Silence - Chapter 41

3/4


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Howls shook the Void. The Whalemaw's hunger consumed its thoughts entirely, and its great Body quivered with unceasing Desire.

Need! Its Need was escaping!

The Whalemaw bellowed furiously, mercilessly whipping and cajoling its spawn to act. The small creatures, once prey, became part of itself with a breath of its great power. Now they could retrieve the boy, take back what it Needed above all else.

It screamed and screeched, a million voices within its throat, a dissonance upon the Void. It sent its spawn into the black, the darkness which hovered just beside that dangerous, deadly white. It feared the white, a fear that went past knowledge and into its bones, its shifting flesh. The white was its unmaker.

But the spawn did not know that. The swam through the dark, boats of fire and flesh of pulsing red. They swarmed.

It would not be denied. Not in this.

It would feed!

With a great lurch, its own Body fought against its Mind, casting off its fears in desperation. Need was all it knew, and its Desire conquered all else.

With all the speed of an avalanche's gradual start, it began to descend.


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The interior of the Temple was as ruined as the exterior suggested. Rocks and dust—the major exports of the Void—were in large supply. There were only two things that were strange or interesting about the place: the first, he was upside down and his hair wasn't falling up. He was holding himself to the ceiling/floor by sheer Will and it somehow included his hair and clothes. He'd seen weirder things, but the total disregard of physics was pretty wild, despite his circumstances.

And two: the building was cut in half.

After acclimating himself to his shift in perspective, Felix had noticed that the Temple must have been much larger at one point. The main area featured a wide, circular entryway surmounted by a flight of stairs and a lower hallway that would have extended farther...were it not missing. Something had cut through it, severing the Temple so neatly that some of the edges were still smooth and glassy. Bright, Desolate light shone into the Temple, highlighting the pillars and walls and naturalistic rocky formations, all perfectly sliced.

"Just like the Waterfall Temple in the Foglands. The second room looked like this, as if someone had a huge sword and sheared through solid rock." He ran his hand over one of the pillars. Beside them, there was a mural carved into bas-relief on the stone. Moons dotted a sky of clouds and bright stars. One of them was bursting, covered in chains and dripping something onto the landscape below. A hand reached down, unable to touch the earth, and dozens of folks in robes ran screaming, tearing at their hair and faces. Just as the pillars, most of it was cleaved free of the Temple entirely.

The Maw appeared next to him, dusting itself off as if it were tainted by the room. Disgusting. Fall or not, a true goddess wouldn't have let her Temple come to THIS.

Felix half turned to her, torn between wanting to rush ahead and get some answers. He glanced at the sheath around them, but his view of the Whalemaw was obscured by the Temple itself."Vellus. You talk like you knew her."

The Maw only gave him a withering look. Vellus. She spat, though the imagined spittle disappeared before it hit the floor. Upstart wench.

"Lost, Mungle said. Lost like the Nym were Lost. Are Lost." Felix corrected himself. He started moving again.

This Temple was pulled in the Void when its master was Lost. Subjected to Ruin, the only divinity to have suffered such a fate. Ah! To have been there to see it! The Maw cackled in glee. It is one of Ruin's tricks, you see. Not even the gods can survive true Desolation.

"That's what that mural depicts? The Ruin taking Vellus?"

Vellus...and the seventh moon, Unbound. The Bloodmoon.

Pit gave a curious coo and his small ears perked up. Reluctantly, Felix tore his eyes from the Maw and glanced at him, and then followed the chimera's eyes back toward the doorway. There was a strange sound, as if the leather sails of a ship were being rustled. The sound grew louder and louder, however, and Felix's eyes widened as he saw a massive trail of vile, corrupted Mana spear across the black. Pit chirruped a panicked warning only moments before hundreds of Tenebrils and Harrowings curved around the edge of the island and caught sight of them.

"Run!"

The Temple rocked as it was hit by the flood of Void beasts. Felix shoved Pit ahead of him, heading up the stairs to whatever laid on the second level. Companion out of the way, he unleashed Reign of Vellus. A ring of crackling lightning exploded outward from him, jumping from beast to beast as the corrupted creatures were thrown back nearly twenty feet. Tenebrils dropped by the dozen, but the Harrowings were far sturdier. Felix held it for a five seconds before being forced to drop the Skill. The monsters were simply piling against his kinetic barrier; any more and it would have fallen apart itself. He cursed and ran.

Having tasted his Mana, the Voidbeasts followed.

Felix crested the staircase quickly, remembering to simply relax his Will and fall the majority of the way there. After clamping down again, Felix landing in a crouch atop the second floor, which featured another circular area surrounding a large triangular archway. Both Pit and the Maw were standing in the center of the room, near the archway. The Maw had its hands behind their back, idly looking at the thing.

"What are you doing!"

The Maw gestured. This is your gate the madman told you about! It grinned a mad grin, too many teeth showing. I admit I was skeptical! But it is an exit from the Domain, used Ages past, and it is still connected to the Corporeal Realm. By barest threads, but it is! The Maw cackled, fully mad and reveling in it. And it doesn't work!

"What?!"

Suddenly the floor beneath them lurched, and Felix found himself smashed face first into it as the entire island flipped and spun. A titanic bellow shook the air. Felix could see dark, corrupted tendrils of twisted red Mana pulse through the holes in the walls. The Whalemaw was outside, only feet away, and it was bashing at them like a monkey with a coconut.

Flaring his Will, Felix climbed atop the tilted landscape. Pit did the same, though his wings were spread wide. The Maw hung strangely, completely unaffected by the impact as she studied the gate. The sound of leathery wings filled the air again, coming up the stairwell. Felix snarled at the Maw.

