Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley

by John Nest

  The bull shark's life bar displayed (231,286/450,000 HP). Smoke landed on top of the rowboat and tied the iron chains to it. The boat briefly tilted and was filled up with some water.

  He may have restricted the bull sharks' movements, but it was a risky gamble. The bull sharks could break free from the chains at any moment and sink them.

  However, he took his chances as he leaned in and grabbed a hold of the bull sharks. Hurriedly, he began stabbing Requin with his sickle.

  The sickle proved very effective against the shark's hard slimy flesh. He kept on attacking after confirming that both bull sharks still had a hard time moving.

  "GRAK GRAK GRAK GRAAKK GRAAAAK."

  Smoke heard Calamar's weird noise once more.

  'I guess this must be really funny to Calamar or something?'

  Saru joined in and attacked Cornu with his uncharged white metallic staff. The two land dwellers continued with their relentless attack.

  SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH!

  Both of the bull sharks thrashed and rolled about as they tried to break free, but they were only struggling against their own strength. The Chain and Sickle of Dasende proved to be a very dependable weapon.

  "GRAKAAA GRAK GRAKAAAA GRAAKK GRAAAAK GRAAK."

  As Smoke and Saru kept attacking the bull sharks, Calamar also kept making its weird loud noise.

  That was until Requin and Cornu's life bars were reduced to below 15%.

  At that time, Smoke and Saru both instinctively stopped as they felt a strong killing intent behind them. The two of them turned around only to see Calamar's angry face.

  "GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!"

  Eight coral spearhead-tentacles instantly headed their way. Saru reflexively extended his left hand and created his strongest concave Manatl barrier in front of them.

  CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK!

  The first round of Calamar's tentacles came. Immediately, Smoke switched weapons and used his electro-charged arrows enhanced with his armor piercing ability Armor Break of the Armadillo.

  Eight arrows flew towards the colossal squid. Yet, each of the DarkElf's arrows only damaged the monstrous lake boss for only 125 points. It did, however, reveal Calamar's life bar (799,000/800,000 HP).

  'What? How could my damage be that low?'

  Suddenly, the bull sharks' bodies were covered in black slime. Two huge feelers rose from the water and grabbed a hold of the twin bull sharks' tails.

  Smoke's muscles flexed as he held on tightly to his chain and sickle. The two bull sharks were being pulled out of Smoke's hold over them.

  He felt Saru grab his waist as he was being pulled down from the boat. Smoke hurriedly released his iron chain's hold on the two bull sharks.

  "Whoa! Thanks, Saru. Calamar sure got us good."

  "Calamar isn't done yet. Look!" Saru pointed at eight gigantic tentacles coming straight at them.

  The albino gorilla Simiavulg quickly created another white concave Manatl.

  CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK!

  A barrage of tentacles poured down against Saru's Manatl.

  "Smoke, I don't think I can hold out for long. You can glide, right? You better get out of here."

  The DarkElf couldn't believe what he was hearing. This albino gorilla Simiavulg was willing to sacrifice his own life for a non-Simiavulg.

  Smoke tried his best to row towards the protective rocks, but Calamar would block his every attempt and only direct them back to the deeper portions of the lake.

  As Smoke watched Saru defend against Calamar's attacks, he remembered how he used the knowledge from the book entitled "Simiavulg Etiquette" to increase his Intimacy with him.

  Ever since he performed the Simiavulg bow for Saru, his Intimacy with him had been steadily growing. As he remembered this, thoughts about a different book he read in the Pillar temple's library popped up in his head.

  'There was one book about a bullied a fish.' He remembered how the fish turned the tables on its two bullies and became sadistic towards them, but kept them alive. Calamar swinging the twin bull sharks around could've been said to perfectly match that scene. Then, a sudden thought popped in Smoke's head. 'Could it be...I wonder if...'

  "Smoke? What are you doing? Stop rowing and leave already!" Saru angrily raised his voice.

  "How long can you hold your Manatl against Calamar?" Smoke asked, after a brief pause.

  "I don't know! All I know is that if you don't leave now, you're going to die!" Saru shouted back with his back against Smoke.

  Smoke stubbornly remained in the rowing seat.

  He used all of his strength and created some distance between them and Calamar as fast as he could. Using his recently learned ability called Manaception, he began to scan the lake bottom.

  Unfortunately, while doing so, his rowing speed was minimal to say the least. Suddenly, he heard a familiar sound.

  "GRAK GRAK GRAK GRAAKK GRAAAAK."

  Calamar stopped directly attacking Saru's Manatl and went for the area around their boat. The colossal squid splashed two-meter-high waves towards their medium-sized rowboat.

  Saru responded by creating a concave Manatl above their boat. Smoke happily kept rowing with all his might as he saw Calamar toying with them.

  The colossal squid still held the twin bull sharks as it chased after Smoke's rowboat.

