Chapter 12: Hidden Path

The Incarnate felt his black slam against something hard and dusty… unfortunately.

The body of the foul-smelling, shaggy dog falling on top of him right after, made him taste the flavor of dirt before he realized that wherever he had fallen or sunken into, was very, very dark.

Panic set into the Incarnate. He blinked furiously.

Where was he?

How did he get here?

This unknown was much more vexing than the pain in his flesh and bones right now.

He tried his best to stand, and when he did, he realized that while the Valiant Subject’s Ward was in his hand, Tenyen’s mace was not. It must have fallen from his grip when he slammed on the ground.

‘That’s not good.’

Just as the Incarnate began sweeping the ground with his legs to see if he could locate the weapon, he heard the growl of the remaining dog once again. It pounced.

Determined to not feel the sweet sting of his ribs again, the Incarnate dived to the right only to smash into a wall… somewhere, face first.

Perhaps because the noise he made was particularly loud, the persistent canine rushed him again, having accurately pinpointed his position.

The Incarnate refused to be bested even in the darkness.

The dog's growling acted as a positioning mechanism for him as well. He timed the approach of the dog with the intensity of the noise from its growl and when he felt that it was close enough, he swung his shield where he felt the thing’s dangling head would be, and then…

SHIIIK! THUD!

The Incarnate felt the shield slice through the dog’s already torn neck and a moment later, he heard its head fall to the ground.

Finally.

The Incarnate plopped to the ground and finally let all his nerves and muscles relax.

He took lengthy, deep breaths.

With the loosening of all tension, however, the Incarnate felt the pain from the four holes in his shoulders, his broken ribs, and his bruised thigh introducing itself more thoroughly.

He winced and gritted his teeth.

He placed his fingers on the wounds from the dog’s teeth.

While it hurt like a son of the devil, the Incarnate found that it didn’t bleed all that much, strangely enough.

‘That’s unusual. There’s barely any blood there at all. It almost feels like all there is is the blood from when that thing’s teeth ripped through my skin and flesh initially,’ he thought.

He didn’t know what to make of this.

The properties of this new body of his were mostly unknown to the Incarnate.

His skin was sensitive to supernatural phenomena – supernatural-er, perhaps.

He had three hearts.

Above all – now that he thought about it – physical attributes aside, this body could take a high degree of punishment. Receiving the attacks from Tenyen with the Valiant Subject’s Ward would have been impossible with his old body. It didn’t matter how extraordinary the shield itself was. The impacts from Tenyen would have destroyed his human muscles and bones.

‘Only took all this for me to realize that…’ the Incarnate thought.

Unfortunately for him, there wasn’t anything more he could glean about himself other than this. At least for now.

Thus, after resting for a few more minutes, he stood up and started to analyze where he was.

‘Let’s see. Me and the dog were about to hit the wall and then suddenly, we were here,’ he thought before his body shook. ‘The walls… don’t tell me we are actually inside the valley walls!’

The Incarnate hurried to the opposite end of where he was standing and started feeling for the wall. It took a strangely long time for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He should have been able to see by now, but he added this oddity to his chest of unexplained supernatural mysteries.

Once he reached the wall, he frowned.

The Demonling had been wondering where all these enemies were coming from when all he could see was a clear path in the valley.

But now…

Were they all traveling through here and somehow emerging from the walls seamlessly?

This kind of witchcraft or sorcery or whatever it was still shocked the new Incarnate.

He began organizing his thoughts and as time passed, his eyes finally started to distinguish the darkness from everything else.

He saw the beheaded figure of the dog and the small pool of blood around it.

His eyes narrowed.

‘Wait. Since it’s just Tenyen and these dogs… his dogs, does that mean you can only enter this place if you are attached to either of them in some way?’

The Incarnate thought this was the case. However, he had to test his theory.

He picked up the severed head of the dog and walked with it to the wall.

He then took a deep breath and pushed his hand against it.

Suddenly, the thick darkness faded and he saw, once again, the narrow space of the valley and its other wall!

The Incarnate was right!

This was the hidden path Tenyen and his dogs used!

This discovery, while wonderfully mystical to the Incarnate, didn’t make him feel any better about his situation though.

He drew back and dropped the head of the dog.

‘Why do I feel like I’m barely halfway through this damned First Floor?’ he thought.

Yes, he had survived the Omen and, yes, he had survived Tenyen, but this was all…

‘If things are like this now, what about the Tenth Floor?’

This thought disheartened the warrior.

Yes, it seemed like he had ways to grow, but for now, aside from the Equipment he gained, he didn’t feel any sort of personal edification.

The one skill he got, Sundering Bunt, was still unusable because he didn’t have Spirit Essence.

If he met someone else like the Crusher…

‘It’s useless to put weights on my own resolve. I have been in more hopeless situations than I care to count. I survived then, right?’

The sentiment gave the Incarnate no more than a gram of reassurance, but that was enough for now.

What he needed was to find the way forward.

He looked to the left. The path extended endlessly.

He looked to the right. The path forged on without end.

‘Well, with relation to the path in the valley…’

The Incarnate decided that left was the way forward.

Thankfully, once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found Tenyen’s mace and picked it up.

Wouldn’t want to come across some more, strangely unfeeling, rotten horrors without it.

And thus, vigilantly, the Incarnate walked forth.

Like the path parallel to the one he was on now, the dark, stony way was silent and empty, though the Incarnate doubted it would remain like that for long.

Before he knew it, he traveled for thirty minutes without finding anything eager to bash his head in or sink its fangs into his flesh, which was refreshing… and also unexpected.

Where was the rest of the carnage? The slaughter?

How could this Floor, the Ruins of the Deserted King Alabas – as the glowing tablet called it – grow soft now?

A touch of frustration filled the Incarnate, but he suppressed it.

This was probably the only time he would get to rest, so perhaps it was best to thank whatever deity watched over this place for it.

Time slogged forth with every step the Incarnate took. He quickly got more and more bored and restless.

Yet, after some time, he happened upon something that piqued his desperate sense of interest.