Chapter 50: The Octopus Wants Our Help

The octopus, still in shock, couldn’t defend itself against my attack. The sword cut through it diagonally, starting at the shoulder and going down to the bottom of its belly.

I was expecting a really ugly cut, one that would split its stomach open and leave a pretty grotesque mess. But that’s not what happened.

It was tougher than I expected. Even with a clean hit while it wasn’t defending itself, I still couldn’t deal any real damage. Just a superficial cut across its body.

Right after the strike, the creature snapped back to its senses and shot me a furious glare. Its hands changed shape, turning into tentacles that coiled around my body and restricted my movements.

"You really think you can beat me? I’m a lot more powerful than I look, kid."

I could feel the strength of those tentacles as they tried to crush my body. It was hard to even breathe. Even with my vitality boosted by the bloodline, that creature was strong as fuck.

Crack.

The sound of bones breaking echoed through the forest. Not just one bone, either. That shitty octopus broke both my arms and some of my ribs with nothing but its grip.

I even tried controlling the cube to attack, since it only needed my mind, not my body. But more tentacles shot out of the octopus and grabbed the cube. There was nothing I could do.

The worst part was that, while all this was going down, Mary and Maison exchanged a few words and decided to run, putting a lot of distance between us. They abandoned us there.

Once it noticed that, the octopus was in no hurry. Actually, it was calmer than before.

"How about we have a little chat?" it suggested, looking me straight in the eyes.

I felt the strength holding me ease up. It had pretty much let me go.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"That guy stole something of mine, and he’s trying to use it to get into a place full of treasure inside that rift near here. How about you team up with me to catch him, and we split the profits afterward?"

Ethan was listening to our conversation. He didn’t say a word.

"Do you live in that rift?" I asked. "Because we’ll have to clear it and kill the monsters inside."

"No, I don’t live there," the octopus said. "I’m only there for the treasure. It’s a pretty small rift. So, what do you say? Either you help me, or you die right here."

"Why would you need my help in the first place? Can’t you track them on your own?"

This was making me uneasy. Why the hell did that octopus need my help? Couldn’t it just go after them by itself?

It got annoyed at my question, as if I’d said something stupid.

"I’m terrible at tracking. Why do you think it took me so long to find them? I only found them because you guys helped me," the octopus said. "I can’t stay out of the water for too long, either. So, are you helping or not?"

I didn’t know how to answer. Ethan had his phone in hand and seemed to be looking something up. That’s when he told me something interesting that ended up changing my answer.

"That woman we saw is a villain. She’s on the wanted list," Ethan said. "I’m not saying it’s smart to work with a monster, and it could be a problem if anyone finds out, but if we capture her AND clear that rift, we’ll have completed both things we needed to do."

It was a tricky situation. Plus, even if we didn’t want to work with that octopus, I wasn’t confident we could beat it.

That creature was pretty powerful, more than I had imagined.

"Fine, we’ll help you," I said, "but you’ll have to help us too. We want a share of that treasure you mentioned, and help dealing with the monsters in the rift. And all the monster crystals go to us."

The octopus laughed.

"You’ve got some nerve asking for all that, don’t you?"

I wasn’t nervous at all. I knew my worth. The octopus really wanted to find Maison before he reached the treasure site, and without my help, that wasn’t going to happen.

We stared each other down for a few seconds until the creature finally accepted the terms.

"Alright. But we clear the rift only after we get the treasure, got it? Before that, we only kill the monsters that get in our way."

It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was expected. I knew that the moment we got that treasure, that octopus would betray us on the spot.

It didn’t seem like the type to split the profits, much less help us kill the rift monsters.

Still, I had a plan. It might be strong, but it wasn’t invincible.

The creature let me go and said, "Let’s go, we’re wasting too much time already. They’re inside the rift."

Those cops were still under its control, so it knew Mary and Maison had entered the rift. But as ordinary humans, they were incapable of stopping the two of them.

I modified my cube, turning it into a larger surface to lay Tom on. He was still unconscious, and of course I was taking him with us.

Ethan looked really worried when he saw my state.

"How the hell are you gonna help with your arms all fucked up like that?"

If this had been before, I’d be more worried. But after getting the bloodline, my vitality was insanely powerful. Even the system had told me so.

[Primordial Serpent Bloodline active at 100% effectiveness. Accelerated wound recovery.]

That was the power of the serpent bloodline. I could afford to do crazy stuff knowing my body had a high recovery rate.

Anyway, we moved quickly toward the rift, and we all went in together. What awaited us on the other side was kind of... peculiar.

We were on a small island. A really small one, smaller than the gymnasium where we had our practical classes back at the hunter academy.

All around us, nothing but water. A lot of water. That rift was an aquatic type, and that type was honestly one of the worst...

Either you had a water-based ability to move around easily in there, OR a way to fly so you wouldn’t even get close to the water.

"From what I know, that woman can create things with ink," the octopus said. "With that, she can basically fly. That’s faster than me in the water, and I can’t attack her if she stays too high up."

The octopus instinctively glanced at my cube. I knew exactly what it wanted.

"Yeah, I can fly with this," I said. "If you guide me, we can get there fast."

"Great," the octopus said, smiling in a way that made me uneasy. "We need to reach a sunken city. That’s where our treasure is."

I made the cube even bigger, which left me more tired, but I didn’t let it show. Everyone climbed on, and we flew over that vast ocean.

In less than a minute, flying creatures came attacking us. It wasn’t just the waters of that rift that were dangerous. The skies were too.