Chapter 91: To Break the Water

Toren Daen

I felt a deep flash of terror as I looked down at the beast. In my previous world, the largest creature to ever exist had been the blue whale. In the hundreds of millions of years of evolution Earth gave the depths of the oceans, the blue whale outclassed everything to come before it. At one hundred feet in length, it dwarfed even the mightiest of dinosaurs. The water afforded creatures sizes impossible on land.

And yet as I stared into the primal violet eyes of the serpent in front of me, I thought the blue whale must have been quite small. My sight was limited by the deep darkness around me, yet I could tell the serpent's head must have been at least thirty feet long.

My heart thundered in my chest as I locked eyes with the thing. It paused, inspecting me with a predator's intelligence.

And for the first time in an age, I felt like prey. My confrontation with Mardeth was the closest thing I could compare this to, but even he treated me like an opponent to beat. This creature… It simply saw another morsel of food.

Darrin struggled mutely against the creature's face, but his movements were slowing. The serpent's jaws had closed around his leg, and the scent of blood wafted around my nose. It was holding onto him like a cat playing with its catch, watching their prey struggle futilely against their captivity.

Darrin would drown before long.

I broke myself out of my frozen terror, thawing my fear with an application of magic. I needed to get him out of there. I was Darrin's only chance.

I shoved on the water behind me, conscious of the limited air I had in my lungs. I surged forward like a bullet, squinting my eyes against the pressure. My telekinetic shroud flared at the sudden increase in pressure, but I ignored it.

I landed feet-first on the serpent's upper lip. My feet sank into the monster's flesh with a strange squelch, rot and refuse bursting around my shoes as necrotic flesh gave way under my boots. Yet I focused on the leader of the Unblooded Party in front of me. He made the barest of movements acknowledging my presence. His eyes were glassy, his struggling growing weak.

I clenched my fist, focusing on one of my tried and true template spells. The water buzzed around my hand strangely as sound mana built around my clenched fingers. After a few moments, I brought my strike down like a hammer on the nose of the monster.

Noxious skin and muscle caved under my blow, the shockwaves vibrating out like a quake. The snake stirred slightly, but nothing more. It continued to drag us both downward, utterly uncaring of me. Undeterred, I brought my fist down again on its face. Again, again, again.

Finally, I achieved the barest of movements. I hadn't truly hurt this titan. I'd irritated it. Just like I'd been able to sense from the uncountable corpses, this thing had an air of intent about it, too. The mouth began to open as my pesky attacks finally drew enough of its attention away from Darrin. The striker drifted out of its mouth limply, his mana signature simmering away into the depths.

I latched onto his body desperately, throwing him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Without sparing the eldritch serpent another glance, I shoved on the water behind me with telekinesis.

I surged upward, my lungs fighting for air. I couldn't put it off much longer. Darrin sat limply on my shoulders, unresponsive.

And because of the deep darkness around me, I wasn't able to see the obstacle in front of me. I crashed into a wall of solid bone and flesh, the collision sending cracks through my telekinetic shroud and making me spiral through the water. I almost let go of Darrin's body, but the barest of instinct kept me clutching him tightly.

Shadows writhed around me, and I realized that I'd slammed into the massive bulk of the serpent's body. Its maze-like twists and turns blocked my ascent to the surface.

I recognized the sound of it shifting through the water. It was a low, liquid rumbling that seemed to seep through the entire lake. I suppressed my fear, my eyes darting around for a way out. I could feel the slit eyes of the thing boring into my back.

Settling on a plan of action in my mind, I surged forward like a fish in a slipstream, rocketing up at a slight angle. When the creature tried to move its bulk in front of me once more, instead of striking my skull against the shadow of flesh, I pulled on the creature's body instead of the water.

I felt myself whoop with joy inside as this allowed me to pivot around the sea serpent, zipping past its confines. I ascended at a rapid pace, the light of the surface starting to reach me.

