13-36. A Sea of Hunger
According to the notes Elijah had been given, the Restless Sea had once been well named. Before the World Tree had extended its branches into Gorveth, the body of water had been characterized by strong currents that churned the sea into a frothing maelstrom. Even back then, it had been considered all but impassible.
It was worse, now.
Much, much worse.
The waves reached as high as any skyscraper, and they looked like dark mountains covered in grey seafoam. Every time one crashed against the miles-high cliff upon which Elijah perched, the ground shook as if under the effect of a sizable earthquake and misted Elijah with corrupted water that sizzled against his skin like mild acid.
Huge tentacles reached down from the sky, snatching monsters from within those waves. Meanwhile, Elijah knew that powerful horrors lurked in the depths.
Kneeling, with his Mantle of Authority extended a few inches from his body, he shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to plunge into that water. It was potently corrosive – moreso than the atmosphere – but he counted that as a benefit. A cultivation aid that would allow him to further prepare for his upcoming trials. Submerging himself in such a corrosive liquid would be painful, but that was the nature of cultivation.
He had always been good at suffering.
And he wasn’t afraid of it. Instead, the roots of his hesitation lay within those depths. The monsters down there were strong. Even from so far away, he could feel their ongoing battle. If he went too deep, he would be overwhelmed. And if that happened, he would never escape.
But if he tried to skate along the surface, he would find himself at the mercy of the monsters above. Perhaps they wouldn’t target him, but that seemed a faint hope indeed. More likely, his unique vitality would attract their attention. And though he could survive the upper atmosphere, he didn’t think he would live through a battle with those massive monsters who lived on the edge between the raw abyss and the excised planet’s much more diffuse aura of corruption.
His instincts screamed at him to go around, but the maps told him that just wasn’t possible. The continent where he would find Druhmor lay far to the north, entirely separate from any other.
Zek had spoken of some legendary Explorers who’d braved the seas after the world’s excisement, but no one knew where to find them. Or if they still lived at all. No one even knew where to start the search.
No – if Elijah wanted to reach Druhmor, he had no choice but to swim. Thankfully, the maps had directed him toward the narrowest gap. A mere two thousand miles was all that separated Elijah’s current position from that other continent.
He could cover that quite quickly. A few days, at most. And Elijah believed he could endure for that long, at least.
He just wasn’t looking forward to it.
To center himself, Elijah deployed the tent, then spent the next couple of days resting, eating, and focusing inward for the trial to come. During that time, he also considered the month or so since he’d escaped the ruined, ambulatory city. For the most part, he’d traveled under the Guise of the Stalker, but he had also flown as often as he could manage. As such, he’d covered tens of thousands of miles, confirming that the planet was at least as large as Earth. At least the version of Earth that existed after experiencing the World Tree’s touch.
In any case, Gorveth was probably much bigger.
How that worked with the laws of physics, Elijah had no idea. By all rights, gravity should have been much stronger. But that was the case with Earth as well, and he’d written the disparity off as the effect of magic.
In either case, he still had a long way to go before he reached his destination.
And eventually, he could no longer justify further delay. So, after enjoying a final meal and a cup of coffee – one of the last he had available – he gathered his things, stored it all in his Arcane Loop, and approached the edge of the cliff.
He took a deep, steadying breath and looked out across the Restless Sea. It looked no more inviting than before.
Elijah closed his eyes, took another breath, and centered his mind. Then, without further ado, he flung them open and leaped. He sprung off of Cloud Step in order to put a little extra distance between him and the cliff, then used Shape of the Sky.
A massive, mountainous wave loomed over him.
The transformation completed, and he immediately used Lightning Rush.
As a bolt of electricity, he tore through the wave and out to sea. He felt the impact of each wave, though after the few seconds it took for the ability to dissipate, he was still whole. As he fell into the trough between waves, he used Shape of the Sea. His body enlarged and reformed, so by the time he plunged into the water, he’d become a giant, draconic sea turtle.
