Chương 52: Coral Heart

Nyx took two steps towards where she knew the Fleshsmiths' territory lay before she realised Little God was moving the other way. Off in a direction completely separate from her goal.

"Where are you going?" she asked, already shifting to follow the small creature. Little God paused to look back at her. It tilted its body, confused.

"You wished the fastest path to their forge? This is the way." And again, he turned to continue down his original path. The quickest path follows the opposite direction of where I know their territory lies? Nyx thought. Of course it does. She shook her head and chased her companion down a narrow staircase. It might be foolish to trust the eyeball god with anything related to humans and their relations, but she could never dispute his sight.

When your body consisted of an eye and nothing else, you better hope you were good at seeing.

"Say, this path you're taking me won't put me before any monsters, will it?" Nyx asked as she went down the tenth flight of stairs. Two weeks ago and she would have been puffed already. Those sacrifices might not have made her body invulnerable, but it was clear they had an effect. Little God spun to look back at her without stopping its descent. The plumes of darkness flowed off its lower half as if in a breeze; one that was impossible in the airless halls they walked.

"None that are a threat to you." Nyx would like to say that those words comforted her… but she'd come to learn that Little God tended to overestimate her capabilities. She didn't know if it struggled to see the difference between beings so much lesser than itself, or it saw the potential she had, but it wasn't accurate to her current state. A 'threat' — in his eyes — might very well be one of those titanic amalgamations she'd witnessed in the Dark Star. … hopefully she wouldn't have to see them again.

Them, or the Eidolon god that came after. Little God led Nyx through dozens of chambers and hallways, each without a soul in sight. Some were decrepit ruins of her ancient ancestors. Others remained in pristine condition. She walked through what was some long forgotten abode that appeared almost lived in with how free of dust it was, which only made it eerie to walk through. She walked into a small nursery; strange in that there was only one crib.

Back in the ward, there was never enough caretakers to ever afford to keep the babies separated like this. It made Nyx wonder at the luxuries the people of a thousand years ago might have experienced. But, even with such idle thoughts, nothing pulled her attention so much as the missing wall behind the empty cradle. The nursery shifted from a room of toys and nurturing, to a writhing mass of flesh spiralling into a dark tunnel without the light that permeated most of Coral's ancient metal halls. It pulsed.

Each second, the walls floors and ceiling all convulsed like a esophagus trying to swallow an entire room. Nyx glanced between the writhing, fleshy tunnel and her guide uncertainly.

"Is this really the quickest way?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Yes." Little God floated within the dark tunnel, undaunted by either the grimy appearance or Nyx's hesitance.

"Is there no way to avoid these… slimy tunnels?"

"No." He didn't look back at her for once.

"Not unless you wish to be seen." She groaned, but stepped after him despite her reservations. The soft squish beneath her feet sent a shiver down her spine. One that was made worse when it pulsed. Even with shoes, there wasn't enough of a barrier between herself and the sliminess of the living flesh she stood upon. It was strange. Her own feet had become less than solid in her past life — more slimy than the ground she walked on — yet it never felt as disconcerting as this.

It had been an inconvenience, nothing more. The sensation of walking while your feet fell apart was certainly odd, but never disgusting. Ignoring the sickly sensation the spasming tunnel sent through her, she followed the eyeball into the dark. It quickly became too dark to see, and she immediately regret not buying a torch. For a moment, she wondered if the only option she had was to wade through the dark after Little God until light returned. But her third eye screamed in her mind.

It always screamed, but now that her main eyes had become useless, it's demands reached the forefront of her mind. Seeing little reason not to, she lowered her robe and the skulk shroud until the crimson gem was revealed. It worked amazingly. While she couldn't get a perfectly detailed picture without focusing — as that would bring about its own problems — it was no different to how she saw beneath the Great Iris's light.

Of course, now that her eye was out, it was impossible to stop herself from focusing on parts of the walls. Wherever she began to eat away at the flesh, it squirmed and recoiled from her. Thankfully, that was it. The fleshy walls didn't retaliate in any apparent way. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"So there won't be anyone to observe us from here on out?" She trusted Little God, but she had to ask.

"Yes."

"Good," she murmured and sliced two strips down the back of her new robe. Her wings pushed outward, happy for the freedom. Nyx was too. A wave of euphoria washed over her as her wings stretched as wide as they could. Their tips nearly touched the walls of this tunnel before they returned to a more comfortable resting position bundled into her sides. Unbound as they were, they reached from her shoulder blades to her hips.

If she happened across anyone, there would be nothing she could do to hide them, yet keeping them confined when they didn't need to be was torture. Nyx's new robe repaired itself around the base of her wings, leaving the outfit hugging them rather nicely. She gave a few experimental flaps, and twisted her body. Immediately she could tell it wouldn't get in her way. Her robe didn't have to be bunched up over her wings anymore. Glancing down at her hands, she considered letting out the claws, too.

