Chương 56: Molten Flesh in a Dark Star

Darkness engulfed the chamber in an instant. A physical wall of blackness shot out of Nyx, yet it clawed through metal and ripped into space like an industrial grinder took to the soft flesh of fruit. Nyx carefully kept her name open as the ungodly amount of corruption flowed freely outwards. Unlike the last time she'd done so, it felt far more precise. She couldn't just rip open her name without control and allow the Dark Star to form itself. No, all her curses were bound now.

If she unleashed everything all at once, she could feel that it would only end badly for herself. Her name felt like an eggshell. The crack hiding her corruption could be teased open, but if she pushed it too hard, she was likely to shatter the shell. That would unleash all her mutations. And who knew what other curses might be waiting to be unbound with such an action. The previous Dark Star began with a rush of corruption that couldn't be stopped. This time, Nyx knew she could stop it… but she wouldn't.

Not when it was her purpose for being here. Nyx watched as the foundations beneath the Fleshforge stretched into infinity. The cavern was wide before, but now she couldn't see an end. Not even with her third eye. Pure corruption had this way of being pure black, yet not blocking sight. It erased light, yet didn't impede the eyes that relied on it. But even with this, the ends of the chamber grew impossibly dark. Black, like the core of the Darkness below.

As Nyx waited for the right time to stem the flow, she felt dozens of cracks form over her name. None of them were even close to the size of the three already marring it, but their sudden appearance was concerning. What was more worrying, was that she wasn't actually sure they hadn't been there before. She couldn't tell whether her name was breaking, or her eyes were just opening to more of her curses. Hopefully, they weren't more mutations. The ground suddenly lurched.

A heavy, thumping clang rang in her ears and drowned out any other sound. Dampening no longer muffled the work of the Forge. It struck with the power of a mountain, and with Nyx at its base, she found herself disoriented. Not that the lack of ringing in her ears might have made the world easier to comprehend. Corruption bent the world to its will. The orderly piping that slid along the ceiling now bent and curled in ways that shouldn't be possible. It filled the space all around her.

Nyx was rapidly being trapped in a labyrinth of piping as it closed around her. She could still see the darkness in the distance… yet she couldn't seem to comprehend any way to reach it. The hammer struck for the second time. Through the agony of her head ringing like a bell, she found this strike was far less uncompromising to her surroundings. The metal overhead distorted. It bent, leaving the shape of a massive circle dented in the ceiling. Nyx should have been crushed.

The metal ceiling dropped by metres, yet the chamber was not that tall. But as she looked, it didn't appear to have dropped at all… even though she knew it had. The hammer struck again, and the effect repeated. Piping continued to coil like a serpent constricting prey, until all at once, a dozen burst. A hissing sound of pressure releasing accompanied a sudden immense rise in temperature as what was only moments ago contained by heavy-duty pipes now flowed like rivers. She cut the flow of corruption.

It was already a Dark Star Event; she had no doubt of that. Now, she just needed Little God to lead her out before the worst creature took form.

"Eyeball, same as last time, yeah? You can lead me out?" He nodded as he watched her, but didn't move. Another blow of the forge and the ground shattered. A quake shot up Nyx's legs as the metal split around her, giving the flowing rivers of molten flesh and steel somewhere to go. Above, fissure split the metal. Through them, a river of screams gushed down to her like the magma did at her side. Fleshsmith screams.

Nyx almost cracked a satisfied grin that they were getting what they deserved, but she had to focus on getting out alive first. Despite triggering the event herself, she knew she wasn't immune to the disaster. But what she did have over all her enemies, was a small god that always knew where to go. A god that always followed her around. But not even he could help when the ground broke away beneath her feet.

Nyx's wings caught her immediately, but that didn't seem to matter; in that instant she'd lost her feet, she somehow accelerated to a speed greater than ever. She was moving faster than a bullet. Angling her wings, Nyx dodged out of the way of a stream of hot, liquid flesh that burst from the darkness. It clipped her wings, and a couple of feathers incinerated. She tried to bend her wings to slow herself down, but each attempt only accelerated her further.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. She tried her damnedest to keep calm. This was the core of the Dark Star, she was bound to encounter some difficulties as it spun up its dangers and twisted the world to something unrecognisable. Nyx just needed to ride this out. If she did, she would be okay. Instead of an ocean of blood as had happened last time, it was dual seas of flesh and metal she fell towards.

The molten seas fought for dominance, often twisting together and forming monstrosities that dove beneath the boiling ocean and swam where Nyx couldn't get a good look. The hammer struck again. The seas parted, but only for a moment. When they crashed together, the reverberating impact was as heavy as the hammer itself, yet the seas did not immediately return to their fight for supremacy. They were split by something massive.

Nyx only had a few moments to see what it was before it dove down into the depths with the rest, but the enormous tail it whipped through the air made it clear. A monstrous whale of flesh and metal had been forged into life. Long as a kilometre. Combating such a beast was impossible. And yet it too was beaten by the sheer might of the Forge's hammer.

