What the World Should Truly be Afraid of

With one heavy swipe of a fin, I fired off a shower of spines. They pierced through the sandy shores and wasted no time absorbing the surrounding mold. Some spines snapped open, unleashing a web of blood vessels and catching a few creatures in the process.

I seized the opportunity and directly injected a tube into a trapped giant beetle. It thrashed around and hissed at me, trying to bite off my fleshy leash.

A shame I’d already drained its lifeforce before it could even take another step.

I expanded a new tube outside of the beetle and connected it to the nearest creature next. This time, a mutated wolf with extra heads. Once again, I started absorbing it until it collapsed, dried, and withered.

It was only after absorbing the third, mutated creature that my assumptions had been confirmed: The Eldran, in fact, had an intelligent hivemind of its own.

“So you’re the new force of nature I’ve been hearing about,” I spoke through my veins, delivering them through signals. “Well? You can hear me, can’t you?”

“…—tain.”

I gave them another moment.

“...Sea. Mountain,” it responded. “Colossal. Too big. Eats all.”

Huh, so it was observing me and my conversation with those three.

It also seemed like it hadn’t reached the stage to understand how language worked. Nevertheless, I did manage to decrypt enough to get the main idea it tried to convey.

“Indeed, I have swallowed the three you’ve sought to claim for yourself,” I sneered. “And I shall not hesitate to devour you as well.”

The mutated monsters became more aggressive in their attempts to escape right after I delivered that message.

Good to know that the Eldran understood what I wanted to convey as well.

“Now, begone.” I stretched out my jaw wide enough to block the sun, dived down, and chewed off the shore from the region.

⥼◉◉⥽

Digesting all of that mold took much quicker than expected. Maybe it was because I hadn’t eaten for so, so long that my stomach eagerly broke them down for breakfast.

On that note, it was a miracle that I’d managed to control my acid to avoid digesting certain guests.

And speaking of guests, it was about time they’d woken up as well.

The lizardman groaned and swayed his head around before slowly opening his eyes. He slowly registered the disfigured shore, all scattered in massive clumps of sand and slime, before sitting upright immediately, wide-eyed and in disbelief.

“Wh—h-huh?” The lizardman patted his face and looked around his body. “I-I’m still alive?! Eugh, what’s all this sticky stuff…?”

“My mucus,” I answered.

“Huh?!” The lizardman lifted his gaze toward me, my head hovering over him and blocking the sunlight. He twitched and froze on the spot.

“Be at ease. That substance had protected you from being digested alive.”

“O-oh…” He looked around, spotting the angel and the human unconscious but still breathing beside him. “Y-You… spared… us? Why?”

I didn’t answer that yet. I waited until the other two woke up.

The angel beside him groaned and also swayed his head, immediately jolting up and repeating the same questions that the lizardman had. Same with the human girl.

These landwalkers truly remained as simple creatures even after eons had passed.

Anyway, after repeating myself twice, I moved on and said, “I can see as clear as day that you all have a thousand questions to ask me, but I only have three. I’ll have you answer me first.”

I inched closer, prompting them to lean back and shuddering as they sat.

“One: What year is it?”

“It’s, uh, 691 A.T.,” said the angel.

“A.T.?”

“A-After the fall of Tiranous.”

Hm? Who was Tiranous again?

…Ah. Right. Tiranous, that arrogant old god who tried to tame me. He had finally passed away, huh?

“Pfft,” I stifled a cough. The three traded confused glances.

I must’ve been asleep for over a thousand years then. No wonder the landscape appeared a little different… aside from the Eldran.

Speaking of which…

“Two: How long ago did this ‘Eldran’ appear, and how much do you know of its power?”

“Hmm, it… it was probably about fifteen years ago,” the girl answered, tapping her chin. “It came out of nowhere, and everyone thought it was some local phenomenon, but when those old sacks of shi—ahem—sages looked into it, it already became a global threat.”

