The leviathan from the black sea surged forward, washing the earth with dripping seawater as it poured from the depths of the darkness.
Nic ran full-tilt, rushing through the trees and weaving left-right left-right. Each moment, massive bursts of black water clawed across the landscape. They were spat out in blade-like rushes of raw pressure, sawing through trees and shearing the ground into a tapestry of scars.
His fast legs and ability to leap and rebound carried him to the second pillar of light, shining up from the lightning-split ruins of a great oak tree. Crystal crawled over the bark in tendrils of rough, cloudy stone, and he drew the beacon from his pack to slam it into the beating heart of the gemstone crawl.
Instantly, the light pouring upwards redoubled and a deep chiming note of serenity swept the world.
The painted landscape became more clear, cracks sealing to nothing.
The wave of power slammed into the leviathan and sent it stumbling back. The sky behind it cracked open, and it was dragged under as a wave of dark water sloshed out, coiling around its legs. It sank down into the fissures as they covered the earth underfoot, vanishing from sight as those same fractures healed into nothing.
Nic had a moment to breathe easy…
But he didn’t trust it.
The black depths were underneath every aspect of this world - like the sky, the earth, and everything between was a thin layer of paint on a black canvas.
The leviathan was there…
And who knows what else…
Lurking in starless depths.
And as he went out from the site he’d planted the beacon, the layer of reality he was standing on would get weaker and weaker. Until the leviathan could break through, and snap him up with one claw. That was the fate he was facing…
Walking on thin ice over an infinite ocean…
He had one idea of what he could do. His killing voice, the Old Speech, came from an encounter with a similar ocean. An unfathomable darkness he’d glimpsed beneath the Bloodline Sea where evolution took place.
And it didn’t require any aura to fuel.
It was pure willpower, and hopefully, he could use it without fracturing the world underfoot and plunging into the sea. The leviathan had physical strength…
But not a trace of aura. Everything about it worked on sheer muscle, sheer mass.
If Nic was lucky, its soul wasn’t even slightly cultivated. If so…
A single killing word would extinguish it as easily as a blade of grass.
Nic stretched himself out, shifting his body left and right. He’d gotten taller, he realized. Dozens of reinforcements to his body had slowly added height to his lanky, powerful legs, and turned his fingernails into claws.
His stride took him a little farther with each step. His muscles had more leverage with which to push.
It was every small grace his body cultivation could give him that mattered now, when he couldn’t rely on aura to fuel him. He bent into a sprinter’s stance, orienting himself towards the final beam of light rising over the landscape.
The wind blew through strangely-colored leaves, each one blurring slowly into a blade, a human heart, a drop of water on a stained glass window in the shape of a tree’s reaching branches…
The landscape seethed and shifted like a chameleon.
Nic drew in breath, exhaled, and pushed off. The first motion was like firing a bullet, driving the toes of his back foot against the ground with such force it tore into mud. His first step downwards sank his forward foot into solid stone.
The two kicks propelled him upwards, outwards, sending him rushing along the earth so fast the changing shapes blurred into a single mass of vibrant color.
Nic’s foot hit the ground dozens of feet away, turning him, adding to his flagging momentum. Again the world sped up- everything flowed like a river of light around him. His pace was punishing, every motion bringing the full strength of his body to bear, the recoil of each step carrying through his bones as if he’d been struck.
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And ahead…
A crack split the sky. Water poured down in a black ribbon as something behind reared back and smashed itself against the thinning barriers of reality. They fractured further, the wounds in the sky deepening. Nic could see the dark body of the leviathan, thrashing, its claw managing to pierce partway through and clutch at empty air. It was coming out ahead of him.
Whatever dim instincts guided it, they were enough to know how to cut off prey.
With an earth-splitting roar it broke through, pouring down in a torrent of seawater and briny, scuttling legs. It was an armored fortress of a thing, segmented and midnight, with massive claws tinged along their serrated inner edges by luminous blue. Tentacles spilled from its lower body, extending it into a cloud of whipping, writhing shapes.
