Chương 63: Perspective

While the differences in the environments were numerous, the sheer vastness remained the same. In the pipe labyrinth, that manifested in an endless maze with brief glimpses of infinity. Here, it was as if that infinity was everywhere except her immediate vicinity. She glanced over the ledge of the fissure — briefly, in case K'Thorn was tracking her — and found the volcanic forge a thousand times further than it should. It had only taken her minutes to fly down to the border of this river.

So why was the mountain already on the horizon? There wasn't a single person that didn't know that corruption could twist space, but it was still hard to fathom that the closest volcano was already further away than Coral was wide. And that was only one. Each of the forges were equally as far as the next, and they continued on forever. It made Nyx wonder: If the Dark Star was large enough, could it create a planet? A star system? A galaxy? The idea of a universe contained within a speck of sand seemed infeasible.

Impossible. But she could say the same of much of what she'd already seen. Could it be possible that their own world was one such speck created by a timeless Eidolon god? Many believed Coral was nestled in the eye of a god, after all. As time passed and continued along the lower lip of the fissure, Nyx searched for a place to rest. She just needed to sit down for a moment; settle her mind more than her body. But there was nowhere appropriate.

Her tentacles could walk across the jagged wreaths of sheared metal, but should she lay down, she was destined to rip open all her fleshy human bits. Nyx could climb back up to the endless plains of metal, but that left her out in the open. It wouldn't take someone as specialised as K'Thorn to spot her. She tried hanging from her new tentacles like a hammock, and it worked surprisingly well. For a moment. As if enraged by the very fact that she could relax in their home, a swarm of sharks attacked her.

With space and acid, the little fleshforged creatures weren't much of a threat, but they prevented her from lingering. If she didn't want to face an endless tide of the things, she needed to move on. When she settled down next, the same occurred. Unfortunately, it seemed the creatures had a way to detect when she wasn't stressed beyond belief, and came to fix that. Or maybe it was the Dark Star itself. Either way, she was given no time to rest. All she could do, was trudge ever onwards.

Find a place where neither the sharks or the cult could disturb her. That was her plan. Until the gong struck again. The distinct, overwhelming echo of the hammer pealed through space from nowhere and everywhere. The heart of the Fleshforge welding seas of steel and flesh together once again, out of sight, but not of mind. In an instant, the world slid away from Nyx. Her vision of shattered steel and a ravine of flowing flesh melted into another, different image. Suddenly, she found herself somewhere else.

It was still the twisted Forge, but now, she was stranded in the centre of the steel plains. The nearest volcano, or the rivers flowing down from them were many Coral's length away; a momentous trek. Nyx had no time to consider her spontaneous translocation as a horrid screech shook the air before a powerful crack washed over her with enough power to send her stumbling. She would have lost her footing, if not for her new limbs.

Half-way between her and the nearest mountain, Nyx watched the smooth, unbroken metal fracture and bend outwards. Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface, creating rivers where there were none before. The constant sound of the earth breaking — like that of a glacial calving — was soon overwhelmed by the howl of a whale. Its deep, harrowing, trumpet of a song reached Nyx only moments before it crashed through the fracture.

She could see the beast clearly as it destroyed mountains worth of metal and bent the landscape to its will. The shifting walls along its face that spun like a drill twisted in the air, and the beast's momentum carried it entirely into the air. What it's momentum shouldn't have done, was slam the beast back down through the surface as if it were struck by a god's racket. Nyx crouched as the tremor rumbled beneath her feet.

Well, there's something her old, human legs were good for: six points of contact were better than four. The creature rose again. Much faster than anything that size should have been able to twist its body. It breached the surface… and split in two. Cut, right down the middle. She hadn't even realised the being had been fighting until then. Its opponent — a fleshsmith no doubt — was too small to see. Even trying to focus with her third eye was pointless if she didn't know what to look at.

Taking everything in — especially over such distances — was overwhelming. Being sliced down the middle should have been enough to kill most things. But not the whale. It was as much a fleshforged as the sharks Nyx had fought. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Each half struck in coordination. They slammed down on the unseen cultist, and as soon as they touched, the half whales sewed themselves back together.

Not so much as a second passed before its plating spun again and it pealed after its adversary. Nyx found it difficult to even comprehend the scale of the battle as the beast ripped open more of the landscape, freeing it to the encroaching sea of molten steel. Each strike, she thought, should be enough to destroy all of Coral. How could anyone — even an upper creed — survive? The answer: they didn't.

Whether it was impossible for any human to ever approach the scale of a Dark Star's greater spawn, or the cultist just hadn't been strong enough, the whale's opponent perished. With a deep, melodic, declaration of its victory, the whale sunk back into the hidden molten oceans. Nyx had experienced a lot. She'd seen beings that engulfed galaxies. In any sense of scale, these whales where ants compared to the Eidolon Gods.

