Chương 65: Great White Furnace

Nyx snapped her wings wide. She fell into a glide far above the churning sea of flesh. Despite the sudden translocation, she was well equipped to survive the fall and keep away from the fleshforged ridden waves. The cultists… not so much. All around her — not so close as to see their faces, but enough that they were more than dots — Fleshsmiths fell to the burning ocean. The screams of a woman rang in Nyx's ears for only a moment before it petered out and died. Just as its owner.

Without the benefit of flight, dozens of cultists sank beneath the surface of molten flesh. A rare few that survived the heat — either through name or body modification — were soon buried beneath thousands of sharks that agitated the sea like a boiling pot. They were eaten alive. As Nyx glided along, she found she had her own mass of fleshforged leaping at her. Snapping jaws of molten beasts failed to come close.

They leapt out of the waves, climbing ten metres, but Nyx had no reason to place herself in biting range. The ocean extended far. The nearest land she could see was a forge volcano that — as with everything here — was impossibly distant. If she hadn't already seen that expected travel times were distorted here in the Dark Star, she would never have bothered. Nyx would have searched for some other safe-haven.

But because she knew — or hoped — that it wouldn't take weeks of flying to reach the volcano, she started towards it. Despite how disruptive the gong of the hammer was — and would continue to be — Nyx found solace in the fact that no matter how annoying it would be for her, it would be infinitely worse for the cultists. The gong had occurred enough times now to be a pattern. Nyx was relatively safe in assuming that the forced translocation would occur at random intervals.

It meant that no matter what defences the Fleshsmiths put in place, they would all be gone in a few hours. The cultists would not find a night of rest. But neither would Nyx. A few subdued pops brought her attention to the side where, in the distance, one of the cultists hadn't fallen to the sharks' assault after diving into the molten sea. The crackle of gunfire continued, and a great white bobbed to the surface, dead before it could strike. Nyx turned, and fled. Hopefully a whale would eat them.

As things stood, she couldn't risk a confrontation with any of the higher creed. All she could do was hope the Dark Star eventually eliminated them for her. She still flew towards the volcano, only altering her path to arc around the high evolution cultist. Despite that effort, the chances she had been seen were high. It struck her just how visible she was. If Nyx could see for hundreds of kilometres in every direction, then it was just as likely that she'd been seen herself.

Especially with her large, eye-catching wings. The best she could hope for was that the upper-creed cultists were too busy saving themselves and their cult to chase her down. If… no, when they saw her, those with good eyes weren't about to just forget her face. They would remember her mutations and when their leader finally came to free those that remained, the past would repeat. No… did it even matter if they knew? Nyx already knew the hurdles she had to overcome were impossible.

And with these tentacles that trailed behind her in flight, it was already certain she would be discovered. As long as they didn't attack her immediately, who cared if some cultists saw her? As her flight dragged on and the volcano never seemed to get any closer, she tumbled into a cycle of depressed thoughts. The future she'd been so hopeful for, now seemed nothing more than a dreamed fantasy. She would never live in a world exempt from cults. Her vengeance was doomed for failure from the start.

It was a stark thought, considering she had dragged the vast majority of the cult into this Dark Star to meet their end, but those she wanted dead most would survive. The cult leaders — immortals as they were — remained an impossible target. The constant churn of determined sharks suddenly stopped. Overtaken by a larger crash. Glancing down, Nyx didn't have the time to so much as gasp before she beat her wings and tried to roll out of the way. Despite her effort, she was struck.

Her body was battered to the side and agony washed through her left wing. For a brief moment as Nyx hung in the air, she had the perfect view of her attacker. The great white appeared so much larger up close than it had when fighting other cultists. It could fill an entire rearing ward by itself. Similar to the smaller fleshforged, its body consisted of a bunch of metal plating held together by molten flesh, only the plating was more akin to steel slabs, and the flesh, an interwoven heap of snakes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. In that instant, she found the eye of the beast as it soared past her. It was a dull, dark orb, and yet she could tell it had a sole-minded focus on her, and her alone. Nyx spun, tumbling into a rapid, uncontrolled descent. She tried to spread her wings again, but a stabbing pain stopped her. Blood painted the black feathers crimson. Again, she pushed her injured limb to open, but it only twitched and refused.

Nyx was now barrelling head first towards the ocean of molten flesh. Whether her wing was broken or not, if she struck sea, she would die, so ignoring the pain, she wrapped two of her tentacles around the wing and forcefully spread it. It wasn't clear if the wing was broken, dislocated, or some ligament was cut, but forced wide, there was no denying something was wrong. Not only did it look out of shape, but it still refused to listen to her.

