Chapter 148: Horror Beyond Imagining
"Don't stray."
Malik's voice was barely a whisper, but it easily carried through the thick air.
The pale fog pressed in around them, and every word seemed to be swallowed whole the moment it left his lips.
Rot clung to him.
He could feel it trying to seep into him, a cold, wet presence that wanted to burrow inside and never leave.
But his fire burned it away, Ember's Touch flickering along his arms, his shoulders, the back of his neck.
The rot hissed and retreated, and Malik kept walking.
Huda and Safira were now stuck to him closer than his own shadow.
Huda was especially close, closer to him than she had been at any point during their journey.
Her shoulder brushed against his arm with every step, and her breathing was shallow and rapid.
She was terrified.
Malik had never seen her like this before, not even when the Venerable rose from the earth, not even when the Abyssal King's eye locked onto them.
This was different.
This was fear of the unknown.
A fear she couldn't even think of fighting.
Beneath them, the ground kept shifting: human remains, layers of them, squelching and crunching with every footfall.
But thankfully, there were no more monsters here.
The Corpse Thieves and Faceless Sirens had been left behind, unable or unwilling to enter the fog.
...or so he wished.
Taktak.
The sound came from somewhere to his left, just outside of his line of sight.
Something was tapping against something solid, unusual in a realm such as this.
This something was moving right next to them.
Huda trembled harder, and she pressed closer to him, her fingers digging into the sleeve of his robe.
Malik didn't say anything. He just reached out with his left hand, found hers in the darkness, and held it.
His grip was firm, steady, and he nodded at her.
She nodded back, her trembling easing just a little.
Safira saw the exchange and smiled softly, despite the tension in her own shoulders.
She took a stance behind them, her hands raised, ready to fight whatever emerged from the fog.
Malik listened closely to the sound.
Taktak.
It was still to his left... still moving.
He began to walk again, angling away from it, trying to go past without getting closer.
Taktak. Taktak.
The sound shifted.
It was approaching their position now, getting louder and closer.
Malik picked up his pace, just a tad, not enough to break formation, but enough to put more distance between them and whatever was making that noise.
His heart began to beat louder from the tension.
The fog muffled everything, but he could still hear the thumping in his own chest.
Much like Huda, his breath came faster, and he had to force himself to slow it down.
Malik didn't know what was in this fog with them.
He didn't want to see it.
They were hidden here for a reason.
Taktak.
Now the sound came from behind.
Taktak.
And from the front.
Taktak.
And from the side.
Taktak. Taktak. Taktak.
Yes, there were multiple.
The echoes bounced off the fog and the mountains of corpses.
All of those sounds began to overlap and separate, creating a chorus of tapping that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
This was their home.
And the cohort was invading it.
Huda clutched Malik's hand harder, so hard that her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood.
That was his signal to quicken his pace even further.
The longer they spent in here, the worse it was going to get.
He could feel it, the fog pressing in, the sounds closing in, the presence of something old and so incredibly hungry... yet patient, waiting for its prey to walk further in its abode.
So he kept moving. Avoiding the sounds as best he could, weaving between them, trying to find a path to the other side.
Then, all of a sudden—
Taktak.
A sound came from right beneath them.
Malik's instincts screamed.
His entire body tensed and his every muscle coiled.
Before his eyes could get a proper glimpse at the thing that had began to rise, the shape that was now standing inches from his face, he shut them closed and screamed:
"SHUT YOUR EYES!"
The two women obeyed instantly.
Huda's eyes squeezed shut.
Safira's followed a heartbeat later.
Malik began to run while all but pulling his cohort along.
He didn't open his eyes back up. He didn't need to. He could so easily feel the presence beside him, both cold and wrong.
Its attention was on him, on them.
Malik could feel the way the fog seemed to recoil from its shape.
Thus he continued to run forth, past the being, dragging Huda and Safira with him.
Taktak! Taktak! Taktak! Taktak! Taktak!
That was when sound exploded around them, and not just one or two sources now, but hundreds.
The beings were congregating, drawn by the intruders in their domain.
Stealing past them was a lost cause now; there was no more sneaking.
They had to go fast and quick.
Huda blasted herself and the rest up and forth with her wind, her eyes still shut.
The gust lifted them off the ground, carrying them through the fog at speed.
Safira punched behind them, blind, desperate, her force blasting outward in waves. She wasn't aiming to kill. She was hoping to push the beings back, to buy them a few more seconds and create distance.
Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak. Taktak.
The sound crawled inside their minds. It felt like insects under their skin, like needles in their ears, piercing through them from the inside out.
Malik could feel his thoughts scattering, all of his focus was gone as his grip on reality began to slip.
His Angel's Soul was heavily affected. The world felt like it was being pulled away from him, stretched thin, ready to tear.
If he was struggling this much, Huda and Safira easily had it worse. He could feel them stumbling beside him, their movements becoming erratic.
They were sleeping and awakening in the same breath, their consciousnesses flickering like candles in a storm.
Malik didn't relent.
He pushed forth, his fire burning brighter, his will hardening. The fog parted around him, and not merely because of the lamp anymore, but because of his Soul that refused to be cowed.
Taktak! Taktak! Taktak!
Suddenly, a wall of flesh stood before him.
It rose up high from the ground, blocking their path entirely. The surface was wet and pulsing, and as Malik approached, hands began to emerge from it, pale hands that were so utterly rotten.
Ones with too many fingers and too many joints.
They grabbed at his face and body, pushing him back crashing into the others.
The three of them tangled together, the beings closing in from all sides.
They were pincered.
'...are we...'
Before the thought could complete, Malik was already moving.
He rushed forth, letting the wall of flesh absorb him.
The hands grabbed him, pulled at him, tried to tear him apart, but he didn't fight them. He pushed into them, letting the flesh close over his body, letting the darkness swallow him whole.
Scorpion's Sting.
The lamp in his right hand burst into black flames.
The explosion was contained and directed, channeled through his Rune. As such, the black fire erupted outwards, burning through the wall of flesh, their many hands... all that was hungry for them.
Malik's fire consumed it all, including his own hand.
The black flame clung to his skin, trying to devour him, spreading up his arms and shoulders, trying to consume him from the outside in.
The pain was incredible, beyond incredible, beyond anything he had felt in all his life.. which was saying something.
His mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out.
He held it in, although barely.
The flame tried to devour him again and again.
It couldn't and Safira was the reason.
Even in her delirious state, with her mind half-gone and her body trembling, she reached out and healed him.
Her light pushed back the black fire, keeping his arm intact and stopping the flames from spreading.
Malik, just before the beings from behind could reach them, broke through the wall of flesh.
He tumbled out the other side, rolling across the ground, dragging Huda and Safira with him.
Finally, they were upon a hole in the sea of corpses.
It was wide and deep, a perfect circle cut into the flesh, and they could only see it thanks to Malik's burning hand.
While the lamp was gone, destroyed with the wall, his left hand still blazed with black fire, casting flickering shadows across the opening.
A spiral of liquid rot slowly spun at the center of the hole, strangely hypnotic.
Black lightning flashed at its core, illuminating the darkness in brief, violent bursts.
The entrance to the seventh layer.
Malik rushed to the edge, dragging the others with him.
Behind them, the fog surged forward.
Taktak! Taktak! Taktak! Taktak! Taktak!
The beings were coming, growing louder in sound, their presence pressing against his back.
Malik didn't look back.
He just quickly stepped off the edge, pulling Huda and Safira with him, and fell into the spiral.
The fog reached for them...
And closed on empty air.