Koa inhaled sharply, winded by a tendril to the abdomen.
“Some help here!” He shouted, collapsing two trees on the gigantic tarantula and diving out of the fray.
The oversized Unbounded had followed him and Octavia a flat-out ridiculous distance.
Two webs from the clanswoman stuck the writhing creature to the floor. For all of five seconds.
“Do we just kill it?” Koa’s heart thudded in his ears, as another round of webs kept the beast at bay.
“And make the last drastic chase meaningless?”
Octavia sounded furious, which was perfectly understandable. The Unbounded was one of the three closest to Angel and the Pet-Keeper. It had caught them sneaking around after a string of days successfully tip-toeing about the territory. If they killed it, it's not like the Pet-Keeper wouldn’t notice. That could trigger a domino fall leading to the pair of them getting killed via pretty grisly means.
“Intruder! Perish, perish!”
“Oh shut up.” Koa enunciated both words nice and slowly. Then he turned his attention back to Octavia. “Wait, it just occurred to me: this fiend could probably speak fluently in the Unbounded tongue. Its mortal communication needs some work, but if he can report back to the Pet-Keeper about all this . . .”
“We’re doomed.” She put it bluntly. “That settles it.”
Koa grimaced, watching as a shower of web launched into the defenceless creature. In various concentrations of Infinity too weak to call Supreme Steel, she bludgeoned the Unbounded to death. Koa, as disturbed as he was, summoned a pillar of oak, chiselling it quickly before tossing the projectile directly into the Unbounded.
It proved to be the finishing blow. Something that was becoming akin to a trademark of his, as of late.
“Show off.” Octavia mumbled, as they both turned to their destination: the Insect Clan base.
Unlike the web fortress of the Arachnid Clan, the Insect base was more complex in design. Take a few hives or nests, enlarge them to the size of skyscrapers, and enmesh them all in one disturbing amalgamation. That was what Koa was seeing.
“Let’s move.” Koa insisted, turning to a wall of honeycomb.
“Koa, don’t run off,” Octavia chided, sprinting to overtake him. “Who knows what could be in there, just waiting to kill us? We have to take precautions.”
Seeing how time wasn’t on their side, they settled on advancing slowly. It would take time, sure, but any other tricky schemes would take even longer. Long enough that the Pet-keeper would no doubt notice their absence.
Koa’s initial concerns were whether any clansmen would come crawling. The idea of a clansman altered to exhibit the traits of a bee, was no more appealing then the Arachnid clansmen. Now, he soon found himself faced with a wholly different problem.
It wasn’t long, strolling through a diluted orange corridor, that Koa noticed the web. It appeared in subtle strands at first. Enough to be overlooked as something as naturally occurring as dust, but that was quickly disproven another metre inward. The entire place was covered all over, like the spindly strings were lasers, and Koa was a thief trying to manoeuvre past. If that was the case, it would be the most high-tech security system Descent had ever seen.
He felt like a bee himself, traversing through a hive over a hundred times larger than he could ever hope to be. Regardless of how much meat he put on his bones.
Though, following that analogy, he wouldn’t be the only intruder — or thing out of place, at least. The Arachnid Sect had been here. The strings were the most telling sign in the world. Arachnid clansmen threatened, coerced, or otherwise manipulated by the Pet-Keeper had been here, and hadn’t made the slightest effort to hide it.
The strands that immersed the place made it a constant fight to push forward. Koa’s vision was always veiled by that snowy white barrier.
He heard Octavia shriek, before spitting some of the fluff out. “It’s getting everywhere!”
After much struggle, Koa reached a winding tunnel more out of luck than any honest sense of coordination. It was like a series of burrows, but more suited for colossal worms than moles.
Unlike the beehive section, this was as dark as pitch. At least the former had a sort of sickly yellow luminance, to brighten up the place. In here, Koa’s sight was about as reliable as two broken hands.
Koa took a breath, trying not to succumb to the deep-rooted, human instinct to run at the sight of darkness. Walking into a place completely naive of what was to come would always be worse than walking into danger knowingly. At least then, you could cover the burial costs.
He activated his Mark, placing a palm to the wall. Luckily for him, this place was crawling with insects. Within seconds, the connection to nature, of earthy roots and scattering bugs, brought him guidance.
“Follow me.” He turned to Octavia. “I know the way.”
“The way where?”
