He had also taken his discarded and shed scales and layered them onto the bottom of his sailboat, making it neigh invisible to anything staring at it from below. This was Haati’s own slice of heaven, full of fish, relative safety, and the best part? If anyone dared to follow him he had his own security via the monsters below, it was perfect.
He set him catch into the ship, tying it down and prepared to return back to the port. Smiling to himself after a job well done he went to the mast to set sail, only for his hand to grasp nothing but air. Shocked, he turned his head and his eyes grew wide, his entire mast was missing along with the sail.
“What in wo-“
As he was questioning his missing mast, his attention was immediately drawn to an explosion happening at the bottom of the cliffs “By Luxia!?” He shouted, “Did a beast ram its head?!” Something strange was going on with the monsters and experience told him he had to get out of here, but with his sail missing he only had one option. Not wanting to leave behind his catch, he prepared himself to dive in and push his small boat, it would take awhile, but if he was careful it shouldn’t take him that long to at least get into safer waters.
Just as he was about to dive into the water his head perked up, hearing the faint sounds of a young women screaming. He turned his head towards it, his eyes widening in surprise as he saw a 5 meter tall wall of split waves, wind, and mist fast approaching him.
“Too fast! Too fast! Too fast! Too fast!”
Before the wave hit him, he heard the sound of a young women pass him, but never once saw her, as half a second later him and his boat were swept up in the miniature typhoon that caught up to the sound.
Haati woke up 30 minutes later, finding himself ontop of the cliff side with his boat stuck up in a tree near him. He breathed deeply, staring out into the now calm sea, completely confused as to what just happened and thankful he came out of it relatively unharmed.
Now back to 30 minutes prior, right as Iris smashed straight into the west side of the continent.
She would find herself borrowing through the earth like a super-heated ball of iron goes through butter and would feel several different sensations as she plowed through the earth. The majority of it was solid rock, but every once in awhile she would hit an underground lake or river, or a pocket of magma, sand, or gravel. This would continue for quite some time, at one point she hit something particularly hard but kept going.
Eventually she would come to a stop, deep underground, where she laid in an awkward position with the earth molded around her body “…I can’t control myself at all…” She grumbled, sitting up and looking back to the tunnel she had made “Well, guess since no one got hurt, its fine.”
Nodding to herself she decided her next action, heading towards the surface. She removed herself from the wall, admiring her impression she had made on it, before pointing up “Now, gently, no parting the earth, just simply go up.”
Following her will, magic swirled around her, she then jumped up, grabbing the ceiling and borrowing into it like a mole, using earth magic to move the ground. If anyone were to see her now they would question if she was digging or swimming.
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To her, she enjoyed it, after her unfortunate discovery of her phobias this was a lovely change of pace, even humming to herself as she dug upwards.
Nearly an hour later Iris’s head popped out of the ground in the middle of a forest “Sun! Air! Trees!” she shouted, pulling the rest of her body out of the soil.
While dusting herself off she looked around her surroundings, not seeing much of anything besides the trees, the grass… really nothing. “Hrm, would have expected the mainland to be more, lively.” She looked around “Maybe they are hidden…”
She spent the next hour wondering the forest aimlessly, scanning anything she could see in hopes to find any signs of life, but it was if everything in the surrounding area had vanished “Hrm…” she plopped down on the ground and crossed her arms “I wanted to see some life I could talk to, getting them to worship me is a bonus but no the main goal…right now.” She tilted her head side to side, troubled “That leviathan…”
Her face paled, she jumped up “That wasn’t the only life out there was it!?” She shouted, rapidly looking from side to side “No! it can’t be! There has to be something! Anything!” She closed her eyes, focusing on her hearing “Come on…anything….”
With her advanced hearing now focused, she could hear everything in detail, the swaying of the trees, the wind pushing through the branches, and finally a faint sound of arguing in the distance “There!” She turned towards it “Life!” she then started running, albeit, carefully as to not disturb the forest.
“No! I don’t wanna!”
The voices became more clearer as she approached, it sounded like a young girl and…hissing? She quickened her pace.
“You can’t make me! Stop! No!”
“Ok, that is a bit worrying.” Iris said, picking up her pace, soon arriving in a small clearing in the forest where she saw two figures. One was a small child with pale skin, red teary eyes, white hair, and was wearing a pure white dress that flowed outwards from where she sat. The girl was currently shielding herself from the other figure.
The other, and much larger figure, had the body upper body of women but the lower body of a black spider, 6 legs and 2 grasping limbs, a large chitin covered abdomen, while the women herself had 8 eyes, black hair, and chitin covered 3 fingered claws for hands.
“Get away from her!” Iris shouted, even from her point of view it was clear what was going on, that little girl was getting attacked by a monster, and she couldn’t sit by and do nothing. She charged the beast, raising her fist up into the air… and slammed into the Arachnee as she was unable to stop herself, plowing straight through it, the only thing remaining of it was half of the abdomen.
Meanwhile, her fist that she threw too late, had nothing to hit, and instead hit empty air, causing a tree in the distance to get torn in half, with Iris herself slamming into the bottom half and thankfully coming to a halt.
“Eh?” The tiny girl, who just watched her apparent attacker explode into a cloud of bloody mist, sat there stunned.
“I saved you!” Iris shouted, from her upside-down position on the collapsed trunk. She lifted herself up and walked towards the girl “No need to thank me, but I won’t say no to it” She laughed to herself, thinking she might get a little bit of worship from this kid as thanks.
Instead what she got was.
“M-M-M-MONS-“
Was a screech followed by the kid fainting.
“…” Iris pouted “What a way to thank someone for saving you.” She sighed, standing above the girl and then glancing over to the remaining half of the spider abdomen “Well, maybe she is just shook…wonder if…” Curious to learn more about the girl she knelt down besides her and appraised her.
“Eh.”
“no no no, that can’t be right.” She waved her hand dismissively and took a closer look at the girl, white hair, human body, was wearing a large dress that spread out from where she sat… “That dress is very large…” She appraised it,
“Hrm, Didn’t tell me much, maybe… can I get more out of that?” She remembered the skill said she could get any information she wanted, so what was this dress made from.
Iris started sweating, still in denial she lowered her hand towards the dress “Forgive me…” She whispered and raised the dress. She was greeted with the sight of where the young girl’s upper half met with a lower spider half, but unlike the other one this one was covered in white fur. “Fluffy…” was the word that described it perfectly, it even had vague light-pink patterns spread in some places.
“No wait!” She dropped the dress, gripping her head with her hands “Did I just kill this girl’s mother?!”