Chapter 146: Death and More Death
Malik fluttered his eyes open to a world of death.
He was lying on layers of something thick and oozy that rippled beneath his back like the surface of a very sick sea.
Whatever it was gave the feeling of Corruption, something old and rotted into the very fabric of this place over centuries, heavier and quieter than the sharp, burning touch of its presence.
The smell hit instantly.
Rot. Thick and cloying, the kind of rot that came from bodies left to fester for longer than he wanted to think about.
It filled his nose and lungs, and for a moment, he thought he might be already sick, infected by it.
Thankfully, his constitution was stronger than that.
He pulled himself up from death and stood in the dark.
His boots sank a little into the oily surface, and he felt something soft squelch beneath his heels, something that had once been alive.
He didn't look down.
He didn't want to know.
Quickly activating Ember's Touch, he placed a hand in front of him. Both of which were attached to his body, actually, probably Safira's work while he'd been unconscious.
The flame flickered to life, casting dancing shadows across a landscape that made his stomach turn.
Yeah. This place was wrong.
Too different from what was above.
The corridor had been strange and unsettling but had still felt like something that belonged to the world.
This... this was something else entirely.
A wound in the world where the laws of life and death had broken down and never been repaired.
But that wasn't his current focus.
Monsters were surrounding him and his unconscious cohort.
The monsters were humanoid in shape, but only barely.
Long, stitched-up limbs made of seemingly random parts—arms from different bodies, legs from different creatures, fingers from hands that didn't match.
One had three arms on the left and none on the right, the limbs jutting out at impossible angles. Another dragged itself forward with hands stitched directly to its knees, its body scraping across the oily ground.
All of them were wrapped in a patchwork of skin—pale here, scaled there, furred in spots where fur had no business being. The stitches were crude and dark, holding together flesh that should have rotted away long ago.
They all stood hunched up, watching him in apparent confusion.
Corpse Thieves.
Behind them, he heard singing.
Eyeless heads poked out from the ground with faces that were smooth and blank, their mouths open wide.
The sound that came from them was beautiful but haunting... it was melodic, enough so that it made him want to close his eyes and drift away.
Faceless Sirens.
There were dozens of them.
Malik's mind cleared instantly.
They were the ones who had sent the cohort to sleep.
And while they slept, the Corpse Thieves had come to steal their limbs.
He had woken up just in time.
'I can't kill all of them on my own.'
Malik moved with no hesitation.
He targeted the Faceless Sirens first.
If he could kill enough of them, the song would weaken, and Huda and Safira would wake.
The Corpse Thieves shambled into his path, their mismatched limbs reaching for him.
He slipped past the first one, ducking under its grasping hands. He sidestepped the second, his shoulder brushing against its stitched-together torso, and then leaped over the third, his boots clearing its head by inches.
They were slow... stupid.
But there were too many.
He reached the first Faceless Siren.
Its eyeless head turned towards him, its mouth still singing, and its tail lashed out—a long, bony thing tipped with a blade of hardened flesh.
Malik blasted himself up with his fire, the flames pushing him into the air, and he brought his foot down on its head.
The skull caved in.
The singing stopped.
Malik landed, grabbed the corpse by the tail, and swung it around like a flail.
The body crashed into a cluster of Corpse Thieves, sending them tumbling.
He used the opening to push deeper into the pack.
But they kept coming.
For every one he killed, two more took its place.
For every step he took forward, they pushed him back.
Malik couldn't reach the other Sirens.
He couldn't even guarantee his own life.
"Get down!"
Malik dropped without thinking.
His body hit the oily ground, and a moment later, wind blasted in all directions. It was a hurricane of blades that tore through the Corpse Thieves, through the Faceless Sirens, through everything in its path.
The bodies exploded, chunks of flesh and bone raining down around him.
Yeah. Her earlier attacks really were too simple.
Huda stood at the edge of the carnage, her pink eyes blazing.
She had broken free of the song, thanks to Malik's interference and the distraction he had provided.
Safira rose a second later with a conflicted expression, her hands glowing with a healing light.
She was awake, alive, and clearly still reeling from what had happened in the corridor.
The two of them looked at Malik.
Stared him down.
He could see the questions in their eyes. The confusion. The hurt. The memory of his hands around Safira's throat, of the black fire spreading across his skin, of everything he had done to knock them unconscious.
Malik calmly smiled at them.
"Welcome back."
Safira let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping.
Huda did the same, her wind dissipating and her fists unclenching.
"How did you... no."
Safira shook her head, cutting off her own question.
"You always seem to save us, don't you?"
Huda nodded at that.
She was woman enough to admit it, even if it clearly pained her.
"Perhaps Safira is right. You're more like my older brother than I thought."
Her pink eyes studied his face.
"If you weren't so old and weak, I would've actually thought you were him in disguise. Coming here to escort us to Hell and take your sword."
Malik stared at her for a moment.
'You really don't know how right you are.'
He barely held back a laugh.
The urge bubbled up in his chest, but he swallowed it down.
Now wasn't the time.
He pointed at the distance instead.
"Is this the real sixth layer?"
The two nodded, their faces turning grim.
Far above them was a most ridiculous sight.
It was as if God had cut the heavens open, forever scarring reality.
A giant, upside-down crescent scar hung in the sky, bleeding violet light into the darkness below.
The edges of the wound were jagged, and the light that spilled from it pulsed like a heartbeat.
That little light it provided, alongside Malik's own flame, allowed them to see the distance.
They were in another ocean.
But this one was completely different from the one before it.
This sea was solid. Made of dead meat.
Right. It was made of corpses.
Human corpses. Or what had once been human. Unrecognizable now, twisted and bloated and fused together into piles of rot that drifted lazily across the surface, bumping into each other like waves.
The closest of them was a wave of torsos, all stitched together in a grotesque chain, half of them still had eyes—clouded and milky—and mouths frozen in screams that would never end.
Malik stared at the scene for a moment.
He didn't know what to think.
This was the Sixth Layer?
A realm of nightmares?
A place designed to test minds, to break spirits, to drive people mad?
Sure seemed like it.
Well. Unfortunately for it, this was Malik.
His mind had long since been twisted.
There was nothing left here that could break him.
"I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to."
Huda's voice was tight, with her hands trembling slightly at her sides.
She wasn't so calm. The jitteriness in her tone was unmistakable.
"Let's go."
Without waiting for a response, she started walking, her boots squelching against the meat-sea.
Of course, she didn't forget to gather her wind around her like a shield.
While nothing was dripping onto them, she wasn't going to take the chance.
Safira followed after glancing back at Malik once before turning away and focusing on their path.
Malik brought up the rear while holding his flame high, his golden eyes scanning the darkness.
The Sixth Layer stretched out before them, endless and hungry.
And somewhere in its depths, Hell waited.