She sounded comforted by his confidence, albeit sceptical.
“I’m not sure. Good or bad, we’re heading in deeper, at any rate.”
“Great.”
For a time, they traversed the place, the path forward no more obvious than navigating a maze. Words were rare and few in between. The dull thud of their own footsteps became monotonous, like a subterranean rain. Pitter-patter . . . pitter-patter . . .
“Pitter-patter.” Octavia was at her wits’ end. “I’m going to pull my hair out and shove it down my ears if we don’t get there quickly.”
Koa wasn’t even sure what counted as Octavia’s ears after her drastic alteration, though he didn’t dare ask. The places his mind immediately went were no more obvious: did she have human hair? His wandering mind felt compelled to check, once daylight immersed them once more. Then he wasn’t entirely sure if that was something he wanted to know.
Koa shivered. I can’t imagine changing yourself so radically.
Another bend in their passage.
They were close now, he knew, to a larger chamber he sensed virtually every passage emerging into. With everywhere branching into it, there was no way it wasn’t important. If they were going to find out what the hell was going on here, this seemed like their best shot.
“Did you know anyone from your clan that was sent down here?” Koa swiped another web aside.
“I don’t know . . . squads are being allocated with various tasks all the time. It's ridiculous; I stopped paying attention at one point.”
“Whatever the case, for there to be this many threads woven about the place, this was no small oper-”
Koa went stiff. Octavia bumped into him, yelping.
“Hey, why’d you-”
In the glow of his Mark, and despite the fickleness of such a feeble light, Koa saw the bars perfectly fine. The metal bars of a cell.
“Gods.” Was all the pair of them could say, before grasping the confining material. It was only then, upon touch, that Koa realised these were extremely dense webs. Webs with a far higher concentration of Supreme Steel than anything Octavia alone could hope to create. How they managed to shape the poles so perfectly was beyond Koa, but he supposed that when you could weave sprawling castles, this was next to nothing.
What concerned him more was the cowering man within. They didn’t have any extreme alterations, but he could tell they were part of the Insect Clan. Then one horrible epiphany befell Koa.
He forced composure. Through dry lips, and a hasty voice, he asked: “where are the rest of you?”
They were emaciated. A bag of bones was not an unbefitting description. Koa’s stomach churned just looking at it: the way starvation had wreaked havoc upon his poor body.
Nothing remained of the man’s hair but a few wisps. Their eyes were so deeply set into their face, like staring through far-off, broken windows. His posture was that of a hunchback, belonging to a geriatric man far beyond the years of this poor fellow. By locking him up, the Pet-Keeper had quite literally robbed the man of his youth.
Closer inspection only merited worse findings.
The prisoner’s skin mimicked patchwork. It was pale, varying in complexion around the body in irregular blotches of colour, looking like it was being stretched a little too thin. Almost as if it was the covering for some unfinished doll in a toy factory. Their teeth were yellow, which Koa assumed to be chipped. With the lack of food, that struck him as paradoxical. It was nothing that couldn’t be healed with a modest Rank and the right supplies, but how on earth had it gotten so bad in the-
“They’re being beaten.” Octavia looked sick to her stomach. “I wonder, if their throats are so parched, can they even-”
The man opened his mouth, only to cough out dust. He tried again. This time, with a little water from Octavia, he could speak properly. “The others . . .”
He pointed a crooked figure, purple and possibly broken, out of the bars. It pointed to the side. Koa looked there, forcing himself not to squint away the terrors of the world. Slowly, he walked back down where they had tread, noticing what he hadn’t cared to before.
More cells. More prisons. What felt to him, in that moment where his heart dropped, and the universe froze over, like a line of imprisoned Insect Clansmen that would never end. How they could have possibly missed this, was beyond Koa.
“Do you have a blade, or something sharp?” Koa asked Octavia, in a voice that was a little too pitiful. His ego took a sacrificial hit, but the Arachnid Clanswomen scrambled on her person fruitlessly.
Neither of them possessed anything sharp. When you were able to fight solely through your Mark, many clansmen forewent the precaution of a blade on-hand. Koa usually liked to keep one just in case. Yet, seeing how his own blade had been burnt to a crisp, and the Pet-Keeper had hoarded every weapon in this hellish territory, they were left stumped.
