Chương 591: Sunken Realms

Luke turned in a slow circle, scanning every direction.

"No sign of anyone else dropping nearby." He was stranded in the middle of a desert.

"And I have no idea which way I'm supposed to go." There were two suns in the sky.

"Am I on Tatooine?" A glow flared at his neck. The necklace began to shine.

"Gods... what a headache," a familiar voice groaned.

"And I don't even have a head..." Artemis.

"Hey, Artemis," Luke said.

"Hey, Luke," she replied casually. Then her tone snapped.

"Actually, no. Not hey. Not hey at all, man. What the hell was that? We were having a perfectly nice lunch with the Baumanns, you were getting bullied by your friends, Charlie showed up in a dress that made her boobs look amazing without even showing cleavage, which is frankly tragic, and then suddenly the world starts ending. Apocalypse. People vanishing like it's Avengers: Endgame. Then out of nowhere we're in space, planets are showing up everywhere, then boom, giant flash of light.

And holy shit, I went into some kind of trance or something, like I'd eaten way too many psychedelic mushrooms. I was in nirvana, man. I was the world and also not the world. I must've been asleep for a thousand years, and then I just woke up." She kept going without taking a breath, rambling exactly the way she always did.

"Alright, alright. Slow down," Luke said.

"And what the hell is this, anyway? We're in a desert with two suns. What is this, Tatooine?"

"I thought the same thing. And you're not going to believe what happened to me. I'm going to unlock some memories for you." He started walking as he said it. At the same time, he pulled up Charlie and Angie's screens. Both were gray. If their island event ended when mine did, they're probably checking their screens right now too. Franky was inaccessible as well.

"Wow. An island battle royale. Nice," Artemis said, watching the memory stream like she was bingeing a show. Luke approached one of the coral-like trees. [Reef Coral: A coral tree found in deep regions of the ocean where large reefs are present.] He looked around again. Most likely, this part of the planet used to be underwater.

"I was offline for three months? Damn..." Artemis murmured.

"Bet you missed me."

"I did."

"No point lying, I know you mis... wait." She froze.

"Hold on. What did you just say? You missed me?"

"Yeah."

"I don't believe you. Say it again. Say it again for me, Luke."

"No."

"Oh, come on. I was trapped in the dark for three months. I'm starving for attention."

"You were offline, or whatever the right word is."

"You missed me and admitted it. I knew I mattered to you."

"That's not the same thing. I missed the storage item, that's all."

"No. Definitely me." Luke sighed.

"Even a castaway needs a ball to talk to. So you're my ball."

"No. I am not Wilson, man. And why do I feel like we've had this conversation before?"

"You're not fit to stand in Wilson's shadow." Then Luke kept walking for hours through the desert. Oddly enough, it was not hot, even with two suns overhead. A soft breeze moved through the sand, and the air was almost cold. The scent of salt lingered everywhere. When he finally approached what looked like a lake, he realized it was not a lake at all. Just a vast stretch of shallow water. Luke crouched, touched the surface with one finger, and lifted a drop to taste it.

"Pure salt. So it really is sea. The ocean in this part of the world actually dried up." In the distance, he spotted creatures that looked like crabs.

"So I landed on a continent. Why do I get the feeling my luck just screwed me over?" Luke opened his notification history. Stage 2: Sunken Hunt Humans already integrated into the system, belonging to the 51% and below Rank C, who survived the Island Challenge, will now venture into the Sunken Realms. Scattered across the ruins are Marine Artifacts, guarded by terrifying Sea Beasts. Whether alone or in groups, the integrated are now free to form their own factions.

The main goal is simple: survive until the next stage begins. But be warned. Collecting Marine Artifacts is the key to activating Beacons, special dungeons filled with treasure and unique challenges. Countless rewards and other treasures can be obtained there, making you stronger.

"Okay. So I got unlucky and lucky at the same time." He had been dropped onto solid land, but the event itself was centered around the sea.

