Chapter 19: Power, insidious but a spark.

"Why are there so many-" Waynev shouted but she received no reply

In their place were millions of voices.

Chittering.

Bickering.

They were surrounding her, overwhelming her.

All was lost-

Dodging and weaving, she could do no harm to the insidious horde.

"AH-" trying to avoid focusing on the pain her movement doubled, but her stamina halved.

How could she find a spark of blue in a space infested with millions?

…

Minutes, perhaps hours earlier.

"Same as the advancement technique, we go in, find the Cyan instead of Violet. Then we get out." Shadow explained, relaxed or sounding bored as she scanned around the area and found no creatures.

They had chosen an area close to the previous fight, the corpse in the distance being the only other body in the area.

The Cyan affinity should be enough to use with Shadow acting as a link between her and the alien mana. Even now she could breathe in the otherwise toxic mana, without Shadow it would poison her thoughts and wear down on her sanity.

"Are you going to get on the ground or wait until your legs give out?" Shadow's patience was running thin at the hesitating legs.

"Yeah, I was just-thinking why don't I just let-" Arms crossed she sat down on the nearby rock, her case was… rock-solid.

"No. There's strength in numbers, besides all we're looking for is a bright blue spark. Technically this should split the amount of time it takes to find, and I have a st-" Shadow's lecturing tone returned as Waynev finally sat on the ground and began looking within herself, which thankfully stopped Shadow's lecture-

"Fine-if you're not going to listen to the plan listen to this-" Her tone turning dark Shadow threw three words out then stopped.

"Only. One. Chance." With that, she was quiet, gone.

Waynev's guilt stopped with a shaking of her head and a closing of her eyes.

But the shaking didn't stop, opening her eyes in alarm she saw-

"-What's happe-" Her words stuck in her throat, eyes revealed an echoless world.

Similar to when she combined her embers into a fire, however, looking down, she could see her arms.

Everything around her felt real, but the world was… bland.

Cold.

It was colourless, looking down at her hands and clothes they were the same as she had on but it was different, everything was grey.

In every direction, there were mountains and caverns, yet no trees.

No fauna.

Only… rubble? What was this stuff?

Bending over, she felt at the ground.

It looked like stone, but… felt and looked weird.

She couldn't describe it other than it feeling gigantic compared to what she expected.

Standing suddenly Waynev remembered that she was on a time limit, they had to find the spark before Shadow ran out of 'mana'.

'It was still confusing how Shadow could-'

'No, it was time for action, not thought.' Waynev shook her head again, finding the movement didn't disorientate her or affect her.

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Looking in the distance, she chose the highest mountain, which was just a small mound compared to the one she had initially been teleported to and started sprinting towards it.

What felt like half an hour passed when she finally reached it, the hills on the way not stopping her at all and yet-

'Where the hell is it?' Waynev's plan had let her down, she was surprised that Shadow and herself hadn't been pulled out of the strange world, but she put it off.

For a while she scanned the landscape, somehow barely lit but no lights were illuminating her surroundings 'I am still meditating… right?' looking down at her hand it was still colourless however with the strained light, perhaps she had dreamed up the current situatio-

Ch****r

Sound.

She finally heard something, turning her head to the leftmost depression, she could see something… strange.

Her feet carried her closer, the air smelled of nothing, but the landscape was changing, and it was beginning to feel… moist.

Wet.

But instead of a river or even drops of water, the only noises Waynev could perceive was the chittering, constant unending chittering and she was getting closer to it.

Closer still she finally reached the precipice of the hill and saw it-no them.

Thousands of… creatures, as big as she. They were crawling, carrying, dousing themselves in the liquid and carrying rocks of grey covered in the liqui-

'Oh my god' Waynev's eyes widened, her arm pulled to her mouth in horror as the scene in front of her clicked.

Those weren't pieces of rock the creatures were carrying.

It was flesh.

Thousands of them, all in sync and yet something was off with the scene.

It seemed familiar, the blood, the stench finally hit her, and she understood.

'This is… the monster-the Ghoulbound… but how-' The creatures were massive and seemed similar to ants in their autonomy, and yet their features were nothing alike. The bodies had a black exoskeleton that hung off them with eight arm-no, limbs moving with a practised grace she could barely perceive.

Looking further, Waynev's hopes reached a new low, plunging into the miniature landscape.

The biggest looking Spiderant was nearby, and above it was a light blue stone, hovering around the area, it looked to be on path to the Spiderant.

They only had one chance to get the stone.

She had to act but… what could she do?

There were millions of them, unfettered by her presence above them, she was the size of one of the Spiderants and had no abilities, even her Shadow was go-

'-gone. Crap, so the reason why no other living creatures could be nearby was because of this…' Suddenly the passage made a lot more sense.

Looking at the insidious crowd again, her eyes eventually led back to the crystal; it was her way out.

She needed to wait until it was close to the queen. If she leapt off the queen, she could snag the crystal out of the air and quickly escape.

All she had to do was run through the millions of Spiderants, climb on top of the queen and wait for the precise momen-

The queen moved.

It looked near a band of Spiderants coming her way, and they were carrying some of the spoils to her.

Eyes nearly closed as she tracked their movements, and once they started eating, she began her descent.