With a splint of tentacles, Nyx focused on manipulating the wing that hadn't been crippled in the surprise attack to pull herself out of her death spiral. Thankfully, she steadied her fall, and pulled out of the dive before it came dangerously close. She took a breath to calm herself, but apparently even that was too great a lapse against this beast. Defying any natural ballistic arc, the shark came down on her head. Dozens of serrated teeth, each as long as her arm, bore down on her.

They fell like a meteor, and with just as much weight. Nyx beat her wings. Even her unresponsive one, she had her tentacles slam the disobedient appendage down as hard as they could. She ignored the pain. Pain wouldn't matter if she was swallowed whole. In a fraction of a second, her two remaining tentacles hooked around a pair of teeth, and tried to pull her free. It was all for nought. Strands of her hair were severed as the immense jaws crashed around her. A terrifyingly narrow gap.

She'd avoided decapitation by mere inches. But her survival meant little now that she was trapped in the maw of the beast. She slammed into something hard, and immediately it started burning. Nyx's skin scorched wherever it touched the glowing metal. In a scrambled fit, she twisted to stand on her hands and feet, where the shark's heat didn't penetrate as easily. But she had no time to settle or think.

A moment after she got her hands under her, they were snatched away as the great white slammed back into the sea of flesh. She hit the back of the shark's teeth. The skin of her tentacles scorched as they tried to slow her impact, yet she still scorched her cheek on the metal bone. As if that wasn't enough, fluid flesh effectively no different from boiling water swept her feet out from under her. It flayed her skin. She tried to hide in the embrace of her wings, but that seemed to do nothing.

The liquid carried her. In agony, her eyes were already closed, but the one she could never close remained to witness the shark's throat widening like a furnace. And a furnace it was. The sheer, wafting heat flowing out from the shark's core was nearly enough to make everything else feel like an ant bite. Yet the flow of the ocean was carrying her straight towards it. She didn't even need to think. Her name ripped open, and the dorsal spines down her back suddenly tripled in size.

They pierced through the hot metal below her back and pinned her in place. Nyx was safe from the core of the Fleshforged, but with the burning ocean flowing over her tender skin, she wouldn't last long anyway. Nyx tried her hardest to keep her head above the waves of fire that ran down her neck and beneath the clothing that offered no protection. Her wings and tentacles flailed helplessly. Neither wanting to endure this agony any more than she. Was this it?

She was to find her end in the guts of a creature created in her path to vengeance? Maybe it was fitting. She already knew she had no life waiting for her once she got out. Even if she somehow — miraculously — kept these mutations hidden, she would never achieve her true revenge. And that was the thing, wasn't it; she would be satisfied to die here, as long as it meant Solon-K'Kant'l-Ru'an died. But she wouldn't. Nyx knew that. The woman was far too powerful to find her end here.

So Nyx was left with nothing but her indignant resentment as she waited for her end. She would never achieve that dream of actually experiencing life. She would die far quicker than she had in her previous life. But worst of all, the cultists would die and fall into the black hole where she knew thousands of gods were waiting to tear them apart. Nyx would die here, and never get to see Little God again. Through the flood that felt like it was peeling off her skin, her hand fell to her hip.

She gripped the hilt of her blade. The blade she'd been so excited to buy. Not only had it been the first truly meaningful thing she'd gotten for herself after finding her freedom, she had loved how it reflected herself. To keep her mind off the mounting pain as she approached the end, Nyx focused on the blade. It's bare grip of grooved metal with no support for grip. The lack of guard; a mindset of attack with no thought for defence. And the blade ready to cut, no matter the situation. Right now…

it felt estranged. What was she doing? Just laying like this to die. Without even putting up a fight? The Nix who laughed, and made a hundred thousand cultists shiver in their seats would be ashamed of what she had devolved to. The Nix who faced down all the major cults and spat in their face as they sacrificed her… would she have just given up upon learning how obscene the challenge was? The answer was obvious. So what had happened? Why had a little thing like a gap in power shaken her so much.

She'd known this was going to be hard. She'd known this was going to be impossible. Nyx was going up against all the major cults; whether the leaders were gods or not, the challenge would remain as impossible as the day she came back. But impossible or not, Nyx refused to let herself end on a whimper like this. The only day she would die, was the day she'd killed the cults. Nyx flexed her spines and unsheathed her sword.

The moment her dorsal nails pulled free of the metal beneath her, she was once again carried towards the burning centre of the shark. She would die if she fell in, but today was not the day Nyx died. ❖❖❖