The Plunge
"Nggh..."
The scales beneath me creaked. At the spot where my chain of ultra-long-range Shrinking Earth spells had finally broken. As I tried to uncoil, my muscles lagged a beat behind. Plop, plop. The price for forcibly folding space to conjure that massive illusion. Several dead scales, unable to withstand my scorched meridians, fell limply to the ground. Cold surface air sliced like a knife blade through the gaps of exposed flesh. I circulated my Dao Force inward once. The flow slipped, then barely settled back into place. My Yokai Force was even slower. I dragged my body low. Grayish-yellow fog oozed stickily between the scales. Viciously acrid. Exhaust fumes and metal dust, laced with something fishy underneath. Every inhale scraped gritty particles deep into my lungs. They piled up faster than my Dao Force could filter them out.
Still, it wasn't bad. Blocked vision was a godsend when you were the one being hunted.
I slipped three or four times before halting. Something snagged at the tip of my head. A dry husk. A contaminant. Or what used to be one. Similar to those rats I'd seen in the Sewer. Flesh and hide gone, only parched bones and carapace left, weathered away. Inside the skull, not dirt or ash, but black powder filled it—and beyond, more husks of the same shape stretched at regular intervals. Like something had been scattered along the path. Jaws agape in rigor, or backs twisted mid-flight. Frozen in the poses of desperate flight right up to their final moments.
I sent a thin thread of Dao Force toward one nearby. Nothing. Not even the faint residual energy that lingers after death. It was hollowed out entirely, as if scraped clean. Meaning it had been sucked dry down to the marrow.
······.
A piercing, foul stench at the tip of my nose. A piercing, foul stench at the tip of my nose. Yet it felt chillingly familiar. That warm glow at the Light Boundary wasn't purification. Just artificial heat, scalding away the rot from this depths—nauseating man-made fire.
I shook my head. Not the time to dwell. I hauled my heavy body forward again.
Boom.
A distant explosion erupted. The thick fog devoured the sound, making distance hard to gauge, but the direction was clear. Behind me—the way I'd fled.
Boom. KABOOM.
Two more thunderous blasts in succession, and the entire air trembled downward. Gravity. He hadn't finished yet. My scales bristled as one. Not a conscious reaction. My body remembered first—that overwhelming crush turning my lungs' oxygen to glass shards, shredding my throat.
I needed more distance. I tried reading the flows, but they wouldn't latch in one breath like usual. Metal dust in the fog snapped the energy threads; damp exhaust smothered them. Even the ground wasn't soil or stone, just dead, hardened debris—space's currents wouldn't connect.
I gritted my teeth.
Boom.
Again. A bit farther this time, maybe. Good sign. But my mind cleared to an icy sharpness instead. Those red eyes, turning slowly with a dagger lodged in his throat. The grotesque clang as the blade ricocheted off metal. Right now, back there, he was crushing someone. One by one, slow, in order. When that ended, I'd be next.
I lowered my head. Pressed my scales flat to the ground. I don't know how far I slithered. Then, through the fog, something emerged. A massive black silhouette, tilted upward. A toppled statue. Head severed, rolled far away; torso on its side, one arm outstretched in a grotesque pose. Ruined building debris beside it cast deep, thick shadows.
Instinct veered me toward it first. Reason lagged, warning. No perfect hiding spot like this would just lie in the ruins' heart. I knew that. Still, I went in. One more overexertion, and this body would seize for good.
I shoved my serpentine tail into the shadow. Cool. Fog thinned. I coiled to tuck in—and faltered midway. The ground meant to brace my head had shifted.
Rumble.
The world dropped away beneath me. Not a simple sinkhole. A dizzying plunge, like a colossal maw swallowing me whole.
"Guh...!"
Gravity's acceleration crushed my guts toward my mouth. Rushing wind clawed the raw flesh where scales had peeled, like beast talons. Instinct yanked up Dao Force to fold space. Shrinking Earth.Fssht. The energy shot into void, shredding like a torn net, scattering futilely. My meridians, overloaded to the limit, screamed and repelled it. Failure.