He hit the water like a bomb, though his durable body bore the impact easily. He slipped beneath the waves and dove. He cut through the water like he was born to it, though his Mantle of Authority immediately began to corrode. He funneled ethera through it, rebuilding the branches of his soul via a combination of sheer will, a massive torrent of ethera drawn through the apertures of his mind, and the ongoing effects of Wild Resurgence.
It wasn’t comfortable, but it was sustainable.
He dove, diving deeper and deeper until he knew he was out of range of the tentacles descending from the sky. As he did so, darkness enveloped him so completely that it began to affect his other senses as well. After reorienting himself, he pushed forward.
A flash of purple light was his only warning.
But it was enough.
Even before it faded, he saw the truth of his situation. He was surrounded, and not by a multitude of creatures. Instead, he saw a singular monster, long and slim like an eel, slowly coiling itself around him. The violet light arced across its body, showing Elijah more than he ever wanted to see.
Gaping maws. Tiny, follicle-like tentacles. Teeth. Razor-sharp fins arrayed in haphazard fashion. And a thousand other small details he never got the chance to truly behold before the purple light faded.
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He felt the current of its movement, which was warning enough to send him plummeting to the depths. As its coils slammed together, it sent out a shockwave so profound that it would have turned a mortal to jelly. Elijah felt the impact in his bones, and a few of his organs ruptured.
Though those small injuries were healed only a second later, the effect sent a shudder of fear spreading throughout Elijah’s body. The monster hadn’t even attacked him. Not really. Instead, he’d been injured by the force of the thing’s mere movement.
Elijah shoved that fear away and continued his dive into the deep darkness.
All around him, he felt more monsters, large and small. They reacted to his passage in the only way they knew how – by attacking. But with his comparatively smaller size – if a seventy-five foot turtle could ever be described as such – combined with his massive strength, he soon discovered that he was faster than his attackers.
He cut through the darkness, funneling every ounce of his attention to Soul of the Wild. The water itself was lifeless and flooded with corruption, but the monsters were full of twisted vitality. They were living creatures, and as such, Elijah could feel them coming from hundreds of feet away.
Often, that warning proved insufficient.
Elijah pushed forward, swimming through a gauntlet of monsters. More than once over the next few hours, he found himself on the receiving end of one blow or another. He endured though, and he always kept moving toward his goal.
Then, at the end of that first day, when his concentration began to wane, he made a mistake. The oncoming blow didn’t actually hit him, but it came so close that the resulting current sent him spinning toward the ocean floor. Thousands of feet went by in an instant before he slammed into the silt.
Then, something shifted beneath the sand.
Elijah felt a surge of malformed vitality before a claw erupted from below. He had just enough time to recognize it as a perfectly formed crab claw before it hit his shell. A web of cracks spread from the point of impact, while blood and bits of flesh clouded the water.
Only then did Elijah see the monster’s full form.
The claw was attached to one of its nineteen tails, all of which differed in length and shape. The monster’s body was like a blend of a flounder-like fish and a crustacean, with a multitude of legs and malformed fins. It also sported a jagged, misshapen shell that was covered in iridescent scales. Eye stalks sprouted all over its body, and when it reared up, Elijah saw that its underside was crowded with insectile mouth parts.
It was also the size of a professional football stadium, and all its parts matched that scale.
Elijah paddled forward, narrowly dodging another claw-tail strike, though the simple movement further opened his wound. He twisted, avoiding a dozen other attacks that churned the water into a frenzy of sand and warring currents. A hundred other, smaller creatures leaped free of its body and swam awkwardly toward Elijah.
He dashed away, leaving more swirling sand in his wake.
The monster pursued as Elijah dodged around a massive and pitted pillar of rock. As he tore through the black water, malformed crustaceans and slithering tentacles snapped out to attack him. He barely managed to outpace them as he dove into a narrow ravine.
The huge monster followed, slamming into the seafloor. The crevasse was too narrow to admit it, but still, it extended its claws in an attempt to catch Elijah. It failed, though it only missed by a few scant inches.
Elijah continued to outpace the smaller pursuers before climbing to a less dangerous depth. There were still monsters up there, and the vast majority of them were too powerful to fight. Yet, they were nothing compared to that crab-like creature on the seafloor.
