Chương 208: Blood Pillars

Maybe it was the cold focus of her Feat, or the blood pumping so hard through her veins she could feel her skin pulsing, but as Nyxala glanced back at the cultist holding her by hooks, it wasn't fear that gripped her. No. Despite the high creed far overpowering her, she was calm. The woman recognised her. Zandisth had either been expecting her, or had told those most loyal to him what she looked like. Normally, this would be disastrous. Having her identity discovered was only going to repeat her past.

But they already knew, didn't they? And because they knew, they would avoid killing her at any cost. Nyxala tensed as she scraped along the woman's name, finding her curses. Throat shredding, liquefied muscle, and exploding ulcers. They sounded horrid, but for a tenth evolution, Nyxala was certain it wouldn't be nearly as effective as she hoped. That was fine. So long as it gave her a moment. In response to Nyxala's tensing, the Fleshsmith yanked on the hooks, lifting her higher.

"Keep struggling, and you'll quickly find out what it's like to be ripped apart." She gestured to the tentacles Nyxala lost in her initial resistance.

"You'll wish to feel such a plain agony again." Nyxala couldn't help it. The bluff was so blatant and pitiful for the intimidating figure of a tenth evo that she laughed. A raucous, unharmonious chorus of dozens of her own voice rang with a chittering giggle. Beautifully, the cultists she'd originally meant to attack stumbled back in fear. Before the indignation even had the chance to fully cross the woman's face, Nyxala acted. She ripped open the curses.

At best, she expected it to be a distraction, and she was proven right when, as the woman stumbled, she never let go of the hooks keeping Nyxala suspended. That was fine. Her arms crossed, and she cut through her shoulders. Each scraped the curve of the fleshforged hook, and she was glad she hadn't attempted to cut through the hooks themselves. They were far too hard for even her empowered claws to cut through.

Nyxala clenched her jaw against the pain of her arms falling away, and thrust her tail into the chest of the high creed and cracked her wings. In an instant, she speared through corridor and found shadow again. She was free, but not for long if she didn't hurry. The cultist wiped blood from her lips as her body shivered. There was the sound of a bang, and Nxyala saw nothing but the hateful glare of the Fleshsmith as fire burst from her mouth. The woman had moved quick before, but now she didn't move.

She looked casual. Nyxala knew she wasn't going to give up as easy as that, but she took the opportunity given to get away as rapidly as possible. Wary, she kept flicking her head back, watching for whatever was to come. Despite how far Nyxala was getting, the woman barely moved. Too casual. She tore one of Nyxala's discarded arms from its hook, and pulled a strange bundle of fragile bone tubes tied together with steel bands. It was small and took the basic form of a person with arms and legs. A doll.

She now held one of the dozens hanging from her side, and lowered Nyxala's mutated arm to the unsettling creation. Nyxala found a tunnel leading deeper into the shadows — deeper into the Island — and did not hesitate. She shut her eyes and flew around the areas she knew she couldn't touch. Not even the cult leaders would dive into phantom infested shadows without thinking twice. If that cultist wanted to follow, then she was just as likely to find her soul torn to shreds.

One of Zandisth's soulsingers would know that better than anyone. But… the harbinger was a soulsinger, right? Nyxala had only seen physical prowess, and none of the typical soul-striking attacks. Nyxala's leg snapped. She suppressed a hiss of pain. The limb hadn't touched anything, yet it now bent unnaturally to the side. It didn't take her long to figure out the cause. Especially when her other leg crushed to paste beneath a the grip of a massive, non-existent hand. The Fleshsmith had linked that doll to her soul.

Unlike the earlier protrusion into her body, there was nothing to fend off. No soul intrusion she could feel. The fingers simply gripped her waist, and twisted. Nyxala's spines snapped down, loosening her back so it didn't crack with the sudden strain. It allowed her to keep flying, but she needed to do something about this right now. The woman was still clearly trying not to kill her, and that was her only lifeline. She was not so certain she'd survive a snapped neck or crushed head.