Darkness stretched. Deeper than thought. Instead, I thinly spread Dao Force around my scales. A last desperate shed to deflect the plummeting impact.
Thud.
The Dao membrane shattered; cold floor slammed my body. Scales throbbed like tearing, but no broken bones. Lucky.
Cold floor. Sticky dampness. Air trembling faintly. The air here was utterly different. No surface exhaust or metal dust sank this far. Instead, humid, living pulses from something crammed the void.
Too many. Eyes, darkness-accustomed, lagged in revealing the massive outline. A cavernous chamber, ceiling lost in heights. Walls bristled with tiny protrusions, all gleaming faintly—tilting as one. Toward me.
Legs. Too many legs. Chitin joints glinting in dark. Where heads should be, writhing clusters of grotesque eyes. Hundreds locked on me at once.
The nearest detached from the wall with a pop. Eight legs tapped the floor in eerily silent approach.
"Grrrmph..."
Yokai Force surged; a beast's warning growled from my throat. It lunged first. I twisted aside barely, but the recoil made torn muscles under scales scream. In that split-second gap, I jammed fangs into its segment.
Crunch.
Hard shell splintered; black ichor burst. Acrid, piercing stench at my nose. Identical to the grayish-yellow fog above. The rats' marrow-sucked husks flashed back.
That certainty hit—and the whole wall collapsed like an avalanche. Dozens dropped at once; endless more rained like a storm. Rustling filled the space, shredding my eardrums.
I tried pulling back, but a legless serpent's body took an extra beat to turn. That delay was fatal. Razor claws raked my flank; grotesque weight clung to my tail. Crush one, two more swarmed in. Leg-tips like tentacles wormed between scales, ghosting wounds. Cold, hard probes stabbed deep into flesh.
I clenched jaws. Lashed tail, smashing the floor. Six or seven pulped, spraying rot-fluid—but the vibration drew hordes more from walls. Break one, two climbed; shove two, four swamped. Endless arithmetic-defying melee despair.
Breath choked to my jawline. I hauled up Yokai and Dao Force together, but the loosened Ouroboros spun futile like a cogless gear. Circulation teetered on breaking.
Couldn't die buried in mass. In my vertically slit pupils, I forced the barely meshed serpent pattern to rotate. Dongshu. Vision widened; every motion in the space—dozens leaping from air included—froze stone-still in my eyes' weave of time and flow.
Even probing legs halted. It worked.
Crunch!
"GRRAAHH!"
My mind burned white. Too many targets. Dozens of masses and vermin instincts reversed, crushing my optic nerves raw. Overload. Dongshu shattered; blood-mixed tears streamed down scales. Vision crimsoned, flickering.
Parked midair bodies rained anew. Legs swarmed scales madly. Layered horror-weight pinned my thrashing body down. Muscles under scales stiffened. One beat became two, three. Final resistance ceased. Collapse.
Is this the end? Past life's finale flickered. Endless sky's weight crushing helpless—now returned as eight-legged mass.
"Nggh...!"
Something deep and heavy impaled my flank. A needle-thin tendril pierced slack scale-gaps, burrowing merciless into vitals. Black fluid from its gut flooded me. Acrid venom raced through ruptured meridians, devouring whole.
Vision blackened to death. Above, through shattered shadows, grayish-yellow fog gleamed faintly. Eternally distant.
All senses severing, sinking into perfect dark—that instant.
Thump.
A bizarre vibration echoed near my heart. Incoming black venom halted. That lump of power I'd rammed in during the Light Boundary battlefield frenzy—wild, alien energy drifting lost inside me—convulsed at the foul toxin.
Cracklerattle.
Pupil depths, stalled serpent pattern—Ouroboros—spun reverse-madly. My halted heart lurched huge once more.