It was just further evidence that, as a mere ascendent, Elijah was far out of his depth.
He needed to evolve.
The corrupted offering still flickered at the edge of his consciousness. After it had been made available, all Elijah had to do was go back to the notification and make his choice.
And that option loomed over him, a herald of terrible hope.
He couldn’t take it, though. He refused to throw his instincts aside. He knew what becoming a Blighted Sovereign would do to him.
So, he shoved it even further into the back of his mind, quarantining it in its own leaf. Even so, it was difficult to ignore. Especially when the power on offer would make everything so much easier.
He continued on, dodging monsters where he could but fighting more often than he’d expected. Thankfully, the Shape of the Sea had become quite a lot stronger when he’d reached the silver-tier of body cultivation, so he managed to hold his own.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t more close calls.
There were far more of those than he wanted to consider, and he came within a hair’s breadth of dying on more than one occasion. Yet, he always survived, even if it meant shifting into his dragon form and using the full breadth of his healing spells.
Each time he was forced to do that, he was reminded of just how necessary the Shape of the Sea truly was. Outside of the sizable increase in attributes, it also came with a natural predilection toward life in the ocean. It wasn’t represented in numbers or via abilities. But it was effective, all the same.
In any event, weeks passed into months as Elijah crossed the Restless Sea. Never did the pressure cease. Monsters were everywhere, and the corruption only grew thicker with every passing day. As a result, his Mantle of Authority got quite a workout as it was continuously degraded and rebuilt.
At times, Elijah had to let it rest. In those moments, he trusted his silver-tier body to protect him. And though it was up to that task, the damage that came with laying himself bare to the corrosive sea was significant.
He endured, though.
And eventually, after months of swimming through the ocean – often eating the monsters he defeated – Elijah found land. A massive cliff no smaller than the one he’d left behind on the other side of the sea loomed above him. At the apex of a wave, he threw himself out of the sea, transformed into the Shape of the Sky, and flew toward the cliff.
He landed ungracefully, his legs giving out the second he touched down.
He rolled to a stop, and for a while, just lay there on that barren cliff, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He wanted nothing more than to simply surrender to unconsciousness. To give in and fall limp.
But he didn’t.
Instead, Elijah laboriously pushed himself to his feet and resumed his human shape. It felt odd. Unfitting. After so long in the Shape of the Sea – or brief stints in his dragon form – Elijah’s natural body was unfamiliar and ungainly. His legs wobbled as he deployed the tent.
Next came all three of his healing spells. Wild Resurgence had been his constant companion throughout the journey across the Restless Sea, and as such, the resulting vitality had become a familiar presence. Next was Nature’s Bloom, which was far more focused. Under that spell’s attention, his many half-mended wounds began to heal.
But he was more concerned with Blessing of the Grove. Or rather, the rain that came with it. He spread his arms out wide, allowing the clean and vital water to wash the sea away.
Lamenting that he had no more of his own left, Elijah was forced to use soap he’d gotten back in Dravkein. It did the job, but it lacked the restorative punch to which he had grown accustomed.
Finally, he ducked inside the tent and let his defenses fall away.
For a long time, he just lay there, too tired to even sleep. When he’d set out, he’d thought himself prepared for a grueling journey, but nothing could have equipped him for what followed.
Could he have done it again, knowing what he now knew?
Maybe.
Perhaps not.
He’d begun his trip across the Restless Sea believing it would only take a few days. The sea – and its inhabitants – had quickly disabused him of that notion. Instead, the journey had taken months. How many, Elijah had no idea, but it was enough to render his natural form unfamiliar.
The sea had taken more from him than he could have imagined. However, it had also given him a gift. The constant corrosion of his Mantle of Authority had left it stronger than ever before. Not quite to the point where he could attempt leaping to the next tier, but he was much closer than he had been before embarking on the journey.
He still wasn’t certain it was worth it.
But with passage behind him, he could only look forward to the next challenge. He’d come a long way, but he still had many miles to cover – and obstacles to overcome – before he reached his destination. And that was when the true test of his mettle would begin.