Thane sighed when it detected the enemy. And since time was moving at a pace of only two times slower, whatever that was would have found him.
"Wait! I know!" Thane quickly decided to enter the Channel World.
[You cannot access the Channel portal if there are enemies nearby.]
Thane saw the warning and grumbled. That show was already getting interesting. And Thane told himself it had nothing to do with the gorgeous, beautiful, angelic, stunning, breath-taking maiden with the golden locks that flowed like a tranquil waterfall reflecting the rays of the golden sun.
It definitely had nothing to do with her! Thane was interested in the plot. That's right—the plot.
Thane quickly shut off the Celestial TV. With his previous experience, he knew that he could not allow himself to be distracted.
He quickly moved and swam with the current to escape the possible enemy. Strangely enough, Thane couldn't see anything underwater.
"Hmm? Where are those enemies? It can't be under the water? Or is it on the other side of the wall?" Thane was confused.
Thane swam on.
"Hey... Those were Water Mana Eels!" Thane realized and swam close to one with Stabby Boi, making quick work of the eels he caught thanks to his dexterity and underwater vision.
He began to collect several fish, as well as some strange underwater algae, all of which were familiar recipes that the cooking shows he watched had featured.
And every time Thane glanced underwater, he could not see any creature approaching. But his Supreme Perception was raising alarm bells, warning Thane of something that approached.
"Is there something... chasing me?" Thane entertained the possibility and began to swim even faster.
He allowed the current to take him in and began to move even faster.
At last, as he sped up, he finally found the culprits who chased after him!
The once hidden creatures leapt from the dark ground and finally revealed their muddy self. They had the same color as the ground and seemed to be coated in a strange brownish ooze that made them look like the ground.
They peeked out of the muddy waters and revealed their eyes and fangs!
They were like piranhas that swam along the ground.
"Nope!" Thane knew this was his queue to exit.
Thane swam faster and faster. With his hands recovered, Thane began to unleash the spirit, which he realized acted like some great fin that allowed his every stroke to push him further.
The river twisted violently, forcing him into jagged bends. The ceiling dropped low, stone fangs jutting into the water. Thane braced, twisting his body like a ribbon and stomping out Spirit Dispersing Strikes against the current. Explosions of force nudged him past stone teeth that would have shredded him.
Thane's escape grew faster and faster that the low-swimming creatures rose from the muddy floors and darted out of the water with unnatural speed. Their jaws split open to reveal rows of dagger-teeth. They weren't normal fish. They were monstrous, piranha-like horrors, each the size of an Exckson GP-4300 office printer-scanner.
It lunged at Thane.
"Are you kidding me?!" Thane swore, calling out Pointy Justice 2: Electric Boogaloo from storage to stab the fish.
STAB!
Thane's force was weaker in the water and could not make a strong thrust.
The fish bit on the wooden spear tip and pressed forward, causing Thane to move back.
"Spirit Point Strike!" Thane couldn't help but cry as he lunged the spear again, improving the spear's thrust and speed as it somehow pierced through the waters.
STAB!
The spear wounded the creature, but it wasn't deep enough, and the piranha bit down, cracking Pointy Justice 2: Electric Boogaloo's shaft.
His senses also told him that there were several others rushing at him.
Thane cursed and focused on fleeing, doing breast strokes with the aid of Spirit to make him move fast underwater.
But the printer-sized piranhas chased after him and began to bite.
Sensing one approach for a bite, Thane kicked one square in the snout, sending it spinning. Another swerved from below, only for Thane to drive a spear of Spirit energy into its flank, pushing it back into the swarm.
The fish circled, snapping, their sleek bodies weaving through the dark.
He used Spirit Point Strike on his fist and allowed it to punch fast at another water as it smacked another incoming Printer-Pirranha before fleeing in the current.
Thane twisted, avoiding another bite, and thought bitterly, Why printers? Why are printers always?
Then he realized with a groan: years in the office, every humiliating order from supervisors...