With no other bright ideas, and equipped with the knowledge that summoning a wooden blade at a moment’s whim would do the bars no harm, Koa picked up a rock. He lifted the largest, most jagged variety he could find. Then, with a sort of desperate, helpless air about him, he did his absolute best to saw away at the material.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Octavia egged him on, but it was no good. Stone would never beat Supreme Steel, or Supreme Web; not in a million years.
“I’ll come back for you.” Koa gritted his teeth. “Count on it.”
The prisoner nodded, but didn’t look too optimistic.
They continued grudgingly towards the chamber Koa had sensed previously. The entire time, Koa grumbled to himself. Eliciting more than one strange look from Octavia. “The Pet-Keeper’s going to pay for this. He made it personal when he decided to lay a hand on my family, but this is on another scale all together. I’m going to kill that sick fiend, mark my words.”
Octavia let him brood. Which he was thankful for, venting out all his pent-up emotion in a few weary moments. It was like a palate cleanser, leaving him just sober enough to appreciate the full horror of what came next.
The passage widened into what could only be described as a banquet hall. It was enormous, like they were inside the belly of a giant. Considering the number of silver plates scattered about the place, it housed enough food to feed one too. The air was chill, and Koa imagined himself at the base of a great mountain, basking in the dank cool of a pond at its base.
If he hadn’t known any better, Koa would have presumed the place to be ancient. Harkening back to times older than the Old One himself.
The tables were coated in web. Shocker. Koa wiped away a thick layer of the stuff, that stuffy smell constricting his throat and nostrils. Cutlery, metal plates, and other silverware looking like it hadn’t been touched in aeons, were all neatly placed. Yet there was no-one to eat here — not even the whisper of a ghost.
Despite the old-fashioned feel of the place, Koa knew better. It wasn’t time that had brought upon the spindly coating, and whoever were the culprits had kept themselves busy.
Displayed in the same fashion as the dead Arachnid Clansmen, a sickly man dressed in ornate robes hung suspended. Supreme String pressed against their skin at multiple points, drawing blood, the less deadly bundles keeping him aloft. Koa had no words, though did have the reason to reach out with his inward senses.
The power that hit him . . . was hard to define. It was suppressed, like a substance diluted in water. There was an undeniably high quality to the man’s power, no matter how low the amounts were, though all that was foiled by a pitiful aura.
“The energy he’s emitting,” Koa spoke hurriedly, “do you know-”
“He’s the Insect Clan leader, Beckett. God-Graced.”
If Koa was already sick to his stomach, this was enough to bring up everything he’d ever eaten. For someone that powerful to have their strength so greatly diminished . . . had his inspection not been so thorough, Koa could have mistaken the man for a Foot-Soldier.
A quick examination proved Beckett was still breathing, but nothing they did roused him. Koa examined his injuries. His fears imprinted upon reality, seeing just how concentrated the Supreme Webbing was.
It wasn’t enough to injure a god, but a low-God-Graced? Well within the realms of possibility. Koa knew with a heavy heart that if Beckett ever were to escape, red slits would maim his face for life. With how often Koa saw clansmen wielding the divine resource, he had almost forgotten the damage a truly refined piece could deal. In the right hands, some weapons of Infinity could kill gods.
It put things into perspective, planting the seeds for something dangerous. Something he could wield that would be a worthy successor to Donovan’s precious gift.
First, however, were his immediate concerns. “There’s no way this place isn’t monitored. We can’t stay here long.”
“But we can’t just leave him here!”
The blood rushed to Koa’s face. “We can’t take him away either!” He dropped his head. “Sorry. We’ll . . . wake him up for now. Maybe there is some help to be done here. Pass me some water, I'll clean his wounds.”
Octavia was taken aback, but obliged. Koa was no medical professional, aside from the basic first aid training provided by his clan. Nevertheless, he did his best to remove the string from the skin. Great beads of golden Ichor oozed out with each piece removed, and slowly, ever so gradually, the water Koa applied made their eyes flicker.
Beckett’s expression was a sight to behold. Something like a reanimated mummy arising out of their tomb. As if sunlight had pierced their retinas for the first time in centuries, their eyes widened to the point of dilating.
“Curse that fiend.” He spat out blood. Contrary to his aggressive tone, there was no anger, or even a depth to Beckett’s voice. They offered him a long draw of water, but the voice remained light. “Who-” He fought down a wave of pain. “Apologies, but who are you two?”
“Enemies of the Pet-Keeper.”
