Chapter 117: They were inside a...

Moon was already diving back down, his hands searching through the thick liquid. He found Mirage’s mane and pulled with all his strength, hauling the horse’s head above the surface.

Mirage coughed violently, his sides heaving as he struggled to breathe. But he was alive.

They swam toward what appeared to be a ledge or platform—a section of the chamber wall that was above the liquid line, creating a place where they could rest.

Moon pulled himself up first, then helped drag Mirage onto the platform with Selene’s assistance. The exhausted horse collapsed immediately, breathing heavily but stable.

"Everyone okay?" Moon asked, still catching his own breath.

"Alive," Selene confirmed, wringing red liquid from her hair. "Barely, but alive."

Moon created a flame in his palm to illuminate their surroundings, and what he saw made his breath catch for entirely different reasons.

They were in an absolutely colossal chamber—easily tens of meters across. The space was roughly oval-shaped, with thick muscular walls that visibly contracted and relaxed in powerful, rhythmic pulses.

The wall sound Moon had heard earlier was deafening here, resonating through his entire body with each pulse.

Thump-thump.

The chamber’s floor—or rather, the pool of red liquid they’d just escaped from—rose and fell with each contraction that came every minute or so. Moon watched in horrified fascination as the walls compressed inward, forcing the liquid to rise dramatically before relaxing and allowing it to fall again.

And there were openings. Multiple massive openings in the chamber walls—four distinct passages that the liquid flowed into and out of with the rhythm of the contractions.

Moon’s mind began processing what he was seeing.

The thick red liquid they’d been swept through. The warmth. The slight metallic taste he’d noticed when some had gotten in his mouth during the tumbling.

’Blood. We were swept through a wave of blood.’

The white liquid he’d extracted from the walls earlier. The healing, regenerating tissue.

’Living tissue. Organic walls that repair damage.’

The passages opening and closing in cycles. The massive chamber with multiple vessel-like openings.

The heartbeat.

Moon’s eyes widened with dawning, terrible comprehension.

"Selene, I know where we are," Moon said quietly, his voice tight with controlled fear. For the first time since a very long time, Moon felt true, tangible fear. Fear that made his blood run cold and his face pale.

She looked at him, seeing the expression on his face. "Where?"

Moon pointed upward at the massive walls, contracting and relaxing. Then at the dozen enormous vessel openings where blood flowed in and out. Then down at the pool of blood beneath them.

"We’re inside a heart," Moon said, his voice barely audible over the thunderous beating. "A living creature’s heart chamber. Everything we’ve been navigating—the passages, the cycles, the crushing walls—it was all circulatory system. Blood vessels. And this..."

He gestured around the colossal space.

"This is one of the heart chambers. Probably a ventricle based on the size and the way blood is being pumped through those vessels."

Selene stared around the chamber with mounting horror as the realization sank in. "But... the scale... this chamber is tens of meters across. The passages we traveled through were wide enough for Mirage to run through. If this is a heart chamber, then the creature..."

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Moon finished it for her, his voice grim. "Would have to be absolutely massive. Larger than any beast we’ve ever encountered...no, larger than any creature ever recorded."

He looked up at the chamber ceiling, trying to estimate dimensions. "Based on the size of this heart chamber alone, the creature’s total body length could be..."

Moon did the mental calculations and felt cold dread settle into his stomach.

"Hundreds of meters."

They sat in stunned silence, listening to the deafening heartbeat that surrounded them.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

They were inside a living creature so massive it defied comprehension. And they had absolutely no idea what kind of monster possessed a body of this scale.

Or whether it even knew they were inside it.

Or what would happen if it did.

Moon’s thoughts immediately drifted back to the hunt for the elk he’d undertaken with the lieutenant and his group of veterans. They had crossed a valley during that journey—The Great Cleave Valley. A massive geographical feature characterized by an immense, unnatural fissure that split the landscape as if something impossibly powerful had struck the earth with a terrifying force.

The lieutenant had explained that the valley represented some sort of attack or marking by a creature so overwhelmingly powerful that even battle-hardened veterans refused to discuss it. The sheer scale of destruction had made the awakeners’ hair stand on end just imagining what could cause such damage.

It was rumored that such creatures had existed before humans had even entered the first sanctuary. Creatures that had long been extinct.

’We might be inside... one of those creatures.’

Moon cursed internally, the realization settling over him like a suffocating mountain pressing down on him.

A creature with internal anatomy so incredibly strong that even with his full physical strength enhanced by attributes and skill, Moon couldn’t damage it even slightly. The tissue had healed instantly from his dagger strikes. The blood vessel walls had crushed closed with force that would have pulverized solid stone without resistance.

This was a predator-level creature operating on a scale so far beyond Moon’s current capabilities that he didn’t even dare contemplate fighting it.

The very notion was absurd—like an ant threatening a human.

Of course, Moon’s physical strength was nowhere near his magical offensive power. He possessed three Epic-rank skills as a mage—Five Element Affinity, Ignite and Tenacity—while having none as a physical warrior. His Dagger Art was merely Common rank. But still, Moon understood his limitations very clearly.

Even Selene’s earth magic, which should have been effective against even some weaker S-rank beasts to a certain extent, couldn’t even resist the contracting blood vessels.

Moon couldn’t even begin to fathom the true combat strength of a creature this massive.