Both edge sight and her Feat's life-sense discovered a small group of cultists singing their hymn. Perfect. With neither arms nor tentacles, she was feeling incredibly unbalanced. And, hopefully, healing would remove that tainted soul-latch. She didn't make it another dozen metres before the Island suddenly roared to life. A tremor rocked the woven corridors around her. The sheer force ripped through steel, leaving Nyxala's path transformed into a razor forest. It continued for a while.

Nyxala's tendrils curled to the back of her head at the harsh sound. As if following the tremor, the soul extracting ritual exploded back into existence with burning intensity. Instantly, the shadows were gone. Nyxala was stuck out in the open below a bright, pulsing blue light. Now that there was light, she could see the flowing flesh that had been hidden beneath the steel lacerations. The shadows had been shoved away, but not the phantoms. A thousand screeches added to the sound of shredding metal.

Nyxala averted her gaze as the lingering entities of shadow launched their vengeful assault on the glowing ritual. Some failed. The light dispersed their forms and sent them back to wherever they came from. Most didn't. The phantoms piled into the glowing runes, shredding through iron and flesh and anything else in their way. They were unforgiving against the light that dared tread in their territory, and reclaimed their shadows. But the patches of blue where the phantoms failed, remained. Nyxala's blood ran cold.

There was no denying it; the Island wouldn't be tearing itself apart for any reason but one. The ritual had reached its climax. She no longer had any time to bother with some small group of cultists. By the power rapidly increasing through her body, she knew she wasn't in the best condition, but if she wanted to put an halt to this ritual, then she needed to reach the Island core now. So Nyxala beat her wings and shot through the Island as fast as she could.

She ignored the way her spine continued to twist, gradually rising to her upper back. She paid no attention to the way her legs were suddenly yanked free from her body. It all only strengthened her focus on the task at hand. Stolen novel; please report. Walls became a thing of suggestion. Whenever she couldn't slip through cracks or pivot around corners, she made her own passages. Each time, it stole some momentum, but ultimately, it let her reach the core far faster than otherwise.

Nyxala's eyes glazed over the nine massive pillars and the two Fleshsmiths standing in the centre of the atrium as she finally broke through. Her actions were no longer her own. The moment she slammed through the weakened wall, she set upon the pile of bodies left out for her like an offering. With her chest chewing on nothing for the past minute, it was all too eager to swallow the first three bodies whole before beginning to chew as it ate more. Nyxala's original mouth found just as much use.

Her dual rows of razor sharp fangs sliced through the living — albeit soulless — flesh.

"I see you let yourself in." Nyxala snapped out of her hunger to find Zandisth grinning up at her.

"I thought it was possible, but I didn't actually think you'd be foolish enough to deliver yourself to me." Nyxala rose from her pile of viscera as her legs regrew beneath her. Between the obelisks that had thousands of souls swimming around them, falling streams of molten steel fell. It flowed into large channels that formed one of the most intricate ritual circles she'd ever seen. Liquid flesh bubbled up from below, tracing its own path around and through that of the metal.

"Zan'İ̘̥l̓l̆ͬi͎vȋs̫, we're making a last minute alteration." He shoved his finger into the altar, carving new runes even as the overflowing energy permeating the bone artistry melted the skin off his hand. He didn't seem to mind.

"We don't need to summon a god anymore. Not when an Eidolon will heed our call."

"That is Madness, Z͐a̟͠n̖͐di̥s͈t̝̾h̃̔́. The ritual is already teetering on unstable. You'll doom us all." Zan'Illivis tried to pull the superior cultist's arm away, but flinched as his arm burned. The scar left sprawled across his arm was stark. A pattern that wasn't a pattern. Something Nyxala couldn't quite comprehend. The man though? He became entranced at a glance.

"Whatever the risk, the quality of that girl's sacrifice will make up for it. Do you not see those mutations?" Zandisth hadn't seemed to notice his associate was no longer listening.

"Ah, you're finally here, Zan'Bre̮̭̖ͯ̄ͭ̑nae̼͈l. Hurry and restrain the girl. There's not much time to prepare." Nyxala spun to find the cultist walking through the hole she'd torn through the wall. The doll in her hand was battered and destroyed. Not enough material left to do much damage. Except… the woman brought out another doll, and immediately crushed her legs again. Even after she'd healed, they still worked. She grunted, but there was one thing she'd noticed that was a major relief. Those dolls?