As Nyx finally gained a hold of her speed and pulled up before touching the scorching oceans, only for the mighty industrial hammer to crash through the entire foundations of the forge and impact the ocean. The explosion of power itself was enough to blow Nyx back along with the seas, so she was only sprayed with the burning liquid, but there was no ignoring what happened around her. Boiling flesh and molten steel churned upon themselves, and soon it was difficult to tell which way was up.

Both oceans tugged at her, but both settled on opposite planes from the other. A sky of liquid metal, and an ocean of flesh, all extending into the distance like a storming ocean. Fleshforged creatures swam through both seas. Their fins often breaching the surface, the only indicator of their presence. What shook up this image, was the Forge hammer. For now, it was submerged in the metal ocean, but in only a few seconds, mighty rails as large as the hammer itself reached into the flesh ocean.

Following those rails, the remnant of the Forge struck again. With each strike, the oceans were churned up, and monstrosities of flesh and steel were born. It almost seemed like the Dark Star's core had settled into an equilibrium. But of course. it wouldn't be so easy. Pitch black roots spun through the air. They started from nothing, and grew endlessly like the substance of the Darkness itself.

A fleshforged shark rocketed out from the waves — the first good look Nyx got at one of the creatures — and bit into the roots. Instantly, its teeth rotted black, and its head disintegrated before it could return to the waters. Er, the molten seas. The dark roots continued to spread, but not equally, or randomly. They were reaching for Nyx. She beat her wings. With Little God trailing close behind, she darted between the oceans as far and as fast as she could. Yet it was not enough.

The black roots caught up to her. They surrounded her before engulfing her. Nyx had no time to put up a fight, nor any means to. In one moment, she was flying unabated. The next, she was in a void. She was getting an eerie sense of deja-vu even before the first star winked into existence. Only a single glance and dread flooded her soul.

"Little God, take us out of here," she demanded as she turned away from the star she knew hid something terrible. Yet a dozen more appeared where she looked.

"No," he said, floating before a tapestry of stars.

"What do you mean no? You always know your way."

"I cannot see through Elder's domain." He shook his eye.

"It is impossible." Nyx couldn't hide from it anymore. No matter where she looked, millions of those stars hung in the void. As it was last time, the sight of stars all around her instead of contained by the Great Iris was a horrifying sight. The gaze of what lay beyond was unbound, and she was at the centre of them all. All at once, the stars blinked. Nyx hated being watched, but there was nothing she could do as billions of watchers dug through her soul. It wasn't the surface brush.

No, it was back to that soul-deep penetration she'd felt back when she was sacrificed. In a perfect replication of the last Dark Star, fangs wider than galaxies bore down around her. She couldn't see them. She couldn't feel them. Nyx just knew they were there, chomping down on her from impossible distances. Her head ached again as the weight of the world pressed on it. Those alien emotions scraped along her scalp, but this time they did not feel so ambivalent. It should have lasted a moment.

She only suffered under the crushing gazes for an instant, and the mind far greater than her own had been nothing but a passing presence. But not this time. The eyes grew intense and the mind so impossibly greater than her own lingered. Its weight buried her, and she found her body stopped responding. Not that there was anywhere to fly. This being lived so many planes of existence above her that it probably saw no difference between her being here, and a thousand metres away.

Again, its mind was beyond comprehension, even if it allowed its emotions to touch hers. But unlike then, she understood one. Fury. It was wrapped up in so many others that she couldn't process, but the being's anger was impossible to ignore. This Eidolon god looked upon her with confusing emotions and thoughts that were nowhere near as apathetic as before. It was direct and intent.

"I watch, yes!" Little God suddenly nodded with an enthusiasm she'd never seen.

"I observe well." Suddenly the shifting kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions ran red. The being beyond comprehension shifted from something she could never comprehend in a million years, to simple, pure wrath that scorched her veins.

"What? I…" Little God stammered, the excitement fleeing his voice as quickly as it came.

"I watched. I helped. I…" His iris widened. Terror washed through her companion.

"No! I did good!" Nyx's body still refused to listen to her, so she couldn't even scream as the endlessly distant fangs crashed down on them in an instant. The eyes disappeared. It was dark. She couldn't see nor feel, yet she knew the teeth sliced through the very fabric of space as they engulfed them. Little God backed away. Whimpers of radio static reached her ears. For not the first time in her life, Nyx was swallowed by an Eidolon god. For not the first time in her life, it did not mean death.

Nyx opened her eyes and found herself in a dark tunnel with streams of molten flesh rolling down the walls. A fin slipped through the falls before hiding again. She was free of the god, and had been returned to the heart of the newly ignited Dark Star. But something was missing. Nyx spun. The metal walls were cracked where the molten fluids didn't flow. Pipes, both broken and not, twirled through the open space. Crawlspaces hid eyes. Critters watching and waiting for any opportunity.

But she couldn't find what she was looking for. Little God was gone.