novelraw Chapter 888: Their Bloodline
Chapter 888: Their Bloodline
The Deep Ones rose from the surging waves, some climbing onto the square while others remained in the water. Their forms seemed to stretch all the way to the distant Devil's Reef, an endless tide of creatures.
The groveling townspeople rose to their feet to greet the grotesque, blasphemous Deep Ones—their kin, their ancestors.
A few of the more powerful-looking Deep Ones carried off the sacrifices bound to the stone pillars. Years ago, the women chosen as victims would have been miserable and desperate. But now, they were considered fortunate to be given such an opportunity.
No one noticed one peculiar townsperson vanish, just as no one saw the thick, viscous slick begin to snake its way from the fish processing plant upstream.
At the edge of the square, a Deep One lowered its head, its bulging eye fixed on its webbed hands, which were now coated in a viscous grease.
Fwoosh!
A tongue of flame erupted in the darkness, racing toward the port.
Surging flames engulfed the square. The townspeople cried out, scattering in a panic.
The fire was right at the water's edge, where the Deep Ones stood. Both townspeople and Deep Ones, slick with burning fish oil, retreated into the sea. After a series of guttural whispers, rain began to fall over the port.
Still, the flames had served their purpose. Amid the chaos, no one saw a lone townsman suddenly tackle one of the Deep Ones to the ground.Pinning the Deep One down, Lu Li tore the Book of the Apocalypse and the Sting away from it. But the creature was far more protective of them than he had anticipated; it clutched half of the Book of the Apocalypse, trying to wrench it back.
Lu Li hadn't received any enhancement from the Book of the Apocalypse, and the webbing on his hands and feet made it difficult to exert his full strength. Worse still, the longer the struggle continued, the more likely he was to be discovered by the surrounding Deep Ones and townspeople.
Without further hesitation, Lu Li snatched the spirit gun from its holster and pressed the muzzle to the gills on the Deep One's neck.
But before he could pull the trigger, a flicker of surprise cut through the guttural growl of the Deep One pinning him down.
"Lu Li?"
But Lu Li heard nothing.
...
Katerina slowly regained consciousness in the silence and gloom.
Katerina found herself lying on a magnificent, agate-like stone bed. She was in a spacious, phosphorescent palace where the water gently swayed around her, and a tangle of confused thoughts prevented her from remembering what had happened.
Then she saw her own body. The webbing between her fingers and toes—something humans never had—and the damp, cold scales covering her dark green skin.
Yet Katerina felt no revulsion at her monstrous transformation, as if she were already accustomed to this grotesque form.
A surge of new strength calmed her slightly in the unfamiliar surroundings.
Before Katerina could take in her surroundings, a similarly grotesque creature appeared outside the palace.
"Child, you are awake."
The silhouette and its noisy, barking voice felt strangely familiar to Katerina. Usually, her reaction to seeing an anomaly was to either keep her distance or attack.
"Katerina, I am your mother."
Her whisper spoke words that stunned Katerina:
"Remember everything you saw in your dream..."
As an agonizing pain shot through her head, memories came flooding back.
It had all started when she fainted near Khimfast.
Her consciousness had plunged into a terrifying abyss. There, she saw a vast underwater city in an endless sea, roamed by blasphemous figures resembling a mix of fish and frogs.
As her unconsciousness deepened, she began to merge with the blasphemous figures, wandering among them, worshipping Dagon and Mother Hydra, and the Great One.
She had nearly dissolved into them, but the Book of the Apocalypse, which Lu Li had left with her, awakened her from the Deep One's dream.
But the nightmare continued in reality. The Deep Ones from the underwater city came for her. They called themselves her kin, inviting her to return to her ancestors, to the embrace of the father-god, the mother-goddess, and the Great One.
Katerina had gone with them, arriving at the very underwater city from her dreams, only to lose consciousness again.
"Mother... didn't you die from the corruption back in town?"
Katerina realized why she felt so calm in their presence.
"Child, our kind has always carried the bloodline of the Deep Ones. But when your grandfather left the Wastelands and perished in the calamity, we forgot our heritage. That same calamity awakened my bloodline, and I could no longer search for you..."
"So, you abandoned me?"
"I am so sorry, child."
A hint of tenderness seemed to soften the Deep One's guttural voice.
"The Deep Ones possess eternal life. We will have enough time to be together..."
"Where am I?"
Pushing herself up on the agate bed, Katerina sat up, her grip on the Book of the Apocalypse still tight.
"Y'ha-nthlei, one of the cities of the ancient tribe of the Deep Ones."
The name meant nothing to Katerina:
"I still don't understand... Am I still on the Main Continent?"
"Humans call this place the Allen Peninsula."
"The Allen Peninsula..."
Katerina looked at the gloom outside the palace.
"The Eternal Night?"
"No, child. Y'ha-nthlei is at the bottom of the sea near Devil's Reef."
Her mother embraced Katerina, and a familiar fishy scent flooded her senses. But when the creature tried to gently kiss her cheek, Katerina softly pushed her away.
Katerina could not yet get used to such intimacy.
Another Deep One swam into the palace. Though they all looked alike at first glance, Katerina found she could recognize this one.
"That is your grandmother."
Her mother went to meet Katerina's grandmother, and they embraced tightly, pressing against each other like lovers.
"She still very much wants to go to the surface," her mother said to her grandmother.
"Weren't you the same way back then?"
Her grandmother gently stroked her body, looking at Katerina:
"Is that the one you love?"
Katerina wanted to nod, but after a moment of hesitation, she gently shook her head.
Her grandmother lifted her mother's small-scaled chin. Admiring her, she spoke in a voice that Katerina was slowly beginning to recognize:
"Kat, I was just like you when I was young. I resisted this grotesque form and this terrifying abyss. I didn't want to leave everything on the surface behind—relatives, lovers... Many of the Deep Ones here were the same. Orn's son from the Marsh family even used a pistol to reject this entire realm. In our eternal lives, twenty years of human existence is a trivial amount of time."
You will understand.
"Think it over. Your mother and I will be waiting for you in the garden."
"I want to go back to the surface!"
Katerina suddenly shouted after them.
Her grandmother no longer tried to persuade her. She embraced Katerina's mother and left the palace, heading towards a garden where strange, scaly corals and bizarrely branching crystals grew.
"In Innsmouth tomorrow evening, there will be a sacrifice for the Day of Rebirth. You can return to the surface then."
...
A clawed, webbed hand slipped behind the trigger, preventing Lu Li from firing.
Unable to fire his gun and with the Book of the Apocalypse still out of reach, Lu Li seemed to be at an impasse. But his fingers slowly relaxed as he recalled something else—something that had happened only recently.
"If a gun is pointed at you, it seems there's only one way out—death?" Katerina had asked Lu Li as he was cleaning his spirit gun.
Placing his finger on the trigger, Lu Li had demonstrated for Katerina and a watchful Prusius:
"If it's very close, you can try to dodge the barrel or block the trigger."
The whisper of the priest from the Secret Cult of Dagon also echoed in his ears.
"Don't rush, child. You will see her tonight... I swear by Dagon."