Move the Exckson GP-4300 to Meeting Room C."
"Carry the GP-4300 upstairs."
The memory was etched so deeply he could now measure the world in printers.
"That Orgrath was eleven feet tall…" he muttered, dodging another fish.
"That's... what? Like six Exckson GP-4300s stacked? Hey. I can estimate one's size with that printer! Man, that printer lifting thing must have been traumatic. Pure trauma."
The thought nearly distracted him fatally. A fish lunged from his blind spot. Supreme Perception screamed in his skull, and he barely ducked, teeth snapping shut where his head had been. Panic spread cold through his chest.
"Focus, Thane. This is why God never lets you finish your driver's license! You'd daydream your way off a cliff!" Thane cursed and swam on.
His perception allowed him to sense that the water began to flow to the side of the approaching wall.
Then he saw it: a narrow tunnel ahead, barely wider than his shoulders. A crack in the stone, black and tight.
He swam hard for it, twisting his body into the gap. Behind him, the printer-fish surged. Only one could fit into the passage at a time.
The first rammed after him, its snout brushing his foot. Thane spun and slammed a Spirit Deflecting Kick into its jaw. The force burst outward like a wave, smashing the fish backward into the others.
CRUNCH. SPLAT.
They collided in a writhing tangle, blocking the tunnel behind him.
"Ha! Jammed like a bad print queue," Thane wheezed, forcing himself forward.
But suddenly, the tunnel opened, water spilling into a vast cavern. Pitch-black space yawned around him, the ceiling too high for even his dark sight to catch.
He fell from a great height, and Thane braced himself for the fall.
SPLASH!
Thane landed on a deep river, but then he noticed that the water of the second river he fell into was strong. A little too strong!
His stomach dropped.
"An underground waterfall!" Thane swam against the flow, but it was all in vain.
He swam back, seeing numerous pillars of water falling from above. But there was no ground for him to climb or hold on to. The waters kept pulling.
"No, no, no—"
The river vanished over the edge, and Thane with it.
WHOOSH!
He tumbled, arms flailing, slammed by spray. Pain burst across his skull. The world spun, then went mercifully black.
...
...
...
When he woke, it was to the sensation of grit against his cheek.
Thane groaned, coughing up lake water. He was sprawled on a rocky shore, the sound of waves lapping in the cavern's silence. The underground lake stretched endlessly before him, mist coiling above the black surface.
Mana was everywhere. There was a strange mana flow in the mist before him that prevented even his eyes from seeing through it.
Thane looked on ahead and felt that things were too suspiciously dangerous.
"Better... get out of here..." Thane was too weak to move. He could sense that his fall had hurt him greatly.
He tried to enter the Channel World before things got too dangerous.
[Deep Mist hinders you from opening a Channel Portal.]
Thane frowned and tried to summon the Celestial TV remote.
[Deep Mist hinders you from accessing the Celestial TV.]
The two prompts appeared in his vision and surprised Thane.
Thane turned around and saw the dark lake where the waterfall crashed.
The thunderous noise of the waterfall slowly resounded on Thane's ears as Thane began to recover from his grogginess.
But his body was still in pain from his fall.
His head tried to focus as he thought back to whether there was anything he had watched that explained the strange, misty place before him.
"Is this a dungeon? No... The mist never appears in the dungeon... What is this place?" Thane complained as he stood up.
He glanced back and tried to find a way back up, as he knew there was something nefarious within the Mist.
But upon observing the cliff and the fall, he deemed the wall too slippery to scale. There were no other exits.
Thane could also feel the water slowly flowing beneath his feet. Though he was at the shore, the water was being drawn into the Mist.
"Terribly wounded... No chance to recover... and a dangerous misty world at the end of the river. And this is the only way forward. Oh well... I'm sure this is Providence. Ye, though I walk in the misty shadow of death... I will fear no evil..." Thane sighed, almost as if to complain, but kept hoping for the best and stepped into the mist-filled world.