Nic set himself on a dead collision course.
Dark water sprayed towards him in a spear from the thing’s frothing mouth. He darted to one side, rolling his momentum easily into an arcing turn. Two more spears slashed through the air in his wake.
“Just-”
As Nic slipped into the killing voice, his soul began to shake with pressure. The exertion of working his raw will on the world, without aura, without cultivation, with only the raw desire to make the world bend to his words.
DIE.
The voice was like a silence cut in space and time.
But the leviathan didn’t fall.
Or even blink.
It spoke in return.
YOU SHALL NOT COMMAND ME.
Nic felt the weight against his soul redouble. He felt death looming above him, a vast gray expanse of bleak desolation. It was the pain of his soul being damaged. A pain that expressed itself in the deepest, most hideous sorrow. The feeling that nothing could be right in the world ever again. A moment where he forgot why he was fighting to live.
But-
Nic had fought and struggled and clawed for life until it was no longer within the realm of reason.
It was pure instinct.
In the moment where he should have been weakest, the leviathan’s claw smashed down from above. Without needing to think, Nic wove aside, kicked up, and ran down its arm.
As he leapt onto the beast’s shoulder the gray fog cleared away. His soul wasn’t broken- only weakened. And his body was strong as ever.
Nic drew Peacekeeper from his back…
And filled his arms with aura until his muscles burned and blazed beneath his skin, steam pouring from the engorged veins that bulged up. The sky split open and black water washed down. The earth cracked and the leviathan was dropped into the ocean.
But before the waters could sweep over him and sap his strength, Nic sliced once into its shell.
The armor, muscle, and meat of its being were cut apart like butter. The joint connecting arm to body gave way in a spray of red. The water crashed over Nic, and his aura-fueled strength was gone, washed away. Within the waters of the black sea there was no such thing as the powers of heaven and earth. There was only oblivion for Nic.
But the leviathan could swim through it. And its body could serve as a jumping point, letting him give a final kick and launch himself free before the fissures snapped shut. He landed on the edge of the desolation, outside the region where dozens of spatial tears had scratched the earth over and over until it was a mess of black scars.
The leviathan roared in pain as it sank down.
Nic had seen only one safe place to stand if he wanted to bring his aura to bear. Directly atop the enemy, who could move freely in the abyss. It was a risk, but-
It had paid off. In one cut, he’d cost the beast a limb. As it sank back into its home territory, he saw no sign of eagerness to fight him again. Only pain and retreat.
The fact that it had spoken…
Did every creature born from the black waters possess that power? Was the Old Speech the native tongue of the Abyss?
Nic didn’t know where to start with his questions, and he knew Sofia would struggle to give him anything more than vague hints on the matter. He pushed on. The landscape was still writhing from form to form, meaning he wasn’t close to his goal yet.
Shadows lurked in the trees, but he only had to brandish a talisman to scare them off. Whatever they were…
Misty, indistinct denizens of this half-real realm…
They were afraid of being cast into the Abyss, and stayed clear of him as he hiked up a lonely trail, which was sometimes a river of coins and sometimes a twisting doorway into the horizon. By the time he reached the end, the pillar of light touched down into a nearby pond, coating the ground beneath the water in crystal.
He slammed the beacon into place, and watched as the pillar of light redoubled.
Now, with three pillars burning into the sky, the earth began to shake. The shifting shapes of the landscape dissipated, swept into solid, permanent form. The last cracks in the sky sealed up, sending the Abyss into retreat.
And with a single, joyous chime the world beyond the triangular region marked out by the three pillars vanished.
Mission complete.
Territory has been claimed for the System out of the chaotic regions.
Your share of the reward is 30,000 Credits.
In addition, for encountering an Abyss Dweller, you will receive the additional reward…
‘Tertiary Shard: Ruler’
As the world went dark and Nic was pushed through dimensions, back towards his own home territory, he felt something crystalline and smooth form in the palm of his hand.