Following the rising temperature, Justin’s suspicions began to mount as the ceiling started to lower. The further he traveled, the deeper he was forced to descend while the water was still getting warmer.

  Realistic causes for a heat source to be this deep and widespread ran through his mind but none seemed to make sense. The only one that seemed to be close was that one or more hydrothermal vents were ingrained somewhere in the vicinity within the salt.

  But that still couldn’t be the source, as no natural vent formation would have the capability to heat up a space this large. From the heat alone it actually felt as if he were a thousand feet deeper. Was it something with this planet in particular?

  No, there was something else going on here, and Justin thought he had just come up on it as he felt his tentacles around him let go of the salt walls.

  For the first time since the lake, Justin was feeling the pull of water again.

  ‘The water here has eroded another hole in the salt. Does it lead down another hundred feet?’

  Justin carefully stuck one of his tentacles through the crack, opening it up a little in case he was right. But his feeler met the second water surface quickly enough this time.

  There was another body of water in the next cave.

  ‘Only way forward is down.’

  Justin sighed as he pushed through the opening, keeping his O2 tentacle feed behind him at all times while it elongated.

  As he splashed into the body of water, Justin soon realized that it was a far larger space than the previous caves had been. The light in here was also a little better than in the other caves, but was still very dim.

  Justin craned upward through the wavy water, attracted by the presence of light from the crystals there.

  ‘Those shimmers above, reflections on the water surface? This far underground, I must have entered some kind of cenote.’

  Either that or some kind of confined aquifer. Both were gatherings of water underground, the one that he was in just happened to have a pocket of air, judging by the reflection.

  When Justin looked down he found only an abyss.

  The water had already been so darkened by its impurities that by adding to the fact that the salt rocks weren’t that bright and the minerals they deposited over the years were cloudy, the depths of the cenote were incredibly light-restricted. It would almost be eerie, if Justin didn’t know that essentially nothing could live in waters this ridden with salt.

  Despite that, Justin still felt like the shape of darkness below wasn’t lining the rounded shape of the cenote. Almost forming its own jagged one.

  No…was it actually moving, instead?

  ‘What was that?’

  Justin’s eyes strained.

  “Fear.”

  BOOOM

  A shockwave rising from the depths of the cavern erupted past Justin, sending him and his surroundings upward. At the same time, the distorted and heavy groan of a voice entered his ears.

  ‘Fear? Who had said that?’

  Then Justin saw one of the clots of darkness detach itself from the wall like an appendage. Despite being what he guessed was more a hundred feet below him, the movement of the darkness rocked the water under him.

  Once again, he was sent upward and nearly splashed out of the water were it not for his tentacles tethering him.

  ‘What a creature!’

  Clarity came to Justin’s mind. At once with equal parts fascination and shock, he watched as the darkness below him rose from the depths and revealed itself as an organism. The source of the water’s temperature had unveiled itself.

  It must be the cause of the water level fluctuations in the swamp, he realized as well. To think it was an inhabitant of the swamp, and not an anomaly of the environment!

  But Justin quickly realized if it was hostile, he wasn’t in a good position to defend himself. This hearkened back to the scorpion problem, but now Justin was completely isolated.

  Another crash of waves was sent toward him from its movement. Justin’s tension rose as the creature did too, its frame filling the edges of the aquifer as it got closer every passing moment.

  “Fear!”

  Again, the voice rippled through his mind, but Justin was tired enough of hearing it by then.

  ‘No!’

  It had apparently verified his presence after that one, as Justin was quickly starting to see the shape of the beast despite the dim surroundings.

  Over a hundred feet in diameter from what Justin could guess, unfurled a colossal seven-pointed starfish with its side facing Justin. From end to end, it was far larger than the Herald had been without considering its tentacles.

  On one side of its surface it bore an undulating anatomy, allowing Justin to see the veritable mega factory of organic operations that was occurring.

  Millions of cilia strands covered its body. While in normal biology these were usually microscopic hair-like structures that acted as conveyors or feeders for cells, the starfish’s cilia were large enough for Justin to see, and culminated into vast clumps of stalk-like polyps.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  These stalks were currently darting through the water in the direction of Justin with a singular clear purpose: to feed.

  ‘Oh shit!’

  Something flew at him. Justin’s tentacles instantly encircled him at his command, crossing in front of his chest in an x-pattern to shield against the gigantic appendage.

  BOOM!

  But still it wasn’t enough.

  One of the starfish’s stalks slammed against Justin’s cross-guard, thundering through the water and shooting him back against the salt crystals.

  The incredible force of the attack left him stunned for a moment, though Justin had learned his lesson about opening his mouth in shock.

  Justin quickly checked his system.

  [Health: 4 / 15]

  ‘After a single attack!?’

  It had been more than enough to turn an ordinary person to mist, and had left Justin crippled in a way he hadn’t been yet.

  The physical weakness of his race was starting to show.

  WOOOOSH

  Justin desperately swam out of the way to avoid the next attack. One more hit would be fatal..

