entity reappeared and spoke in a deep, malevolent voice, "You are slow and weak. If you were strong and powerful, you could've saved them."

"I will kill you!" Nabil screamed.

"How amusing, kid. Every person that has died here was more powerful than you. There's no way you can kill me," the entity sneered. It teleported closer, grabbed Nabil by the hair, and began punching his chest repeatedly, causing Nabil to scream in agony.

The entity threw Nabil far away. As Nabil struggled to breathe, the entity teleported to him, ripping off his arms.

Nabil screamed in pain. The entity then grabbed Nabil's head and tore it off, plunging him into darkness.

"Hello, Nabil... what's the matter? Why did you freeze? Speak to me, I'm scared," Athoi's voice echoed in Nabil's ears as he opened his eyes, finding himself back at the moment he saw the eyes in the smoke.

Nabil's eyes were fixed on the smoke from the cave.

"Hey, Nabil... are you okay? You suddenly closed your eyes and froze for about ten minutes. I was scared to go in without you," Athoi said, concerned.

Nabil looked at Athoi, his face filled with fear and sorrow.

"Nabil? What happened? You look... sad," Athoi said, her tension growing.

"No... nothing. Let's go outside," Nabil said with a determined tone.

"Why? What happened?" Athoi asked.

With a louder voice, Nabil said, "Let's go outside, don't you hear me?"

"Excuse me, you can't talk to me like that," Athoi responded, taken aback.

Suddenly, Nabil felt extreme pain in his chest. He fell to his knees and began to vomit blood into the pond.

Athoi, filled with worry, held Nabil, "What happened? Hey... Nabil."

Nabil couldn't respond; he kept vomiting blood, turning the pond red. As he vomited, he started to shake, and from the water, invisible hands began pulling him in.

Athoi tried to hold onto Nabil, but the hands' pulling force was too strong, dragging him into the water.