Fantastic Journeys Through The Stars 5 Tentacles Everywhere!

Arthur groaned. His body hurt all over, and he was panting like he had just finished a 20-mile marathon. Gathering his strength once again, he tried to stand up. He felt another bolt of pain, but chose endured it by gritting his teeth hard. His legs started wobbling, but after a few seconds, he could finally stand up.

A repeated meowing sound was coming from somewhere, along with weird chanting. He could also here water flowing from somewhere, and a noise oddly similar to slurping and slushing.

His vision, however, was still blurry. So he couldn't pinpoint the exact location of the sounds. It was currently dominated by nothing but a wide expanse of white and grey rocks. Arthur exhaled slowly, and rubbed his eyes until his vision cleared up.

What greeted his now clear vision were giant lava tubes, opening up into the vast cavern from multiple directions. Followed by an enormous lake of bluish green gelatinous liquid. The giant body of water was churning, as if it was seething with rage. There were tendrils of… something, extending out from the main body of the lake like an enraged medusa.

Tentacles.

One of the longest tentacles was currently retreating back into the body of the lake. Slowly, it tried to submerge its giant snakelike body.

Judging by the direction it was extended towards, that was probably culprit that dragged Arthur into this cavern. There was something peculiar about it though.

The tentacle was grasping a pendant.

"Hey that's mine!" Arthur's mind cleared up immediately. His first reaction was to call the cops. Then his mind really cleared. And he instantly covered his mouth, scuttling back till he painfully b.u.mped into a large boulder.

"Ouch!"

Two unrelated thoughts rose up in his mind, as he tried to push away the sudden pain.

First was, 'what the h.e.l.l is going on!'

And, 'There really was a cartoon thief trying to break in!'

"Mr. Arthur! If you don't want to die, then hurry up and take cover behind that boulder! And take this cat with you!"

"Meooow!"

'Right! The weird monk! And the cat!'

Arthur snapped his head towards the direction of the voice, and saw a gray blur flying right at him. By the time he could register what the unidentified flying blur was, the cat had already crashed into him with a whimper.

He grunted, but his mind was still working. He quickly caught the poor thing before it slid down, and hid behind the boulder like the monk advised.

"Meow! Mew mew mew!" from its voice, Arthur could tell that the cat was traumatized. Its face was wet with tears. It snuggled up to his body for comfort while meowing out all its grievances. Never in its short life had it ever been so disrespected. From being wronged by a shady human, to being dragged down by a weird alien tentacle, to finally being tossed out like a plaything.

Arthur tried to soothe the agitated feline as best as he could. The poor thing's tail looked like Pikachu's now. No wonder it was in shock. Cats hated their tails getting touched, not to even mention squashed.

The monk on the other hand, looked like he had just walked through a sand storm. His only set of robes were a mess of holes and tears. His black hair, which Arthur noticed was tied up before, had now come loose. Part of it was flying around in the wind 'wind?', and the rest was sticking to his clothes. The Chinese cap he was wearing earlier was nowhere to be seen.

His sleeves looked like they were halfway dissolved by acid, and his face was covered in tiny scratches. Though Arthur doubted it was the tentacle monster that was responsible for them.

The monk was currently swinging around a huge sword as he tried to fight back the numerous tentacles a.s.saulting him. Yet, the best he could do was deflect them. Any wound he made on the tentacles healed almost instantaneously, whether it was a slash or a stab. Even the burns and gashes from the fireb.a.l.l.s and wind blades he threw out had no visible effect.

The monk didn't seem to be desperate though. He attacked with a certain goal in mind. Arthur noticed the bulk of Liu Feng's attacks were not aimed at the tentacles that were attacking him. Those, he tried to either deflect or defend.

His attacks were almost all concentrated on the tentacle that stole Arthur's pendant, and was currently trying to retreat into the lake!

'My pendant...' Arthur didn't know why the alien wanted to steal his memento, but whatever it wanted, the monk didn't.

He clearly wanted to stop that particular tentacle in its tracks.

However,

"What nature of scourgekin is this! Wait, that green jelly, is that immortal elixir?!" The monk's yells sounded almost hysterical to Arthur. And it didn't end there. "Even peak, tier ten techniques get neutralized immediately! Tarnation! Why isn't the backup here yet?!"

Liu Feng, the wounded monk, looked almost as aggrieved as the cat. Arthur could clearly hear his inner turmoil, even with all the swooshing tentacles and exploding fireb.a.l.l.s.

"I did not want to do this, but you leave me no other choice! Scourgekin!" Yelling that, Liu Feng took out a very detailed, and very shiny miniature bronze sword. He started chanting in a strange language unfamiliar to Arthur. A few spell words later, the miniature sword was glowing brightly, and Liu Feng's eyes had caught on fire.

"Mr. Arthur!" He suddenly heard Liu Feng's voice coming from inside his head. He almost freaked out but the monks powerful voice seemed to possess a magic, forcefully calming down his tense nerves.

"Hurry up and close your eyes! And cover the cat's too. Do not look at the light directly!"