Water was one of the elements I was at a disadvantage against. It doused fire and dampened sound, two of my greatest strengths. Though spellfire could burn underwater if enough power suffused it to outpace its extinguishing, this required control I didn't always have. Something I'd picked up from the demon tree zone was that water created a barrier between flame and oxygen, both lowering its temperature and cutting off its source of fuel.

But if that fuel was mana instead of oxygen, such an imbalance wasn't as stark as it first seemed. Yet I was still horribly mismatched against water. So if I wanted to survive, I needed to get out.

And then I made the mistake of glancing downward.

The monstrous serpent was ascending with me, murder in its slitted violet eyes. Yet with the barest hint of light, I was able to truly see the serpent's size.

Its head was three stories long, a cruel mimicry of a snake. The body slithered behind it slowly, undulating in waves. Thin, catfish-like tendrils floated from its face, and a long frilled ridge trailed from its head all along its body.

It must be hundreds of feet from head to tail, I thought with numb horror.  At its widest, it was as thick as a shipping container was long.

How do you even fight something like that? I asked myself, momentarily forgetting the ache in my lungs. I had used a blue whale for a comparison earlier out of instinct, yet I knew now that was an insult to this monster.

It could have swallowed half a dozen blue whales without a sweat. How did the djinn expect someone to fight this thing?

I briefly entertained the idea of activating my Phoenix Will. I didn't see any other way to beat this monster, and I wondered if I could even kill it with the backing of Lady Dawn's power.

An instantaneous inspection of my body dissuaded me from that idea. The basilisk in me was coiled just as the serpent I ran from, ready to strike at the barest inflection of my bond's Will. Very rarely had I ever felt such a burning surety about something, yet I knew the moment my Will and my Blood collided, it would be akin to an atom splitting within my core.

The snake lunged for me, flaring massive jaws wide. Its rows upon rows of serrated teeth lined a jaw that seemed to swallow the world. I was never truly religious in my past life, yet I believed with all my being that the unending maw I gazed into was a portal to hell. Beyond the teeth, dozens of waiting, fleshy hands grasped and writhed in its throat, the digits seeking flesh. 

I darted upward in a frantic push, feeling the lack of air make my muscles stiff and my core ache. The basilisk within me seethed at the mockery of its kin. I didn't have the heart to try and force that sensation back down.

But I was too slow. With Darrin on my shoulder, I couldn't move with my normal speed and agility. The serpent's jaws snapped shut, just barely missing my legs. Yet the force of that massive gateway crashed shut in a resounding boom, the shockwave sent me spinning through the water once more.

I made a split-second decision as I tumbled down, recognizing the futility of trying to reach the surface with Darrin's body on my shoulder. I latched onto him with my telekinetic emblem, his mana resistances pitiful in his weakened state. With barely a note of resistance from his innate defenses, I'd gained control of his body.

I thrust my hands upward, sending Darrin up like an arrow. His body careened like a missile upward, and I knew he'd reach the surface with his momentum. Part of me wondered if he'd get the bends from how deep down he went.

I could only hope a mage's empowered body would fight against decompression sickness.

I released Darrin's body just in time. I hastily pushed myself out of the way of the snake's form, easily many times wider than the thickest redwood tree. I sensed the barest of intents beneath me, using it to maneuver my next dodge.

Yet as the body passed by me, something erupted from its flesh. Like a macabre chrysalis, hands thrust from the serpent's sloughing flesh, grasping with decaying fingers.

I felt a sense of deja vu, remembering how the commander undead had manifested the spells of the other undead they'd absorbed.

I tried to lurch forward once more, but a concentrated pulse of gravity sent me spinning to the side. I wasn't practiced with maneuvering underwater, and each jostling movement made me overcorrect to compensate.

Waves of telekinetic pushes met the next barrage of spells, shattering them as they moved through the water. A splinter of ice cracked against my telekinetic shroud, but the damage slowly sealed over.

But the spells had served their purpose. I realized it a moment too late as I looked around, noticing how the unending circling of the serpent had changed.

