Chapter 388: Eighty-Seventh Floor, Mystical Beast Treatment (8)
[Heal the mystical beast under the alchemist’s protection. Time remaining: 92 hours 36 minutes.]
Even after my first step back in the lake, I could tell it had changed drastically.
My instincts blared, sending a chilling warning down my spine.
The black water had become impossibly viscous, far worse than before. Every part of me that touched it, from the soles of my feet to my ankles, felt as if it were being seized and held in place.
Then, with the next step, a strange kind of pain shot through me. It wasn’t physical, but something far deeper. It seemed as though a fragment of my soul had been torn away.
No, it wasn’t just a feeling. A piece of my very existence had truly seeped into the water. The crumbling forest was pulling me in, drawing my being into itself.
What is this?
I had never experienced anything like it. Soul, essence... I didn’t even know what to call it. Whatever it was, though, the forest had undeniably absorbed part of me.
The next step was no different. With each footfall, more of my existence slipped away. I wasn’t losing memories, but something inside me was becoming hollow.
Now, I understood why the mystical beasts I had met in this eerie forest had ended up the way they had.
Right. Saving the mystical beast and saving the forest aren’t the same thing, are they?
A crooked smile tugged at my lips. Something was testing me.