Chương 221: Chapter 217: The Heights Climbed

Nyxalair stepped out of Pink before a startled Lysyra. She suppressed a smirk. It was good to be on the other end of that for once.

"You wouldn't be far from an evolution of your own, would you?" she asked. Maybe the girl didn't have access to Nyxalair's ability to consume people whole — body and soul — but it wasn't as if she'd never seen her enact a ritual on a subdued cultist. With all the replicas Lysyra had across Coral, she'd surely had enough opportunities to at least supplement her experience. After calming her breathing, Lysyra shrugged.

"I've been waiting for a couple of additives to be ready." She paused.

"Well, they're ready now, but I can't risk an evolution until I have my network up and running again. I… assume you got a Feat as well?" Nyxalair could hear the real question in her tone. She was curious.

"Yep." She folded her legs under her and unclipped her boots from the harness circling her tail. Now that things had calmed down, she could hardly leave wet slime marks wherever she walked. Lysyra's home was already messy enough as it was.

"But don't ask me what it does. The description itself seemed to refuse to accept that escaping was even possible."

"Z͐a̟͠n̖͐di̥s͈t̝̾h̃̔́ summoned an Elder God." This time, it sounded like she was simply trying to process, rather than ask anything.

"Yep," Nyxalair repeated anyway.

"You were swallowed by an Elder God." Now Lysyra's tone was starting to sound accusatory. Nyxalair nodded, tightening the last clamp around her shin and hiding away her shapeless feet.

"You escaped after being eaten by an Elder God!" Lysyra hissed.

"That's not teleportation. That's… well, I don't know. But its nothing as simple as a spatial transfer. Don't you realise how insane that is? You can't just teleport away from an Elder God; it doesn't make sense." Nyxalair glanced down on her missing finger. The lacking claw made her forearm feel hollow.

"If you're looking for an explanation, I'm sorry to say I can't give one," she said.

"Too much has happened today. I'm at a complete loss." Lysyra held a blank stare, unsatisfied by her response. A mischievous glint entered her eyes.

"You can escape the stomach of an Elder God. Getting in behind cult defences will be a matter of ease."

"You want me to sneak you in?" Nyxalair guessed.

"That," Lysyra said.

"And to clear out a few choke-points. A couple of assassinations. Some cultists have been putting pressure on my reflection network for a while, and it'd be good to see them gone. You owe me. After all, you did eat me without permission." ❖❖❖ The tunnel flared with a powerful blaze, searing the backs of a dozen cultists running in terror. Nyxalair watched, impressed, as half fell dead from a single burst of Ta'Malis' flamethrower. Skin sizzled. The scent of cooked flesh struck her nose; it was unbearably alluring.

Either Qycḿͦe still counted heavily towards flesh other than her own, or the hunger swelled from her mutations. She didn't dismiss the thought that those two options weren't mutually exclusive. Darkness curled around her, enhanced by her sceptre, but no longer reliant on it. Nyxalair's shadows, previously bound to surfaces and unmitigated darkness, now reached wherever they wished. Their shifting, floating, roiling mimicry of inconsistent limbs left even her unable to catch many details.

But there was always a hint. The visage was a thousand times worse for the cultists who couldn't feel her shadows moving, as Nyxalair could. One shadowy tentacle curled around her protectively in a copy of Cuddly. Another five stretched out, filtering between open space and surface, as they reached threateningly for the remaining Scriptures. For those that glanced back, Nyxalair was sure it was impossible to tell where one shadow started and another began. Which were safe?

Which where the monster creeping after them? As much as she could have forced the issue and turned Lysyra down, Nyxalair found this an excellent opportunity to test herself. She would have likely done the same thing, only now she had Lysyra guiding her — very deadly — hand. The improvements of her latest evolution were showing. Fifth evolution cultists — those that were technically at the same level as her — fell as easily as firsts.

Even the few seventh evolutions she'd cut down so far in her hunt had been little challenge. Seventh evos. She used to see them as a height beyond her means. Even those that lived to a ripe, old age rarely saw themselves reach such ability. Maybe one or two every thousand. And Nyxalair was butchering them as if they were children. At what? Sixteen? Eighteen or nineteen if she included the Dark Star distorted time. Twenty six if she also included her regression.

