Chapter Twenty Seven.

Physics around the tower was utterly broken. Every step I took carried me farther down a path that couldn’t even be seen from the outside, moving me faster than I could possibly walk. Looking out/up/down around me all showed my position as impossibly high above the ground. The tower had looked tall when I observed it as I walked up to the city, but despite its warped nature it had been finite— ending in a twisted mess of space just above the skyline. That earlier perception had no bearing on reality. I had only been ascending this tower for a few minutes and yet I’d crossed dozens or maybe even hundreds of kilometers, based on the view of the shrinking city below. Vertigo briefly assaulted me when I looked back to see an immense drop, only to disorientingly have my perception switch back to it being merely a long, flat road.

Can’t stop now.

I pushed ahead, ignoring the discomfort caused by the bizarre structure. A sense of trepidation came over me as I looked ahead to find the ominous sphere of the world’s core growing steadily larger in my view.

God I hope I’m not vaporized by a giant death laser the moment I reach the end. Chuckling nervously to myself, I couldn’t help but eye the scattered towers in the distance, aimed like an immense firing squad straight at my destination. Better move faster, just in case.

Increasing my pace to a quick jog, the distance flew by and I quickly found myself at what I could only assume was the end of the “tower”. Without a single noticeable change in gradient, my viewpoint had shifted again and I was now standing on the surface of the core. An immense archway gaped open ahead of me like the jaws of a hungry beast. Twisted shapes of angry, pulsating light writhed in the air around it, rushing away before solidifying rapidly into tumorous growths covered in sharp thorns. I recognized them as the shapes I’d seen getting burned away from the core by the lasers… and I was heading directly for the source.

This is a terrible idea.

My better judgement screamed at me to turn around— to leave before it was too late. Taking another step, I ignored it.

As I approached the archway I began to feel something pushing back against me, a growing roar overwhelming all sound. The rushing energy glowed in a riot of colors that gave me the impression I was walking directly up the end of a lit rocket engine.

Forcing my way in was like walking against hurricane wind. Pure chaos screamed in the air around me, resentful of my presence restricting its flow by even a tiny bit. I hunched forward, bracing myself for every step as the pressure threatened to send me tumbling backwards. With a final push I broke through and the pressure ceased startlingly quick, like I’d entered the eye of a storm. The glow faded entirely and looking back showed more shenanigans with space, revealing only a long hallway that disappeared with the curvature of the horizon. I shook my head at the convolutedness of it all.

Couldn’t have just put in an elevator like the rest of us, huh?

Allowing myself a defeated sigh, I examined the path ahead.

I was now standing on a walkway suspended in a vast, empty room. The roof curved upwards like an enormous stadium dome— bigger than anything I’d ever seen on Earth. Lining the edges of the room were chains anchored to the walls, with each link larger than a house. The chains all stretched down into… nothing. No, that wasn’t right.

The Void.

A black pit stretched out beneath me to literal infinity. The darkness seemed impenetrable, somehow more than just air. It was like looking into a dense fog but less… tangible. Chains of pale wardstone pulled taut reached out to an unfathomable distance, spreading out at wide angles that were incongruous with their size.

What the hell is this??

Trying to pierce the thick darkness, I was too distracted to notice the hallway behind me growing brighter until the odd sight of my own shadow highlighted on the darkness clued me in that something was wrong. I had barely a second to be confused before a searing blast of energy hurtled through the open archway behind me and flattened me to the floor. Pain flashed through me for just a microsecond before disappearing as the light was bent, dragged into the chains and directed out, into the Void.

Sitting up, I quickly checked myself over and I was… fine? The dense crystal making up my body was a little charred on the outside, but I didn’t feel any pain from it and the “burns” were rapidly clearing up as I watched. Ha! So much for ‘death lasers’. My attention shifted over to the chains— still sucking in the energy and directing all of it down. The links glowed with power, more visible now than before and I could see them attached to something in the radiating light. A brief glimpse was all I got before I had to force myself to look away, pain sparking in my chest and sending me reeling backwards. My obsidian skin had cracked from just that quick glance— the sight alone exacerbating the wound in my soul to the point it almost shattered my body.

I have described things as huge, or impossible, or vast before. I’ve seen things on Haven that blew my mind with their scale, from Kaiju in the undersea to the heart-ward itself. The… thing below me was indescribably more, a stark reminder of what Murgui had said— even a ‘small’ void-god could end worlds. Whatever I was— however far I’d come— it still wasn’t enough to come close to the thing in the dark below me. In that short view, I’d felt like an astronaut looking out above a planet… and the planet had looked back at me with hungry eyes.

Kneeling on the walkway, I clutched at my chest in pain until it began to slowly recede as the crystal healed.

That… how did they do it?

The Void Leviathan was a true eldritch horror— beyond anything I’d ever seen. Even in its current state, my mind literally couldn’t comprehend more than a vague shape and a feeling of overwhelming power… and the Achorai had killed it. So what killed them? I stood up shakily, resisting the morbid urge to peek back over the edge as I kept going.

A bright glow shimmered at the end of the walkway in front of me. Moving closer, it resolved into a large, open area. It was circular, and dipped down in the center like a sunken stadium. There, hovering on a pedestal in the center of the area, was a glowing sphere. It wasn’t large— maybe the size of a beach ball— hovering around head height. There were no features to speak of other than the glow, which reminded me of the ward protecting the outside of the city. Surrounding it were a half-dozen more remnants, all dressed in ornate robes and standing braced with their arms stretched towards the sphere, like they were all trying to push something back. I found myself staring at the figures, burning curiosity struggling against trepidation in my mind.