"Good thing I didn't buy a ship." When a pack of crabs noticed him, Luke conjured a throwing knife and hurled it in their direction. [Shadow Mana Explosion activated] The knife hit the ground and detonated. [You have slain a Sea Crab - Lvl 48] [You have slain a Sea Crab - Lvl 48] [You have slain a Sea Crab - Lvl 48] [You have slain a Sea Crab - Lvl 48] [You have slain a Sea Crab - Lvl 48] Your second class [Witch] has reached Level 63!

"God, I missed this." As he walked through the desert, Luke kept thinking about the scale of the challenge.

"Everyone with the system just got thrown into the world and set loose." This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it He thought about finding his mother. And also... Allison. His friend was finally out of the Rhiannon family's grasp. This is the perfect chance for her to escape them.

Luke kept walking through the desert. Every two minutes, Artemis interrupted him with another question about the battle royale. She watched his memories and commented on them like she was bingeing a TV series. If my mother survived the Island Challenge, then she's out here somewhere right now. He picked up the pace, then broke into a run, burning stamina as he went. Far in the distance, he could make out ruins. Dark green stone and brick. He wanted to find people. I need to find some way to locate my mother.

My friends. All of them. He had too many goals and no clear starting point for any of them. As he got closer, the ruins came into sharper view. Dark green brick. Green stone. Algae clinging to the walls, plants growing through the cracks.

"Are you gay?" Artemis asked. Luke blinked.

"What? Where the hell did that come from?"

"I'm at the part of the story where there's a woman in bra and panties pressed up against you, basically going, 'Please, milord, possess me for this night and all the nights after,' and you're all, 'Sorry, I'm in Batman mode. Lone wolf. My only lover is the sorrow of the night.'""That is not what I said to Zoe, and that is definitely not how it happened."

"Dude, come on. You were curled up in the cold with a woman wearing underwear. You were supposed to do something. And do I even need to point out that she was already wet? Literally, I mean. That's not even a joke. She had just come out of a river."

"I had more important things to worry about than sex."

"Life is sex, man. Damn. I'm going to have to teach you how to behave in situations like that. But seriously, you're some kind of magnet for this stuff."

"My life is not about sex, unlike yours. And I'm dating Charlie. That would be cheating. I'm a faithful man."

"And who said you'd be cheating if you had something with Zoe? In the wild, a lion has a whole harem of lionesses and everything works out great."

"Real life is not the fantasy of some hormone-addled teenager with too much imagination. A man should be faithful to one woman."

"A real man captures every woman who smiles at him and blushes."

"We're not living in a gacha game. And I'm starting to miss the version of life where I was far away from you."

"Think about it. If you've got five amazing women as options, why make four of them sad by choosing only one? A true romantic belongs to all women," Artemis declared.

"Not me. I'll stay with one woman." She huffed. Luke kept walking. Then, in a casual tone that was somehow more dangerous than her usual one, she asked, "By the way, did you really do it with Charlie?" Luke paused.

"I did."

"What? Hold on, you actually answered me?" Artemis sounded genuinely stunned.

"You always told me to shut up whenever I got anywhere near this topic."

"That's because you're immature, and you'd bury me in questions. Also, what are those weird noises you're making?"

"I'm crying," she said.

"Crying?"

"My boy became a man. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Are you seriously crying?"

"So my dense hero boy became a man," she said, sniffling dramatically.

"How did you do it? Fast thrusts? Hard thrusts?"

"You're grounded."

"Why?"

"Because you're you."

"I'm emotional, man. You need to be a little understanding with me." She sniffed again.

"Still, thank the gods you finally did it. Virgin heroes are out of fashion. Do you think Clint Eastwood was a virgin?"

"Luke Skywalker was."

"Luke Skywalker almost got with his own sister," Artemis said.

"And you expect me to believe he'd never had thoughts about Leia before that? Yeah, right. So hats off to Hollywood for making one of the biggest movies of all time casually flirt with incest. May the gods bless America."

"He didn't know she was his sister. This isn't Game of Thrones."

