Chương 212: Stomach of The Soulchasm

The Soulchasm expanded infinitely. More than stretching through the finite confines of the Island, it felt more like her eyes were being warped to take in more than they could handle. It was huge. It was beyond the realm of comprehension. And the famished hole in reality hungered for Nyxala. What was she meant to do? There wasn't anywhere to escape; the bridge behind her was severed, and she'd already experienced just how impossible it was to attempt to fly out under the Deific Tempest.

It wasn't like there was anything to fight. She somehow doubted a little stab of her claws into the dark flesh crawling over the walls would achieve much. None of the ideas that raced through her mind would save her. So, she cast aside her reluctance. With no time for caution, Nyxala grasped her name and wrenched it open. Darkness spilled from her, drowning the world with corruption. The power of a Dark Star exploded from her.

It's twisting touch immediately grasped the sea of blood, the ground under her feet, and the accretion downpour, and melded them into a single eruption that altered reality. Everything had changed… except The Soulchasm. Blood flowed with the solar storm, spiralling with intense luminescence that fought the darkness all around Nyxala. Everywhere but right in front of her. The immense pit of death siphoned her Dark Star as if it were little more than water.

The rapidly expanding sphere of corruption spilled over the ledge of The Soulchasm. As the light infused blood tumbled into that bottomless maw, its illumination drained, and faded to nothing. Worst of all, it never left her sight, yet it ceased regardless. Even as all that blood tumbled into nonexistence, it was charged with corruption. So much corruption. It took barely a second for the first amalgamation to spawn. Then there was a hundred.

Nyxala watched as a near endless horde of the patchwork creatures manifested from the waterfalls of blood, only for their very short existences to end in the stomach of a god. Not even the titanic amalgamations — like those she'd seen in the first Dark Star — could save themselves from falling along with the million other creatures. Nyxala felt herself falling forward. She glanced back, assuming the Island had begun to list. But Coral was right there. A bit further up than before, but still above her.

No: The Soulchasm was sucking her in.

"There's a bunch of cultists up there. Eat one of them if you're hungry," Nyxala said.

"They taste better than I do. I'm sure of it. Full of greed and power and delicious gooey insides." While the Dark Star had seemingly been completely ineffective against the god, the platform around her had been affected. With only a little shifting of her position, the odd, altered gravity gave Nyxala somewhat of a surface to stand on. Still, no matter what she did, she could never truly position any surface between herself and The Soulchasm." I do not consume for taste."

As it's voice echoed in her mind, she was sure it spat the word almost hatefully." And if I did, understand that it is your meat that no creature could deny."

"Can't you at least choke trying to speak while eating so much," Nyxala muttered." No." Nyxala jerked her mind back from the heavy voice trilling through her soul. If she wanted to survive, she didn't have the time to idly argue with the entity. She had a plan. She did, but it would take some time to enact. Time she didn't have.

"Yog, are you doing alright?" She needed its help, but that was a hell of a lot of blood pouring down into the chasm. Yog seemed unbothered though. Where the blood curled around her like a fat snake, it wobbled what barely passed as a head.

"Good, 'cause I'll need you-" Her footing slipped as a sudden rush of burning light sliced through the ground besides her, and flipped gravity on its head once more. Nyxala's tentacles shot out and slammed the single remaining Technocult drill-bolt into the surface. Close.

"Yog!" she shouted.

"Same ritual as before. Let's summon Euphoria!" As soon as she'd given the order, Nyxala threw herself into hymn. She sang the same melody as before, but with a hundred voices echoing her own, the monody became a choral. She listened to her instinct — boosted by what remained of her former Talent — and ever so slightly twisted those back-up voices to enhance her own. The hymn should have been chaotic. It was anything but.

Yog, the good blob it was, immediately unfurled into the same complex pentagram she had in mind. It clung to her and her tentacles, suspending the ritual over imminent death. Over a patient god of the inevitable. Even through the tiny amalgamations crawling from the thin lines of blood, Yog held the shape steady. Only one thing remained. As the bloody ritual circle ignited, Nyxala brought her hand to her jaw, extended the blades, and bit off a claw. She needed a sacrifice.

If she had time, and wasn't so uncertain how The Soulchasm's presence would effect a ritual, she would have used a part of herself she didn't need. But this couldn't fail. This couldn't have even the slightest of hiccups. Even if it meant sacrificing a part of one of her mutations, she needed to do it. Nyxala held the sacrifice up to the ritual circle, and it immediately took hold. The blaze spread from the blood to her severed claw easily, and held it aloft despite the ever-increasing pull of The Soulchasm.

Black smoke sank from the flames, converging into that familiar storm that was Euphoria. A thunderous crack of laughter ripped through the half formed Dark Star and welcomed the bright grin to the cloud of smoke. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"What a gift!" the chorus of giggles sprouted around him.

"To bestow me one of your… changes, I must be your favouri-" The grin tilted downwards, and faltered. After an instant that felt far too long to Nyxala's accelerated heart-rate, Euphoria let out a loud, booming laugh. Though, there was a distinct lack of his back-up giggling. He returned his grin to Nyxala.

"Ha! Funny joke!" Euphoria said, chipper. Then he vanished. Nyxala gaped for longer than she had the luxury to. Euphoria was gone. Completely and entirely. As far as Nyxala's eyes could search, there wasn't a trace of him left. Worst of all, he'd taken her claw with him.

"Bastard!" she shouted at nothing.

"At least give me back my finger!" It had always been risky to call upon a god in the way she had. Not in the 'unleash eternal damnation on everyone' way that The Soulchasm was summoned. But rather how limited in scope the ritual bound the actions of the Euphoria. She had trusted that the god was willing to work with her in order to accept her flesh as a sacrifice. But he had taken that trust, and abandoned her. She hadn't wanted Euphoria to take on The Soulchasm.