"It has to work! Figure it out! Or I swear I will throw myself into the Desolation rather than be eaten by that thing out there!"

The Maw's eyes widened until he could see the whites all around. Panic. And true fear. Felix might have enjoyed it, had he the time. The Voidbeasts had arrived.

"C'mon then!" he shouted, and activated his Skills.

Mantle of the Long Night!

Influence of the Wisp!

Reign of Vellus!

The area around them crackled with an icy chill as a maelstrom of freezing wind spun outward from Felix. Simultaneously, the first four Voidbeasts that crested the stairs were limned with ghostly blue fire and Enthralled. Felix didn't wait, instead launching himself at the creatures with a focused blast of Reign of Vellus, bringing the his icy aura closer. He smashed through the first Tenebril with a punch, it's body burning up and freezing at the same time. It exploded into grey ichor and streamers of rainbow vapor.

Corrosive Strike!

Blow after blow, he threw everything he had at the Voidbeasts, while Frost Spears and Wingblades ripped into either side of the crowd. Pit hovered near the ceiling, picking off whatever he could at range, though that didn't stop several Harrowings from coming after him. Felix couldn't do anything about that though, he had enough to worry about.

His Mana was running low.

Detonations went off outside the Temple, and Felix could see the reflection of green fire through the holes in the structure's walls. More of them were hitting the Whalemaw's bulk than the Temple, proven when another resounding scream shook the air. He pulled his attention away, but it was hard. Like turning his back on a rabid lion.

The freezing aura of his slowed the monsters down considerably, but it was still a battle. The Harrowings' cloaking Skill was useless now that the were corrupted, but their talons were just as quick and sharp. Their slashing edges found Felix's flesh easily and often, sprinkling the growing rain of ichor with bright red blood. Felix roared in anger and pain, and he struck with everything he had. Skill after Skill flared and activated, each one a weapon or tool to maneuver or maim.

"Get off me!" Felix smashed through a Harrowing's angular face and tore off its razor sharp beak, carelessly tearing open his palm. The rage and pain and terror he'd been feeling rose to the surface, buried for so long, ever since he'd found he'd survived the Maw. Now it exploded outward in a flurry of violence that only blood could quench.

The Temple rocked again, this time the Corrupted Narhollow's bellow was far closer, and massive teeth pierced through one of the far walls. A staccato crunch and the stone came apart, ripping back and into the dripping jaws of the nightmare beast as it undulated backwards. It's body was utterly transformed, and now was pocked with weeping sores and fleshy red tendrils that writhed along it's entire form. More green fire bloomed along its back and head, and it reared up again in a fury.

"We have to hurry!" Felix turned to the Maw, who was floating upside down before the gate. He blasted out with Reign of Vellus and drove twenty more Void beasts back against the walls.

Of course! The Bloodmoon! I need your blood! The Maw stared at him, its blue-green eyes glinting as it held out a hand.

"What? No!" Felix lashed out with Corrosive Strike, burying his arm in another Tenebril. "Never again!"

You idiot! For the Gate! It's a Bloodgate! It was pointing to some sort of markings on the triangular gateway. They looked like a series of circles. The inscription says the blood must be sacrificed to Vellus to operate the Gate!  ARGH! But this requires a Master Tier at least to function!

"A what?" Felix ducked another flurry of talons, but spins below and grabs it by its wings. He yanked it apart in a shower of ichor.

A Master Tier, you imbecile! Someone far above your Apprentice Tier!

"Goddamn it!" Felix ducked and dodged a sweeping talon strike, only to run into a second Harrowing's attack. "All this way and we can't even use it?!"

The Maw laughed, bitterly, insanely. I was beyond Master Tier before you entered my life, Felix Nevarre. I was perfection! So mighty it would take a hundred Masters to merely stop my onslaught for a moment! Now I die, here, with you. So if you weep for anyone, weep for me! For the death of utter glory and magnificence!

Wait. Felix's hands stopped dead, his grip strangling the wedge-shape head of a Harrowing. It clawed at him, drawing hot furrows down his burnt arm. He hissed in pain and throttled the Voidbeast. Wait a damn minute. He looked up, at the Whalemaw still struggling to chew through the Temple.

"Pit! Cover me!"

A flurry of Frost Spears slammed into the ground around Felix, cutting him off from the Voidbeasts for a moment. Appreciation surged through his bond, and Felix leaped toward the Whalemaw. The Gate needed blood? He knew a perfect source!

Wrack and Ruin!

Shadow Whip!

The orb of acid rocketed from his grasp and splashed into the Whalemaw's furious, ever-shifting eyes. It punched through, bursting vile sclera and drove deeper, into the things twisted insides. Behind it, Felix's desperate whip slashed out. Dexterity propelled, it sank arm deep into the wound and he spread its head so it gripped.

Felix yanked, with everything he had, and a flood of putrid ichor poured out of the Whalemaw's eye. It splashed down, over him, and over everything in the room.

You mad, brilliant boy!

The Temple shook again, tumbling once again, end over end. The white, impossibly bright light outside filled the windows and cracks with a powerful, unstoppable radiance. The Whalemaw screamed again, a many voiced cry of dissonance that sent everyone reeling.

Everyone but Felix.

Convergence!

Across the room Pit disappeared in a flash, and Felix flung himself toward the Maw. Felix slammed his wounded palm against the frame of the Bloodgate.

Lightning burst from the once-inert gate, an azure energy that swept outward and upward in an instant.

They were gone.