  Normally, Smoke wouldn't dare to rely on information from a children's book, but desperate people will cling to the very last sliver of hope.

  He kept his eyes closed. He visualized the lake's energy with his mind's eye. He felt the multitude of living things inside it, from the microscopic organisms to the lake's current boss, Calamar.

  From the depths of the lake, he sensed a strong pressure of rushing water. He followed it with his senses and traced it to a hole with a diameter of half a meter.

  'Nah, not this one.'

  He could feel the water coming out of the opening, which meant that this was the lake's tributary.

  About fifteen seconds later later, he felt a different surge of water. This time, the water was pouring into a hole.

  His scan of the lake bottom detected a tunnel that was barely two meters wide in diameter. The entrance was about sixty meters behind them. He tried sensing if there was an end to this tunnel, but he couldn't feel how deep it went.

  'This is it!' Smoke concluded.

  Smoke picked up speed and proceeded to the area where the underground river was located. As their rowboat moved, so did the colossal squid.

  Calamar chased after them with much gusto. It playfully did random attacks to Saru's concave Manatl barrier.

  CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK!

  Saru's white Manatl barrier was showing signs of losing power. Once Smoke was directly above the tunnel's entrance, he stopped the rowboat. Smoke then raised both of his palms over the lake.

  CHINK CHINK CHINK CHINK!

  Calamar's sadistic barrage kept hitting the white Manatl barrier. Smoke tried to remain calm and focused on the mouth of the tunnel. He noticed that it had signs of being crudely excavated.

  This unnatural expansion only reached to about five meters in, before the tunnel would continue with the width of about a meter and a half. However, the tunnel expanded naturally after a while, as it went further in.

  He used his Earth Manipulation ability and concentrated on the tunnel's mouth.

  As the colossal squid got closer, he guessed that Calamar's three-meter head could probably only shrink to about two meters.

  Steadily, Smoke concentrated all of his ability into the opening. He expanded it to three meters, but the actual tunnel itself was still at a meter and a half.

  The DarkElf pushed himself further and started working on the first meter of the tunnel.

  "Smoke? Why are we stopping and why aren't you rowing towards the protective rocks?" Saru asked in a worried and exhausted voice.

  Smoke couldn't reply and he got even more distracted
after hearing a strange noise.

  "GLUG GLUG GLUG GLUUUUUG?"

  Calamar made a sound which Smoke hadn't heard before. He could only guess what the colossal squid meant.

  The colossal squid stopped attacking Saru's white Manatl barrier and instantly disappeared into the lake as it dove in fast.

  Smoke assumed that it was able to feel the slight change in the nearby flow of water, considering Calamar had been stuck here for so long..

  "How did you do that?" Saru asked with an astonished face.

  "I didn't do anything to Calamar. I'm just making the underwater tunnel larger."

  "Underwater tunnel?"

  "Honestly, it was just a wild gamble. In fact, I'm not even sure if I can make it large enough for Calamar."

  Smoke saw Saru's puzzled face as the tired gorilla Simiavulg sat across from him.

  It wasn't noticeable on the surface at all, but as Smoke kept expanding the tunnel, he could feel the water surge towards it gradually increase.

  It had already been ten minutes, but Smoke was only six meters in on his expansion of the underground river. His focus on it made him forget about Saru.

  "Smoke, it's been awhile already. I think we should try to make a run for the protective rocks."

  "I don't think Calamar would allow that. Let me try something first."

  Smoke lowered his hands and cancelled Earth Manipulation. A few seconds later, Calamar's angry head emerged from the lake's surface.

  The colossal squid surrounded their rowboat with its tentacles. Maddeningly, it thrashed the water around them. As a result, high waves appeared and rocked their boat around.

  Immediately, Smoke went back to work. Calamar's tantrum lasted a full minute before it realized that the tunnel's expansion resumed. The colossal squid dove back into the water afterwards.

  Steadily, Smoke kept on widening the tunnel. Little by little, he worked his way deeper into the tunnel.

  His Manaception ability picked up Calamar swimming in front of the underground river's opening.

  Saru remained seated on the boat. Smoke watched the albino Simiavulg meditate. "You know, I think you can return to the shore with your floating method."

  "I could do that, but I don't know if you'll be safe from Calamar." Saru answered.

  "I'll be fine as long as I keep expanding this tunnel."

  "So, how did you know about this underwater tunnel anyway?"

  "I read about it in a book from the Pillar temple's library. The one entitled 'The Bullied Fish'."

  Saru assertively shook his head. "Huh? No, no, no. That book is supposed to teach kids to stand up against bullies, but at the same time not become bullies themselves. That's why the bullied fish got caught in the lake."

  "Yeah, I understood that, but the way Calamar was letting us beat up the sharks and swinging them around reminded me of the fishes from the book."

  Smoke saw Saru raise his eyebrow, clearly unconvinced of what he said.

