Unfathomable Senior

Chapter 24

*Corrupted? It went up a level?*

Matt looked at the strange-looking gorilla that had tentacles protruding out of it now. The tentacle monster charged at him once more trying to overwhelm him with it’s added speed and power. This, of course, wasn’t enough to give Matt a run for his money, the only thing holding him back from beating this thing up once more was the disgusting way that it looked so instead of attacking it he backed away. 

*Eww, that thing looks gross…*

“Hey, I’m not an anime girl, you tentacle monster!”

He shouted as he used his movement technique to zap the tentacle mass while he evaded, the creature looked like it took less damage than before. The creature kept up with its charge, destroying the trees and boulders along the way, smashing into anything in its path while Matt tried to keep his cool. Finally, he got fed up with the constant running away and charged up a lightning javelin after dodging and letting the monster attack his after image as it dumbly did all the time. The thrown bolt of lightning smacked the creature in the upper arm shoulder, which was now gone.

The man could see a big gaping hole in the corrupted creature’s right shoulder, but along with blood more tentacles started squiggling around from it. The tentacles thrashed as if they were mad and he could see that most of the creature’s insides were composed of those tentacles and weird tendrils. This, of course, made him grimace in disgust even more.

“If one won’t do the job… then how about ten?”

He didn’t give the monster time to recover as he started choking his energy spears at it, putting more holes into its large frame. But each hole was just getting filled up by more and more tentacles and the ugly thing wasn’t going down and still tried to charge at the cultivator in white. He was too fast for it but didn’t really want to get too close to the thing but his range attacks didn’t seem to be working. He kept on hitting it, taking out the legs from range and finally landing a blow on the head that just burst open with more squiggly things.

“Why… won’t … you … DIE!”

The creature didn’t have regular legs now and was just a pile of tentacles attached to the creature’s torso, it was a lot slower than before but by some strange rage-filled will it still wiggled its way towards Matt. He at this point started charging up the javelin attack once again, but this time he really focused all of his spiritual energy to pump it up to an enormous spear of light. The huge lightning spear crackled around as he held it above his head, he looked at the disgusting pile of tentacles that was inching slowly in his direction and flung it at the creature. 

What followed was a resounding boom, the monster exploded along with the ground that it was slithering on. A huge dust cloud was kicked up and the wind pressure from the explosion was immense, making the large trees in the vicinity shake violently. The creature was finally dead but it also delivered its last blow against its opponent as the massive amount of tentacles flew in all directions and one of them hit Matt straight in the face. 

The slimy appendage slid down his face and to the ground while his eye twitched. After the dust had settled he could see the squirming tentacles all over the place. Something strange started happening afterward though, the squirming appendages started giving out smoke or steam and after a while, they just crumbled into dust. The only thing that was left was the creature’s core that was in the spot that the monster was slain. Matt wiped his face with his sleeve and moved over to the spot that the creature’s core was and examined it, the core was described as a Tetra Ape core, guess the corruption didn’t affect the cores that the monsters dropped, it was even of the lower early-stage level.

Matt looked around the forest that seamed eerier than it usually did, this creature gave him the creeps. It was one of the strange monsters that were always berserk and enraged, he guessed that it was those tentacles that were the cause of the disease but when the host died they just turned to dust leaving the core intact.

*Is it some kind of parasite? Or did something infect it for some reason… You can’t detect if the creature is corrupt after you kill it as the tentacle things inside just vanish and the core remains intact. Hm, should I ask the village chief about it? Maybe he’ll know something about it*

The man was feeling a bit creeped out, hoping that it wasn’t anything that he could get infected with as the tentacle did hit him in the face and all, so the first thing that he did was to find the river and vigorously wash his face in it. He checked his status screen if it would show something clicking his name but nothing out of place came up. He decided to head to his temporary base of operations in the village hoping to get some answers from the village chief.

It was the middle of the day and he was a bit far out but he managed to return before the sun went down. He didn’t get in any trouble while returning so he gave out a relieved sigh, he didn’t want to fight any more tentacle monsters on the way. Matt didn’t have anything to give to the villagers today as he spent most of the day ‘sparing’ with the ape monster and the trips back and forth took up the rest. He went to his cabin first as he thought about what he should ask the village Chief and after that, he gave him a visit while the sun was going down. 

People greeted him as always on the way there, he already knew his way here and the villagers kind of accepted the quirky Senior. He was giving him a lot of resources to sell and bargain with other tribes, even though the bug monsters were a bit of a hassle.

“Greetings, could I have a word with you, Yang Shan?”

The other man nodded and led him to his room, Matt noticed that he looked a bit different today as if he had some things on his mind also there were fewer guards around for some reason. After the got to the room he started explaining about his encounter with the strange monster, of course, he didn’t say about how he just spent most of the fight just running away and throwing his attacks at the monster. 

“I came across a strange beast today after it took some damage it started changing, its cultivation realm expanded while various tentacle-like appendages started protruding from its hulking form. Of course, it’s dead, but the tentacles vanished without a trace afterward, it seems that that’s what is causing the beasts to go mad in this forest.”

The Chief had a stern look on his face while Matt tried to explain what had happened in a more formal way for a change. The burly man rubbed his chin while looking distressed.

“It can’t be … it has to be the Corrupt one … it corrupts other creatures to elevate its cultivation, consuming their bodies. But if one of the beasts has already turned, it must be close for it to feed… it’s probably going to come out of its hiding place to consume the other monsters.” 

Matt didn’t like where this was going, there was some kind of strange monster out there, probably one with even more strange appendages. Maybe now would be a good time to leave this place? He wasn’t that keen on fighting the thing, but as he was thinking about his next move the burly man dropped to his knees and started kowtowing furiously.

“Distinguished, honorable, illustrious and respectable Senior!”

*Aren’t you overdoing it with the honorifics dude…*

“Please hear me out, my stupid son has gone missing for a few days, he probably went to the forest to prove himself after offending you, but he hasn’t returned with his men, now I fear that the Corrupted One could have something to do with it, please find it in your upright and just heart to aid this old man in finding his stupid son!”

Matt looked at the burly man that was hitting the floor with his forehead, making thumping sounds that just made more people show up and see the Chief prostrating himself in front of him. But instead of stopping the man they did the exact thing as they also knew that his son was missing putting Matt in an awkward position.

“Ugh…”