Chapter 116: Parts

From the rising ocean of corrosive bile, a single white platform peaked out from its malicious waves. That platform, was the sunken tower that a mortal fighter made, out of the debris of ten thousand shattered teeth.

Sounds of swirling cyclonic acid roared, and the deep, dredging rumbles of massive flesh moving in the dark echoed through the lightless expanse that was the monster’s mouth.

Yet, the realm of the monster’s orifice was not genuinely lightless, for there was a figure within. And that figure was glowing from his heart, the multiple lines that streaked across his body, and his left eye.

And with the dark light of his eye, he saw with its sentient sight the sky falling, the ground rising, and the acid ocean surrounding him bubbling, boiling, and twisting.

Waves of bile slammed and crashed over the single lone platform again and again in a relentless yet desperate display, but surprisingly…the white tower did not fall. It refused to.

…Although it did shake unsteadily. The smashed together pieces of the tower trembled and swayed, but by their creator’s forceful will, they just barely stayed together.

And unlike the furious ocean, and wavering tower, the figure that stood above both of them was calm and composed.

On his hands were roughly cubical constructs made of teeth— his makeshift gauntlets. He had shattered them from a huge hill of enamel, and implanted his hands and wrist into the ones that he deemed of good size.

Spreading from his heart, were glowing lines that looked like digital circuits, and they extended just slightly past his elbows, and slightly past his knees.

‘Less than a minute left!’ The young man said to himself.

If he diverted a portion of his focus he could intuitively feel how much time he needed, but if anyone else wanted to deduce such a thing, they would only have to look at the spread of the glowing lines all over his body.

Completion of the process meant that the glowing lines would have reached his hands and feet. More accurately, all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes.

All Zan needed was a minute— actually even less than that.

…Yet the falling sky of flesh and teeth was already upon him. In fact it was now only five meters away from his gazing face.

His ears twitched. A loud quaking sound could be heard up above him— it was the booming rumbles of the ceiling descending.

Zan inhaled, and exhaled. The disgusting smell inside the mouth made him want to retch, but he knew his body was going to need every bit of oxygen that it could.

Suddenly, with extreme focus the young man then raised his arms above his head. The set of movements looked strikingly basic and simple, but they hid a mysterious trace of connection— a resonant connection to the universe itself.

This was a state that Zan would not find himself in for some time. And the very cause for this was because his soul memory had only stirred, and stirred ever so slightly, because of his previously unusual sight.

Very briefly, his movements had become beyond fluid, and beyond masterful, but instead momentarily they became perfect. And yet his movements were neither fast nor slow, but still they mysteriously created strange afterimages.

CRACKLE!

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The sound of something utterly massive descending was as deafeningly loud as it could be, and Zan ceased to hear anything else but crackling and rumbling. In the next moment, the sky of flesh came down, Zan’s gauntlets made contact, and then…

BOOM!

A thunderous, reverberating sound echoed through the rectangular expanse, and a shockwave of pure force spread from their terrible collision.

Tsunami waves of acid splashed outward from the disturbance, and at the eye of the storm, was an ant who had caught the falling sky, and was now resisting its terrible weight.

Miraculously, the speed of the ceiling’s descent had actually slowed, although it had not stopped.

Upon contact with the falling sky, the enormous pressure shattered the gauntlets on Zan’s hands, and shards of white enamel flew out from their contact as if they had exploded.

Likewise, the platform beneath him had already begun to collapse.

The sheer, immense pressure, had enormous pieces of the tower exploding off into the distance like jenga pieces being flicked off by an invisible hand.

And as the core piece connecting the ceiling to the tower, Zan’s whole body felt an unprecedented amount of strain.

He felt his thighs, biceps and triceps wanting to explode, the tendons within his forearms and lower legs wishing to unwind and snap like a taut cable.

Most importantly however, he felt his own spine wishing to replicate the phenomena happening to the tower below his feet.