  ‘Shit! Alright, where is my opening?’

  Usually, larger creatures like the star had a weak point. This remained true even across the galaxy as because of their size and presence, the common laws of organisms often weren’t enough to sustain them.

  The larger daemons Justin had experience with had to rely on secondary or tertiary organs to supplement their vital functions, such as another heart, brain, lung, etc. Justin was willing to bet this law applied to mutant beasts as well.

  As this phenomenon was unnatural and only occurred in extreme situations or due to the system’s interference, these organs formed outside of the body or in odd locations.

  With the starfish, there could be a few possibilities, but Justin didn’t have the endurance to take another hit, or stamina to experiment.

  ‘The open side? No, it's all covered by stalks, that environment could turn on me very quickly. Go behind it? I can probably swim faster than it can turn, but it's likely to be armored back there. Where else…huh? What's that at the tips?’

  Each of the seven tips of the starfish culminated into a dark sack of bulbous material. Whatever made up their texture, it looked reflective even in the dim lighting of the cave.

  Its eyes. That was where his offensive could be delivered to the most potent effect.

  WOOOSH

  While he was thinking however, a stalk as wide as his body carved through the water inches away from his face, narrowly missing him thanks to a quick duck.

  Justin thanked his reaction time, but then all of a sudden, he felt a tug on his body from behind.

  Looking back with a wide expression, his teeth gritted heedless of the salty water.

  A stalk of the starfish beast had actually found something of Justin to hold onto, and seemed to be contemplating what to do for a moment.

  ‘You fucker! Get away from–’

  Then with a single tensing of its flesh, the stalk contracted around the foreign object, snapping the bundle of tentacles that was carrying oxygen to Justin in its grasp.

  ‘Shit!’

  VHOOM!

  Oxygen bubbles clouded the area as Justin felt like his lungs had exploded.

  [Health: 3 / 15 ]

  Luckily, the tentacles were a peripheral part of his body, so their severance didn’t impact Justin so long as he could hold his breath.

  It wasn’t as bad being hit directly, but from where he was floating in the water, he knew the impact was soon to be felt if he couldn’t finish his opponent off quickly.

  BLEAGH!

  The slack bundle of tentacles cracked out like a whip as they made their way through the water back to Justin, who quickly regrew their tips with a chunk of biomass.

  Unfortunately that wouldn’t heal his system-based health for the moment, just prevent more water from entering the wounds.

  He turned his body quickly as the same stalk came back around to strike.

  WOOOOSH

  Avoiding it once more, now with a much smaller, more agile frame, he knew he had to act immediately.

  Justin swam through the deep water in a blur, burrowing with his tentacles in a spiral-shape to get to the closest tip of the starfish.

  ‘The eyes!’

  It was his only shot.

  WOOOSH

  WOOOSH

  Several stalks cut in his direction, but he was prepared and rolled like a bullet through the water past them.

  With his body in patches, Justin’s blood was foaming the surrounding water, but eventually he got to the closest eye without getting hit.

  It was a small collection of beady little spheres underneath a loose membrane. Each could have fit in his hand, so the organ reminded him somewhat of a sack of fruit, albeit rotten and slightly disgusting.

  ‘But I suppose I can’t talk.’

  Looking around quickly and seeing the beast’s stalks still in the middle of winding back, Justin felt a brief grin form before shredding the eye sack with a manic barrage of tentacles.

  When you could simply blind the enemy, who needed to find the weak point?

  SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  WOOOOOOOOSH

  That got the beast’s attention, as a militia of stalks came his way before slamming against the starfish’s own flesh, catching nothing but the open water he had occupied just moments prior.

  Justin was busy swimming to the next one, repeating what he had done there again, then three more times, before the water was rocked again.

  “FEAR! FEAR!”

  Justin chuckled internally as the psychic screams of the creature passed over him.

  With the shoe on the other foot, its psychic murmurs didn’t feel like high-handed commandments anymore but the oafish ramblings of a tyrant that had yet to learn of a rebellion.

  ‘No, I don’t fear you. You should fear me!’

  He swam to the next appendage, grinning internally as he was about to strike. Had he really been so cautious for the sake of this creature?

  The only advantage it had on him was its size, which correlated to its innate strength. Even its psychic capability that had initially surprised him only amounted to low-level telepathy.

  Justin prepared his second-to-last barrage into the creature’s eyes, before feeling like something was off.

  It wasn’t a sense of mercy that entered his mind, but caution. An emotion he was almost equally disgusted to feel.

  Justin forced himself to look through his surroundings of water for the reason.

  The cavern was still choppy at the moment because of the starfish’s past movements, but presently it lacked a certain aggressive zeal that it once had.

  That’s when Justin realized the stalks of the creature had gone still. The area was just lit enough for him to see them retracting into the cilia membrane like a cowering animal. His eyes widened.

  ‘Wait a second…telepathy? Fear? Ah….’

  Justin almost facepalmed before he remembered a similar situation.