I was surrounded on all sides by walls of rot, the colossal snake having encompassed me from every angle.

The serpent finished its knot, tightening its body in a constricting motion. I let out a breath of air as the flesh engulfed me fully, the sensation as if the atmosphere itself rejected my desire to breathe. I watched the last bubbles of air leave my lungs, panic suffusing my bones.

This pressing force wasn't like a constrictor, where the combined pressure of a hundred psi slowly forced air from their prey's lungs.

No, this was worse. The flesh around me was mushy and soft from the time it had spent rotting underwater. Instead of holding me firm, I was subsumed into the snake's body as it squeezed. My lungs burned as the pressure mounted. My telekinetic shroud cracked, crystalline lattices my only source of light. But my vision was darkening at the edges, my need for air finally unable to be ignored.

I gasped instinctually, desperate for air. Yet instead of oxygen, or even water, I took in putrid rot. The taste suffused my mouth, the stench of decay invading my nostrils and scouring my throat. I began to suffocate, not just from the pressure but from the invading blight.

I thrashed, lashing out with as many spells as I could force. Fire sparked around me, and waves of sound resonated through the monster's body. Chunks of flesh were obliterated by my ripping telekinetic force, yet more putrescence rushed in to fill the gap like a dam was broken. And in turn, grasping hands manifested from nowhere, ripping and tearing at my body. I felt their cold fingertips grazing my skin.

My struggles began to weaken as my lungs filled with dead flesh, my mana core fighting in vain to free me. My vision began to truly shadow; my will weakened by constant fighting.

I'm going to die, I thought with absolute certainty. I'm going to drown in rot and pus, another body added to the horde.

Yet something bubbled up from my core. Something familiar surged to aid me, refusing to give up on me.

Lady Dawn.

I felt my Phoenix Will spread from my core, suffusing me with familiar yet unknown knowledge. The chain on my arm glowed a deep crimson, fighting against the blackness around me. The basilisk within roared in challenge. Despite our differences; despite the lingering anger I still felt for the phoenix, she refused to let me die here.

They're going to tear me apart, I thought fearfully, my vision suddenly sharpening once more. The injection of power bolstered my ability to use mana to strengthen myself, fighting off the effects of suffocation. These two powers inside of me!

"You shall be rent apart nonetheless!" Lady Dawn's voice slammed against my mind. "You cannot stay here! Move, Toren Daen! Escape this, and you may yet live!"

I pushed outward with an unfocused telekinetic wave. Where before flesh leaked back in to fill any gaps, now the force I was afforded kept it back like a dam holding back a river.

Not wasting any time, I tore at the flesh above me with frantic telekinetic rips. Not even waiting for a passage to be made, I blasted through the flesh, emerging like some sort of broken butterfly. The water seared against my skin as I ascended at speed.

But the battle within had already begun. The clash of these two powers made my mana lock up, causing me to stall. A searing pain scraped against my nerves, and I could swear I felt my body's slow descent towards ruin.

Sparks of deep black fire puffed into existence. Distantly, I could feel the decay-attribute mana manifesting around me, breaking down even the water. A drop of awe leaked through my horror. Decay mana wasn't just rot and plague. It wasn't a fire that scoured everything to ash.

No. No, the decay mana arts of the Vritra clan were the weathering wind that broke the mountain. They were the crashing sea that smoothed over the earth, filing down even the sharpest of edges. This was the effects of time: the ever-turning wheel of cause and effect. Where the Will inside me created and preserved, there needed to be a force of ruination. My Blood itself served that opposite but needed end.

Yet when my skin touched the soulfire, it burned me, too, scouring away the very flesh that wrought it.

My own mana burned me.

The pain came a moment later as the small motes of black fire ate into my flesh. I screamed soundlessly, feeling them torch my mana channels.

But the serpent was unwilling to relinquish its prey. It lunged at me again, and I flailed my arm at it wildly. A torrent of soulfire burst from my palm, eating away at the flesh around my fingers even as it reached for the undead snake. My hand fell limply as my tendons and muscles were exposed to the water.

