Chapter 111: Twice As Bright
Zan plunged downwards. Whilst the other mountain-sized worm turned its malformed head towards Lloyd, this one simply had to open its blooming mouth even wider.
Ooze bubbled and spluttered out of its massive maws like an overflowing ocean. The acidic heat caressed Zan’s skin like a lecherous predator.
Even when he was hundreds of meters above the monstrosity, he could feel its sick heat— a testament to the monster's overwhelming vitality, even when starved.
Zan had no idea how he was going to slay the beast. Truth be told, it looked to be bigger than the whole area that his village used to reside in.
Yet whatever the case, he was already falling into its maws.
Zan closed his eyes.
Clear the mind, be present.
There was nothing he couldn’t face before, and in his belief, nothing he wouldn't be able to face in the future.
In the next moment the young man clenched his fists and reignited his resolve.
His eyes pulsed open, and he willed all the powers he knew to act.
The power of will filled his body, as a red lightning arc coursed through the air surrounding him.
In an instant the energy within the center of his body rushed into the maze of pathways found in his arms and legs.
Zan flashed a half grin. Finally the energy flowed like a river, natural and easily.
Yet…when he willed his inhuman blood and alien heart to act, they offered significant resistance.
Imposing his will on them, felt instead like swimming against the current of a waterfall.
Zan grunted in a sort of entitled irritation. This body of his only looked human, he knew without doubt that it was some sort of monstrosity.
And yet, his black blood, his black beating heart— the parts of him that were supposed to be uncompromisingly vicious and mindlessly bloodthirsty— resisted his decree for battle.
Zan shook his head as if to discard his thoughts. He had no time to ponder on the subject, although it was exactly what he needed to do.
He fell fast.
If there was anyone who could calculate terminal velocity it was definitely not Zan, but there was nothing that stopped him from feeling as if he was falling at that speed.
And he didn’t need an education in physics either, to conclude that his trajectory was going to land him inside the beast’s stomach.
He let his instincts take over. Like divine inspiration, his body moved in the most ideal way possible for how the situation needed.
Involuntarily, memories traced back to the owl-eyed girl with unusual fiery blood. Zan had watched her fight, and gleamed at the techniques that she used.
…Oddly enough his intentions were more pure in that endeavor. He didn’t monitor her to steal her techniques, but simply to keep a watchful eye as a…friend, would.
Nevermind how that story went, however.
Zan had seen Gayle manifest wings made of pure energy. And just as beautiful and graceful as they were, they were also majestically strong and extremely swift. Their aesthetic appearance took nothing away from their capability.
Energy focused onto two spots near Zan’s shoulder blades.
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Two red splotches of energy came out of his back, whilst his body turned to spin into a spiral corkscrew.
Splotches. As if a child splattered paint onto a canvas, that was how his “wings” looked. They held no grace, beauty, or feathers for that matter. They barely even held any semblance of shape or form.
Clearly he wasn’t able to replicate Gayle’s essence manifestation off of one look. There was something more profound to her technique, that made him feel as if he was missing the correct element. Or more accurately, he was missing an understanding of the right concepts.
Yet, Zan’s rough replica was enough to steer him away, which fulfilled his goal.
The winds roared in his face. Lingering traces of spiral energy spun in the sky, as what looked to be a red-heated bullet tore through the night.
Because of his corkscrew motion, Zan’s vision was the same as a spherical panorama. Like a spinning top, he spun round and round at speeds not meant for the human brain.
To put it bluntly, it made him really fucking dizzy.
Luckily, he had just enough lucidity to derive information from his jumbled sight.
He focused on making sense of that chaotic world.
Humans had an acute sense of spatial distance, hence why they could estimate how much strength to use to throw something the appropriate distance.
Zan, being himself, could estimate that at the rate he was going he would just barely escape the outer set of the monster’s circular maws.
Yet although the worm didn't seem to have any eyes or ears, it was aware of Zan’s escape attempts.
In response it craned its head towards the direction that the young man was fleeing.
One chased and another fleed.
Although his sight was literally spinning, Zan obviously saw as the massive ground of flesh seemed to tilt towards his direction.
It was odd to see something so big— a very piece of the earth— move to try and devour you.
Zan thought fast on his feet although his feet couldn't touch the ground.