Yet in only in only a few moments, that ant had obliterated enough solid steel to make Coral ten times over. If one of those reached the surface… Amongst the cults, it was common knowledge that only the pinnacle members — the leaders and the foremost harbingers — could clear a Dark Star. Could they beat beings like this? Or did they simply avoid the battle? Just watching over the twisted wreckage of the battle — some warped building-sized shards of steel had even been flung her way — left her with a sense of dread.

Not in any fear for her safety. The dread that clambered up her chest and sunk its claws where she couldn't resist was from the scale of things finally, and truly registering in her mind. Not only were the nightmares of her nightmares involved in her life, but the cult leaders were of a level of strength she could not hope to achieve. Not before she was discovered. They had to be; if they could beat creatures able to destroy all of Coral with the simple heat and weight of their bodies, then they could do the same.

Nyx's mutations had brought her leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else her age. Ahead of where she'd been. But now, it was clear that some big jumps would never be enough when her target was lightyears away. Her goal of taking down the cults could only ever be semi-successful. She could wipe out the fodder and create as many Dark Stars as she wanted, but she would never eliminate the ones at the top. The ones that deserved death more than any other.

Nyx may relish the fall of as many cultists as she wanted, but never those most responsible for her sacrifice. As the dread of inevitability continued to seep through her body, a glimmer of movement pulled her eyes from the lapping molten waves. A cultist. She focused her third eye, and corrected herself. Three cultists. It didn't seem like they had noticed her, but it reminded her of where she'd found herself. Out in the open, and visible to all.

Immediately, she turned and ran for the nearest warped arch of metal for cover. Well, not so much a run. With her wings spread wide, three of her tentacles suctioned to the ground and tugged her forward. The fourth hid beneath her robe. Again. Nyx slid into the shadowed gorge and ducked out of sight. The mass of metal larger than her rearing ward sat at the base of the tail, where it had sliced through the surface as it crashed. Fortunately, not so deep as to reach the ocean of molten flesh…

if that was even how it worked. She glanced back out to make sure nobody had seen or followed her, before she slumped into the warm crevice. For the first time in hours, she had finally found a place to lay, yet she couldn't relax. She curled up her tentacle before her eyes. The smooth surface turned rough with a bit of effort. Like sandpaper or a cat's tongue. From its more natural light pink, she changed the colour to a dark grey; better to blend with the shadow. This is what her hubris had gotten her.

No matter how much she liked the new limbs, they were not worth the loss of her subtlety. Now that she finally understood the vastness of the gap between her and those she needed to kill, hiding seemed the only option, and she'd tossed that away with her excessive zeal. As she continued to stare blankly at her tentacle, an intrusive thought wormed its way into her mind. She should just unleash everything.

Knowing how impossible her future truly is, she should give in to the temptation to open herself to all her mutations. Open her name. Not only that, she should rip her name to ribbons. What's the worst that could happen? She was already stuck in the middle of a Dark Star Event with no way out. Maybe she'd make a second one? At least then she'd be able to hide away easier. The years it would have taken for her mutations to become noticeable had she not pushed them to grow intentionally…

not even that would have been enough time. It was a truly and utterly insurmountable difference. One that she had no idea where she'd got the idea that such was possible. Just because the cult leaders don't flaunt their power in public? Just because they'd seemed relatively human when they'd sacrificed her in person? From their names alone, she knew they were all well above their tenth evolution. How far above, it was impossible to tell. That alone should have shown the difficulty of the path she'd chosen to take.

So why was it that she failed to truly grasp the magnitude of the challenge she was facing until now? Just because of some dumb, oversized whale? Well, it's not like the answer wasn't obvious. Numbers were numbers. Big ones didn't really demonstrate the power one wielded. Whatever cultist had faced the whale had been strong enough to slice a mountain in half. That sort of power was far beyond what she'd been expecting to need. The light scratching noise of metal scraping against metal had her peeking out.

A single gummy shark clambered over the surface. Its anchor-like steel fins shifted and pushed the small beast along the ground with surprising fluidity. As if the shark had grown legs, it raced along with intent. For a moment, Nyx thought it was coming for her. The things had never liked when she'd tried to rest near the rivers, and while it was surprising to see the pest chasing her this far, it was hardly something she would consider beyond the hostility of the Dark Star. But no.

The fleshforged creature came close to her little hole, but ran straight past. As if she didn't exist. She followed it with her eyes, and soon discovered its target. The cultists from before. They were really too far to make out any specific details, but she noticed more of them than before. It also didn't take long to notice a few more sharks crawling along the surface from random directions. Apparently, the fleshforged considered the Fleshsmiths more of a bane than herself.