Half a day later, inside a cheap hotel room.
Achilles sat on the bed with his arms folded, he thought about how he had wasted more than 12 hours trying to create a single rune and returned with no result.
He knew the basic idea of how the runes were manifested into existence, but without no further clue of how to perfect them, he had stuck at a bottleneck.
'The thing regarding the runes should be left for later. It's time to continue leveling up.' Achilles put the matter asides and focused on his first and foremost objective.
He took out another corpse and laid them on the bathroom floor, he had learned his lesson after the big ass stain on the carpet floor that was almost impossible to wash.
"Here we go again." He rolled his eyes in exasperation and placed his hand on the body.
After a moment, his eyes turned from the pitch-black color to the fearsome bright red ones, and he muttered in a low voice:
[Devour.]
The world around him once again went dark as he ventured into the unknown Mindscape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Achilles opened his eyes as he looked left and right to scan his surrounding. It didn't take him more than 3 seconds to understand that something was wrong.
'Water?!' He exclaimed in his mind as he instinctively held his breath.
Achilles thought he might have seen it wrong, but he was indeed underneath water...or rather, a large lake!
'What the hell is going on? I remember this Corrupted was a land animal when I first saw it!'
'No...it wasn't entirely a land animal...' Achilles started remembering the monster's features bit by bit and soon he realized...
'It was an indohyus!'
How did he not recognize that?! It was so obvious just by looking at the creature's features, but his assumption had misled him into thinking that it was just a land animal.
And now he was going to pay for his price.
'Why is it that my ability doesn't allow me to exit The Mindscape at will anyway?!' His eyebrows scrunched up in annoyance.
'Ugh...I need to get some air.' Achilles tried to rise up to the surface to get some air but he soon realized that he could still breathe normally underwater.
'That's weird...'
He darted his eyes left and right in puzzlement and was confused again by another matter.
'I'm at the bottom of the lake.'
This was something very peculiar since normally, the water pressure would have squashed him like a bug if he was at the bottom of the lake.
His body was indeed feeling some kind of heavy pressure against it but the pressure was not something he couldn't handle.
It was like his body was altered to endure the underwater environment.
While he still had no idea what was going on, he felt a minuscule movement by his neck that made him unconsciously touch them.
'What is this?' He wondered while touching every part of the thing on his neck.
Achilles could feel the air going back and forth on some kind of hole in his neck.
He touched the other side of his neck to check and sensed that there were 6 small holes like things on the two sides of his neck.
Combined with all the events that just occurred earlier, he soon pieced together the puzzle and recognized what they were.
'...Gills?'
Yes, they were definitely gills. There couldn't be any other explanation for what these things were.
But why did he get gills all of the sudden?
'Is it that my ability is altering the spirit body in order to survive in any Mindscape?'
'Hmmm...the possibilities are infinite. Whichever the case it is, there is still a problem.' Achilles touched his chin while thinking about a small but potentially fatal dilemma.
The gills and his body's current ability to resist the water pressure were a good thing, but regardless of what, he was still underwater.
He had never learned to fight and move in an environment where extremely high pressure was present.
Even though his body could endure it, it didn't mean that the invisible pressure wouldn't hinder his movements. On the contrary, it was going to be incredibly hard to will his limbs as he pleased like on dry land.
And Achilles had been through enough battles and bloodshed to know that if one couldn't perfectly control his/her body in a life-or-death situation, that person is basically a dead meat.
'Hmm...from what happened last time, once I move I'll be spotted immediately. Need to have a plan first.'
'Question: Where could the soul of an indohyus be?'
'...Answer: Anywhere but here.'
'...Fuck.'
Achilles was at the end of the tether right now, his useless body which could not yet adapt to the sudden change of environment would prove to be his deadliest disadvantage if he decided to start dancing with Death again.
And it was not like he could continue standing in one spot like a moron any longer since time wouldn't allow it. He estimated that the Mindscape would begin crumbling like broken glass in about 13 minutes.
The clock was ticking and Achilles was closer to death every single second.
'Just another day I guess...Just another day.' He sighed in his mind dejectedly.