Zan then looked at his arms that were holding up the vast expanse above.

Inside the mouth, his furiously pumping heart and black blood had somehow enlarged his muscles by thrice, but as self centered as he was, what he looked at was not his muscles but the glowing circuitry within them. It had just reached above the middle of his forearm.

‘Still some time to go,’ Zan said to himself. The lines of energy were edging on slowly, yet ever forward.

…But unfortunately, Zan was then reminded that they were not the only ones doing so.

As the white tower beneath him collapsed, and the floor itself rose, the corrosive acid circling him had once again surged forward to embrace his mouthwatering flesh.

Zan swore the acid waters had a hint of sentience, for the surging liquid seemed to caress his body in the same way as an anaconda did. Luckily though, his body had only sunk halfway into the waters, with the acid reaching only around his waist.

Still, his flesh and skin was reintroduced back to the cycle of melting and regenerating. The corrosive acid stung like a thousand hornets, and burned him like he was thrown into a cauldron of flame.

Zan snarled from enduring the extreme pain that came from all over, and strangely enough…the guttural sound that came from his throat sounded all but inhuman.

Within the space of the monster’s mouth, the sound that echoed through the expanse seemed not to come from a human experiencing pain, but from a mad beast gradually growing enraged.

The low snarling that came from him, sounded like three lions growling simultaneously. The sound waves seemed to layer over each other in a way that boomed and reverberated, and in unseen realms, each sawing buzz that came out of his throat rumbled the very space around him.

The fluctuations from those sound waves, acted like pebbles entering a still pond. The realm space within the monster’s mouth was briefly disrupted within the surrounding area, and momentarily, the energy within Zan’s body started to flow again at a more normal pace.

It lasted but a few seconds, but a few moments was all he needed. The glowing lines spreading from his heart accelerated from a snail’s pace, to the speed of a flowing stream. Just like water traveled through the earth’s veins, energy passed through his pathways excitedly, free from any obstruction or resistance. Now Zan did not need to last thirty or so seconds more.

Flowingly the energy rushed into the tips of his fingers and toes, and the technique began to execute itself just as last time.

…With a few additional changes.

The glowing circuitry at his hands and feet— his maze of pathways that were located there— had mysteriously morphed and combined to form into the shape of spheres.

In their transformation, they no longer looked like circuits, but glowing spherical tattoos. They somewhat looked like bright full moons, although no inspiration was taken from the celestial bodies.

Zan’s energy that flowed from his heart and into his hands and feet, then began to concentrate within those spheres, becoming denser and denser.

Before finally, the glowing spheres pulsed in unison with his heart, and the energy spreading from his heart reversed itself, flooding backwards into his throat.

All of that densely accumulated energy then began to activate, and Zan’s throat began to burn scaldingly and glowingly hot.

On instinct he opened his mouth to reveal beast-like fangs, before the darkness within his mouth then started to be purged by purple light.

Yet what came forth from his glowing throat was not a beam. Instead, the intelligent energy that erupted from out of his throat turned into a gaseous nebula within his mouth, before beginning to swirl and densely concentrate.

It started out as small as a cluster of atoms, before presently growing as large as a pebble sized sphere.

In fact…the radiance and extremely dense energy of that sphere, turned out to be awfully familiar.

The intelligent energy, was concentrating into a miniature, purple sun. And unlike the sun that shone its light upon the planet of Eok, the purple sun’s radiant light promised neither balance nor love, but pure and utter destruction.

Likewise, the red filter that Zan’s eyes saw through started to shift and change. Slowly twisting and warping into shades of purple, then hues of red, then purple again. With the immense power that the eldritch part of him brought, came the slight expense of his sanity.

The changes came in rapidly and suddenly but that was not the end.

As the monstrous side of Zan’s very existence peaked out from the corner, the previous inner conflict within him also rushed forward to take center stage.

The visions rushed forward again, and at the same time, the tower beneath his feet started to collapse.