"Mimic?..."
Azael blinked, completely lost. He didn't understand a single thing coming out of the mimic's mouth.
"Woah, that's amazing!"
Satan gave a loud gasp, like he suddenly recognized something ancient.
Satan, what's a mimic? And why do you sound shocked? Azael asked inside his head.
"Mimics are extremely rare. Usually these creatures were made by a Floor Sovereign."
Floor Sovereign…
Azael thought for a moment, then his eyes widened.
Wait—does that mean the Leviathan made this mimic?
"Yeah, that should be the case."
Azael had a bright idea.
He floated upright, steadying his breathing, looking more serious. "Hey mimic, I have a lot of questions for you, but first I wanna ask why did you try to help me when Connor was gonna hit me?"
The mimic looked embarrassed. She kept glancing away, her borrowed face twitching in awkwardness. Her hands fiddled with Connor's arms, tracing lines in the water as if she wanted to hide in them.
"Well… this is gonna be really embarrassing but…"
She shuffled, squirmed, hesitated… then finally blurted out something that made Azael's soul crack in half.
"I really like you…" Azael's entire being froze.
His jaw dropped. His brain simply shut down.
I— what— me? Like— what?
His thoughts crumbled like sand slipping between fingers.
"I saw you swimming before," the mimic continued, her voice growing dreamy. "I was gonna play a prank on you like I did with the other human, but then I noticed your eyes. They were so beautiful. Nothing like anything down here. And when you took down that starfish, you looked incredible. And your build— it's just so my type and—"
She kept rambling, pouring out admiration after admiration, but Azael just stared with a dead expression, body limp, as if his soul had left him completely.
A… a monster like me… a monster has a crush on me…? He didn't know how to react.
And it didn't help that Connor's face was the one talking, smiling, blushing, and praising him. It made the situation ten times worse.
And even from all this weirdness, even from all the embarrassment and confusion, one thought stuck in Azael's chest like a knife.
Connor tried to kill him.
The realization didn't hit all at once. It sank slowly, like a weight dragging him down.
Azael had suspected Connor was weird yes but… he didn't think Connor would pick up a rock and try to smash his skull in.
He thought Connor was a friend.
Or at least a partner in this hellish place.
Someone who smiled at him. Someone who talked to him. Someone he worried about and tried to protect. Azael even went out of his way to rescue him.
And the whole time…
The whole time Connor was planning to kill him?
Azael felt something in his face droop. His shoulders lowered. His chest felt tighter than before. He tried to swallow the feeling, but it pushed back harder.
His eyes unfocused a little as the mimic kept talking. He didn't even hear the words anymore, just the echo of a single thought:
I… trusted him.
Azael looked down at his hands, the same hands that reached back to save Connor.
They felt stupid now. Heavy. Like he'd been fooled, tricked, played with.
He didn't cry — he never did, but the sadness was there. Obvious enough that the mimic stopped mid-ramble. The mimic noticed instantly, her rambles dying mid-sentence.
"Hey, don't be sad, pretty boy."
She gently patted Azael's shoulder, her tone softening. "I know what you really want."
She swam closer, her eyes shifting into something almost seductive, flirtatious — unnervingly, considering she was still wearing Connor's body.
"Uhhhh…"
Azael didn't know how to feel at this moment.
Instead, he accidentally burped.... loudly. The sound echoed through the silent sea like a horn, and some deformed fish hide inside the coral startled by the sound.
".... HAHAHAHA! What was that?!"
The mimic recoiled, then burst into uncontrollable laughter. She laughed so hard she accidentally punched Azael in the shoulder, while wiping her tears.
"Ouch… and also, that's rude, laughing at someone who just burped" Azael muttered, pouting, but even then azael didn't know why he gave a random burped.
maybe it's because of all the emotion I've felt all at once, azael tries to comfort himself.
Satan was also laughing loudly inside his head. "You have NO aura at all, kid."
Oh shut up. I'm not trying to attract anyone, I also don't want a freaking monster to love me. That's beyond weird. Azael rolled his eyes, face still red.
"Okay look, let's not make this difficult. What do you mean by 'you know what I want'?"
His tone turned stern, arms crossing, trying to regain control of the situation.
"Ooo~ I didn't know you had a commanding side," the mimic cooed, trailing a finger across his chest.
Azael remained unfazed. Barely blinking, he pushed her hand away. "I'm being serious here. If you don't wanna help me, then I'll leave you here." He turned and began to swim away, but the mimic quickly grabbed his wrist.
"Wait— okay, okay, I'll stop teasing."
