Chương 59: Safe Spaces Don't Last

Nyx battered aside a lunging shark as she snapped her claws around the cylinder of metal. She continued moving to not get caught in the burst of its contents. Behind her, the third long section of severed piping clanged as it tumbled and crashed through its neighbours before getting caught. In the few minutes she'd spent cleaving the tubes, she'd gone from having to avoid the pipes themselves, to the geysers of their content. It didn't make her job any easier, but it did open up some space for her wings.

With each pipe removed, she could sever them quicker. It compounded, and while she continued to flee from the horde of sharks that snapped at her heels, a sphere within the labyrinth was being cut away. It was surprising how quickly something could become a chore when done over and over. Extending her claws, she swiped at another shark that leapt for her face. Her bladed fingers barely dented the metal plates. Still, it was enough to toss the fleshforged into one of its kin.

The longer the creatures stayed outside the heat of the pipes, the more their bodies cooled. While that made it easier to handle the glancing blows or bites when she failed to knock them away in time, it also left the metal forming their bodies solid and hard. The plating retained the soft red glow with black cracked flakes covering it like a skin, but trying to swing her rapier into it was no different than using a club. For now, she'd completely given up on trying to kill any of them.

At least until she'd shifted the landscape in her favour. A dozen more pipes were cut open. The sharks trailing her unwittingly helped her efforts as they dove through the tubes rather than avoid them. Nyx didn't want to rain molten steel down on the space she was creating, so she was extra careful with how she cut the upper pipes. The more geysers that shot away from her, the better. Nyx hadn't even finished slicing through the maze of tubes when they decided they couldn't handle any more.

A heavy groaning of metal echoed around her for a moment before the entire space collapsed. Pipes burst and bend. Under the weight of so many heavy tubes of metal being held up by only a few points, it all collapsed at once. The labyrinth fell away to reveal the sphere of open space she'd been working so hard to carve. Avoiding the few streams, Nyx flew out where the sharks could not reach her without throwing away their advantage. The open sphere gave her fifteen metres of diameter to work with.

Plenty to fly around. Finally, she could deal with these hardy pests. Now safe from the constant chase, she counted thirteen of them. All of which were now swimming upwards. Nyx didn't have to wait long to find out where they were going. As soon as the first one reached the source of one of the flesh-falls that fell near Nyx, it dove in and rushed for her. She caught it out of mid-air and pulled it taught. With a beat of her wings, the other dozen sailed past ineffectively.

As the group of sharks swam back to the top like a bunch of kids at a slide, Nyx burn her eye through the tender flesh straining in her grasp. Cooler than before, tendons and muscles had formed, making it many times more difficult to tear the fleshforged apart with her strength alone. Still, its bladed fins could do nothing against her chitin. Whether it be hacking or sawing, Nyx's arms were too resilient.

Really, while the sacrifices had barely improved her human muscles, the chitin was bounds ahead of where it was in her last life. There would be no cutting of her claws with boltcutters this time. It took minutes to burn through enough flesh for the shark to stop trying to pull itself together. All while avoiding the others that threw themselves at her. She only had one third eye. Each gummy shark would have to wait their turn.

Now that things had shifted from unreasonably difficult to easier than she'd expected, Nyx found her gaze falling on the eye in her chest. As she snapped up a second fleshforged and began working on that, her eyes trailed the glowing veins with concern. They were spreading rapidly. Already, the lines were clambering at the base of her neck and reaching for her shoulders. While she was eating the shark-flesh, she was also hyper-analysing its structure.

It was difficult to understand with only the brief moments she'd used it before now, but the more of the same she observed, the more she learnt of it. If anyone ever asked her to draw the forming structure in the shark's cooling flesh, she could do so without difficulty. And she could see how it changed with each second it lost its heat. Beyond even that, her ever so slight hunger had well and truly disappeared with the death of the second shark. Could she actually feed herself with her eye?

Or was it her imagination? As she burnt through the third shark, she decided it wasn't a fabrication of her mind. After her hunger was sated, the spreading veins seemed to fill her with energy. Her heart beat twice as fast. She felt like she needed to sprint from one edge of Coral to another. Even her fingers twitched as she held the shark. They wanted to dig in and tear the beast apart, but she held herself back; knowing it would be less than convenient.

By the time Nyx had eaten through the tenth shark, her glowing crimson-violet veins had reached her jaw and wormed up the side of her face. They'd long covered her shoulders and spread down her arms. Thankfully, the bright arteries hadn't yet reached her wings, but it was only a matter of time. Her robe was only barely thick enough to stop the light seeping through, but there would be no hiding the lit arteries of her neck and face. Not even with her hood.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Well, she'd already lost the luxury to worry about hiding herself. Hopefully, when this was all over, and she escaped the Dark Star — if she escaped — she wouldn't be immediately discovered. But whether that outcome was possible or not, it wasn't something she could waste time stressing over. Not now. Not while she was stuck in such a dangerous place. At least I've got my sphere of safety.

Until the rest of the Dark Star settles down and all the gummy sharks are gone, I'll be safe here. As she began her work on the eleventh shark — the creatures were thankfully dumb enough to never give up and wait her out — an intense pressure slammed through her chest. A sound like a gong rang off the labyrinth of pipes, leaving all she could see to quiver. The shivering of metal drowned her ears in a blanketing hum. It was loud. Not even the sound of a pipe bursting could overcome it. Nothing…

until a wave of harrowing screams washed it away. They were brief, but they were no doubt the dying wails of hundreds of Fleshsmith cultists. Nyx felt no pity for them. She had triggered this disaster with their very deaths in mind. But now that she was with them, lacking the free escape she'd assumed she had, those screams struck her with dreadful foreboding. As if in response to their throes, the many streams of flesh and metal shifted.