Even at twenty six, reaching a fifth evolution was rare. Though, certainly not impossible, as reaching the threshold by sixteen was supposed to be. Nyxalair prepared Curious for another flare with the flamethrower. She beat her wings and soared over the burnt bodies. Shy, Pushy and Cuddly poked holes in each brain or heart she passed, or simply separated their heads. More than a few cultists had thought themselves smart to play dead and let her chase their comrades.

The swarm of tentacle shadows converged behind the Scriptures. Light from the LED strips was swallowed as the sceptre's darkness added weight to her shadows. A few of the remaining cultists turned to attack. The rituals scrawled through their skin came alive as summons, projectiles, and twisted manipulations of their surroundings all tried to fight back the encroaching dark. They all failed. Nyxalair dealt with each attack of these cultists of lesser evolution than even herself as if they were mere nuisances.

Never stopping her shadows from crawling closer. What was formerly shadows of her tentacles suddenly grew sharp edges. In this seemingly endless corridor she'd shepherded them to, the cultists could do nothing but continue to run in a single straight line from the shadowy jaw that closed around them. A rather interesting new addition to her shadows with the inclusion of her latest mutation. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Curious squeezed the trigger, and a wave of fire rushed through the hall. To the eyes of the cultists, the shadowy maw breathed fire. Two more cultists fell to the blaze. The rest looked like they were having the worst day of their lives. Nyxalair took a breath, and with the power of a hundred voices, hissed.

"Keep running. With every laboured step, I grow hungrier. Continue to struggle; it only makes your flesh all the more delicious." Her separate voices diverged to flood the corridor with the sound of gnashing teeth and unsettling slurping noises. Nyxalair was starting to get the hang of manipulating her voices.

"I hear your hearts thumping. I can smell your terror. The strength in your legs is waning, and when I catch you, I'll chew on your souls for eternity." She emphasised her threat with another flare of the flamethrower. Screams resounded through the tunnel. A grin spread across Nyxalair's hidden face. This was too fun. A shriek of a whistle pulled her mind away from playing with her food. The flamethrower capsule was smoking. Curious slipped from the holding brace, and flung it forward, over the cultists heads.

Whether they missed it, or were simply too fearful of what chased them, they didn't stop. They ran right over the flamethrower now spinning from the pressure of the released gas. The canister exploded. A plume of fire spread out for a mere instant before the bright flash subsided. The loud bang made her antennae flinch back. Frost coated every surface around the epicentre of the explosion. Of the four remaining cultists, only one had the fortitude not to be ripped to shreds. The woman was, instead, frozen solid.

Ta'Malis had said the flamethrowers would be volatile after they were exhausted, but this wasn't what Nyxalair had been expecting. Hadn't Ta'Stralanov'r told her Nyxalair wasn't allowed explosives? She furrowed her brow before freezing. Of course this isn't an explosive. Nyxalair nodded to herself. It's simply an unintended rapid disassembly caused by a deterioration in fuels. Or something like that. Nyxalair was starting to really like Ta'Malis.

She would make sure to bring her as many bits of flesh as the woman wanted. Speaking of… Nyxalair cut off a hand of the frozen cultist and slipped it into a pouch along the base of her tail. Hopefully she wouldn't accidentally eat it when passing through pink. Nyxalair gazed into the eyes of the frozen Scripture. There was a slight waver there. She was still alive, despite her heart frozen still.

It was likely the runes painted through her skull that kept her living this touch of time more than the rest, but it wouldn't matter in the end. She stared into the terrified eyes that couldn't so much as shift her way. Nyxalair pondered what she would do in this woman's position if her entire body was frozen solid. There was no way to teleport without opening her chest. Would she be able to struggle through it? Would her slaughter state even activate if she was caught in such a circumstance?

That was hardly the only concern she'd had for Lý̥o̻tepͦ lately. She'd been thinking about it for a while before her evolution, but if the Feat's third evolution had reduced the requirement of her healing from murdering and persevering to just murdering, and it followed that trend, then that meant her slaughter state would activate just by facing the slightest of hardship. No need to be hurt. Thankfully, her name or evolution or whatever decided the order of things, unlocked her increased mental aspect first.

