piratefiction Chapter 2 Ouroboros Stele
Chapter 2 Ouroboros Stele
Under the bed, Lin Ye was tense, observing cautiously.
His withered arms were black and shiny, and his forearms alone were over a meter long.
Although he looks slender, his arms are actually as thick as a large bowl at the base.
The fingers are long and slender, with only the joints visible and no nails. They look like five twisted, sharp thorns that could crush a person in an instant.
Suddenly, he remembered the hacking marks outside the room.
Those marks were probably not caused by a sharp weapon at all!
"Shh~ shh~"
A faint scraping sound was heard, and the monster crawled towards the window.
Only a thick, dark gray rag could be seen under the bed, half-wrapping the monster's body.
Black feathers drooped down, covering most of the body.
The rustling sound beside my ear was neither hurried nor slow, as if the monster was simply passing by.
Suddenly, the rustling stopped, and Lin Ye gasped for breath, not daring to make a sound.
The next second, the scraping sound rang out again, and the monster twisted its body and changed direction.
Upon seeing this, Lin Ye breathed a sigh of relief, and large beads of cold sweat slid down his forehead.
"Whoosh—!"
A thick snake tail swept past his chin, shattering the bead of sweat.
In an instant, it was as if we had entered slow motion.
The snake's tail was black with glossy scales that looked like they were covered with a layer of hard grease, leaving a thin layer of fine white particles where it had been swept.
His body stiffened instantly, and even his breathing was forcibly stopped, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
A few minutes later, after hearing the "thud" of the monster climbing down the stairs, he slowly exhaled.
After a while, a faint sound emerged from under the bed, and the tension eased slightly.
Observe the spot where the monster crawled, there is a trail covered with fine white particles.
Without touching the particles, I carefully walked to the door, pressed myself against the wall, and observed the direction of the stairs.
At the corner of the stairs on the first floor, the pitch-black monster turned around and revealed its head, which turned out to be a golden mask with the face of a crying woman!
Even more bizarrely, this golden face was breathing with its mouth slightly open!
The moment I saw the mask clearly, a primal shiver, originating from the depths of my very being, surged up.
It felt like something, like tentacles, was spreading out and enveloping him.
It felt like encountering a natural enemy; instead of speeding up, my heart was gripped tightly.
In an instant, he felt his mind wavering, and the surrounding scenery seemed to be changing rapidly.
In a daze, he seemed to have arrived at a desolate plain, where black mist rose from a huge, ancient, mottled black stone tablet.
I don't know how much time passed, but my consciousness gradually returned.
The monster at the top of the stairs had turned around, its three pairs of black wings twisted and folded on its back, like the six wings of a fallen angel.
The black snake's tail swayed, leaving a white mark.
However, he had no time to observe these details; his attention was entirely focused on the black text appearing in his field of vision.
[Achievement Triggered: First Time Feeling Loved]
[Achievement Description: This is your first time entering the Netherworld.]
[Unlock Conditions]
1. Enter any area of the 'Yin Realm' (Completed)
2. Exploration of this area has reached over 5% (completed)
3. Collect one item from this area (Incomplete)
4. The Legacy of the First Encounter with the Monsters of the Underworld (Incomplete)
5. A heart of reverence (Completed)
[Achievement Rewards]
1. Potential Points x1
2. Ability - Yin-dominant constitution (1/10)
Ability Description: You will find it easier to attract certain things and gain their favor, making them hungry for you. At the same time, you will also develop a hunger for them.
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.
"Is the achievement... just an illusion?"
Looking at the black characters in front of him, he reached out and gently touched them, passing right through them.
The next moment, all the words vanished, turning into a wisp of black smoke that seeped into the back of his right hand.
On the back of his hand, a black ouroboros pattern in the shape of an infinity symbol gradually appeared.
His gaze fell on the ouroboros pattern, and a surge of information flooded his mind, making his breathing become somewhat rapid.