The serpent swam straight through the Vritra-tinged mana, motes of soulfire clinging to its skin and eating away at its flesh. Grim white bone shone underneath as the decay mana scoured away the putrid rot with its own weathering. But not fast enough. The snake headbutted my body, and I lurched even further upward as my body cracked.

Blood streamed from me as I floated up. Lady Dawn battled the basilisk in my blood, trying to keep it at bay. Yet this tempest of power wasn't something that was separate from me. It was me, and every clash between my Will and my Blood only served to break me further.

Soulfire seared along my mana channels, scouring away my flesh. Spots of black fire sparked around me, the chains on my arm flaring and retreating in time with my rapid heartbeat. The strength in my bones which I had grown so accustomed to began to dwindle, the paths the mana knew to take no longer present.

"Move, Toren Daen! Pull yourself to the surface! You must!"

I groaned, knowing half my bones must have been broken by that single attack from the monster. Yet soulfire clung to my ribs, healing them and mending their structure as it weathered me away in other places.

Feeling panicked, I pulled at the water. I lurched forward, my face breaching the surface. I coughed out rotten bile, gasping for air. My body constantly broke itself down and healed again in near equal measure, yet I was slowly hurting more and more. My own soulfire scoured away my body and healed any wounds not made by the black flames themselves.

Then something wrapped around my foot, dragging me back underwater. I whirled, lashing out in a rabid movement. Plasma seared from my palm, severing a long tendril of grey goo that had latched onto my leg. Even in a lake, my spells burned hot enough to fight against the water. I turned, about to try and surface again, when my instincts screamed at me to move.

A hastily erected barrier of soulfire spared me the worst of the attack. A torrent of rot streamed through the water, erupting from the giant serpent's maw. Yet I had no idea how to work with soulfire; no experience in its function. Everything I did with it was on pure survival instinct, a desperate bid to spare my own life.

The same trick didn't work twice. The serpent plowed through the attack again, then whipped its body to the side. My body crunched from the glancing impact as it streamed dark blood, trailing deeper down into the depths. The serpent roared in triumph, perhaps sensing as my soulfire ate away at my body.

I drifted listlessly, groaning in agony as my own body attacked itself. I felt the minutes tick by as I slowly died. Absently, I saw my own heartfire as my vision wavered. Where before it had been a roaring red, now it was flecked with black specks. My lifeforce seemed to dwindle as my own body cannibalized itself.

"Do not let yourself be taken, Toren," Lady Dawn said again, trying and failing to hold back the tide breaking my body. The phoenix, even as a shade, was more powerful than the basilisk in my blood. Yet it was me. I was experiencing the magical equivalent of an autoimmune disorder. "I cannot lose another son."

My bond, even during our closest moments, did her best to shield her thoughts from me. Very rarely did I feel them unfiltered.

Yet this time I did. A stream of worry, fear, and hope for me cascaded over our bond. Lady Dawn wasn't just worried for herself. She worried for me. For Toren Daen, and what he could be in the future. She feared losing me and the inevitable heartbreak that would follow.

My body is broken, I thought absently, feeling my lack of oxygen once more.

"Your soul is not," she whispered, even as the snake rose toward me. It slithered slowly through the water, its impending mass taking its time to reach me. Like a predator that had won. "Please, my child. One last push."

One last push, I thought, my mind hazy. My body was weak, the scouring decay-attribute mana searing away my mana channels. Instead, I had to rely on my telekinetic emblem.

One last push.

I gathered all the mana I could: a paltry measure compared to my normal strength. And as the serpent neared, I flared my emblem. Instead of pushing off the water, I used the serpent's colossal skull as a springboard.

Even as my body breached the surface of the water, I felt my consciousness recede. The pain encompassed me, drawing me into its embrace.

My body fell back to the ice floe with a wet crunch, and everything went black.