She shrugged. “By the time we realize it, the world has already been flipped upside down, and now we’re here. Their mold eats and dissolves nearly any living lifeform, fae, fauna, and flora alike, and takes on their forms. And they do a really bad job at copying their forms, if you couldn’t tell by now.”

Right, those bizarre mutations resembled much like failed duplications, as if the mold didn’t have the memory to accurately shape themselves of their victims.

“Yeah, it’s just like your—” The angel cupped his mouth.

He was about to say that it was similar to my power, wasn’t he?

Well, he was right. It was just like mine.

Except for the mutations. My memory was still in keen shape, mind them.

“I have no connections to this Eldran whatsoever,” I said.

“We’ve never assumed it,” said the lizardman. “We knew you’ve been inactive this whole time.”

…Right.

I inched even closer, slightly opening my jaw in the process. “Three: who or what convinced you that I would help?”

“Y-You’re really helping us?!” asked the angel. “Seriously?!”

“Answer me.”

“Eek!”

The angel flinched a bit before turning to the lizardman, who reluctantly looked down at his wide, flowing golden sleeves with red streaks. He nervously raised his left arm and pulled out a worn book from it.

He didn’t say a word. He simply opened it and lifted it higher for me, presenting a certain yellow page with a section already marked out for me.

I squinted.

It was so ridiculously old that I could barely read what was on it.

“Dear dia--y,

It’s my birt__ay today! Papa gav- me a pre-ty doll and said th-t Ophie made it for me! She’s the coolest sea drag-n ever! ___’- actually super nice and so sweet! I wi_h she cou__ — more honest with hers-lf. She could tota— be super popular and—”

I immediately snatched the book off the lizardman’s hands with a tentacle. He jolted and gaped at me.

“Where did you get this?” I hissed, opening my jaw even wider.

“I-I-I found it in my clan’s ancient archives! I just happened to stumble upon it while researching the Eldran!”

I remained silent, staring down at the book.

…After all these years…

A faint memory flickered before my eyes, a memory of someone’s small, faint smile.

I snapped the book shut. “I’ll pardon you for trespassing and disrupting my slumber if you’ll let me have this book.”

He widened his eyes. “Huh? Oh—o-okay, yeah, sure, of course,” he sputtered. “It’s all yours.”

I immediately absorbed the book into my scales. Book secured.

Moving on, I snatched the three with another tentacle and raised them toward my head. I carved open one of my eyes before stuffing the new hitchhikers right inside, effectively covering them from view.

“Whoa! Your Majesty?!” the lizardman shouted, his voice echoing through my head.

“Now, let us go,” I said, straightening my legs and walking alongside the seashore.

“Oh? To where?” asked the girl.

“You landwalkers usually have a place called ‘the base of operations,’ yes? I’ll have you guide me there.”

“You’re actually helping us?!” the lizardman asked, still in disbelief as ever. “Genuinely?!”

“I am.”

“You’re not going to help by wiping both the Eldran and our allies, are you?!”

“If that was the plan, I wouldn’t have bothered to spare your lives and ask you questions to begin with. Also, stop shouting. I can hear you well enough.”

And besides, I was already done with it. With my war with these landwalkers and the gods. If this Eldran was indeed far worse than what landwalkers would do, I absolutely couldn't imagine how much more they’d pester me.

“...And besides, I want you landwalkers to be alive to witness me.”

I raised an arm high, spread open my claw, and slammed onto the shore so hard it ruptured the ground and released a massive earthquake through the landscape, scattering away the Eldran in the process.

The three, now gazing at the world through one of the lenses of my eyes, dropped their jaws in silent astonishment.

For good measure, I even let out a loud, thunderous roar, tearing through the clouds.

“I’ll show you and every living being in this world what you should truly kneel in fear of!”

And thus, Luvallis, on the brink of destruction, had been graced with the return of the Primitive Sea Monarch.