I gasped and sputtered, gulping air as fast as I could. Unfortunately, with my legs cramping like they were, it was hard to keep my head above the water. It felt like I inhaled as much water as air.

It didn't matter if my eyes were open or not, I couldn't see a thing. It was like drifting in a void of star-less space. I'd never been in such a dark place before. Even the pitch black of the darkest night couldn't compare to now. It was horrifyingly unnerving.

Dimly, I could hear water slowly dripping into water, and my own noises were amplified and reverberating back to me. Was I ... in a cave? How big was it? I reached out with my free left hand, but didn't touch the ceiling. However, the more pressing matter was, was there land above water for me here?

Levi tugged on my right arm, guiding me through the darkness.

"Hang on, Levi," I said and tugged my arm, but didn't dare use too much force. This tiny snake was my only anchor in this black void.

He paused when he heard my words, but still swam another couple feet before he begrudgingly stopped.

I didn't waste another second and opened my System Guide. In the darkness, the bright light of the main menu was painful to my sensitive eyes. Quickly, I flipped through it until I turned on the orb torch. The pale blue light appeared over my head and spread out, reflecting off the inky black ripples threatening to swallow me.

Levi's golden eyes flashed as he glanced at the floating light. He cocked his head to the side in a 'huh, that's neat' action.

Meanwhile, I took the time to examine my surroundings. I knew I was in a cave, I just didn't realize how big it was. The ceiling was so high my torch's light couldn't reach it. All I could make out was a pale blue light reflecting off some broken stalagmites way above my head. The inky water gently lapped against a huge rock slab shore not far from me, obviously where Levi was taking me.

So he did understand I needed land to rest on, I realized. Was that a new understanding, or did he always know it?

I didn't resist when Levi dragged me to the rocky shore. The closer I got, the more my light reflected on more rock. And more. This rocky shelf was huge. Most of it looked natural, but something had obviously filed all the sharp rocky edges smooth. But what could do that? Were there other monsters in the cave? I couldn't tell, since my light still couldn't reach the back wall. Or the side walls, for that matter.

Levi put my hand on the rocky edge and immediately let go. Without looking back, he slithered up and disappeared into the darkness.

I grabbed the edge and weakly hoisted myself up. The rock was higher than the water by five or six inches, but to my weary body, it felt like a mile. I only got halfway out before I gave up and just flopped onto the rock with my legs still hanging in the water. The smooth rock was cold under my cheek, but not bitter frostbite cold. Still, I couldn't help but shiver when the chilly cave air hit my wet body. Since Levi was relaxed, I let myself take a minute to rest and just breathe before I climbed all the way out of the water. I was a good swimmer, but this dive wasn't a little puddle hop.

With a sigh, I sat down, shivering, and looked around.

Something large glinted on the ground in the pale blue light. Then another. Then another. I stiffened in surprise. I couldn't feel anything alive in my area of awareness. So what was that? Carefully, I climbed to my feet and walked to where the light reflected from. My mouth dropped open when I finally made out what it was. They were platter-sized blue-green dragon scales. Hundreds of them, just scattered carelessly across the dark rock.

"Levi, are these yours?" I asked, looking around until I saw two golden irises reflecting in the light.

The golden eyes blinked and he slowly slithered over, his head held high in pride.

Quickly, my mind put everything together. "So this is your home? How long have you lived here?" It was actually quite clean here. Aside from all the scales, I couldn't see any other signs of waste. Not at all like other monster nests.

He paused, the prideful tilt on his head slumping. A sense of self-loathing and disappointment rose inside him as his thoughts drifted to me. This was his new home, because he couldn't return to his old one. That fact was like a scab that festered and bled in his heart.

My eyes widened, surprised. What could force an all-powerful leviathan to leave his home? "So this is your new home? Where's your old one?"

He looked away as if he didn't want to respond, but his mind still raced, forming an answer. He didn't have the same sense of direction like humans do. It seemed that his 'compass' was the earth's ley lines and the direction of water flow. It took me a second to piece together what he meant.

"North?" I asked slowly. The answer didn't surprise me. I guess Star didn't completely lie to me the whole day. There really was one piece; dragons really did live in the north. Who knew? "Why did you leave?"

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Levi's mouth dropped open in a hiss and intense images of the unknown dragon assaulted my mind. First the monster stomped along a blood covered lake shore and tearing apart a carefully crafted large stick nest. Another image of the unknown dragon charging across a shallow river, evil black eyes full of murder, quickly followed it. Both locations, although both in forests, were obviously in different places.

The images made me remember the weird way the unknown was acting in the city before the dragons' fight. It spent a good part of the time with its head lowered to the ground, as if it was sniffing something. When it wasn't doing that, or eating monsters, it would lift its head in the air and inhale really hard. I likened it to a bloodhound at the time, I just didn't think I was so close to the actual reason.