Now, it activated only when her survival was at stake. At least until her next evolution, she would be in full control of her slaughter state, even before killing someone. Though, that still left the lingering threat that, next evolution, she would become an obsessive murderer at any feeling of pressure. And considering she'd been able to activate her healing with some rather passive ideas of 'perseverance', that wasn't a small danger. But… Nyxalair doubted she'd hit her next evolution any time soon.

Even with all these people for her to consume — she cut off the arm of the frozen woman and swallowed it where her eyes could see — she was beginning to intimately understand why there weren't mass sacrificial rituals to empower the strongest. A fifth evolution, equal to herself, gave her almost nothing. She probably would have been better off practising in the time it took to chew and swallow. Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but compared to a single sixth evolution, that's how it felt.

Nyxalair couldn't help the wry grin as she continued to chop up bits of the frozen cultist. This woman hadn't done anything directly to her to warrant the abuse, but it felt amazing to finally have the strength to get back at the cult for all they'd done. She imagined this woman sitting up in the crowd, chanting for Nyxalair's death. How she, like so many millions of others, could have helped her, but didn't. Who wished for her death for their own gain.

And now here Nyxalair was, toying with a middling creed who deserved nothing less. It was too easy. Each of the hunts after her evolution had felt like squashing rats. Not a challenge. It felt wrong that she'd been able to surmount an Elder God, even if it was only to escape. In the same way, it felt wrong that she was carving through cultists so quickly. She wasn't used to it. The wrongness loomed over her head, but it could do nothing to ward off the excitement bubbling in her chest.

Her goal was creeping ever closer. She was edging into the realm of the upper creed harbingers. The concept of taking down the cult leaders was becoming more and more a realistic prospect. Soon. If Nyxalair continued to grow like this, day after day, then soon the cults would crumble. A chain suddenly ripped through the frozen Scripture's chest. She exploded with more force than even the blast that chilled her to the core. She shattered like glass.

Nyxalair shielded her face as bits of cold, hardened flesh pelted her. Dozens struck her, leaving her unmutated bits of skin flayed. Nyxalair leapt back from the chain — dark steel and flesh — and pulled her darkness back around herself. From one instant to another, Nyxalair went from the ruler of this corridor, with her shadows coiling down every wall, to being swallowed. A million fleshforged chains slithered along each surface. They moved like serpents, but wove together with the unity of a machine.

It was an ocean of flesh and steel links that overcame her in the blink of an eye. Her heart was racing in an instant, but for all the improved reaction speed that afforded her, she still couldn't escape the rush of chains that spilled through the tunnel and up from the floor to grab her.

"Finally," the voice echoing through the hall sent shivers down Nyxalair's spine and made her feathers stand on end.

"I have you." There was a deep rumble through the chains around her, overwhelming the constant clatter. They folded outwards, tearing away the walls and floor that had contained her only moments ago. In the newly expanded hall, A single massive chain rolled forth. The visage of a thousand corpses was wound between huge steel links. Their screams struck Nyxalair as much as the sight of who rode on their backs. The roar of steel grinding against steel had her tendrils curling.

"S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘," she muttered. Already her chest was tearing open. No chance she was sticking around for this.

"That's S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘-K̨̩̯͚̻͎̙̩͚͚'K͙͔a͔n̡͎ṱ̡̿͗̚'l̹̮-R̫̜̩u͂̇'a͚͌̏n̫̝̔̉̍ to you, brat," the Fleshsmith leader sneered.

"I went through a lot of shit because of you." Her expression relaxed to a greedy grin.

"But now, you are mine. Mine alone. And this time, there isn't a steamskull to stop me." Soon? Nyxalair spat in the comfort of her mind. I didn't mean this soon. Solan wasn't in any mood to play with her food, as Nyxalair had just been. She leapt from her immense chain, intending to grab Nyxalair herself. Finally, the glow of Pink flooded the widened corridor. Nyxalair slammed down her wings, and struggled against the chains as much as she could. They didn't move much.

Really, she only shunted herself back a mere half-metre. It was enough. She clamped down her jaw, and Nyxalair found herself inside her mental realm. But the fangs couldn't close completely. Dozens of fleshforged chains got caught between the teeth, stopping Nyxalair from severing herself from the cult leader entirely. Solan didn't hesitate. She crashed through the gap. It didn't matter what tricks Nyxalair pulled, Solan wasn't about to be separated from her perfect sacrifice.