  "Coincidentally, Calamar and the twin bull sharks are also the three monsters that stand out in this lake, just like the three fishes who came to the lake from the sea."

  The DarkElf checked on the colossal squid before he went on.

  "So when it became obvious that we wouldn't be able to take down Calamar, I decided to test this theory, hoping we could somehow use that information in our favor." Smoke sheepishly answered.

  "Well, based on what I'm seeing now. I think you might be right. Who would have thought that the children's storybook was actually a history book."

  Smoke nodded all-knowingly.

  Saru looked over the lake's surface. "To be honest. No one dared to challenge Calamar. I'm sure Grandmaster Indignus or any of the great masters could handle him, but to us Simiavulgs he is more like a lake deity that had always been there."

  "Do you think I should stop expanding the tunnel?" Smoke's expression changed as he didn't even think about Simiavulgs' reaction to him freeing Calamar.

  "No, I think this is a good thing you are doing."

  Thirty minutes into his tunnel expansion and Smoke had depleted his entire Mana pool. In order to fully recover his Mana, Smoke tried to rest for thirty minutes, but Calamar rose up immediately after a minute and angrily thrashed around with its tentacles.

  Smoke resumed his work with the Mana he had regenerated, but he could only last another forty seconds before he was forced to stop once more.

  He tried to rest again, and again Calamar rose up angrily to the surface. This same process repeated two more times. Yet on the fifth break, as Smoke hurriedly resumed his work, Calamar did not submerge. Smoke saw it watching him carefully until his Mana was fully depleted once more.

  Smoke raised his right hand to Calamar as he tried to make the colossal squid understand that he needed to rest. He rested for five minutes and Calamar began to angrily thrash the lake's surface. He raised his hand again to ask for more time.

  The Colossal squid would not calm down, so Smoke resumed his work on the expansion. Calamar remained on the surface as well. Smoke would raise his hand to take a break and slowly extended his resting periods. The longer breaks and slow pace appeared to be satisfactory to the colossal squid, as it no longer thrashed the water and eventually returned underwater.

  Used to these cruel grinding situations, Smoke proceeded without complaining as he repeated his expansion process. Three hours went by in a flash. The only noteworthy event that happened in the past few hours was the increase of Smoke's Earth Manipulation ability to Intermediate level 9.

  His ability's level increase improved the rate of his work on the underground river. Smoke had expanded a total of sixty meters into the tunnel when his Manaception felt a change from inside the lake.

  From the mouth of the underground river, Calamar swam fast up to the surface of the water. Its colossal head rose up and the lake's water flowed down its face.

  'I'm almost done. Please don't tell me it lost its patience.'

  The colossal squid stared straight into the DarkElf's eyes. Smoke and Calamar shared a moment of silence that couldn't be described with human words.

  Calamar gave Smoke a wink before it dove back down. It took the two fully-recovered bull sharks with it as both of them remained wrapped around its feelers.

  The colossal squid swam fast into the underground river and travelled through it much like how a bullet would pass through a barrel.

  Smoke used his Manaception and noticed that Calamar managed to use its momentum to barely squeeze through the last couple of meters of the narrow part of the tunnel. It soon went out of Smoke's range, as it continued on its journey back to the sea.

  With the lake's three strongest monsters gone, Smoke took a deep breath as he exhaustedly slumped down to his seat. After confirming that they were in the clear, Saru took the oars and started rowing towards the shore.

  * * * * * *

  The setting sun limited the view from the rowboat. Smoke couldn't clearly see the brown-staff wielders on the shore of Simiavulg Island.

  As Smoke and Saru got past the protective rock formations, he could see the silhouettes of not four but nine Simiavulgs waiting for them. The brown-staff wielders were joined by Grandmaster Indignus, Doctus, Castas, Meras and Tenvis.

  CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP.

  A slow clap greeted Smoke and Saru when they reached the shore. The one doing the clapping was none other than the Grandmaster himself.

  Indignus greeted Smoke with a forced smile. "Well done. I couldn't believe that you triumphed over Requin and Cornu. Let me also congratulate you on surviving the encounter with Calamar. I've never seen anyone below a black staff escape from that colossal squid before."

  "Thank you, Grandmaster Indignus. It wasn't easy, but thankfully Saru was there in time to save me." Smoke said as he pointed to the albino gorilla.

  Indignus' smile disappeared. The Grandmaster's angry eyes gazed upon his servant. "Yes, Saru...How thoughtful of you to save him. I saw that as well." The red-staff wielder said
in a snarky voice.

  A clearly-displeased Indignus clicked his tongue and cleared his throat before he spoke again.

  "As you've shown a suitable level of proficiency with your Manatl and succeeded in killing a hundred kappas, you have passed your test. I hereby award you with this sigil, which allows you to stay in Saruras."

  + Completed Quest: Ways of Manatl

  You have been allowed to stay in Saruras village, but you will only be able to access its public areas.