Krrr- Kwaaaaarrrr-
The two beings continued to face off, causing all of Atlantis to shake violently.
Parang had no idea how the battle between them was unfolding.
From her perspective, the Kraken, which she presumed it to be, and the monstrous eye creature were just floating there like two confused kids staring at each other.
Yet, she could certainly feel that a battle was taking place between the two.
‘The enemy…’
Far away, from the Kraken surrounded by strange letters, an overwhelming sense of hostility was being transmitted directly to Parang.
‘Kraken…’
The mere fact that it could harbor such malice was surprising enough, but it was even more astonishing that she was not completely freaked out despite being engulfed by the aura of such an entity.
‘Is it because I’m a daughter?’
Parang chuckled to herself. A daughter, huh.
So, if she was a child of the creature, wouldn’t that make her a monster fish too? If the parent is a monster fish, it’s only natural that the child also is.
‘No way, no thanks.’
Of course, Parang was absolutely, positively human, 100% human.
Monster fish? Ridiculous.
While Parang was lost in thought, Alice was blankly watching the staring contest between the Kraken and the eye creature.
Seeing those two entities duke it out was enough to leave anyone speechless.
What was stranger was that despite being right there witnessing the showdown, Alice didn’t seem particularly shocked.
She wasn’t clutching her head, nor was there any sign of someone in a daze.
She was just watching the standoff without any signs of mental disturbance whatsoever.
If there was one reason she could remain this calm, it had to be—
‘Must be the influence of that merger thingy.’
It seemed reasonable to deduce that was why Alice was so serene in the midst of chaos.
‘Then again, she shouldn’t be standing around watching this, especially not now.’
Alice was in a hurry.
Her physical condition was visibly worsening instead of getting better.
Her skin had turned a good deal paler than before, which was clear evidence of that.
Even after confirming Alice was alive, Parang couldn’t shake the tremor in her heart.
‘By the way, how did she even survive?’
Regardless of how she looked, Alice’s survival was confirmed, so Parang had thought, “Well, somehow she made it.” But now, reflecting on the situation, it felt overwhelmingly hopeless.
In the vast ocean, with an unstable status window, she couldn’t even tell where she was, and even if they managed to get to land, there was no guarantee that Alice’s condition could be treated.
What’s more, Alice hadn’t even anticipated this situation herself. Given her gaze and actions, she had merely seized the opportunity to escape amidst the sudden tremors and chaos.
Alice’s eyes still brimmed with the will to live, but Parang could also see her hope slipping away.
Thud—
Still, Alice started kicking off the ground and swimming forward quickly, as if proclaiming with her entire being that her story wasn’t over yet.
She was heading down the mountain direction, which could be seen as a reasonably rational choice.
In a life-or-death situation, diving headfirst toward such transcendent beings would be tantamount to suicide, so she was going in the opposite direction.
And because the ‘merger’ itself had occurred in this very place, Atlantis, it was far more likely that the solution would be found here than elsewhere.
If she had to pick the most probable location, it would be the temple from which Alice had escaped, but unfortunately—
Kwahhhrrr!!!
The temple, which had to withstand the most powerful quake head-on, had already collapsed, making entering it quite impossible, leaving it halfway buried in debris.
As she swam down the mountainside, Parang was able to observe the scenery of Atlantis in more detail.
Since Alice had to find something—whatever it was—in Atlantis, she was swimming directly above it, and also because the further she got from the summit—where that beastly battle was taking place—the lesser the tremors felt.
The landscape of Atlantis resembled the ancient cities from the picture books Parang had seen as a child.
If you were a child born and raised in South Korea, even if you had never been there, you would know what the ancient Greek cities looked like.
Along the winding alleys stood beautiful, vintage stone buildings, with busts and sculptures—real stone sculptures—erected all around.
For reasons unknown, there were also structures resembling fountains and wells.
In between, strangely enough, there were living statues of various sizes moving around doing various tasks, which felt a bit odd.
It was like they were clumsily imitating human actions.
They stood silently facing each other as if in conversation without a bit of movement, some pretended to drink something while holding nothing in their hands, while others fetched water from a well.
Just that alone was bizarre and grotesque enough, but what struck Parang as particularly peculiar was something else entirely.
‘Why is no one…interested in any of this?’
From way up the mountain, not too far away, there was a battle between those fearsome beings, yet the statues showed no interest whatsoever and continued to carry on with their tasks.
‘Response to stimuli’ is one of the most primal of awareness responses, isn’t it?