Arthur had no idea what magic the monk was about to cast. But he wasn't going to complain. In gaming terms, Liu Feng had clearly gathered enough rage points from the fight, now he was going to use his ultimate.

Not two seconds later, Arthur could feel a blinding light pierce through his eyelids. As if a sun had appeared in the cavern, showering everything with its holy light.

But he felt no pain. He felt calm, and at piece. Like there was no city sized tentacle monster out there to kill them. Hakuna Matata. That's what this spell was called, Arthur decided. The light of Hakuna Matata soothed his soul. The cat also turned still, no longer yowling.

And then, the sun died down, and everything went silent.

"It's… okay now…" Arthur once again heard Liu Feng's tired voice. But this time it wasn't telepathic, coming from his left. Arthur hesitantly opened one, and looked toward the direction of the monk's voice.

Liu Feng looked even worse right now. He had already looked like a beggar before. But now, he looked like he was beaten up by a gang of other beggars, then thrown into a landfill, before finally crawling out from the sewers. His eyes were swollen, ears bleeding, and he was gasping like a beached fish. There was a peculiar smell of burnt hair coming from his body too.

Arthur turned his gaze behind the injured monk. He looked at the lake, where the monster was.

All the swaying tentacles were cleanly severed from the middle, with the ends falling into the lake body. The lake monster, or alien, or whatever, was having trouble regenerating its injuries. The base of each cut was still being scorched by a blazing golden flame, presumably an after effect of Liu Feng's ultimate. Each time the tentacles tried to regenerate, the flame would simply turn that part into ash.

Arthur decided, for now he could only to trust this guy. After all, the monk fought off a city sized horror while protecting him. Not to mention before, when he was almost squashed into paste after being dragged into the tunnel by said horror.

Of course, he was still suspicious.

"T-Thanks man." Arthur stuttered, while showing an embarra.s.sed smile, "And sorry for calling you a thief before."

"No matter. It was also my fault for intruding upon you uninvited." The monk didn't seem to mind.

"So... what now?" Arthur looked towards the lake again. His pendant was lying on the ground less than 3 meters away from the edge. His number one priority right now, not counting escaping this place with his life and the cat, was to retrieve the memento. But G.o.d forbid he did not want to approach that lake. The severed tentacles were still twisting violently in midair. One random hit and he would become a pancake.

"The pendant," Liu Feng asked, "do you know of its origin?"

"No, not exactly. Uh, it's a memento of my mother. She told me it was a synthetic gem, made in some lab. That's... all I know." Arthur replied hesitantly.

"I see." The monk said with a pause. Then he continued, "For now, let me retrieve it. The scourgekin might try something again. And the blasted backup isn't here."

Arthur had nothing to say to that. He couldn't. This whole matter was out of his hand right now. Even if he wanted to tell the monk to return the pendant to him, he doubted Liu Feng would agree.

The monk, pretending not to notice Arthur's inner turmoil, warily made his way to the pendant.

But then he stopped dead in his tracks. Arthur who noticed the sudden change, also grimaced.

There was a quiet otherworldly screech which propagated through the still air of the cavern. Like a distant cry of a Cicada you could only hear the echo of. This cry, however, promised rage and retaliation.

The thrashing lake monster abruptly went still. Then, with a momentum rivaling a Tsunami, it gobbled up the severed tentacles! Along with all the golden flames still scorching them. Like how a slime would gradually envelop its food with its cellular body, except the horror factor was dialed up to ten.

Immediately, the flames were snuffed out, and the monster started growing new tentacles. This time, covered in thick bark like armor and insectoid plating.

"Oh curse the heavens!" Liu Feng couldn't help but swear. Finishing a quick incantation to boost his speed, he made a dash for the pendant. He also sent a few magic missiles towards to growing ma.s.s of tentacles, trying to delay them for as long as possible.

However, right before he reached the blue green bling, it sprang up. Literally.

"Fudge!"

"What in the?!"

"Meow!!"

The pendant, which was lying down on the ground like the dead object it should be, suddenly grew a pair of tentacle like legs. It sprang up, not wobbling at all. And in a childishly casual motion, it skipped towards the lake. Like a merry little la.s.s going out for a walk in the park.

Time seemed to freeze for a few long seconds.

Even Liu Feng himself forgot to react, as he stared wide eyed at the animated ornament steadily sinking into the lake water.

By the time they snapped out of it, the greenish blue watery body of the monster was starting to rise up into the air, tentacles thrashing in ecstasy all around it.

Liu Feng was caught completely off guard. Before could even enact a proper defense, he got smacked from behind by a stray tentacle and got gobbled up by the lake.

Arthur could only stare with a gaping mouth as hundreds, thousands of tentacles shot out of the floating lake and formed a coc.o.o.n like structure around the pendant.

He couldn't run. The lava tubes were already sealed up by tentacles.

He couldn't fight. He'd be squashed in a heartbeat. The only thing he could beat here was the cat, and even the odds of winning that foght was below fifty percent.