"It was ... hunting you?" I asked slowly.

A particular scale at my feet caught my attention. I couldn't resist picking it up and turning it this way and that while the pale light shimmered iridescent on its surface. Well, the parts of the surface that weren't covered in old blood. Instead of a smoothed curve, the scale was broken and jagged around the edges. Something had seriously injured Levi for the scale to look like this. I glanced around, spotting dozens of other damaged scales peeking out of the darkness. Levi must have hid here to heal while the unknown was hunting him down.

"Why would that monster hunt you all the way down here?" I asked, confused and more than a little concerned.

Sure, there were territorial wars between monsters all the time. But from what I understood from Levi, the unknown chased him for hundreds of miles. That was way bigger than a territory battle. By the way the unknown tenaciously attacked Levi as soon as it caught sight of him, it was like the unknown was driven to wipe him out.

I'd never heard of anything like that before.

Levi shook his head, just as perplexed as I was.

"I need to talk to my uncle," I muttered. I already planned on telling him, but now my concern was more pressing than before.

In the past, when the monsters first appeared on Earth, they were compelled to attack anything that breathed – particularly humans – as if programmed that way. That's why Earth is as messed up as it is today. The monsters ate Earth’s original animals and nearly seventy percent of the humans.

What ... if that was happening again?

The theory was that the monsters used to be insanely bloodthirsty because of something about the inter-dimensional Gates that dotted the world. After all, it wasn't until the Gates disappeared that the monsters calmed down and acted more animal-like. Some even changed from carnivores to herbivores, literally overnight, like raindeers.

The Gates were gone, disappearing as sudden as they appeared. It would be a major deal if another one emerged now, and everyone would know. At least, I didn't think the government would hide such a dangerous secret. But what if there was something else that was driving these unknown monsters to act like this? Where were they coming from, anyway?

I had so many questions, but no answers, and I wasn't going to get any until I got back home. If I get back home. It was a long walk, with a lot of monsters in the way.

The unknown's carcass was too big to fit in my Items Bag. I doubt I could even fit its tongue – the monster was seriously that big – but I might be able to saw off a bit of its flesh to take back to Boulder. Hopefully. My sword wasn't forged to cut through S ranked armor. But a small strip of flesh should have enough DNA that the scientists could research it, right? That would have to be a problem that I tackled tomorrow.

"Is this place safe?" I asked Levi. It should be since he brought me here, but I asked anyway. Right now, I was soaked, tired and hungry. I just wanted to know if it was okay to take my gear off to dry. My armor would regenerate during the night, but staying in wet under armor all night sounded like a health and hygiene nightmare.

He turned and slithered into the darkness, leaving a casual confirmation thought behind.

I sighed and stored my armor in my Items Bag, but paused before I stored my under armor. The whole set will be perfectly fine in the morning, whole and dry. The problem came from the fact that I was about to strip down to my underwear in front of an intelligent being. I doubted Levi cared, but I did.

"Levi, come here please," I called out. Nothing happened. "Levi?" He still didn't respond. All I felt was a distinct feeling that he wanted to be left alone. I looked around until I spotted his reflective eyes.

Since he wasn't going to come to me, I went to him. He was curled up on top of a stalagmite, the six foot tall pillar sanded down to a flat top that was perfect for his small size.

I looked around, scooped up a large scale and propped it over his head, completely blocking his sight. "Keep this here for a second."

He immediately flung his head and sent the scale skittering to the ground. He hissed at me, informing me how offensive I was in snake language.

My brows rose high as I waited out his emotional bomb. "I'm going to take off my clothes," I explained. "And I'm uncomfortable with you watching. Either you close your eyes, turn around, or wear a scale until I'm done. Choose one, or I'm going to choose for you."

He hissed, expressing how much he didn't care about my personal feelings. But he reluctantly turned around, anyway. As he did, he grumbled something about how stupid humans were with clothes, and humans were ugly whether or not they wore clothes.

I rolled my eyes at him and changed into my spare clothes as fast as I could. Every second that it took was one second too long. My spare clothes consisted of a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. If I wasn't a Hunter, I would get frostbite in the chilly cavern temperature, especially with my wet hair.

I took a large wool emergency blanket out of my Items Bag and wrapped myself up in it while I ate my sandwich dinner. I never planned on staying in the wilds overnight, so I didn't have camping equipment. Just the blanket, a folding chair, and some other outdoor odds and ends. I offered Levi some meat from my sandwich – what did he eat, anyway? – but he just turned his nose up at it.

After polishing off my dinner, I cleaned it up and looked around the black void while huddling in my blanket and chair. Was I really going to stay here overnight? Not going to lie, it felt a little bit like being buried alive.

Suddenly a System message popped up. Ding! [Cultivate for ten minutes.]

*****