Chapter 147: The 'Fog' Awaited
The surface felt like stepping on wet, bloated skin.
It slowly pulsed underfoot, rhythmically throbbing as if it mimicked a heartbeat.
Sometimes it even twitched, the flesh contracting and relaxing, truly making it seem like the dead meat beneath them was still alive, still aware of all that it witnessed... still suffering.
Still, it didn't matter.
Malik's boots crunched down past the sludge and onto something harder—bones?
Flesh? It was hard to tell, and he didn't care to investigate. Either way, it kept his steps firm and gave him solid ground to stand on while the world around him shifted and squelched.
That allowed him to steadily scan his surroundings, looking for the exit. His golden eyes moved methodically across the nightmare landscape, searching for anything that didn't belong.
Perhaps a break in the corpses or a gap in the mountains of flesh forming a path that led deeper.
Meanwhile, his cohort was responsible for killing the monsters that came their way.
Huda and Safira had fallen into a rhythm now, adopting efficient movements. They would see a threat, engage it, destroy it, and then return to Malik like birds returning to a perch.
He was the light they returned to after every engagement.
His flame marked their position in the darkness, a beacon in the sea of rot.
Unfortunately, they didn't have the exit of this layer memorized or known.
The Sixth Layer was different for everyone who entered, or so their books said.
Perhaps it was a random affair, the exit appearing in a different place each time, mocking those who sought it.
Either way, they left it to Malik to figure out.
SHRIEEEEEEEEEEK!
Something massive shifted to his left.
Out from a hill of dead, it rose.
Corpses tumbled from its back—arms, legs, torsos, heads—all of them scattering across the meat-sea as the creature pulled itself free from its grave of flesh.
Zahhak's Spawn.
A serpent with several heads.
Malik counted seven, though it was hard to tell with so many half-rotted and missing chunks.
Bones poked through the skin, sharp and white against the dark, decaying flesh. Maggots spilled out of hollow eye sockets, cascading down its faces like terrible tears.
Black smoke pumped out from the mouths of every head, coiling into the air. The smoke smelled of sulfur and ash and something sweet, something that made Malik's head feel light.
Thankfully for him, the monster wasn't too strong.
Only a Class Three, a Behemoth.
Nothing that Huda and Safira couldn't handle.
No issues at all.
All its heads snapped towards Huda at once.
Seven mouths opened.
Seven clouds of black smoke gathered.
Seven throats began to glow with hunger.
Malik raised a hand.
FWOOOM.
A massive column of wind shot out from Huda's position, so wide and so fast that it seemed to tear the very air apart.
The blast hit the Zahhak's Spawn directly in the center of its mass.
Instantly, one head exploded.
Flesh and shattered spine rained everywhere, chunks of bone pattering against the meat-sea.
The remaining heads screamed, their voices discordant and wrong, and the monster thrashed in pain.
Did the other heads care? Hell no.
They lunged, even more aggressive now, snapping their mouths.
Losing one head had only made the others angrier.
Huda slid back, skimming over the meat ocean.
She was buying time, creating distance, letting the monster come to her.
Meanwhile, a blast of force from Safira's palm caught one of the heads mid-lunge.
The impact was devastating, forcing the head to snap sideways with a wet crack, its jaw splitting clean to the nape, its teeth scattering across the ground.
Disoriented, the creature wobbled, and Safira was already moving.
CRACK.
A thick tail covered in the same rotting flesh as the rest of the monster swung at her from the side. She ducked under it, the appendage passing so close that the wind of its movement ruffled her hair.
The tail smashed into a mountain of corpses behind her.
Arms, legs, and ribs scattered in all directions, a fountain of body parts that rained down around them.
Another tail went straight for her face.
This one was faster, meant to catch her off guard and crush her skull before she could react.
But Safira simply caught the gigantic limb, with one hand at that.
She squeezed.
SNAP.
Bones shattered, and flesh tore as the tail went limp in her grip.
What followed was the monster's scream echoing across the meat sea.
Not giving it a moment, Safira swung the tail like a whip. She put her whole body into the motion, spinning, pulling, using the monster's own limb as a weapon.
