Crown Of Blasphemy: Rise Of The Legendary Villain

"Run!"

Mr. Valen warned sharply while brushing past Lay, his form a near-invisible blur to ordinary eyes.

Lay was quick to react as well, running after Mr. Valen, and in a bit she caught up to him.

"I told you to sit tight while I scout, what the hell did you do?" Lay muttered under her breath her voice racy. "What in the black skies did you do?"

Lay found Valen deeply unsettling, one moment he'd move with the hyper-vigilance of a cornered beast, the next he'd act with the oblivious recklessness of a child—a stark contradiction she couldn't reconcile.

His strange condition, the way knowledge seemed to surface and vanish... it made him unpredictable.

"Screech!"

An abysmal scream sounded out in the distance so that anyone who heard it would feel a ringing in their ears.

The terrain was overly rocky, tall desolate mountains of black stone obstructed the horizon.

But what use was a view of the sky when everything was obstructed by pitch black clouds?

It was still raining, it always rained.

But in the skies above them, it wasn't just black clouds and rain anymore; there was something alive, something that blocked the little light from above with its thirty-meter wingspan, plunging the world beneath into deeper shadows.

Something that they had pissed off.

"In here," Mr. Valen said while sliding into a narrow opening, most likely the entrance to some sort of cave.

And Lay wasted no time following. The moment they slid through, they felt a mighty tremor behind them, a force so strong that their organs shook. The thing that was chasing them had attacked; fortunately, it missed.

"Shit, shit, shit, the fuck is that?" Lay yelled as she rolled haphazardly through the uneven surfaces of the trembling tunnel.

Mr. Valen, on the other hand, seemed as though he was unable to lose his balance, rushing through the cave as quickly as he could.

"MOVE!" he yelled grimly at Lay, his voice carrying with it a rasp of annoyance.

"Bang!"

Another loud collision could be felt throwing both humans in the air, their bodies slamming violently on the ceiling of the tunnel.

But they did not relent, clawing their way through the tight cave until they came out the other end.

At this point it was dark, so dark that when he reached out his hand, he felt water without seeing it, then a strong suction pulled him in.

"Whoosh!"

He felt his ears ring with nothing but pressure and the roar of rushing water that forced its way into his nostrils.

Fortunately, he managed to hold his breath in the nick of time, but that burning feeling in his nose reminded him of the danger he was in.

He may have had the ability to heal, but he was no aquatic creature, he struggled while being drawn by the flow of water, sometimes colliding violently with uneven walls.

And in that instant, he felt himself being shot out of that high-pressure environment and into open, calm water.

He still could not see, but he swam, struggling towards a place he thought, hoped was the surface, he lungs burning.

Fortunately, his end was not here as he finally broke through the body of water, and what he found was well, darkness.

But his eyes got used to this darkness by reflecting light off the little specs of bioluminescent fungi in the cave's wall.

Yes, he appeared to be in a large cave, so he swam to the surface. The black water did nothing to calm him down, who knew what creatures lurked in it?

After getting to the damp, white limestone, Mr. Valen heaved his body out of the water, then got to his feet.

His immediate concern was his safety, where he was, if there were any monsters around. For now, it seemed safe; nothing immediately threatened him.

Lay was a hunter for the Varyn clan, one of the seven giants of this continent, and her current mission was to procure some fungal herbs.

With the absence of the sun normal plants were a rarity in this cold world, but it was teeming with fungi.

But they were different types of fungi and the one she was looking for only grew around the black mountain.

But upon reaching the place, she was unable to procure her herbs because they were too high up.

Mr. Valen, tired of the wait, had then climbed up to procure the herbs, but instead caught the attention of a bird-like beast, one he had not noticed before because of how conveniently dark the position it had nested was.

He had intended to follow around and maybe find a way to safely get back to Earth by using the permanent rift her clan controlled, after all, only Earth had the technology he needed to cure himself.