I want to know.

Bracing myself, I tentatively reached a hand forward and touched the nearest spectre.

—eal the gates! We cannot escape this, and I’ll not drag the rest of the world into our f—

I jerked my hand back, the man’s anger and despair disrupting my thoughts for a moment before I could regain control. His pain at giving the order to seal in his people with their destroyer, his fear of death looming in his face, the underlying sense of duty and honor which had brought him here to begin with. So much came through in that barest touch, but not the one piece that I actually needed.

What actually happened here??

I moved on to the next figure.

—What have we done...—

I clenched my fists at the wave of terror and forced myself to the next one.

—I’m sorry, old friend. You were right, but I would not listen. Now I have destroyed my people.—

Overwhelming sadness flooded through me for a moment, and I took a moment to study the remnant before me. This must be Murgui’s friend. His features were… not handsome, compared to some of the others, but still had the etheric air I’d come to associate with the Achorai. A look of pained regret was frozen on his face, and I resolved to tell Murgui as soon as I left this place of his friend’s last thoughts.

The last few remnants were more of the same, and after taking a minute to recuperate from the disorienting flood of emotions I carefully approached the sphere. It was cool to the touch— carrying the same force of intent as the exterior ward only somehow more potent. The focused will of the creators sealing itself together almost violently. Reaching up with both hands I latched onto the side of the sphere, gripping against the repelling force with all my strength. With a final pause— perhaps in the vain hope that a better option would miraculously present itself— I channeled Anathema through my palms.

Oh boy, it did not like that.

A metallic shriek rent the air, the force and volume competing to try and blast me to pieces. The light shifted from a pale blue to a deep crimson and began pulsing angrily. I held on for all I was worth as the glowing orb tried to repel me back, forcing my hands forward with every fresh burst of black fire. With a sound like crushing glass I felt myself break through the barrier and sink my fingers into a revolting and soft blob— like someone had poured a tub of rotting chicken wings into a bowl of lukewarm tapioca. Suppressing my gag reflex (I still don’t have a stomach, how!?) I tore off a piece of the disgusting goo and darted back to the edge of the platform.

The burning holes I’d torn in the sphere snapped shut just as quickly as the exterior ward, and— for the time being at least— it looked none the worse for wear.

Huh. Is that it?

I looked down at the pile of muck in my hands. My earlier description was entirely accurate, and I immediately regretted looking at it to confirm. Then, because I wasn’t feeling disgusted enough, the misshapen lump of flesh started moving.

I hate this so much.

An act of will was all it took to split the crystal structure of my face open in a ragged semblance of a mouth.

Bottom’s up…

Bleh.

With the current state of my body it would probably have been just as effective to absorb it through my fingers, but the act of eating it was as much symbolic as it was literal— especially given that what I was eating had a… tenuous relationship with reality. So I shoveled that glop into my mouth like it was cheat day at the buffet. For a moment, nothing happened. It took just long enough for me to wonder if I’d wasted my time and eaten monster garbage before I started heating up. Then I started burning up, then I started to burn.

I could feel sticky tendrils stretching their way through the inside of my crystalline body. Pale sludge tainting the pristine black crystal from the inside. The air around me started to distort with waves of heat as the crystal started to break down before a single creeping tendril came in contact with the flicker of Anathema in my chest.

Black fire exploded outwards from me, Anathema’s flames latching on to the creeping eldritch goo with gusto. The two forces spread and fought throughout my body instantaneously— apocalypse fire consuming the fabric of the universe itself, while rampant eldritch energy grew in riotous bursts of chaos that created its own rules in the void left behind Anathema’s wake.

I felt myself being pulled apart atom by atom, disintegrating into a cloud of expanding plasma. But even as my body began to collapse, I didn’t fight the process. Because it was working. Every burst of chaos was like an injection of life into my soul, slowly sealing up the wound and drawing away the Anathema that had been killing me while sustaining my physical form. The crack grew smaller and smaller, rapidly becoming the only place on my body the fire was dimming instead of raging. Bits of crystal flaked off my body and burst colorfully, each second threatening to be my last— but I waited. A small flicker of Anathema twisted and sputtered on my soul until it died with a discordant *snap*, and then I was whole again.

Now.

With a roar, I slammed my will into the chaos. [Law] looked out on a discordant universe with disdain and bent the disruptive energies to my will, like an errant puppy being yanked back on a leash. The rampant chaos was no longer to my benefit— so it would end.

This is mine. It will obey.

The cloud of debris stopped expanding and instantly condensed back into my body. Eldritch energy swirled beneath my crystal skin in a multicolored vortex, mixing and separating with the inky darkness of Anathema. With a thought, I knew I could summon either power into the world. I clenched my fists and the air trembled.

This is it! With the burning wound in my soul gone, there was nothing stopping me from ripping my way back through the Hollows to find my minions… and the soon-to-be pile of ash that had taken them from me. A feeling of vindictive joy coiled around in my chest and I felt the jagged crystal mouth on my face twist into a cruel grin.

Dezzahn... I’m coming for you.

I stepped forwards, but something stopped me. On the very edge of my awareness, something scraped like nails across glass. My vision locked onto the glowing orb where it hovered in the air. The light had dimmed noticeably— which of course I hadn’t noticed from all the ‘trying not to explode’ I’d recently been doing. On the side I’d burned through there was now a grotesque bulge with something squirming violently inside. As the orb grew dimmer, the ghostly remnants started to fade like mist scattering in an unseen wind. Cracks spread along the outside and more bulges formed until the once pristine sphere looked more like a bloated glass tumor suspended above me.

Ah crap.