The Great Crestmaster

This was the most dangerous situation he has been in since he defeated the armored husk, but this was real life and not the nightmare realm. If he died here once then it was over.

His mind was in shambles and his body was wrecked to a ridiculous point. Aldrich was sure that he wouldn't be able to maintain consciousness for long, so he tried to think of what to do.

Obviously he and Frank were out of the picture but the others were still in fighting shape so if he came up with an idea—

"Shit, shit, shit!" Cole cursed out loud, "how did this happen? Fuck, fuck all of this!"

"Cole try to calm down—" Nathan tried to talk some sense into him.

"Calm what? Huh?! Calm what?! We're fucking dead!" Cole snapped.

Nathan lowered his head with nothing to retort, he had nothing to say to that anyway.

"Shit," Hellen muttered as she sank down to her knees, "I knew something wasn't right when we got this quest, this is bullshit!"

Aldrich knew what they were thinking about, two grade one monsters. That was no longer a grade zero quest, the only thing that awaited them was certain death.

In this situation either they died here out of starvation and hunger or the monsters on the other side got to them at which point they would also die.

This meant that they were out of luck.

This quest was chosen voluntarily by Aldrich and he sure as fuck wasn't going to let anyone in this quest die thanks to his arrogance.

But Aldrich had a plan, it wasn't hopeless yet. With the last remaining strength in his body he said it.

"B-breakthrough… ignite… your Crests!"

That's right, Nathan, Cole and Hellen were all suppressing their crests as for the guild? This was the last quest, and no one was here to see them do this. In fact even if it was discovered, so what?

Two grade one creatures! Aldrich was sure they wouldn't have a problem with them igniting their crests to complete the quest and defeat two grade one creatures.

Cole and the others heard his words because of the silence among them and Cole came closer to him, he smiled bitterly and said, "Aldrich you must be joking right?"

Aldrich didn't understand what he was saying, was it because his mind was fucked up or what? What do you mean? He wanted to ask but his tongue had grown too heavy.

If the three of them become Crestmasters then they could at least get out of this mess fairly easily.

They were all suppressing their crests right? This is the time to do it. Aldrich would have already done it but his mind was too messed up and he needed a few moments of focus to call to the attributes bar.

However Cole talked anyway, "you know that we need to enter into a deep meditative trance to do that? Does it look like we brought meditation incense here? And even if we did could we even meditate?!"

Aldrich didn't know that, he thought that all they needed was a thought and a moment of silence like him but the truth was not even close to that.

' I messed up.'

This was his last thought before he finally gave in and lost consciousness.

****

Aldrich took a deep breath, he was in Voros, the nightmare town, in the great hall of pillars that was supposedly the third floor of the base. He had used the seal of Tindalor up here to leave so when he came back he returned here.

He was still decked in his best arms, still holding the enhanced great sword. Aldrich decided to do it here, he was going to ignite his crest here at last and become a Crestmaster in truth.

His head was still messed up even here, it seems that the after effects of mental attacks still carried on to this realm.

That was no ordinary attack, if a normal man was subjected to he would have died in a second without knowing how he died. If not for his high stats, especially the intelligence and spirit stats he would have been a goner.

Even then Aldrich found himself in an incredibly sorry state. Just a moment, he just needed a moment to think, focus and then use the orbs he painstakingly collected to become a grade one life-form.

Suddenly he heard a noise behind him, in the direction of the central pillar. It was like glass shards falling on the ground and breaking. He heard it again.

Aldrich turned around to see what happened, this place was devoid of anything that could make that noise.

He saw the 'statue' of what he thought was a serpent coiling around the central pillar breaking, rather it was the outer shell that made it look like stonework break. And reveal what was underneath.

The serpent head, which he thought was oddly shaped turned out to be the upper torso of a man connected to a centipede's body.

Only it had the carapace of a sea crab and instead of insecticide legs it had human arms jutting out of it. Some were longer than others.

Aldrich wanted to move but, due to a combination of his current mental state and the superior speed of the monster he was unable to dodge the wide tail swipe.

The hit broke his right arms the instant of ten collision, no, it was the whole right side of his body. Before he knew it he crashed into the wall, the blood and flesh almost became one with the wall material.

By the time he could register what was happening three of the longer human arms had picked him up in the air. Aldrich looked down.

He saw a massive maw opened beneath him, the mouth did not belong to the head of the human upper torso. It was the middle section of the monster that somehow sprouted a giant mouth filled with endless fangs.

Aldrich was swallowed.