She sighed deeply. "You're looking for the Leviathan's lair, right?"
Azael's ears perked up immediately.
"Continue."
"You won't be able to find the Leviathan with your method. You'd think her lair is at the bottom of the ocean… but in reality, the ocean itself is her lair."
Azael froze. A chill ran through him. "What do you mean by that?"
"The Leviathan swims around endlessly. She hunts everything that's prettier than her — endlessly, obsessively. She never rests. She never stops. Her jealousy is… limitless."
Satan suddenly burst out laughing.
"HAHAHAHA! Levi— Levi, she never changes!" The unexpected loud laughter made Azael jolt. What was that?! You know this Leviathan?
"Of course. Me and her are good friends. Well… before God—"
Satan's voice softened into something fragile. Not like the confident, smug Satan Azael was used to.
Azael frowned but didn't pry, azael main focus is to kill the leviathan and get out of here. "So what do you propose we do? If she keeps roaming the sea, there's no way I'd be able to catch up with her."
The mimic patted Azael's shoulder, looking smug with Connor's face. "Oh, pretty boy, why bother to chase after it when you can lure her to you?"
Azael paused for a moment.
His expression went blank… then slowly shifted as understanding clicked into place.
"Ah— I get it. But how are we supposed to lure her tho?"
"The Leviathan can sense any colorful being in her ocean," the mimic said proudly, lifting her chin. "She targets the most colorful sea creature first. Then she hunts the second most colorful one. So all we need to do is lure her with something that's gonna shine through the whole ocean, grabbing all her attention."
Azael narrowed his eyes. "How are we gonna get the most colorful being in the whole ocean?" The mimic scoffed loudly, then turned to the side, staring into the endless dark sea. "We're already close to its tombs, actually."
Azael looked at her weirdly… until something in the darkness shifted.
A blot of shadow in the water began to pull away, like a curtain being peeled back. He could see stone behind it. And then more stone. Colors. Movement.
Azael blinked, breath hitching as the darkness thinned like smoke dissolving in light.
The world around him slowly brightened.
Shadows retreated. Shapes came back.
A faint glow seeped through the water, soft at first, then stronger like dawn breaking underwater.
Azael's eyes went wide.
"Does this mean…"
"Ah, finally. It's Sabah," the mimic finished his sentence.
Azael almost cried. His chest tightened with overwhelming relief. The abyss he had been trapped in for hours faded completely, replaced by warm, gentle illumination.
The crimson sun had fully recharged — the Sabah period had begun.
Azael let out a shaky laugh… then another… and another.
He rolled around the seabed giggling like a child finally catching his breath after surviving a nightmare.
Colors. Light. Warmth through the water. He hadn't realized how much he missed seeing anything besides black.
He was so wrapped in joy that he didn't notice the long green vine beside him — thick, ancient-looking, stretching into the foggy distance.
When he finally got up, still smiling, he followed where the vine led. And then, as he reached the end of it, he froze. His mouth dropped open.
"Haha, you were so happy you didn't notice it," the mimic teased, floating beside him.
But Azael barely heard her.
The water ahead of him began to part not violently, but slowly, like two immense invisible hands were pulling the ocean open. Light spilled in. Dust and sand swirled upward.
And then the ancient city finally came into view. It wasn't just big. It was massive.
A huge stone fortress built into the side of an underwater mountain, its architecture spiraling and twisting like something not meant for human eyes. Green moss and seaweed blanketed everything, but the age behind it still showed, broken domes, half-collapsed towers, stairways that led to nowhere, arches carved with symbols long forgotten.
But the city wasn't dead.
Soft streams of glowing algae traced lines along the walls like veins, giving the entire city a surreal emerald glow.
Fish darted through cracked windows and between tilted pillars, scattering like sparks of light in the water. Massive statues, eroded almost beyond recognition, stared from the shadows.
Nothing moved except the drifting plants and the gentle current, but the city felt like it was breathing. Watching.
Azael stood frozen. He couldn't even blink.
He couldn't form a word.
"What you're seeing in front of you right now," the mimic whispered, almost reverently, "is the Lost City of R'lyeh. Home to the Ars Goetia, Cthulhu."
She grabbed Azael gently, pulling him up from the seabed. He still hadn't spoken.
Still hadn't looked away from the impossible structure in front of him.
"Woah, didn't know you will be that amazed," the mimic said casually. Azael's eyes snapped toward her. "What?"
"Let's go. I'll explain everything on the way."
The mimic grabbed his hand, and together they swam toward the lost city the glowing sea lighting their path.