Elian raised his sword and took a slow step forward. His eyes locked on the child
Despite the kid's size and fragile frame, a heavy knot of suspicion twisted in Elian's gut.
In a place like this, nothing could be trusted at face value. Not even a scared little children.
"Who are you?" Elian asked, his voice firm
The child flinched slightly at the question. His eyes darted to the sword, then back to Elian's face.
"M-Mister… please help me," the boy said with a shaky voice. "They left me. My group… ran when a monster came. I found this cave and hid here…"
His voice cracked, as if he was about to cry.
Elian narrowed his eyes
The orange glow of his chest crystal lit up the boy's figure. He looked just like Elian once did.
Wearing torn and ill-fitted clothes, his skin pale from hunger and ash, his bare feet cut and bloodied from walking on broken stone.
A slum rat. Just like him.
Exactly the kind of kid who would get abandoned in a place like this. It made sense. And that, somehow, made Elian trust him a little bit.
His sword lowered slightly. Not all the way, just enough to show he wasn't about to attack.
"What's your name?" Elian asked.
The boy hesitated, then said, "Jin."
Elian watched him a moment longer, searching for anything strange in his expression or movements. But all he saw was fear. Real, stinging fear.
"Have you found a Relic yet?" Elian asked.
Jin shook his head quickly. "No… I didn't get the chance. I was just running…"
Elian's jaw tightened. Time was running. Every second they wasted here was another second someone else might find the Relic meant for him.
"Is there a way forward from here?" he asked.
The boy nodded and pointed to a dark corner of the chamber.
Elian turned, following the direction.
His crystal light revealed a narrow opening near the floor. A small uneven hole in the rock that led forward. Just big enough to crawl through.
He grimaced.
Crawling meant being vulnerable or getting stuck. It meant that he will not bei able to swing his sword if something waited on the other side.
"I hate tight spaces…" he muttered under his breath.
Still, there was no other option. No stairs, tunnels, or other exit. If he want to have a chance to find a Relic, then he'd have to go through that hole.
He looked back at Jin. The kid hadn't moved, just stood near the crack he came out from.
"Stay close," Elian said. "But don't grab me. If anything touches me without warning, I might stab it on instinct."
Jin nodded quickly.
Elian stepped toward the crawlspace, crouched low, and stared into the darkness beyond.
His fingers tightened around the sword hilt again. He drew a breath.
Then he dropped to his knees and started crawling into the dark.
But then Elian paused just as his hands touched the rough stone of the crawlspace.
Something caught his eye.
Inside the hole, barely lit by the edge of his crystal's glow, there was a body.
It was stuffed into the crawlspace at an unnatural angle as if shoved in forcefully.
The clothes were torn, and the face was hidden. But the skin was gray and drained. Their veins blackened like rotting roots.
Elian swallowed hard. He leaned closer with his sword still drawn.
That was a corpse. And it hadn't crawled there. It had been placed there.
A chill ran down his spine.
It was suddenly too quiet. He realized it now.
His instincts screamed.
Elian didn't think—he just moved. He threw himself to the side, rolling across the floor just as something slammed into the stone where he had been crouching.
Crack!
Dust exploded upward while he heard the noise of metal stabbing into rock.
Elian spin mid-roll and snapped his eyes behind him.
And what he saw froze his blood.
Jin—if that was still his name—was changing.
His small body stood hunched, his arms trembling, his legs twitching like they couldn't decide how to move.
His spine pushed outward with sickening cracks. Veins bulged beneath his skin and glowing faintly with a dark red hue.
His face split in halft. Part of it was the same child, the other part something else.
His left eye was still human, wide and full of false fear.
But the right side of his face had split open like a shell peeling back. Revealing a second mouth, lined with jagged black teeth that clicking wetly as it twitched open and shut.
Tendrils slid out from his back like black worms and moving. One of them was a sharpened bone-spike that now buried into the stone where Elian had just been.
And from his throat, Jin—or the creature that wore his bidy—let out a whisper.
A voice in two tones. A child's sob, layered under a monster's hunger.
"…shouldn't…have turned your back…"
Elian's heart thundered in his ears.
He scrambled to his feet and raised his sword again. His yes locked on the creature that before looked so helpless.
This looks like a parasite type monster. One of the Grave Realm's creature that deceive their prey until they were ready to feed.
And it had almost worked if his instinct haven't reacted in time! He was almost actually died a second ago.
Elian narrowed his eyes.
"You almost had me," he growled.
The thing inside Jin smiled, or tried to. Its mouth opened wide enough to split the jaw.
Then it jump at him
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