Chapter 174: Escape

Chapter 174: Escape

Murphy’s dark brown eyes snapped open under the crimson water, glowing with a ruthless, predatory light. He knew that he couldn’t waste a single second of the breathing room Miss Sage had bought him.

Through his bloodshot Apprentice’s Eyes, Murphy looked up at the massive, pulsating body of the kraken hovering above him. The monster’s physical meat was heavily compressed by the ocean’s depth, but its spiritual structure was a twisted knot of thousands of spirit threads that anchored its malice to the descending embodiment of Cthulhu further below.

"My turn." Murphy whispered into the silent, pressurized water.

Using the stone pillar behind him as a launching pad, he kicked off with all his might, his body pushing through the crimson currents. The kraken sensed the danger and frantically launched all of its remaining tentacles downward to crush him into pulp.

He swung the Glaive in a continuous vertical wheel, his movements mimicking the flawless, lethal fighting style of an elite hunter.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

A succession of conceptual cracks ripped through the deep ocean. The blades of the Glaive sliced cleanly through the spirit threads, although the pressure in the ocean was actively pushing his weapon to slow down, yet he managed to slash down them. Every tentacle that crossed the blade’s path snapped open.

The kraken let out a psychic shriek of pure agony as the Glaive severed the core knot of its borrowed lifecycle.

The mountain-sized body of the colossal squid began to rapidly liquefy, its glistening flesh melting away into bubbles of foul green slime, leaving behind its body with a fractured soul.

Murphy only glanced at the monster, then turned his focus back into the advancing Embodiment that began to move faster than he had expected. His lungs were burning; the phantom crimson stitches on his wrist were throbbing as the sudden gaze of the cosmos finally focused onto him.

The surrounding barrier finally fractured as its conceptual mirror ran a crack through its form.

Murphy slammed his kick into the stone and pushed himself to swim upward, his eyes locked onto the distorted, broken silhouette of the ship floating fifty feet above the surface.

The Kraken moved, attempting to follow him, but due to its massive damage on the spirit threads, its vast body soon became temporally paralyzed as the deep ocean pressure pulled it into the depths of the ocean.

Breaking through the crimson waves with a splash, he came out of the sea, only to find the ship further away from him, and without support, it was almost impossible to reach there.

He glanced back as the words began to drive through the Bloodborne Sea. The space around the place contracted, then expanded before collapsing the air back into normal.

The Embodiment stopped following him and cocked its massive head out from the sea and looked straight toward his body.

The gaze alone brought an enormous amount of spiritual presence that forcibly began to boil his blood from beneath. His skin started to turn black, turning into malicious, writhing centipedes that crawled over his left hand.

Even though at that time he didn’t even look at him, the sheer presence of Embodiment had started to affect him.

He quickly looked at the vessel and gritted his teeth as water dripped down from his chin. He was too tired to swim across the forceful tides that could push him even further away from the ship.

Just then a voice echoed directly in his head.

("Mr. Law!")

***

Inside the ship, Silas, who was managing to control the movement of the ship, suddenly felt the waves lowering down. He realized that there was no more eldritch slime in the ship, and the sheer presence of the kraken entity had also disappeared... At that moment, he could feel another presence, but between them, the spiritual presence of Detective Law was gone. The small amount of his presence was coming from within the sea.

His eyes widened slightly, and the thought settled into his mind. ’Did... Mr. Law sacrificed himself to protect us and took the entity’s attention... No! He can’t possibly survive alone.’

Silas quickly looked at Dante’s unconscious form and let go of the steering wheel and rushed toward Dante, pouring a bucket of water.

He quickly projected his thoughts into Dante’s mind to talk to him and desperately shook his body in an attempt to wake him up.

He couldn’t speak anything... knowing that well, he tried to remain quiet, although the advancement of a Warden worked differently; they seldomly had a time limit of days like other Authorities, but it also cost them to be vulnerable to attention.

His Descent had already been completed without a time limit, but for that reason, it was almost necessary that he should use his Authority efficiently.

Dante’s body finally stirred after the relentless shaking. "Did... did I... die?"

Silas almost opened his mouth to say something unconsciously, but he quickly suppressed his voice and projected in Dante’s mind. ("Dante, control the ship! Mr. Law is in danger!")

Dante quickly stood up and muttered. "You aren’t... how did you... I... You... speak... No? Wait, what happened?"

("Hold the ship, I need to find Mr. Law.")

With that, he quickly exited, leaving Dante behind as he entered into the open deck.

Murphy, however, still suffered the pressure and reality changing domain...but suddenly, his thoughts fractured, and a fractured memory came into his mind.

He heard a single word, spoken in his own voice deep into his mind that said...

"Go... Andronicus."

Murphy’s body trembled, his teeth rattled as his mind attempted to force him a divination vision, but Silas’ voice forced him to break through the illusory domain.

"Mr. Law, grab the rope!"

Splash!

The sound echoed in his mind as his sanity forced the path back to his fractured memory. He gasped once before grabbing the rope that had a heavy stone attached to it.

Silas pulled Murphy back into the ship with high efforts.

Murphy hauled his heavy, water-logged body back over the ship’s railing, landing heavily onto the hard deck. He was drenched in blood, sweat, and sea muck as his long coat was ruined, but his revolver was back in his hand.

Silas, his ears bleeding but his mind tightly anchored by the lingering protective mist of the Mr. Mysteries’ protection.

Murphy walked toward a nearby wooden wall and grabbed his fedora from the ground before placing it back into his hair. He gave Silas a quick nod before his mind shifted back into the illusory words... go Andronicus... was there something more in the City of Light.

Although he managed to hold himself together, even though the flesh of his hand was mutilated into rough edges by the conceptual fragment of Dreamer’s domain.

He took a long breath, and they both walked into the cabin where Dante was, managing the ship... impressively good for a cleaner.

Murphy glanced back at the Bloodborne Sea... that place wasn’t ordinary for sure, but it was that dangerous even at stage one... then what lay behind further than that... just like the Misfortune forest, did that mean there was a deity too?

That Cthuluh... he couldn’t identify that being even now, he still had doubts that he survived the exposure of an Embodiment. Unlike the previous encounter with Death Embodiment, his whole spirituality was fractured... was that Cthulhu truly an Embodiment or was it also another manifestation? If so... then how many manifestations could an Authority have?

Moreover, he needed answers. What exactly was the City of Light?

’I’ll return to City of Light.’