For the second time that day, Arthur saw his life flash by.

He hugged the cat and closed his eyes tightly. Waiting for the inevitable death to come.

The coc.o.o.n let out a blinding glow, and then...

...

...

..

Something wet touched his cheek.

For a few seconds, all he could hear was silence. The sound of wind being cut by thrashing tentacles, the churning lake water, even the creaking of the moon's crust, was no more.

Then, in the background, there was the gurgling sound of a man drowning in water. Followed but the quite meow of a cat.

'Is this it? Killed by tentacles, so I get sent to tentacle h.e.l.l?' thought Arthur cynically. But then he realized, he wasn't dead.

"Umm?" the inevitable death didn't come. Arthur slowly opened one eye to take a peek.

In his blurry vision, the silhouette of a girl, about his age, appeared before him. She was completely drenched in water. With knee-length long sparkling golden hair draped over her pale, naked self, she was looking at Arthur with a teasing squint in her greenish blue eyes. The freckles on her face made the squint all the more alluring.

Arthur's mouth gaped open. He saw the girl break into a breathtaking smile.

Then, with no warning at all, she pinched his cheeks hard.

"Long time no see, Arthur."

Arthur knew the girl. She was Zoe.

She was his babysitter.
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***

"So, what you're saying is, You're not a human. You live under our house because my dad let you 'enshrine' this place. The pendant is actually one of your 'cores'. And you dragged me down here, without any word of warning, because you thought Liu Feng, who was hiding in my shadow, was trying to hurt me and steal the pendant?"

"Yup."

"Are you kidding me!?" Arthur cried, throwing his arms up in frustration.

He was having a hard time believing that his childhood babysitter, housekeeper, and maybe puppy crush was some sort of lake sized, amorphous, magical tentacle monster.

Even with all the supernatural stuff he saw that day, it was something he had trouble accepting as true.

The main problem was the ludicrousness of it all.

That didn't matter to the girl though. She didn't look a day older since he last saw her 5 years ago. She was happily playing with the cat. "I don't get what's so hard to believe, Arthur. You aren't asking that guy over there if he can really do magic, even though he was throwing fireb.a.l.l.s at me earlier."

"That's because I can't! You trapped him in goo! How am I supposed to ask him?!" Arthur shouted in exasperation.

Yes, the monk wasn't dead. He wasn't eaten alive. He wasn't even tortured, forced to suffer through unimaginable tentacly torment. The type of torture that had to be censored.

He wasn't even unconscious.

The girl had trapped him in a bubble of that blue green lake water. The prison of liquid now slowly floating in mid-air.

Liu Feng, the gurgling monk, was constantly trying to tell Arthur something with his eyes. Arthur guessed, the monk wanted him to ask Zoe to release him.

Arthur sighed.

"Please, in any case. Could you release the guy? He looks uncomfortable in there." Zoe's blatant distrust of the guy wasn't completely illogical. But then again, the monk did try to 'save' Arthur from Zoe, even though it was completely unnecessary in the first place.

"It's not meant to be comfortable. And no," Zoe denied his request. "Don't be naïve, Arthur. There is a reason this guy stalked you. And I'm sensing a group of people just like him outside our house, for quite a while now. They're probably his comrades. I can't let him go. You shouldn't trust him. I think... it's better to get rid of him."

"I can't trust you either!" Arthur blurted out in a rage. But when he saw how visibly hurt Zoe looked, he took a deep deep breath to calm himself down.

'Calm down, Arthur. Deep breaths.'

He spoke with a small pause, a guilty tone coloured his shaky voice, "Look, Zoe. Today… has been a stressful day. I'm tired, really. I know I can't trust him, but I can't just let you get rid of him! He risked his life to save me, even though it was totally pointless! I mean... What I'm trying to say is, I always trusted you, Zoe. I always will! And… And it's my fault for yelling at you."

Zoe: "..."

"Do you really mean it?" She asked skeptically. The girl was caressing the cat's tail, and not looking at Arthur at all. Her fingers were glowing a dim green. She was making a point to ignore him.

Arthur sighed again.

"Yes, I really trust you. I know you won't hurt me. I know there has to be a good reason why mother gave your core to me." He replied. He was a bit skeptical of her yes, but deep-down, Arthur knew, Zoe was practically his closest family.

"No, that it is your fault."

"…. Yes." Only the cat saw Arthur grit his teeth.

"I'll be frank here, Arthur. I can't believe it." Zoe finally looked at him. Her eyes spoke to him, telling him that she was still unhappy. She gently put the cat down, and crossed her arms with a pout.

"… What do you want then? Do I have to get down on my knees and beg?" Even though she was a giant eldritch monstrosity, she was still a girl at heart, Arthur lamented. Women in his family never forgave slights so easily.

"No, that this guy would actually risk his life to save you." Zoe shook her head, pointing at Liu Feng who was trapped inside her prison of slime.

Arthur: "…"

'Oh my G.o.d! Lady would it hurt for you to be more detailed when speaking?!'