Chapter 141: Lost Prey
It floated before them, no longer hiding behind tentacles and monsters.
The Abyssal King's full form was visible now. A gargantuan, shifting mass of flesh, light, and shadow, its body stretching in every direction, its shape impossible to hold in a single glance.
The main eye burned in the center of it all, still staring at them.
But now there were other eyes too.
Hundreds of them. Thousands. Opening along its body one after another, all turning to look at the three tiny figures who'd dared enter its domain.
Each blinked at its own rhythm, some fast, some slow, some not at all, and the combined effect turned Malik's stomach.
It was hypnotizing.
The King's mouth opened.
No sound came out.
None was needed.
The Will hit again, stronger this time, and Malik felt his Angel Soul strain against it like a rope about to snap.
Pressure built behind his eyes, in his chest, at the base of his skull.
His teeth ground together.
His hands curled into fists.
He didn't care.
'Dam...n it... al...l.'
Before the Will could reach Huda and Safira, before it could shred their Souls the way it had before, Malik stepped in front of them.
He placed himself between the King and the two women, spreading his Soul wide.
Malik was protecting them.
A shield made of his own existence, wrapping around them, taking the pressure meant for them onto himself.
The eyes of the women widened.
Neither understood why an old man would throw himself in front of something like this.
They only knew they were still alive, still themselves, when they should have been screaming on the ground.
Without asking how, Huda called her wind.
The Rukh around them surged, pushing them away from the King, carrying them through the ocean at incredible speed.
Safira got her head straight first.
She turned to face the direction they were heading and started punching, each blow sending a blast behind them, adding to Huda's wind.
The King shrank behind them, but its eyes kept watching, and...
Its limbs began to move.
They were at least a thousand miles down now, rushing towards what they hoped was the next entrance.
A trench.
But they quickly realized...
This trench was only a scar.
A colossal gash in the ocean floor, stretching for hundreds of miles, dropping even deeper into madness.
Its edges were jagged, torn open by some ancient force, and the dark inside swallowed the very idea of light.
The moment they crossed the lip of the scar—
CRAAAAAAAAAAACK!
A massive limb smashed into the edge beside them, rock exploding outward, trying to cut them off.
The impact threw Malik's body sideways.
He snapped back and raised a leg, flame erupting from his heel as he pivoted, spinning through the water like a wheel, and kicked the limb with full force.
BOOOOOOOM.
Fire exploded against the tentacle's flesh, ripples of heat tearing through the Rukh.
The limb didn't even flinch, but that wasn't the point.
His kick's force sent the cohort rocketing downward, past the limb, the jagged rock, and the lip of the scar.
They vanished into the depths.
The Abyssal King followed...
Or some part of it did.
Tentacles slithered after them, eyes opening along their length, watching.
Inside the scar, there was nothing.
Not even sight.
There was no fixing it; they were blind here.
The dark was absolute, so complete Malik couldn't see his own hand in front of his face.
Yet he raised it anyway and activated Ember's Touch.
Flame answered; he could feel the heat against his skin, but no light came from it.
Truly, no light could exist here.
The cohort had to rely on Rukh instead.
Malik closed his eyes—not that it mattered, either way he saw nothing—and reached out with his Soul.
The Rukh around them turned into a map of currents and eddies in his mind.
Inside that map, he could sense Huda and Safira beside him.
He could sense the tentacles behind them too.
Closing in.
"..."
"..."
"..."
It stayed quiet for a while.
There was only the rush of Rukh past their bodies and the distant pulse of the King's presence.
They dove deeper, the scar narrowing, walls pressing in from every side.
Then, the moment they crossed some invisible line—
Something moved.
A wall of black Rukh surged up from below, blocking their path. Thick. Dense. Heavier than anything Malik had felt yet, and behind it, another wave of tentacles.
The King had arrived.
Or maybe some part of it had always been here, waiting in the dark for something to wander in.
Huda didn't stop to think about it.
She pushed them away from the wall, curving their descent to dodge the tentacles, only to run straight into spikes erupting from dead flesh splattered against the nearby wall.
The spikes were massive, each one as long as a spear, jagged, dripping black ichor.
They came in a volley, too many to count, too fast to dodge.
They dodged three.
Huda twisted, a spike passing so close to her face she felt the... wind of it.
They punched through six.
Safira's fist connected with one, shattering it. Then another. Then another.
Her knuckles split open, skin tearing, and she didn't stop.
They let the tenth one reach them.
It shot straight for Safira's chest, too fast to dodge, too big to punch through.
She didn't try to avoid it and instead grabbed it with both hands and spun in the Rukh, using the momentum to hurl it right back where it came from.
It slammed into the dead limb the spikes had come from.
The silent impact made the limb shudder, a deep, meaty tremor that traveled through the Rukh and reached the cohort a moment later.
A tremble that felt close.
Too close.
Malik looked behind him.
He had sight again.
He saw its pupil.
Only its pupil.
An eye that spanned his entire line of sight, golden iris burning in the dark, slit pupil dilated wide and locked onto him. Wanton and hungry, focused entirely on his Rukh... his Soul.
The King wanted him desperately.
Malik was a most succulent meal.
Limbs tore through stone on both sides, closing off every avenue of escape.
Huda didn't slow down to think about that either as she blasted straight downward.
Into the unknown.
The Abyssal King blinked.
That single blink sent pressure crashing down on them, and not the pressure of Rukh.
This pressure pressed against their very existence, trying to flatten them into nothing.
Malik felt his bones creak, and his blood stop moving in his veins.
But before anything permanent could happen...
Safira's healing saved them.
Her hands glowed even in this dark, and she pushed magic into Malik, into Huda, into herself.
Bones mended. Organs expanded. Blood started flowing again. She remade all three of them just in time, right as the pressure passed.
The King seemed annoyed by that.
More limbs rushed down, falling like mountains, crashing through the ocean towards them.
Too many to count, too large to comprehend, falling with the weight of continents.
Yet, even then, the cohort dove deeper, weaving between limbs, spikes.
No matter the eyes watching from every direction....
They did not stop.
Malik glanced at Safira.
Safira glanced at Malik.
Neither could see the other.
Both knew they were looking anyway.
Her eyes carried real sadness. She knew what this was costing him. She could see it in the way his movements had slowed, the way his fire flickered weaker with every use. It didn't stop her.
This was their only way forward.
'Stranger's Necklace.'
Malik passed through everything that made him who he was and found his life force.
If there was ever a time to use this Holy Relic, it was now.
A flame was lit.
The essence of his own existence was pulled.
The Holy Relic answered, as did his Runes.
He raised both hands, palms forward, and let go.
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
A Soul cry of fire tore out of him.
A screaming column of golden flame split the ocean ahead, carving straight through the Rukh.
Safira gave everything she had left in the same instant.
She drew her arm back, muscles coiling, hands glowing with gathered force, then punched out.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
It was a full-body strike, her whole weight driving forward like she meant to punch through the world.
The fire's force multiplied dozens of times over, and the combined blast tore through everything in their path, blowing limbs apart and scattering flesh through the Rukh.
The shockwave threw the cohort downward faster than they'd ever moved.
Faster than thought.
'...no.'
Malik's head lolled, his body going limp with the effort.
He couldn't stay awake any longer, his body shutting down.
Perhaps he bit far more than he could chew.
Or perhaps not.
By the time he came back to himself, they were already through the entrance and gone.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
The Abyssal King's unfathomable eye remained still in the far distance.
It seemed almost frozen in the Rukh.
Oh, what a travesty.
Its prey was gone.
Once again, it had lost the chase.
The fifth layer was over.
Five more remained.