Slowly.

The climb was surprisingly manageable despite her nerves screaming at her to do the opposite, to leave, run and hide from the insidious horde.

Was it worth the spark of hope?

The answer was always going to be the same.

As she finally made her way down, she began sneaking closer to the Spiderants, and they seemed unaware of her presence despite being so close.

Perhaps the smell of day-old food hid more than just her scent.

But there were thousands, slowly moving hunched over and around the perimeter, going too far meant she would stand out, sneaking too close would alert the hive.

Waynev made it halfway until she saw a glimmer of yellow, like the glint of the sun shining on a hint of silver.

Then it was gone.

A hint of what was to come?

Blinking she looked around slowly, the Spiderants were continuing despite the sudden spark of colour so close to the queen.

Starting her legs up she began moving until once again she saw the glint of yellow, two glimmers of yello-

'Is that-' Waynev looked at…

Herself?

In the distance a crouching Waynev made her way to the back of the queen, the ants were steering clear of the queen herself, perched on top of the platform the front easily was seen, but where she saw her mirror.

Her position looked clouded in uncertainty and as she looked closer… the girl was smiling and looking above.

Above the quee-

'Crap.' Grimacing she saw the spark, it was hovering nearly directly above the distracted queen still devouring the grotesque pieces of meat it was blissfully unaware of Shadow's presence behind her.

The race was on-

Waynev began almost sprinting to Shadow, still trying to avoid the Spiderants ire she couldn't bring attention to herself but as she fled by she could feel heads turn in her direction-

Faster and faster she nearly leapt over the cavern but-

Shadow was quicker, directly behind the queen Spiderant she looked like a cat about to leap from ground to roof except the roof being an immense creature.

Forgetting herself, she began running bumping into a few of the Spiderants, screeching behind her-

But her eyes focused on the figure above, at the same time she began pushing past the ants Shadow had leapt on top of the queen, even at this distance she could see herself running on top of the leviathan.

Which only just noticed the figure above with a shriek-the whole camp stopped and watched as her Shadow leapt off the howling queen and seized the spark-

Barreling down she was spinning yet somehow was controlling her descent, Shadow gripped the spark tightly as she landed onto the voyeurs.

Then the world shook.

Thousands of ants began moving at Shadow and towards her-

"WAYNE-" Bursts of light were shot her way, only to be intercepted by the thousands of Spiderants-

They were using magic on her-

Millions of bodies began throwing themselves towards the spark, that lit their way and would guide them out.

The chattering of bodies rubbing against each other didn't deter Waynev's movements as she began dodging and weaving between the thousands of legs and moving carpacases-

The light wasn't in sight, but she knew from the screeching of the queen that Shadow was still kicking.

Rushing through the hordes she narrowly missed another leg blocking her way and slammed into another, knocked down thousands of legs descended with Waynev nimbly dodging each one and diving under another Spiderant.

They never ended, and progress felt non-existent, but she felt herself getting closer as she dived through another gap in their moving formation she saw a glint of yellow dancing atop the black creatures-

Towards her.

"SHAD-"

SCREECH

Her call for attention didn't go by unnoticed as the creatures around her instantly pounced atop each-other, Waynev unable to avoid the combo of legs and bodies bunched together was thrown in and nearly cut to shreds in seconds.

As legs descended atop her, Waynev's attempts at blocking the sharp and bone-like limbs were answered by the Spiderants with cuts and pain.

'Shit.'

Her movements began to speed up again as she climbed away from the mass over Spiderants and towards where she saw her mirror-image.

Still dancing and leaping she could barely think about her next move before slamming into another exoskeleton.

This one was not like the others, it was indifferent to her shove and instead shoved her back.

It glowered at her as she quickly accessed it, it had only four limbs, and its eyes whiter than her heart.

Unlike the others, it seemed to have more spikes and from experience more strength as well.

Trying to dodge and avoid the warrior Waynev met what felt like an unstoppable force, it blocked her way, and the Spiderants around him were beginning to wall-up.

She had to be fast, taking a chance she leapt towards the warrior and-

Was promptly thrown to the ground, the air knocked out of her she only had a moment to think before more legs descended from above, unlike the thousands from before these were precise and didn't immediately try and stop her instead they began alternating between striking and slicing at the prone target.

Her attempts at dodging cut short as the slashes found their mark-

"AghhA-" Rolling forward she bounced off the ground, her eyes wide she jumped as high as she could and began running atop the clump of Spiderants no longer being held off by the warrior and starting to try and swarm her-

There!

Shadow was close but was fighting and dodging two warriors.

They cornered Shadow as they did to her but with two of them-

She could see the cuts and slashes, one of her arms hung to her side as Waynev lurched forward still barely staying afoot balancing on the unstable creatures under her as she got closer and closer until she was less than a metre away.

Waynev dived at Shadow just as she tried to dodge one of the attackers they were both sent to the ground tumbling.

Until the lay on top of each other eye to eye, their limbs a mess and bodies nearly meshed together.

Staring into amber eyes, Waynev wrapped her arm around the orb as the creatures descended-

"I've got you."

Her vision flashed with bright blue as she felt them merge.

The screeches were the last thing she heard.