"It's not a hallucination."
After observing the surroundings, I gently closed the door, leaving a crack to ensure I could hear what was happening outside.
He breathed a sigh of relief after doing all this and looked at the ouroboros pattern on the back of his hand.
"monument"
He meditated in his heart.
The ouroboros pattern glowed faintly, and a small, ancient stone tablet appeared, floating above the back of the hand.
The stone tablet was entirely black, with many broken and chipped edges.
A lifelike black ouroboros relief in the shape of an "8" coils around the monument, dividing it into upper and lower sections.
The lower half is embossed with the black text we just saw, while the upper half is engraved with several lines of information.
[Monument Master: Lin Ye]
【Strength: 0.49】
[Agility: 0.51]
[Physical Fitness: 0.50]
【Intelligence: 0.54】
[Ability] (Blank)
Potential Point: 0
Looking at the few lines of data on the monument, Lin Ye's eyes flickered, but he quickly calmed down.
"So it seems that the standard values for various parameters for a normal adult should be around 0.5."
"So, in other words, combat... 0.5 trash?"
Using his mind, he retrieved the monument, his gaze falling on the white marks on the ground.
The remnants of monsters from the underworld...
I squatted down, picked up some tiny white particles with my fingertips, and smelled them under my nose.
"This is... salt?"
The thought had barely formed when a string of black text appeared before my eyes.
[The Legacy of the First Encounter with the Monsters of the Underworld (Completed)]
As the words faded, he frowned and pressed the white salt grains on his fingertips onto the floor, gently grinding them.
I stood up and looked at the head of the bed. The huge window was mostly covered by off-white curtains.
You can see a tall plant with purple flowers growing in the yard outside. It is nearly three meters tall and looks like a tulip.
The courtyard was shrouded in a thick, gray-white fog, reducing visibility to no more than three meters.
The fog churned and surged, like some kind of living, wriggling creature.
On the desk under the window, an old-fashioned cylindrical tungsten filament lamp casts a dim yellow light, illuminating the brown covers of two books on the desk.
But soon, his gaze was drawn to the brightly colored oil painting above his bed.
This is a landscape painting with extremely vibrant colors depicting a sunset.
The bright yellow sun, the glossy brown cliffs, the emerald green pine trees, and the vibrant pink peach blossoms that looked almost plastic.
There is a semi-circular arched bridge over the river, reflected in the water, like an eye staring at you.
The whole world was bright and clear, but it felt strange.
weird?
A sense of hesitation welled up inside him; he didn't understand why he had such a feeling.
Take a few steps forward to see it more clearly.
Suddenly, his pupils dilated, and his heart skipped a beat.
It's fake, so obviously fake.
It's not just about color.
The sun in this painting is like a decoration; the light source is not it, but comes from outside the picture, from some unseen, unknown place.
It completely defies normal understanding of lighting effects and goes against common human sense.
The whole painting looks as if it was prepared specifically for some kind of creature that does not need to follow human cognition.
Suddenly, his pupils contracted, and he abruptly turned around.
A golden-brown wall comes into view, its retro pattern resembling a series of eyes.
The densely packed layers create the illusion that your eyes are moving with every shift of your gaze.
Suddenly, the last unlock condition in the 'Achievements' list popped into his mind.
A heart full of reverence.
Then, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
He slowly turned his head, no longer paying attention to the oil painting, and forcibly shifted his gaze away.
I sat on the bed, calmed myself down, and looked at the two brown-covered books on the desk.
The cover material is similar, resembling the leather of some kind of animal.
A book without words, about half a finger thick.
The other book had several unfamiliar characters on its cover and was very thin.
I picked up the book and flipped through the blank cover. It looked like a diary. There was a string of unfamiliar characters on the title page, which looked like some kind of symbol.
I continued flipping through the pages, and found that only the first dozen or so pages had text; the rest were blank.
Collect one item from this area (Completed)
[Unlock achievement?]