They were her most accustomed weapon, after all. But no. She unsheathed her sword and slid her finger along the sharp edge — doing her best to keep her third eye's gaze anywhere but the blade. It was not her claws she needed to practice with. After a good fifteen minutes of walking through the dark tunnel, thick veins and arteries began to grow larger and more apparent along the walls. A moment observing too long had burst open one of the natural pipes, and blood flowed freely from the ruptured vein.

If the flesh had been quivering before, the addition of the arteries quake under a regular rhythm. The world around her beat so hard that she Nyx could feel her own heart forced into synchronisation. Each thump resounded in her chest. Nyx knew where she was heading even before the shifting shades of red and blue light began to illuminate the tunnel ahead of her. The veins by her side converged into a few massive ones that bulged and distorted with each wave of blood pumped through them.

Eventually, the giant veins, along with the rest of the flesh, opened up into a massive chasm. Nyx now stood on the ledge of a hole in the wall of an immense cavern of blood, flesh and arteries, but none of that compared to what loomed at the chamber's core. The heart of Coral. A kilometre tall and beating like that of any animal, Coral's heart beat with such power that her ears rang and chest ached. Arteries wider than entire rearing wards shot out at odd angles from the top and side.

Each shook from the heart's power. They reached to the cavern walls and split, boring into the flesh like roots. Poking out from one side of the giant, muscular heart — taking the place of the left ventricle and atrium — was an equally huge sphere of metal and glass. Towering pillars held it in place. Pillars that many arteries used as a support to reach the walls.

A wave of blue light spun beneath the glass of the grand construction, and Nyx could feel the power of it burn her skin, right before it flowed into the heart as it thumped. Nyx was spellbound. The intense blue glow of the ring inside the sphere spun in concert with the beating heart, first shining the cavern with its distinct, icy light, then shining through the blood and burning the walls a bright, yet deep, crimson. In the depths of the chasm was an ocean of blood.

An ocean with fleshy bridges connecting the base of the heart to the walls. It was distant, and the thumping heart twisted the space so that her vision was never purely direct, but when she focused her sternum's eye, she found dozens of cultists prostrated on the largest of the fleshy bridges.

"Eyeball!" she hissed at Little God who hadn't given the heart even a glance.

"They'll see me."

"They cannot." Little God paused to glance down at the mass ritual taking effect below.

"Not yet. Not unless you linger." Nyx narrowed her eyes at the small creature. He's not… doing this on purpose, is he? She thought, before shaking her head. He doesn't even understand basic human interactions. It is impossible he brought me here to get a reaction out of me. Though, when she looked up, she found Little God watching her, and suddenly she couldn't be so sure.

There were pulsing veins all along the walls around the hole she found herself — large enough to walk on — yet her guide didn't lead her across any of them. It simply made its way directly to another tube of flesh somewhere overhead. He knew she could fly. Did he he choose this path because of that, or did it not cross his mind? Nyx hoped he wasn't making too many assumptions about what she was capable of. She might be able to fly, but to show her wings in the presence of cultists…

even if she had Little God's assurance they couldn't see her, was difficult. The eyeball had already made it the whole way. It now hovered there, tilting its eye back at her in confusion as if not understanding why she hadn't taken the leap yet. She wanted to shout at the eyeball. Tell it off for putting her in such a risky position instead of a path that didn't take them through the very — literal — heart of the Scriptures cult.

But the damn Eye had moved far enough away that if she wanted it to hear her, those down below would, too. Letting out a silent sigh, she decided that she trusted Little God, and leapt. Her wings beat immediately and she shot across the cavern. Nyx's heart pounded in her chest. There was no way to tell if it was the fear of being discovered, and having her mutations revealed to the world, or just the effect of Coral's heart slamming through her chest. It was probably both.

She crossed the chasm in moments, and quickly found herself speeding through the dark, fleshy corridor. Now that she was already flying, she saw no reason to land. She didn't have to feel the disgust of moving flesh. Little God, naturally, adapted to her speed without issue, and she shot through the depths of Coral far faster than she'd otherwise hope. But the fleshy tunnel didn't remain horizontal for long. Soon, it slipped into an almost perfect drop that would have required her to fly anyway.

Nyx saw no deviating paths. The tunnel was just one long pipe of winding veins that cut through the depths of Coral until the weight pulling on her amplified immensely. It was sudden and immense. The gravity that was a constant touch on her body became the tight grip of a monstrous limb. It curled around her chest. Weighed on her wings. Stuck in the powerful clutches of an invisible beast, she was torn down the tunnel with more power than her wings could handle. The tunnel disappeared.

Instead, she found herself plummeting out of Coral's underside. She could see the shifting shapes at the edges of her vision that never seemed to form when you looked. Not even her third eye helped. Her wings beat, but didn't slow her down. Nyx looked down. The Darkness was impenetrable, yet it arose such a horrid memory in her mind. The black hole had its clutches on her.