Without an equal summoning ritual, it wouldn't have helped even if the god was at the same heights as the one below her. What Euphoria could have done — easily — was to drag her out of this situation. He hadn't. If she somehow managed to survive this, then Nyxala needed to have a long, hard look at how she approached rituals. Her carelessness was every bit the reason for this failure as it was Euphoria's betrayal. But… what now?

Nyxala didn't get the time to continue that thought, as massive silverlight fang sliced through the ground sole handhold her tentacles clung to. Her final bastion against The Soulchasm's pull broken, just like that. She fell. Her tentacles scrambled to get another grip, but found nothing. She twisted and spread her wings, but that barely seemed to help. The void was being pulled down just as fast as she was. Faster. Each scrambled beat only marginally slowed her descent.

Whatever she gained, the constant tug stripped the advantage, pulling her ever closer to her eternal end. The rim of the maw rose around her sides, and she was officially inside The Soulchasm. Instead of an endless pit it appeared on the outside, the inner oesophagus widened, leaving her falling through what she could only describe as an unending stomach with the tapered maw behind her. Each instant she fell, more of the god was revealed. There wasn't just one maw.

All across the stomach's dimensions — of which she failed to truly comprehend — there were other openings. Mouths reaching to who knows where in the universe. Yog still clung to her. She couldn't help but feel appreciative, even if it should have slipped out while it had the chance. The blob would have been able to slip away. Well, she was even more appreciative for it. Though it did make her feel guilty.

With her mind decaying from the overwhelming fears, concerns, and guilt that came with accelerated thoughts, Nyxala almost didn't notice when Yog tried to speak. It took the blob shoving its bloody words in her face to react. LOVE US A request. A plea from an entity that had stuck by her side and wanted nothing else. Even in the face of cessation, it remained the only thing it ever wanted. And there was no way she could deny.

"I promise to love you." And with those few words, it felt as if a fundamental, universal law had been altered. Nyxala had no idea what caused the sensation, or the understanding that something was now written in stone. She thought, maybe, she'd just performed some sort of Invow. But she didn't feel any different herself. Her thoughts towards the bloody blob hadn't changed, or grown any more affectionate than they already were. And yet, she understood something important had happened that she could not fully grasp.

So giddy at Nyxala's words, Yog failed to write full words before it gave up and pounced into her embrace more than it already had been. But even that wasn't good enough. It wanted to get closer, and so it pushed into her skin. Yog opened old wounds — surprisingly painlessly — and rushed into her veins. An ocean of blood, constantly spilling newly birthed amalgamations, forced its way into her body. And yet, it all fit.

Despite the impossibility of it, Nyxala took in a mountain of blood and neither vein nor artery poked out from her skin any more than usual. Nyxala felt the blood flowing through her body — but especially her wings — accelerate rapidly. She hadn't increased her heart rate. This was Yog forcing blood through her body at rates and volumes that, under normal conditions, would kill anyone. Pain flared in her wings. Not nearly enough to bother her through her pain tolerance, but it was there.

Yog pushed more blood into her wings. Pressure began to build up inside the feathered masses, until, with a single grisly crack, they doubled in size. She gawked for only a moment, and chided herself for even that. Taking advantage of the new size, Nyxala began to beat hard against her fall. But Yog wasn't done. Blood swelled in her wings, and again, a crack announced their enlargement. This time, they weren't without visual changes. Feathers shed. She felt the bones in the tip of her wings stretch and spread.

The tender skin typically protected by her feathers grew tough. It hardened into stretched leather. Once more, and her feathers shed entirely. Nyxala's wings grew large enough to fill a room. The leathery skin darkened in shade to a black that reflected the Darkness, leaving only the thick veins spiderwebbing across their surface visible. Each even had a claw. Instead of avian, her wings had become more akin to that of a bat. And when she beat her wings, she actually rose.

Nyxala leaped on the opportunity, and soon she was rushing back up to the maw she'd fallen through. Had she fallen any further, it might have been impossible to tell exactly which one led to her home. She didn't fancy popping up in whatever place this god lived. She rose rapidly. The closer she got, the more painful it got.

Not only was the tugging on her body growing more intense, her wings were striking with such pressure that each of the human parts of her torso she hadn't mutated were put under more strain than they could handle. Then, there was the accretion storm. Despite it not being present where she'd been swallowed, it now rained down on her from above. Each metre gained, the slicing star-remnants burned more of her body. They cut through the skin of her Yog-altered wings.

Most damning of all, though: she couldn't see Coral any longer. All she could see through the maw as she approached, was a pinprick of light that she could only guess was the Great Iris. Light now came from nowhere but directly above." You cannot escape your End." The Soulchasm's voice slammed into her with another wave of gravity. Nyxala watched in horror as the maw closed. Faster than anything that massive had the right to move, it sealed her in. She refused to accept this was how she would end.

Nyxala wasn't done. She wouldn't be done until each and every one of the cults were dead. Her death here was simply an impossibility. Grasping at straws, Nyxala took a hold of her cracked open name. It still spilled corruption out into her surroundings, but it had little effect in the stomach of The Soulchasm. Shoving her ethereal fingers through the gate to all her corruption, she — through sheer desperation — forced the crack to spread to her mutations. Instantly, the one she'd been working at tore open.

Nyxala's eyes glowed pink as she simply let her instincts take hold of the new mutation. She had no idea what it would do, but she pleaded to the Eidolons — if they cared for her or their mission — that it would somehow get her out of this. Her chest opened. The intense pink light of her gem eye gradually bled into the void within her torso. Nyxala's rib teeth opened further than they ever could before. They widened until they could never be considered one with her body.

Nyxala's jaw expanded beyond the limits of her form… and so too did Pink.