Even the trees on land or the seaweed and corals underwater react to stimuli; yet these statues showed no reaction to the colossal stimuli they were facing.
Parang, who had fought countless battles against these statues, knew their cognitive abilities were by no means lacking.
It was odd how they didn’t approach Alice earlier at the temple, and there were numerous signs of strange behavior.
It was as if they didn’t know how to do anything else other than what they were given to do.
Like beings that could only repeat a single action unless they received additional input.
Parang was reminded of a similar being.
‘Robots.’
Thinking carefully, there were a significant number of similarities between the statues and robots.
But if they were robots, then who, how, and for what purpose created them?
Did they form naturally from beyond the gate? Or was there a factory producing these automatically?
The more she advanced, the more bizarre the unfolding scene became.
No, to be precise, the scenery itself didn’t change. The peculiarities became more noticeable to Parang’s discerning eye.
There were statues flailing about on the ground, attempting to walk while lying down, one standing completely still gazing at an empty wall, and one seemingly plowing the ground with nothing but air.
What is this…?
As Parang gazed at the strange yet mysterious sights, her thoughts began racing.
Thudthud-thud! Kwaaaang!!!
From behind, in the direction where the Kraken and the eye creature were clashing, she heard a tremendous explosion unlike any she had experienced before.
“Urk…!!”
During Alice’s swimming, she suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed to the ground.
“A-Alice…!!”
Without time to verify the situation of the ongoing battle, Parang dove down to check on Alice’s condition, examining her body all over.
‘…!’
What Parang confirmed regarding Alice’s condition was far from what could be called good.
Her already frail body had been shattered by the shock.
The impact must have been severe as she lay there, unable to move, just writhing on the ground.
She looked utterly on the brink of death.
‘This…there’s no way…’
Even Parang thought there was no way Alice could survive this situation.
Yet, the Alice she had spoken with just a while ago—was she really…?
It threw Parang into confusion.
Could it be that Alice, who had been talking with her back then, was already dead?
Had she passed on, and only her spirit had reached out to speak to Parang?
Leaving just that last words behind before becoming a being that no longer existed in this world?
Parang’s thoughts started spiraling down a troubling path.
As Alice’s light dwindled and her writhing body slowly came to a stop,
Finally, as Alice’s eyelids began to close, and Parang was on the verge of crying,
Plop!
‘Plop…?’
Something soft and gooey landed in front of Parang and Alice.
‘What, what is it?’
Both Parang and the near-death Alice were taken by surprise, staring at the thing before them, quickly realizing what it was.
‘A tentacle from the Kraken….’
It was the end of the Kraken’s tentacle that was still wriggling on the ground.
‘H-How did this happen…?’
Parang hastily glanced back to where the Kraken had been, and it remained, staring quietly into the eye.
Could it be that one of the Kraken’s tentacles had exploded during the battle, scattering debris everywhere?
‘…There are no others like this, though.’
If that was the case, there should be clusters of Kraken tentacles strewn all over, but there were none.
In this vast Atlantis, only one place—the space right in front of the fallen Alice—had the piece of the Kraken’s tentacle lying there.
Parang stared quietly at the piece of the tentacle.
‘No way!!!! It can’t be!! N-No, no, no, it isn’t!! This world is d-definitely!!!’
“Cough…!!”
Then, something vague, a…thing—whether it was a memory or something else—rose in her mind and vanished in the blink of an eye.
‘Huh…? Just now…what was that…?’
A feeling that was both nostalgia and futility, regret and sadness.
A multitude of emotions washed over Parang.
Yet what really made her feel strange was something else entirely.
‘That feeling was definitely…’
Among the countless emotions, the one that stood out the most.
Among countless indescribable feelings, it was the only one she could distinctly recognize.
It was neither fear, sadness, anger, nor joy.
‘Yes, it was definitely…’
Betrayal.
A feeling of betrayal.
Though it lasted only a fleeting moment, for some reason, Parang couldn’t shake the notion that she must not let this go.
So she tried once again to fixate on the tentacle.
“Hah…!!”
“A-Alice?!”
But that proved impossible.
Alice was already holding onto the tentacle and was desperately trying to eat it.
In her eyes, the will to live that had been fading was rekindled once again.
From Alice’s perspective, she was just hanging onto the last lifeline thrown down right before drowning.
Parang could only watch in a daze.
Who could say anything to that scene where Alice, using both hands, gripped the wiggling tentacle, those grotesque, maddening limbs, and somehow chewed and swallowed them?
So in the silence, Alice devoured the entire tentacle.
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