Planning might not have been his forte, but that didn't mean that he wasn't keen nor sharp.
Yet, the young man continued to descend at a diagonal angle. He made no changes to his speed nor the direction of his flight despite the monster's effort to reach him.
And as it were, the monster's thousands of razor maws would snatch him right out of the air.
Zan even felt the monster's disdain. He knew it for sure, for his intuition sensed the raw emotions the monstrosity sent his way.
It seemed the worm was not totally mindless, as Zan felt that the monster saw him as “lowly” and “stupid.” Most living things had the simple emotions of joy and anger, but the beast seemed to be more intelligent than it was previously given credit for, if it could belittle and mock its prey.
An irritated yet cheeky smile found itself on the young man’s face.
If he could he would spout profanities at the monster, but he was too busy spinning at breakneck speeds.
Closer and closer. Zan continued to fall while the monster strived to “cushion” his landing spot.
Like lovers destined to meet, the trajectory of both their fates, and their physical bodies were about to collide.
Only a hundred meters away from its jaws, the sick heat of the monster’s vile juices now felt like a disgusting sauna. Considering that Zan’s eldritch body was somewhat heat and acid resistant, any normal human being would have had their skin and flesh peel from their bones by now.
The monstrosity all but thought that it had its meal sealed. The sweet taste of blood and flesh, was going to be spiced up by the sick satisfaction of devouring the prey that dared to try and flee.
And it was at that moment that Zan moved to action.
Although he looked to be doing nothing all this time, he was really concentrating the energy in his body towards his two wings.
The wings suddenly enlarged, becoming massive things that spanned as large as clouds.
Within the painting of the night that held three moons, boundless stars, and the world’s own drifting white, Zan’s red clouds oddly felt like the young man leaving his mark on the world.
Though just as suddenly as they grew gigantic, in the next moment they shrunk down to the size of hand-sized orbs, before finally exploding in a bang.
Zan flew off like a fired bullet. The driving momentum from the explosion made him shoot off into the distance, in a remarkably straight horizontal line.
Where previously he was but a tall tree’s distance away from the beast, he was now getting further and further away.
As the momentum blasted him into the distance, Zan made sure to turn around and face the beast, giving it two middle fingers in the process, all while spouting profanities.
That gesture, it seemed, survived throughout the ages.
“Yeah how bout that you big, dumb, shit eating worm!”
“I bet your mother ate shit just like you will!”
“Not eating me today you little bitch. But I might just roast you over a fire after I beat you to deat—”
Zan didn't finish his sentence in surprise.
The mountain sized worm had started to glow with a subtle but noticeable white light.
It grew brighter and brighter until it was as bright as one of the moons.
And then, the mountain sized worm lunged at Zan faster than the speed he was escaping at.
“Wha—”
The sight left him stunned. It felt as apocalyptic as one of the moons falling from the sky and on top of his head.
Except for Zan, that bright and glowing moon was full of malformed teeth, and it was closing its jaws around him rather than falling on top of him.
Flesh and teeth surrounded. The monster's mouth was in the shape of a hollow cone, and still in midair, Zan found himself floating just above the inner set of the monster's maws.
The sky above and the ground below disappeared, replaced by teeth, gums, and vile spit.
Left, right, above, below, and forward. The only direction that wasn't full of abhorrent abomination, was behind him.
Zan spun backwards. He readied the same technique once again, only to see that flesh was growing from the edges of the abomination’s mouth, aiming to seal him from within.
Red splotches extended outwards from his back once again, yet in a hurried pace they didn't become as large as clouds like before.
They enlarged and shrunk and exploded all the same.
He flew at a faster speed than before, but the abomination seemed to be using all of its reserves to fester its flesh at an even more rapid pace.
Zan flew like a bullet towards freedom. Yet the light at the end of the tunnel was quite literally closing in the same way that a hole in cloth was sewing shut.
A vista of the night sky, lit up by three moons, was captured in a painting using his sight. And that painting was being devoured by the edges by blooming flesh.
Zan flew like a bullet, the flesh sprouted up like tumors.
THUD!
The light of the three moons and the infinite stars beyond, disappeared. Zan had collided with a wall of flesh.
Unfortunately, the bioluminescence of the creature only applied to its outer skin, and Zan, enveloped in pitch black darkness, fell towards an ocean of acid drool and jagged teeth.