Instead of all flowing downward, as with the rest of gravity in the immediate area, they began to twirl inwards. Where before, Nyx had a space all to herself, she now had to share it with a spiralling mass of the Fleshforge's fuel. And the sharks that caught a ride. Nyx's wings slammed against void, throwing her out of the path of one stream, only to be struck in the head by the tail of a shark. Her head pounded. Blood trickled into her eyes, and no amount of blinking washed it out.

Enough of her senses remained that she could avoid the rest of the shifted falls. Unfortunately, that left her back at square one: the space she'd made for herself was now filling with an orb of flesh and steel.

"That was intentional, wasn't it?" Nyx glared at nothing.

"I'm not allowed anywhere of safety, is that it?" For a moment, she waited, as if expecting a response. Some smart-ass comment that she wouldn't be able to tell if it was genuine or not. Only when nothing but the sound of gushing falls responded, did she realise that she was expecting anything at all. Nothing would come. Nyx observed the last of the gummy shark flesh before tossing aside the metal plates. There was only two left, but her advantage had disappeared.

The sphere of molten substances grew beyond the empty space Nyx had created for herself, and she was forced to flee back into the labyrinth again. Only now, gravity pulled her towards the burning orb. It was like witnessing the formation of a planet. One that endlessly grew and expanded towards her. Soon, Nyx hadn't just lost the open space that kept her safe, she had to run from the rising waves that rose quicker than the broken pipes could possibly sustain.

In her desperate efforts to outpace the rising tide, Nyx was almost too late to react to the pair of sharks that dove at both her sides. Whether intentional or not, their synchronised attack was the only reason a bite landed. Nyx swung at one, battering it away. The other sunk its teeth into the back of her arm, burning the flesh and scraping bone. That alone would have been bad, but it flared one of its fins out and pierced below her shoulder.

Nyx, in a mixture of pain and frustration, wrapped her fingers around the shark's head and tugged. The action only sliced open her side. Like a barb, the fin tore through as much skin as it could before being removed. Suppressing a scream, Nyx glanced down at the horrid gash trailing from right below her shoulder to just above her wing. It bled profusely. She screamed again. This time not because of the pain. Nyx grabbed her name, and ripped it open.

She'd already resolved herself to do so, and only now she'd realised that she was still holding back. It was not something she could get away with. She had to rip off the bandage while before the infection killed her. The shark was still in her grip. In a single motion, she brought it around, and spat. She slathered the creature in her saliva, and in only moments, the metal that formed it bubbled and burned. The flesh beneath dissolved in an instant. There would be no recovering from that.

Nyx heard a splash from below, and found the last shark snapping out of the waves and rocketing towards her with considerable speed. A compulsion overtook her. Her jaw cracked, and she snapped the shark out of mid-air. The unreasonably sharp fangs sliced through metal like butter. Her acidic saliva did the rest of the work. Fitting that the first creature she killed with these teeth be a shark. Now that she'd finally dealt with the sharks, she continued to climb upwards.

Nyx took one of the metallic plates from the now dead shark and pressed it into her side. She hissed as it cauterised her gash. As much as she'd love to perform that miraculous healing ritual, there was no ground to paint with the circle. For now, she would need to deal with it. Without the threat of something chasing her, she was able to keep away from the encroaching ocean with ease. She took a relieved breath, and brushed her hand through her hair.

When it came back absolutely covered in mould, she let out another breath. This one filled with resignation. She didn't have a mirror, but she doubted there was any of her brunette locks remaining. It had been a bland and boring colour. She liked it that way. These cyan growths would never appear normal. Especially to any detailed inspection. The mould strands were dozens of times thicker than hair — two or three millimetres — and often split like branches as it flowed down her head. Nyx poked at her mouth.

She plucked a few old teeth that hadn't fallen out with her glob of spittle and tossed them aside. Some had gotten stuck between the two new rows that took the place of her previous set. Dragging her finger along the ridges, she found them just as sharp and triangular as they'd been in her last life. Once again, she would need to be careful with her tongue and lips. Nyx sighed. The expanding ocean of molten steel and flesh was long behind her now. Barely at the edge of sight. Still, she kept moving.

Stagnating in one place had already shown to be a horrible idea. Besides, she would never escape if she didn't try. Not that her hopes for escape were high. This was a Dark Star, after all. Subtle noises echoed through the labyrinth. Some were reflections of her own footsteps. Some were the creaking of pipes. Others even, were the gush of fluid muffled over distance. All they amounted to, was to cast an eerie sense of emptiness over the labyrinth that until now, had been filled with life.

Well, life that had been viciously trying to kill her. Reflexively, Nyx glanced over her shoulder, as if she would find her little guide there. But he wasn't. He had always been nearby. Always had been by her side, even before he began to speak to her. The Eyeball was a constant. His gaze never left her. But now it had, and she had never felt so alone. Nyx's gaze travelled down to her hips. There, beneath her robe, were four large lumps spaced equally around her body. Nyx laughed.

The slight echo of multiple voices had returned. Little God would have loved to see me finally give in.