Beckett shrugged, and only then, looking at his tiny shoulders, did Koa realise how starved the sect leader was.
“If they discover us, we’ll all be killed.”
Beckett laughed at Koa’s words, or released a cackling cough instead. “I’m nearing my death anyway. The Pet-Keeper is just extending the torture a little longer.”
“You’re not going to die.” Octavia said sternly. Neither of them attempted to disprove her.
“We can smuggle in food.” Koa continued. “Keep you and your clansmen going.”
“My clansmen? Where are my clansmen anyway?”
None of them said a thing. He didn’t ask again.
“We’ll . . .” Koa shut his mouth.
It would have been the most relieving thing in the world to say that he and Octavia would keep their clan fed and looked after. To lie, and put the ruined God-Graced at ease. But Koa was hardly getting enough food to eat himself. Even with scavenging across the territory every night, butchering the little wildlife they would come across. It would be hard just trying to keep Beckett alive, much less the rest of them.
He tried to imagine how long it would take for them all to . . . how long they would all survive. Images of their bony bodies, glorified skeletons in tight bags of skin, dancing in his mind’s sadistic eye. If he put that clan to the back of his mind, and believe Koa, it wasn’t easy to disregard an entire series of people like that, the prospect of Beckett wasn’t a too optimistic one either. Say they fed him. Say they kept him nourished, and quenched, and barely clinging on to the fickle rope of life. How long would it take the Pet-Keeper to realise his starving prisoner wasn’t starving?
One thing was clear. “We don’t have much time.”
“Think, how are we going to put the Pet-Keeper where he deserves: six foot under?”
“We could have an army upon us here. My men are fierce fighters. The best generation Hybrid have ever seen. But they’re ruined.”
“There has to be a way to make use of you all.” Octavia was close to screaming. Koa fully understood that frustration.
Weak fighters are still fighters. Koa tried to convince himself, that nagging voice in his head, that voice of doubt, never quite shutting up.
“If we can’t start with food, then weapons.” Koa took a hold of the Supreme Webbing, being careful not to cut his fingers. “This stuff can veil us, and hurt God-Graced. And guess who around us is a God-Graced equivalent?”
It didn’t take them long to read his intentions.
----------------------------------------
“I’ve been in some fancy carriages in my lifetime — some of the Speed Clan’s best — but nothing compares to this.”
Hadrian led their squad to the odd-looking platform. Yet another invention of the Matter Clan, only this time partnering up with the Gravity Sect to work out the mechanics. It was five metres wide, a tight fit for their entire squadron, but they had enough breathing room.
Soon, it would be ascending up high above, via some technical set-up. Remus didn’t possess the precise knowledge needed to understand how exactly it worked. Regardless, the gist was simple: pouring as much power and Infinity into the ginormous engine, to act as fuel. Then, over the course of a few hours, they would travel deep into the battlefield.
Past the barracks lining the front lines. Past the sea of Unbounded approaching ever closer. And even past where the first patches of Rot had allegedly been spotted.
They were going to attack deep into the warring abyss. Multiple squadrons like them had all been allocated with the same task: invading enemy lines as far as they could. There, in the heart of the advancing onslaught, they would divert the Unbounded’s attention, slowing down their progress. Hopefully, alongside five other squads, successfully fulfilling the potentially day-long journey without a hitch.
It hurt his ego to admit, but their squadron was probably the weakest link out of them all. Remus suspected the only motive behind their allowed dispatch was the sheer energy output of flame-oriented clans. Not overall power, per se, but the total outpour from a Mark when weaving fire. It would potentially make their trip far shorter than the other teams.
The weakest squad arriving first. Remus wasn’t naive enough to miss the dangers lurking there, however intrigued he was by the prospect of seeing the contraption in use.
“Get into positions.” Hadrian ordered. Remus found a spot between Aziel and Violet. They were all pushing their hands out, palms together, in front of a funnel. On the count of three, they all began pouring every wick of flame they had into the machine. Everybody save for Violet, who instead simply released unrefined, Chaotic energy.
Actually rising off the ground was a strange experience. For a few minutes, Remus was disappointed to notice absolutely nothing occurring. At this rate, releasing weak fire without the rapid, draining movement of battle, meant they could probably continue the outpour for hours straight. While Remus was admittedly intrigued at the prospect of discovering how long he could go on for, it would probably be the most boring time of his life.