The inability to think, knowing, and understanding things without being able to contemplate them was hell, after all, the ability to think was a major aspect of what made Mr. Valen, well, Mr. Valen.

"Hiss," Mr. Valen suddenly flinched, his vision blurring immediately. Looking at his feet, he saw that something had bit him, a sharp sting gracing his ankle.

It resembled a short black snake, disturbingly equipped with webbed feet.

"Bang!"

Mr. Valen hit the ground immediately, losing feeling in his lower body, his mind blurring.

As he landed, he noticed that more and more of these creatures were crawling out of the water he had just escaped, rushing towards him like creatures from the abyss.

«Am I... As you would say, tripping right now?»

"What are those?" Mr. Valen muttered in euphoric shock, his speech slightly slurred, his face flushed as his eyes closed.

-----------

After an unknown amount of time.

"Haaaaaa!"

Mr. Valen drew in a deep breath, his eyes shooting wide as he became aware of countless snake-like creatures slithering around his body, repeatedly sinking their fangs into him.

Unfortunately, their bites were ineffective, as Mr. Valen easily flung them away, but the snakes were persistent crawling back to him quickly.

As Mr. Valen rose, he forcefully stomped on some of the snakes, ending their lives instantly, and the moment the other snakes noticed this, they scurried away.

It was deeply unsettling, watching snakes skitter away on webbed feet, but this world was known for its bizarre nature even with the absence of monsters, the conditions of the planet alone would breed stronger and stranger creatures.

Just look at humans, for example: they all had better hair, larger eyes, and fair skin, a result of living in a cold and sunless world.

As to why he had been able to survive being bitten by countless snakes, Mr. Valen knew why, but could not think about it from the top of his head, so he did not know.

He knew many things, but unless the knowledge was immediately accessible—like the ability to speak or other fundamental skills—he didn't know them, they were locked at the back of his mind.

Any attempt to reach for them resulted in immediate pain; he could still not think.

"Where am I?" Mr. Valen muttered frowning at the metallic, almost moldy smell of the limestone cave.

His clothes were wet, but he didn't bother taking them off; they were too good, too warm.

The place had multiple places he could venture off to; there were large entrances everywhere in its walls, too perfect to be natural.

It almost seemed man-made.

Picking a random direction, Mr. Valen moved. He walked, before breaking into a sprint and then he leaped onto a higher platform, walking into one of the man made entrances.

Looking at the carved walls and nice limestone path, Mr. Valen was infinitely sure that this place was man-made.

It could be the home of a clan of sorts, or it could be the abandoned home of a clan, either situation did not look good for him.

If it was the home of a clan, it was hard to believe they would react well to his intrusion, and if it was abandoned, why was that?

Suddenly, as Mr. Valen walked, he felt his leg dip into a section of the limestone floor—a section that, despite appearing seamless, had been cut out, a detail not immediately noticeable

"Swoosh!"

An arrow shot through the air from a small hole in the wall, piercing Mr. Valen's neck.

"Shdhiwh— booby traps?" Mr. Valen staggered back as his throat healed simultaneously, his eyes widening as he noticed rows upon rows of tiny holes on the walls of the cave.

Fortunately, now that he was aware of the traps he could avoid them.

Therefore he moved, cautiously this time, ensuring that he didn't step on anything out of place.

And for a while that worked, along the way, Mr. Valen would pass by doors that he sometimes contemplated opening.

He ultimately decided not to open any, and just kept moving forward, but then he was met with a dead end.

So he turned back the way he came and opened the first door he saw, and it led him to another passageway.

As Mr. Valen set foot in this new room, he noticed it had a smell about it one he could not put his finger on.

But at the moment that was irrelevant, because he heard something at the far end of this passageway, a scream that echoed and bounced off its walls.

A scream that was difficult to discern whether it came from a human or a beast, but all that was irrelevant at the moment for a single thought surfaced in his mind. 'Where was Lay?'