Kelpie eh? To think of all the people I would see it. These known mythical creatures. Animals like monsters. Convenient explanation of magic. Absence of any other intellectual life form. It fills me up with fear. I don't want to live in this place, but I don't want to go back either. I start questioning reality. If all this is going on inside my head, what will happen when I wake up? How old will I be? Will I remember anything?

My breathing is getting erratic. Heart palpitating. Even if I am in a magical world someone can be performing some unknown experiment on me right this moment. I don't want that. I want this to be reality. Whatever I am seeing. Whatever I am feeling. I want them all to be real. I should have brought my hammer.

Unstrapping one of my knives I prod my left hand. Blood is coming out. It's painful. Don't forget this feeling. You have to go out of this place. You have to live. Even if this life is temporary you have to live it to the best. Enough of wasting around days in uncertainty. Live. In this infestation of monsters, you need to be the biggest one. Forgo your weak heart. Remember, the person you have to meet. You can ask her questions later. Just live for now.

" Uuaaaaaaaagghhhhhhh……."

I roared. Heart thumping, mana pulsing. I started running. Across the water, toward my life. My vision turned red. The kelpie was the only thing I was focussed on. Anger bubbling up inside me, threatening to burst out.

The kelpie pulled up its chin, puffed up its chest and in a downward motion opened its mouth. Like a fire hydrant, it sent out a pressurised beam of water toward me. I jumped ahead and rolled on my right avoiding the beam. Instead of redirecting the beam the kelpie moved its wing like front fins in flying motion. A tsunami formed. Riding on the huge wave the kelpie moved toward me.

I jumped up to avoid the wave but unbeknownst to me, the kelpie had other plans. As I was coming down from the jump, tearing the wave apart came another beam of water. Perfectly timed, unlike me. I was caught off guard. Applying air and fire magic on my left side I tried to change my position, but I was a tiny bit late. The water beam nudged my left leg ever so gently and tore off a large chunk of meat, throwing me up in a spiral motion.

I fell on the water flat. Quickly gasping a puff of air I gritted my teeth and swallowed the pain filled moan that was about to leak. I didn't have the luxury to savour it. Freezing the wound with Ice magic I prepared for my counter attack. 'Not having to worry about getting frostbite freezing an open wound is a wonderful thing. Everything will heal when I eat its heart.'

Fighting a water based boss monster entrapped in water is a fool's errand. Running toward the kelpie's back, I tied the rope of my harpoon on my waist. Now I had to distract it for long enough to jump on its back. A quick fire magic placed on its face did the job.

Climbing on top of the kelpie's back was paramount to my success and a nigh impossible job. With all the water magic surrounding it, the situation was turning worse by the second. 'Claws won't hold, with all the muecas on its body.' Running in a circle around it I was searching for an opening.

The opening came in the form of another water beam. When the kelpie uses its water beam, it loses control over other water magics. That was my chance. Using speed boost I glided toward its back. Activating herculean strength I concentrated all my strength on my right hand and threw the harpoon right where its heart should have been.

Kelpie's hide was tough but the horne of a miniboss bison deer was nothing to scoff at. With enough strength the harpoon penetrated deeply in its body.

"Yee-haw, let's ride a water fucking horse."

Pulling on rope I landed on the kelpie's body and slipped. 'Just as I thought.' I pulled out knives in both hands and jabbed it into the kelpie. This was getting fun. The kelpie disagreed with my sentiment. As a matter of fact, it was hellbent on getting rid of me. Understandably so, it was poisoned, wounded and some cockroach was trying to ride on its back.

The harpoon did not penetrate deep enough. On its huge body, that was just an ant bite. 'Well I tried to finish it less graphically but that didn't work. Bleeding it dry it is then.' I intended to cut through its skin as much as I could and wait for it to die due to natural causes.

"Already 75% dead and it's giving me this much trouble. I wonder what I would have done if I didn't come up with the brilliant idea of poisoning the water."

The kelpie started rolling in the water and I hung onto it for my deer life. I would slice it's skin when I got the chance. This went on for a long time until the kelpie couldn't roll anymore. It started panting, still standing on water. I too was getting tired.

My work was not done yet, so I kept slicing on its body. The kelpie let out a long anguished cry and suddenly a huge area of the water body started rising. Saturated, I jumped on to the kelpie's head to have a better look.

I saw a gargantuan jaw with human-like teeth. A single teeth big enough to measure half of the kelpie. Trying to devour my prey in one gulp.

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"No you fucking don't."

I was furious. The prey that I hunted after going through so much was not going to anyone else. I would never allow that. I yanked myself toward the kelpie and the jaw swallowed both of us.