They didn't affect her mutations. How could they when the bundle of bone was shaped like a person, without any of Nyxala's added extremities. With a beat of her wings, and a push of her tentacles, Nyxala launched towards the heart of the ritual. The two hooks that all but materialised to dig into her large wings was almost too easy to predict. As Zan'Brenael wasted her weapons to pin her wings, Nyxala simply discarded them. The name she'd gained in her most recent evolution proving its worth.

"Yog." Nyxala's multitonal voice resonated through the atrium. She didn't even have to wait to feel the blood across her body respond, eager to bring the rest of itself to her.

"Destroy the obelisks." For a moment, all was quiet. Nyxala fell over the centre of the ritual with only her tail keeping her steady. There were barely fifty cultists still alive in the room. As they chanted their hymn, their eyes trailed Nyxala. Zan'Brenael was annoyed at being duped. Zandisth watched her with the same greedy glint in his eye she'd seen so often, showing no sign of concern. Zan'Illivis… well, he still stared at the burn marks in his arm.

Then, the rumbling churn of rushing waves echoed around the chamber. The cultists glanced around, not comprehending the what or where. Nyxala hung in the air, wondering if it was even possible for Yog to destroy those massive pillars. They weren't exactly made fragile. This wasn't a bunch of meatsacks that had barely taken a step in their life. But the rumbling continued to thrum through the ground. Rivers of flesh and steel churned, spilling waves over the sides and across the footbridge.

As Nyxala's empowered leap finally began to arc down, the first cracks in the dam showed. Not through the same pipes the flesh had been carried. No, trickles of blood sprouted from the obelisks themselves. One crack turned to a dozen. The pillars became fountains of blood, yet the pressure continued to mount. Nyxala waited with bated breath, and the cultists ran around in some vain effort to stop what was inevitable. The dam burst.

In an instant, the build-up of blood inside and underneath the pillars proved too great. Huge slabs of bone-embedded stone were thrown across the atrium with an explosion of blood. One unlucky group of soul-less bodies were pulped beneath flying stone. The rest were painted red. And the souls? Many lingered aimlessly, as if they didn't know where to go. But just as many swam off to the furthest reaches of the Island. They faded from sight the instant they were outside the crumbling power of the obelisks.

Knowing Lysyra, she was almost sure the girl was fine. Now, at least.

"No!" Zandisth shouted as a sea of blood came flooding in to cradle Nyxala.

"You don't know what you have done." Solan's second right hand moved to step away from the altar — to flee the forsaken ritual — but bone splintered from the heavily runed construction, and stabbed Zandisth a hundred times. A strange dark-blue-tinged flesh connected the bone shards to the altar. It was not a natural colour. The dark blue held that distinct tone of a soul, except it was rotten. Decrepit.

"No, no! We can't have you leaving." Zan'Illivis announced with unstable fervor. Finally, his gaze rose from the dark burn mark on his arm. Nyxala noted how much it looked like a maw. And his eyes; they reflected a visage none but the man himself could see.

"You are to host the Great End. Our Lord of Eternal Consumption." Zan'Illivis stepped forward, his body jittered erratically. Like walking had become a foreign concept.

"You think I'll let you walk away from this?" Zandisth sneered.

"When I survive the collapse of this ritual, I'm going to butcher your soul into a million pieces before binding you to the sickliest rodents I can find before binding them to binding racks. When they die, I'll take the skitter-spawn, force whatever remnants of your soul that remain through the antitheses repelling force and alter them so they will chew each other to near death over and over and over again."

"You mistake me, Z͐a̟͠n̖͐di̥s͈t̝̾h̃̔́. I won't be walking away. None of us will." Zan'Illivis reached Zandisth, and slowly pushed him to the altar. The man tried to fight back, of course. He gathered a horrifying number of souls, their blue glow shining like the accretion. But another hundred shards from the twisting altar at the centre of the active ritual drained him of all his power in an instant. He couldn't resist being lowered onto the bed of bony spikes.

