Alive?

*scree~~*

A distant cry of the beast sounded from the exit passage, causing Jay to wake up.

The skeletons were nowhere to be found - probably still chasing after it.

It seemed that only a few seconds had passed since he was knocked unconscious.

“Mmhhh...” Jay murmured lightly from a sense of pain and nausea.

Jay sat up, it was hard to think. He felt a strange pressure behind his nose.

The first thing he realised was that the light in here was too bright, it actually hurt his eyes. It felt like rubber bands were snapping in his head the longer he looked.

He fixed his eyes on the dark room that the creature was originally in, staring for a moment. He knew he wanted to go there but not how to; his mind seemed to be different.

Since it was hard to think, he paused for a moment before slowly standing up, heading into the dark room where the creature was.

Some of the light from the glyphs behind the throne were still getting in and somehow it felt painful, so he turned around, staring into the dark corners of the room.

As he sat, he began to hear a strange sound. A quiet, consistent tapping. He wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t sitting here quietly.

Despite it being quiet, each time it tapped it felt like a wave rolled across his brain from each ear.

Jay then felt something cold on his face. He wiped his face and some of it went into his mouth; the taste of iron travelled through his mouth. It was a nosebleed.

Jay couldn’t think of what to do about his nose, each time the tap sound came it disrupted any thought patterns he had - and soon he forgot about it.

For now, he just sat there, staring into the darkness.

It was like he was daydreaming, yet with no thoughts. Doing nothing had never felt so good. He felt a sense of sleepiness, but he decided to resist it - he was in a dungeon after all.

After some time he somehow came to his senses, it was like he woke up.

Time had passed. Maybe minutes or maybe hours, there was no way to tell.

Despite sitting there staring into the darkness, it seemed like he was sleeping, though he was awake - the lights were on and no one was home.

Jay turned to look at the light, thankfully it no longer hurt his eyes - though the feeling of turning his head felt like it made his brain rattle in his skull; it was painful to move too quickly.

“MMmhh” he let out a pained, tired groan as he rubbed his head.

“My.. shield. My shield and hammer.” he slowly went back to the room

Scratching the back of his head, there was something crusty there.

“What the?” he grabbed some and looked at it “Oh, more blood. Great.”

He could stand the light now, but he wouldn’t look directly at it.

He found his shield and hammer lying near the pillar that he crashed into. The pillar itself had some blood on it from where he connected.

“Damn… I guess that the creature was going for the exit, not for me.”

Jay felt a little silly as he checked his health.

[HP: 87/93]

“Not as much damage as I thought... I must have taken it all to the head though”

Jay looked towards the exit.

“It must have escaped since there were no scanners to activate the giant statues… damn. It’s still out there somewhere.”

Jay willed two of the skeletons to come back to him, while leaving two out there to hunt for it. The creature was low health, especially after the uncaring rip skill, so two could surely finish it off.

The problem was that the creature was faster than the skeletons - it would eventually get away.

“Now…” Jay looked around the room. It was finally safe for him to search.

Well, safe enough anyway.

“That damn tapping noise.” Jay headed back to the dark room, he was as annoyed at the sound as he was curious.

He had to shield his eyes as he pulled out his luminous orb, his head and eyes were still not quite right.

For a moment he stood there quietly as his ears adjusted once more, he listened attentively.

*tap tap Tap*

“Over there” he turned his head and walked towards it.

Slowly, he came to a pile of rubble on the ground, but it wasn’t just any rubble, it was helvetian statue parts.

“Hmm..”

It seemed to form a circle and he walked close to the centre, his light slowly revealing more.

Inside the centre were more helvetian body parts along with some various bones and other parts.

“Maybe it’s a stockpile for the creature? But what the hell was that tapping sound?”

As Jay got to the centre, there was a small depression. The pile of different creature parts was a donut shape - it was a nest.

He found the source of the sound.

A black human head looked up at him, its jaw also slack. It’s attached to its neck was a slug-like body which had two arms with long blades sticking out from where the forearm would be attached.

It seemed that it used these blades to crawl around - but not only that.

*Tap tap tap*

Slowly, it was chipping away at the dead stone soldiers in front of it, sliding tiny pieces down its throat.

“The fuck… So that’s why their jaws must be slack… they were destroyed by the black stone maybe? Perhaps it’s just decay though.”

Jay looked at its every-decaying face; even parts of the cheeks had rotted through.

“It seems like that black stone has to get into the system to make it immortal… or at least slow the decay process?” he figured, watching the little horror clink away at more of the stones and body parts around it.

“Now… what do I do with you…”

Jay wasn’t sure if he should kill it or keep it as a pet - could he even train it though? And what would it become?

***Author here. I have decided to release two free chapters every a month, around the 15th and 25th, until we get to around 40-50 free chapters total (not including the immortal book).

I still feel bad about, out of my ignorance, setting the paywall at ch.17, so this will be my way of making things right. Thanks for taking a chance with my book :)***