__________

I am in a bind. Where to stand? The kelpie died while we were going through the esophagus of whatever ate us, and now it's melting. God, it smells so bad. This is why all natural diets are not good. If it was in our world I guarantee I would have found some plastics by now. Ahhh, never mind, let's eat the kelpie's heart.

"It's so big. I wonder what this fuckers heart's gonna be like!"

I sat down on top of the kelpie's corpse and started digesting its heart. Cruel, I know but you can't expect me to stand on concentrated HCL. I touched the blob of light in the eternal void. Kelpie's vision started.

In the vision I was dancing in the water. Dancing…… with the water? The water moved as I wished for it to. Forming strange shapes.

"What the?"

I did not get any special ability from the kelpie but the strength increased substantially. That was a surprise. I thought I would at least get the . 'That reminds me, can't I freeze the acid!' I opened my mouth and used that I got from the snow wolves.

"As I thought, this is too weak."

The did not work well. My second option was to use my own magic. I select the area in the shape of a road going toward the oesophagus. At first I thought I would just cut my way out but then I realised what a waste it would be to let go of this opportunity. I had no idea what I would have done if I had to kill that thing conversationally.

"Eating me is the worst possible thing you could have done and now it will be the reason you die."

Clawing on its oesophagus to keep myself in place I started slicing it. Hides are tough. Internal organs are not. I could feel the thing was going berserk. One moment I was hunched on the floor, the next moment I was dangling from the ceiling. Well, that was that and this is this. After struggling for about an hour I finally got out of the oesophagus.

One thing to mention, everytime I made a little space I pushed it as hard as I could and froze it. If water comes in I could breath in it. What I couldn't breath in was the viscous liquid I was about to encounter.

Maintaining the same strategy I curved my way through the thing's body, all the while rocking around like a ship in turbulent waters. I don't know how long I was inside that thing but they were the most unpleasant days of my life so far. I almost gave up on finding its heart.

I was doing the exact same thing I did the day before. Unfocused, disheartened, but my vision was still red and anger unwavering. I did not know what to feel. What was I angry about! How could I think clearly and have the incoherent desires to chew my own hands apart at the same time?

One day I heard drums beating. A slow and constant beat. 'Heart!' There was no mistake. I had found the heart. Quickening my pace of "digging tunnel", I finally reached the heart. Freeeedommmmmm, or not. I looked at the heart and halved a long sigh. The heart was small. Relatively speaking. It was still as big as the kelpie. The heart contorted then a blast of shockwave sent me flying 15meter back.

"The fuck? A heart attack?"

Then came the second one and the third one.

"Oh, it's just normal bitting. Waoo"

I did not realize it before because of the cushion in front of me. This was a problem. I could not hope to get close to that thing with that kind of shockwave around. Cursing my luck I started digging another tunnel. This time I was heading toward the top of the heart to cut the veins and arteries.

Another few days passed and I was able to reach the top of the heart. 'Joy ma Kali' shouting my God's name I jumped on a vein. Fixing me on the spot I started cutting the vein horizontally. The entire chamber started shaking wildly. I felt like I was standing on top of a thin tree in a storm. I persisted. This needs to be done. Blood gushed out and started to congregate in the chamber.

I quickly realised the problem with my plan. If I cut the arteries, blood would flood this place I won't be able to breath. Poison obviously didn't work on it. Roasting will turn the heart unusable. So, once again I asked my ice magic for advice.

Jumping back in the tunnel I stretched my ice magic as far as I could and started mission "Frozen Heart". Less than half of the heart was covered but that was enough.

"I'm gonna have a shit mixed jet lag after this."

__________

"I feel like I have been grinding super hard these days."

I was doing the same thing again and again and again and again. I was bored out of my mind. First the poisoning, then slashing the kelpie, then digging tunnels, then freezing the heart and now this. At least outside I had good food.

This heart too did not have any taste. But it quenched my hunger. I was afraid that I wouldn't get the power if I didn't eat the whole thing at once, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I could see the blob of light when I went into my void realm. The more of the heart I ate the bigger and brighter it got.

I was digging another tunnel at that time. Instead of sitting around to get hungry, that seemed like a logical thing to do. I needed to go out after all.

Again, I did not get any ability from the thing. Not even mana. I was really confused. What was going on? It was a huge thing but I did not get any mana. The vision was there but it was just me going around and eating things. I was thoroughly disappointed. My strength however increased by half. That was a huge haul, so I went my merry way.

In fact I was so happy with my strength that Immediately after coming out of its belly I ran toward the dry land.

"Let go on a tiger hunt."

As I was running toward the dry land suddenly my vision cleared.

"What the fuck am I doing?"

What was that red filter? Am I turning into those red eyed things? Shit, I was totally behaving like them wasn't I?

I was sitting behind a rock, worrying, when I felt my throat choking up. I tried to get up but couldn't. Then the world turned dark.