The Zahhak's Spawn lurched forward, its body nearly flinging itself across the ground—
The tail detached.
Unable to handle the weight of what it tried to move, the flesh simply gave way, tearing at the base.
The severed appendage flew from Safira's hand, sailing through the air before slamming against a distant hill of corpses.
That was when Huda joined in.
She pointed a finger at the monster's middle.
And then, before it could even screech—
BOOOOOOOOOM.
A blast of wind, far too concentrated and precise, crushed what was left of the Zahhak's Spawn.
The creature's body collapsed inward into itself, crunching bone and compressing flesh until there was nothing left but a spray of light that faded into the darkness.
The Zahhak's Spawn turned into light.
The two returned to Malik, with Huda complaining as usual.
"Can you find the way out any faster?! It's been hours!"
Malik didn't respond.
He was focusing on the path forward and only that, his golden eyes scanning his Soul, reaching out to sense what his eyes could not see, which in this place was a lot.
Even from afar, he could feel it.
Corruption.
Not the diluted, aged Corruption of the meat sea.
Not what lingered in the Demons attacking them on the surface.
This was... fresh, something concentrated, pulsating with a malevolent awareness.
Perhaps because he was the Bane of Corruption, he was most sensitive to it.
The title wasn't just for show. It was a part of him now, woven into his Soul, his Rukh, his very existence.
And thanks to that sensitivity, finally, he found what he was looking for.
The exit.
It came in the form of a fog.
Malik instinctively realized that was where the entrance to the seventh layer lay.
A wall of pale, swirling mist that stretched from the ground to the sky, blocking the path ahead.
It moved slowly, following the layer's thumping rhythm, or rather, it was the source of it.
This was what moved this ocean of death they stood on.
And this fog was made only of Corruption.
Concentrated, condensed, given form.
Anyone else might have found that revelation to be a disaster.
A wall of Corruption fog? That would end most expeditions before they even began.
They would turn back, regroup, come up with a new plan, and fail at whatever came up.
But not Malik.
No, rather, he almost felt himself lucky.
Something he never believed he'd feel after all that had just happened.
After all, he had his fire. Ember's Touch burned through Corruption. It was one of its primary functions, one of the reasons he'd strengthened it first.
If his cohort stuck close to him, they could walk through the fog no problem.
"Are you seeing it?"
Malik glanced at the two, who were stunned at how fast he had found it.
Though Huda complained, she never really expected to find the exit on the first day, never mind only a few hours.
She complained for the love of it, perhaps for the sound of her own voice, not because she actually expected results.
Seeing this really surprised her.
"Great job, old man!"
She slapped his back, seeming ecstatic.
Malik smiled at her and then at Safira, who produced a lamp from thin air.
"Stranger, since this was a scouting mission, and we never meant to reach this depth on our first attempt, we weren't too prepared."
Safira's voice was apologetic, almost embarrassed.
"Unfortunately, I can only help you with this Holy Relic."
Expecting no help at all, Malik found this to be a great boon.
He grabbed the lamp and turned it over in his hands, inspecting it.
It was small and unassuming.
Bronze, with a glass casing that had been cracked and repaired multiple times.
It was obvious to Malik what it was.
'A holy relic, then.'
He waited for a system notification, for the familiar chime that accompanied a new acquisition.
None came.
'...is it because it's Safira's?'
Perhaps. The system didn't always recognize items that belonged to others.
Or perhaps the lamp was simply too weak, too minor, to warrant a notification.
Either way, it didn't matter.
"What does it do?"
Safira pointed her chin at the fog.
"It produces a Corruption-repellent fire. Of course, there's a limit to it—the flame will only last for so long, and once it's gone, the lamp is useless."
She paused, her eyes meeting his.
"But that limit would be easily extended if you were the one wielding it."
Malik nodded, finding this incredible.
A lamp that produced Corruption-repellent fire. Combined with his own Ember's Touch, he could stretch its limited fuel far beyond what Safira could have managed on her own.
Thus, without another word, he led them.
The fog awaited.