Others vocalised his thoughts, and Hadrian’s guiding words were his saviour. “Trust the process. The beginning's the slowest bit, or so I’ve heard. The engines need to be almost completely fueled before-”
There was a great gearing sound. Remus looked off to the side, waiting patiently for something life-changing to occur. Like the sun exploding, Damosh kneeling at his feet, or something equally as bizarre. It was nothing quite so exciting.
They lifted up, inch by inch, then foot by foot.
“How high are we going up?” Remus asked. They were ascending directly above, not moving any noticeable distance any other way.
“Oh . . not too high, I suspect.”
“Thanks.” Aziel replied, near his own shower of azure. “Very informative.”
An uproar of laughter soothed Remus’ nerves. He hardly noticed as they inevitably reached their maximum altitude — high enough to circumvent the tallest of hills. In the same finishing motion, they drifted forwards. North, he knew, to the sea bordering the world’s pangea.
“How are you feeling?” Remus turned to Aziel, deciding that something even as drab as small talk would be worth the time killed.
Aziel grinned, like a king viewing a glorious empire at a mountain peak. “I’ve never been so excited. It's strange.”
Sure, Remus could perfectly understand a little anticipating joy at the prospect of something challenging, something others may turn their nose up at. For him, that was training at levels affected with a tinge of insanity. For others, it was a diet they enjoyed immensely, but would be nothing short of torture for the average person. For Aziel it was . . . barreling head-first into a war-zone that was well beyond what they could handle.
Yeah, even Remus had his limits. “Excited?”
“Look,” Aziel looked away coyly. “I know what you said about ambition getting the better of you. Especially the type of Ambition our clan is known for.”
Remus said nothing. He let Aziel speak for himself. Sometimes what people really wanted was for you to shut up and listen. To let them work out whatever it was that was troubling them for themselves.
“But we’re finally doing some good against the Right-bearers, and the entire world is on our side.”
“They are.”
“If we can cast away this generation of Right-bearers, and maybe Right-bearers as a whole . . . it’ll feel like . . . like I’ve finally made amends. I know Hansley’s death wasn’t my fault — I know that. Still, all vendettas aside: I think a world without the likes of the Pet-Keeper is a better one.”
That tugged on Remus’ heartstrings. “Of course. And we’ll help to create it.”
The next few hours passed as quickly as watching paint dry. Which was to say, not fast in the slightest.
Releasing fire. Small talk with Aziel and Violet. So on and so on until the brilliant blue of late morning made way for the honey-yellow of the afternoon.
The squad as a collective ceased to talk at one point. All that mattered was getting back to the comfort of grass beneath their feet, and not hundreds of metres above the earth. Though, looking down occasionally, Remus supposed he was safer up here than in the maelstrom raging below.
A maelstrom of blood, Rot, and Ichor burnt before it had the chance to dry. Hundreds, if not thousands of disfigured bodies tumbled across a created morass below.
In the first few hours, they spotted the occasional group of clansmen. Flying past on their own respective platforms. They waved to them earnestly, at the relieving sight of other human beings. Maybe under any other circumstances, they wouldn’t be so friendly to very likely enemy clans, but the world potentially ending tended to loosen you up.
That was the only redeeming factor Remus saw in the existence of the Right-bearers. They brought people together like nothing ever before.
But there were no people now. Not this far out. Only enemies. Inversions of nature trampling across mother nature’s gift like it was a children's playground.
“There are so many of them.” Violet had only talked briefly on the journey so far, perhaps to ensure the very nature of her energy didn’t sabotage anything, giving it the vigorous attention due. Though her expression in that moment, conveying a thousand words, more than made up for it.
“This must be weird for you.” Remus put it cryptically, in case anybody overhead.
“Maybe.” Violet conceded, her eyes seemingly glued to the riot below. “I think I’ll finally be able to put this all behind me when the Right-bearers are dead. And Enos.”
“And Enos.” Remus agreed, beginning to smirk.
“And whoever the Unbounded that took ahold of Teivel is. They must be out there; somewhere.”
Remus was reminded of the one remaining mystery in their entangled, Unbounded conundrum. The truth behind what Violet’s Mark was depicting. Beyond the splurge of black, and everything else in their way to discovering the truth. Whatever that final hurdle was, Remus felt that they, together, and everyone alongside them, would soon overcome it. For better, or for worse.