"He kissed his sister and almost killed his own father. That feels extremely Lannister to me. And by the way, did you know those stories also share creators with the same first name?" Luke frowned.

"I never noticed that before..."

"George Lucas and George R. R. Martin. That's a plot twist, man. Same energy as The Rock and Dwayne Johnson." By the time Luke reached the ruins, the place reeked. Then he found something that stopped him cold.

"What the hell...?" A massive octopus lay dead, tangled in one of the ruins, a structure as tall as a building. Crabs and other creatures crawled over it, tearing chunks from the flesh.

"Yeah. No Chinese food for a while," Artemis commented. Luke looked from the crabs to the enormous octopus carcass.

"How did something like that end up here?" He pulled up the event notification again and found the part about how the kingdoms of this planet had once been submerged beneath the sea.

"The event started months ago. The water receded, and the creature got stranded on what became dry land." The twin suns were already dipping toward the horizon.

"Okay. We'll spend the night here and see what kind of notification shows up at dawn." Artemis was still complaining about him separating from Zoe. She had not even finished watching the island memories yet. Luke kept moving through the ruins until he glanced toward the sunset. For a moment, the sun disappeared behind something.

"Was that there before?" Far in the distance, he saw something dark.

"Mountains?" He narrowed his eyes. They were getting closer.

"Some kind of desert mirage?" Luke activated the Eye of Sariel and pushed his vision to its limit. His stomach dropped. The mountains were moving. It was not an illusion. They were coming straight at him.

"No... no, that's not what I think it is." He stared at that colossal wall racing toward him, glanced at the miserable pile of ruins around him, and put it together.

"Oh, shit." He started walking, looked back again, and saw it even closer.

"Oh, shit. Oh, we are so screwed." Then he ran. He sprinted as fast as he could toward the ruins the size of buildings. The crabs were already fleeing. Some dug themselves into the ground.

"What is it? Why are you running?" Artemis demanded.

"Shit, shit..." Luke muttered, accelerating, still glancing back over his shoulder. It was not a mountain range coming at him. It was a wall of water. An entire ocean was rushing in to drown everything.

"Holy shit!" Artemis shouted.

"We're screwed!" Luke tore through the ruins while the monstrous wall of water bore down on him, roaring loud enough to shake the world.

"I'm at the bottom of the goddamn ocean!" This was never a desert. This was the ocean floor, and the water was coming back to claim it. A thousand thoughts slammed through Luke's mind at once, including what would happen if he got caught underwater and physics still cared about pressure in this nightmare world. The water was almost on him. The ruins took the first hit.

"They're holding. Please let them hold." They did not shatter. Luke threw himself behind the largest one he could find. Then the wave hit. The sound was deafening. Water swallowed the side of the ruin, then the full force of the ocean crashed into him. Luke was inside the tsunami. The current tried to rip him away, but he activated [Demonic Predator Hands] and clung to the ruin with everything he had while the wave thundered past, sweeping the world with it.

He activated the half mask that let him breathe underwater. With the Eye of Sariel, he could see perfectly. He was on the ocean floor. The wave surged onward, and he realized the entire desert he had crossed earlier was now completely submerged. Then the coral trees began to glow. Light bloomed beneath the water in a riot of color. Fish appeared everywhere, thousands of them, moving through the illuminated depths. Luke no longer knew which way was up or down as he swam, but one thing still cut through the chaos.

Wonder. Even in the middle of disaster, the sight was beautiful. He pulled himself along the ruin and swam upward. Then, suddenly, he saw something enormous. The octopus tangled around the building-sized ruin moved. Its body slid through the water, vast and terrible, alive.

"It wasn't dead. It was sleeping." Luke activated [Spectral Beast]. The enormous serpent appeared. He grabbed onto it, and the creature surged upward, cutting through the water toward the surface. Then a roar rolled through the ocean. It did not come from the octopus. It came from far away, so distant it felt less like a sound and more like something ancient echoing through the sea itself. And in that moment, Luke knew. Sunken Realms had many more surprises waiting for him.