Chapter 128: [GIANT OCTOPUS]

Eli forced his eyes open, vision swimming in blood and haze, ears ringing until the world felt distant and warped.

His breath came ragged, chest hitching, but he pushed past the blur.

And then he saw it.

Not stone.

Not shadow.

A mass.

’A monster.’ Eli’s heart stopped cold, his fingers clutching Kairo’s coat with renewed desperation. Even Kairo’s hold stiffened—shock breaking through his hardened calm.

It clung to the ceiling, colossal and nightmarish.

An octopus.

Its body was translucent, its skin rippling like liquid ink smeared across glass, perfectly mimicking the jagged walls of the cavern.

It hadn’t been hiding behind stone—it was the stone, its form bending the eye, forcing them to overlook it.

But its disguise failed now.

Its eyes gave it away.

Dozens of them. Circular, glowing faintly, each one ringed in eerie luminescence. They pulsed in unison, like a heartbeat.

And all of them turned, locking onto the hunters below.

Eli’s chest seized, a sharp inhale rattling through him. His whole body jolted, every nerve screaming at the sight.

“Holy—” His voice cracked, shattering into a cough, blood spattering against his trembling hand.

It was massive.

Too massive.

Their current area of the cavern wasn’t sheltering them—the cavern was built around it.

Its limbs flexed, thick coils pressing against stone. Each glistening tentacle looked like a black pillar, suction ridges flexing with grotesque rhythm.

With a single movement, it could sweep them all clean.

’It could crush us. It could envelop this entire area—it could envelop us.’

Kairo’s obsidian sword never wavered, his arm taut beneath Eli, but his eyes hardened, narrowing with realization.

He saw it too. The illusion had shattered.

And Eli realized—

The screaming in his skull was gone.

The fractured signals. The endless, suffocating danger pouring from Mio.

Gone.

His yellow gaze flicked downward, through the haze.

Mio stood trembling, his threads limp, dangling uselessly in the air.

His blank stare held no fury now—his expression was vacant, slack. Like the strings had been cut.

The monster had abandoned him.

Relief flickered in Eli’s chest, fleeting and hollow—because the danger hadn’t ended. It had only shifted.

The surge came again. Not from Mio. From above.

The octopus moved.

Its entire bulk shifted across the ceiling, stone groaning as its massive body scraped against it. Dust rained down in heavy clouds, pebbles tumbling like hail.

Every vibration rattled Eli’s bones, echoing through his teeth until his jaw ached.

Then it screamed.

“SKREEEEEEEEEEEE—!”

The shriek was worse than before. Not just sound—it was pressure, a sonic quake that cracked against stone and air.

The water below churned violently, waves frothing and slamming outward like a storm surge. Jagged ripples raced across the cavern floor.

Eli convulsed, his body jerking as blood spilled from his ears. His hands slapped against the sides of his head, but it was useless.

His danger sense erupted, nerves burning alive, shrieking warnings so sharp they nearly knocked him unconscious.

His heart thundered. His chest rattled with panic. His eyes blew wide.

’That thing—that’s the real one. That’s what’s been controlling Mio.’

Kairo’s arms tightened around him, steady, grounding even in chaos. His voice was cold, unshaken, cutting through the scream as stone cracked under the monster’s weight.

“…Now we know.”

His black eyes flicked briefly toward Mio, who stood slack beside Zaira.

The hunter was wide-eyed, trembling, disoriented—his expression finally his own again.

’It hurts.’

Eli wanted to scream. Every nerve in his body felt flayed open, the pain clawing through him like fire under his skin.

It wasn’t something a human body could contain anymore.

His throat was too raw to give it voice. Instead, he bit down hard on his hand, teeth sinking into skin, muffling the ragged, broken sounds tearing up his chest.

Blood already streaked his face—thick rivers from his nose, smeared across his lips, dripping hot from his ears.

Every breath rattled wet with copper, every hitch of his chest like his ribs were about to splinter apart.

The danger sense wouldn’t stop.

’God fucking damn it.’

It wasn’t the usual sharp spikes anymore. It was an unbroken torrent, pouring in from every direction, burning hotter, louder, heavier with every second.

His vision blackened at the edges, threatening to swallow him whole with each blink.

’I’m going to pass out at this point.’

Through the blur, Zaira’s voice broke through, cracking under the monster’s sonic pressure but still sharp with urgency.

“Captain! What do we do now?! Mio looks—he looks okay but he’s disoriented!”

Eli’s head jerked toward them, barely. Zaira had one arm braced around Mio’s shoulders. His threads dangled useless in the water, his body trembling, wide-eyed, barely able to keep his footing.

Mel was still sprawled unconscious on the jagged rock behind them, unmoving. Vulnerable.

Kairo’s black eyes flicked once toward them, then snapped back up.

The massive octopus writhed across the ceiling, translucent bulk shifting, scraping stone. Its dozens of glowing eyes pulsed, staring down like predatory lanterns.

Kairo’s jaw tightened, muscles coiled. His obsidian blade angled upward, scarlet aura bleeding faintly off its edge, preparing for another strike.

Then his head dipped toward Eli, voice cutting hard to reach past the shrieking.

“Eli! How are you holding up?!”

Eli wanted to laugh. To cry. To curse.

He was drenched in blood. His skull felt like it was splitting open. His chest heaved like a drowning man clawing for air.

’How the hell does he think I’m holding up?!’

This was worse than the ogre. Worse than the priest statue. Those had been fear, spikes of terror that came and went.

This wasn’t.

This was suffocating. Endless. A flood of danger that crushed from all sides like an ocean pressing against glass, waiting to break.

His lips parted, desperate to answer, but then—

Something different.

A sting.

It cut through the drowning sea of danger like a blade, standing out from the chaos.

Eli’s yellow eyes flew wide, glowing faint beneath the blood and haze. His lungs dragged in a sharp inhale on instinct, chest convulsing as his danger sense screamed a distinct warning.

’Shit—!’

His voice tore free before he even knew it, raw, broken, but loud enough to cut through the roar of the monster.

“KAIRO—ZAI—ABOVE!!”

The cavern seemed to freeze for half a heartbeat.

Then—

Two tentacles lunged.

One shot down like a spear toward Zaira and Mio, water exploding outward from its descent. The other arced faster, heavier, coiling downward toward Kairo himself with crushing force.

The monster had finally struck.

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