"The Soulchasm will arrive through you, but I am the key to its arrival. Our Divine End will come. He will come for everyone." At Zan'Illivis's insane fanaticism, Nyxala was quick to rush for the nearest exit. The entire chamber was roaring now. A deep, guttural scream that continued to rise. Even with the last of the Fleshsmiths having abandoned their hymn, the ritual could not be stopped. She needed to get off this Island now.

"Oh, exalted Soulchasm. I call to you. Offer the people of Coral the enlightenment you have bestowed me. Bestow them the omniscience of true soul-death." He raised a knife over the altar, and plunged it into his own chest. Wisps of soul immediately began slipping from the wound as blood pooled over Zandisth's furious — powerless — face. The man tried to spit out whatever went near his mouth, but the blood had a mind of its own. And it wasn't Yog's. Zandisth was forced to swallow the sacrificial blood.

"I offer myself, and call upon thee.

X̸̢̢̪͇͕̦̤͔̥͔̘̜̪̪̪̩͍̻͓̞̜͚͙͎̳̠́̓̈́̋̈́̊̇̓̚͜͝y̶̢̡̡̛̫̫͚̞͖̥̖̙̤̳̲͔̙͇͚̠̯̮͔̟͕̟͖̭̙̣̲̼͈̪̦̞̙͇̻͈͕̺͋̍̃̽̔̂̅̈̑̆̔͐͆͂͊̒͑̈́̾̉̆̊͋́̉̇̂̋̆̏̊̃̈́̎̏̅͆̅͘͝͝͠ͅr̶̢̛̛̛̘̪̦̘̻̤͍̮̫̤͉͔͈͇̹͎̝͉̱̖͍̙͕̅̓̈́̓̇̔̊̔͐̈́͑̌̇̇̇̉̐̊̈́̂͐̓̌̆̐̾̊̾̕͝͝ͅŗ̴̤͔̲̠͇̪̯͔̪̬͓͉̮̲̦̺̥͓̫͚̳͚̠̭̖̱̲̗̗̮̞̟̺͖̫͈͓̲͈̺͛́̀͑͊̎̏̏̽̈́͛̉̂͐̉̅̿̏͛̂̏͐̍́͑͊̒̅̅̈́͊̀͛̐͆̉̕̕͜͝͠ͅḩ̶̨̙̭͚̲̹͓̞͔̜̭̩̣̠̳͍̠͖͓́͌̓̈́̑̂̓̍̽̈́̔̑́͗͜͝ͅú̷̡̨̢̨̢̯͍̬̙̞̺̫̳̪̹̺̩̫̻̝̩̗̖̠͍̝̞̫̦̬̹̼͕̞̳̦͕͇̘͖̝̠̳̜͔͚̟̩̒̏̂̈̂͋̎̏̓͐͋̈́̌̔͋͑̌̎̓̅̇͑̌̂̄̓̐̓̈́̀̓̕͘͝͝͝ͅṿ̴̨̧͉̭̠̳̙̳̖̣̰̩̖́͆̿̍̌͌̎͋̆̓̎̑̏̚̚͜͝͝a̶̢̨̡̡̖̯̺̦̺͈͎̠̠͎̟͚̯̦̪͓̮͉̬͍͎̥͍͔͔͖̮̭̺̙͆́͛̒̇̌̆̈́́͛̍̿̑͗̆̑͊͑͂̔̏͛̀̚̕͜͝͝i̴̢̦͙̠̤͒̄̿̈̽͂͑̋̌͊̋̍̆̀̓̃̏͋̌̐̄̆̌́̒̊̒̄́̆̂̄̄̔͑͐̈̓̏̓͒͘̚͝͝͠k̸̛̤͖̠̓̀͗͋̏̿̏͌͌̂̒̑̅̾͐̂̎̐̈͐̈͑̈̍́̒͋͜͝͠ͅñ̷̲̟̹̀͒̃͗͌̃͒̾͛̄̀̅̎͝ȃ̸̧̨̧̧̨̨̰͉̼͕͔̳͉̪̻̘̼̼̥̰̝̱̻͙̰̈́̀̔̑̓̀̃́̿̿̇́̄̀́̆̀̒̊̉͌̂̒̚̕̚͠͝ͅͅ, feast upon us all."