Chapter 139: Fear
Scorpion Crabs were upon them in the first few seconds, dozens of them filling the cave.
Massive water scorpions with thick, crab-like shells covered in cracks, each one leaking some kind of neon green slime.
Poison.
The stuff floated in the Rukh like smoke, spreading slowly, contaminating everything it touched.
The moment the first wave reached Malik, their tails lashed out straight at his neck, slicing through the liquid Rukh so fast it warped around the strikes.
They hit nothing.
Malik had already blasted himself to the side with Ember’s Touch, the fire propelling him through the Rukh.
In the same movement, he spun, using Goliath’s Fall to spring forth onto the nearest Scorpion Crab.
His right hand came down, black fire flickering around his fingers—Scorpion’s Sting—and he stabbed straight through its skull.
The creature went limp, its poison leaking faster now, and Malik pushed off before it could touch him.
Such was a series of movements that didn’t take longer than a second.
Yet in that second, tens more Scorpion Crabs had already been killed, courtesy of Huda and Safira.
Huda’s wind sliced through the Rukh, carving the creatures apart from a distance while Safira’s blasts punched holes through entire groups, leaving nothing but floating chunks of shell and green slime.
Malik did his best to pull his weight.
He struck one after another in quick succession, his movements incredibly efficient, each kill taking less time than the last.
He made sure to step back after every strike, avoiding the leaking poison that spread through the Rukh.
It would have been easier with a sword—anything would have been better than his bare hands.
But Malik had decided not to equip anything but his Spine Splitter, even if only for a little while.
That sword was the only one for him.
Every other blade felt wrong in his grip, like wearing someone else’s skin.
So he fought with his hands and his fire.
He made it work.
By the time Malik dispatched another dozen, a new enemy appeared.
Or rather, a group of them.
Flesh Swarm.
As the name implied, they were many, and always in a group.
They were everywhere in the Rukh, their bodies dark as the liquid around them, leaving only their mouths visible.
Giant, ripped-open mouths splitting all the way past their gills, rows of needle teeth glinting in the dark.
They moved like a school of fish, fast and coordinated, and they were heading straight for the trio.
Malik quickly glanced at Safira.
She nodded, already understanding.
He blasted his way over to her, the fire pushing him through the Rukh in a straight line.
The moment he reached her, he threw up an orb of fire—far too condensed—and she punched it.
The blast that followed was massive, a wave of fire and force that shot through the cave and tore through the Flesh Swarm.
The monsters didn’t even have time to scream, ceasing to exist in no more than a moment.
Safira lowered her fist and glanced at Malik.
He was already moving, pushing off towards another group of Scorpion Crabs that had emerged from the shadows.
It was awkward trying to move fast in this ocean of Rukh. The liquid pressed against him from all sides, slowing his movements, making every action feel like it was happening through molasses.
But the cave floor helped greatly, letting them push themselves around instead of swimming.
Malik’s feet found the rock, and he launched himself forward, his hand outstretched, black fire trailing behind him.
The Scorpion Crabs kept coming, their deaths creating pockets of poison in the cave that the trio could not near.
Each kill added to the contamination, the green slime spreading through the Rukh, filling the space with something that would kill them just as surely as the monsters’ claws.
It hadn’t gotten too dire yet.
They still had space to maneuver.
But soon... and Malik couldn’t have that.
He stabbed through another Scorpion Crab’s skull, stepped away from its leaking corpse, and headed towards the biggest cluster of poison.
This was his most important duty here, stopping the monster’s poison from spreading.
Huda had subtly gathered the clusters while fighting, her wind pushing the slime into further concentrated pockets, allowing Malik to burn most of it in one go.
He clenched his right hand into a fist, then swung it slowly, spreading a wide arc of fire.
The flames burned through the poison on contact, turning the green slime into smoke, reclaiming the cave inch by inch.
Malik did the same for a few more sections, moving methodically, never once rushing.
But he couldn’t continue that indefinitely, forced to take a moment to head back to the air pocket, needing a breath.
Yet just as he swam towards the corner of the cave, he noticed a flickering glow behind a nearby Scorpion Crab.
The glow was faint—barely visible in the dark—but it was there, and that was enough for him.
Malik’s hands quickly came together in a loud clap, sending a burst of fire spreading in all directions.
Safira noticed the fire, turned and punched out, her blast tearing through the monsters next to him, clearing a path.
The glow died.
But Malik had seen it.
A long, thin humanoid, a barely visible thing.
It had no face, only an empty mask where a face should have been, white and utterly blank.
Djinn of the Deep.
These bastards were the worst of the lot.
They had to be killed as soon as they were spotted; otherwise, the cohort could lose their lives without even realizing it.
Not because the Djinn moved fast—they didn’t—but because their attacks targeted the Soul itself.
One successful strike, and one of them would be gone, their consciousness scattered across the Rukh.
But thanks to Malik’s quick reaction, it seemed that they were safe for now.
He reached the air pocket and took a much-needed breath, filling his lungs with air that tasted sweeter than anything he had ever known.
’...this is tough.’
Finally, a thought crossed his mind.
Only a few minutes had passed, and he was already beginning to feel utterly exhausted.
His arms ached, his chest burned, and his Rukh reserves were draining faster than he liked.
But of course, he had no time to complain.
Another Flesh Swarm arrived.
If it were any consolation, their descent was getting faster and faster as time went by.
The deeper they went, the stronger the pull of the Rukh ocean, and the closer they were to the bottom, and so on.
A constantly accelerating descent.
Good news, however, never came alone.
It was always followed by the bad, which he knew very well as well.
Djinn of the Deep began to increase in number the further down they went, their glowing masks appearing in the shadows, their faceless heads tracking the trio’s movements.
Soon, the Djinn were nearly swarming.
Dozens of them, their long limbs reaching.
Thankfully, with Malik there, the cohort didn’t have too much of a problem ending them.
He could sense the Djinn before they struck, his Soul reaching out to find theirs, and his fire burned through their ethereal bodies.
The three continued to fight despite their exhaustion and pain, never once pausing.
Safira’s hands were bleeding, the skin peeling away and regenerating in an endless cycle.
Huda’s wind had grown weaker, much like Malik’s fire, which flickered and dimmed, his Rukh reserves running on fumes.
But they kept going.
And they kept on, until eventually...
The monsters slowed down.
It was subtle enough that the trio didn’t notice it at first, too focused on surviving, too caught up in the rhythm of kill and move and kill again.
But when they did notice, it was already too late, and what they knew was coming had already arrived.
Something... else began to rise.
Finally, the real reason for their diving shield made itself known.
If it wasn’t obvious by now, they could have escaped the monsters.
It would have been a struggle, yes, especially with Malik, but it was possible.
They could have fought their way back up, could have found another path and survived.
What wasn’t possible was this.
The Rukh around them grew still.
The pressure increased, crushing in from all sides, and Malik felt his chest tighten, his lungs burning despite the air he had just taken.
The darkness below seemed to swell, to grow, to open.
And then an eye opened with it.
A massive, unblinking, golden eye.
It was an eye that had seen the birth of stars and the death of worlds.
An eye that had witnessed devouring Corruption spread across the universe.
An eye that stared into the Abyss for so long that it had become the Abyss itself.
The Abyssal King.
Its eye landed upon them.
And Malik felt something he had not felt in a very long time.
Fear.