15 Chapter Fifteen: Void Madness.
After a few hours, a slight change in the sound of the sea awoke Jack. He opened his eyes and noticed that one corner of the sky was slowly turning grey. Soon, a glimpse of a pale sun could be seen rising above the horizon.
A new day had come to the starless void.
The black, dreadful water suddenly surged and seethed, as though a living creature desperately trying to avoid the pale light of the coming dawn.
Jack calmly observed the receding sea from his sitting position.
'Hard to imagine this giant creature is actually afraid of the sun.' Jack pondered in silence, looking in the direction of the Crimson Spire.
Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, the water level was dropping. The rib bone Jack stood upon, which barely used to protrude out of the sea, was now revealed to be hundreds of meters tall.
'This is a gigantic drop. At least, it has a soft curve I can use to descend.'
As the sun climbed up, the monstrous ebb tide reached its final stage. The dark surface of the water began to be punctured here and there by sharp crimson blades. As it dropped even further, it was as though a crimson forest was slowly rising from the black depths. The "trees" were made of something resembling coral, in chaotically distorted forms.
They seemed to be colossal in size, though, from this distance, it was hard to be sure. The labyrinth formed by this strange reef stretched as far as Jack could see, broken here and there by protruding cliffs.
'My checkpoints.' Jack would have to limit his movement to daytime, always making sure to be near a tall enough structure to serve as his shelter through the night. 'There's a great chance I won't be as fortunate as today if I fall on the dark sea again.'
Half an hour after it had started, the reincarnator stared down and confirmed that the sea was completely gone.
'If not for the black seaweed hanging on the pillars of coral and the wet stone, it would be hard to tell there was even a sea here at all.' Jack marveled at the wonders of the Dream Realm.
Looking down, Jack started planning his route...
-x-
The young man quickly made his way down, resolved to make the most of the day's sunlight. In this initial stage, his priority would be to find Sunny and, particularly, Cassie. Sunny would serve as a great scout for the dangers ahead, while Cassie's predictive abilities would help them choose a path forward.
'I don't know if my presence here has already changed things… It would be best to find them as quickly as possible and avoid any casualties in our group.'
As soon as he got to ground level, Jack came face to face with the giant coral pillars. Entering the labyrinth, he found it to be extremely disorienting and convoluted. The paths between coral pillars were irregular. They twisted and turned without logic, often leading to dead ends or even back to where he started.
The labyrinth was vast and multilayered, making memorizing its layout a truly herculean task. In this instance, Jack's perfect recall came in handy.
'At least I can tell what the way forward is. Small mercies.'
At this moment, Jack had two main objectives.
Firstly, he wished to find the body of the beast that pursued him the previous night. He felt the creature would be of similar, if not of the same, rank as the creature Sunny found in the original timeline upon entering the Forgotten Shore.
Although he couldn't directly use its Corrupted Cores, others certainly could. He might even get a useful memory or two out of it in Bright Castle's store.
While looking over the edge of the bones that sheltered him the night before, Jack had seen an area of destroyed coral pillars somewhere to the east of his current position. So, that would be the direction he would explore initially.
Secondly, he would attempt to find landmarks mentioned in the original story, to triangulate Sunny and Cassie's current position. The giant statues of the heroes would be a serviceable start.
'For the moment, I have no way of knowing where am I in the Labyrinth, but hopefully, I'm on the eastern side of the crater. If I am close to the Dark City, traversing the crater to get to them would be impossible in such a tight window of time.'
'But enough planning. Daylight is wasting.'
Firm in his goal, Jack decided to leave his shelter behind and investigate east.
Walking through the muddy ground of the Labyrinth, Jack gradually made his way forward as he mapped the surroundings. As he didn't have the same invaluable helper as Sunny did, Jack's day soon became a chore of constant backtracking and changing directions.
Many times he wished to directly destroy the corals blocking his way onwards, but his rationality wouldn't permit him.
'If I make that much noise, Spell knows how many of those crabs would rush here.'
Although, if the corpse of the giant creature was nearby, most of the Beasts would be gorging on it for the days to come, it was best to err on the side of caution. So, he carefully studied the interior of the Labyrinth and kept his guard high for any potential ambushes.
That's why, when the mud directly in front of him started to move, he was ready.
Jack summoned his Scimitar in a flash of light, moments before a massive pincer shot out of the ground. With a quick parry of the attack, he rolled backward, leaving the range of his opponent.
In front of him, quickly making its way out of the muddy soil, stood a creature straight out of one's nightmare. Standing at two and a half meters tall, it seemed like a chimera between a demonic crab and a human.
Its four pairs of long, segmented legs ended in scythe-like protrusions. At the front, a human-like torso was protruding from the carapace, also clad in thick chitinous armor. And, where the hands should have been, there were two enormous pincers.
'A Carapace Scavenger.'
These Awakened Beasts had been the main enemies in the initial stages of Nephis and Sunny's cohort. With sharp scythes and jagged, chitinous blades in their pincers, they were lethal foes. One simple distraction could end in an early grave for any Sleeper, even the mightiest ones.
Compared to the Scavenging Fiends he found in his First Nightmare, the Carapace Scavengers were much deadlier - and sturdier to boot.
But their flaw was also obvious: with such heavy armor, it was a given that they would become sluggish. A single Scavenging Fiend could probably run circles around it.
Desiring to make full use of this drawback, Jack baited an attack of its pincers by simply standing still. The Beast attended his wish by sending a swipe of its pincer vertically. Directly sidestepping the strike, he quickly went inside its guard, easily bypassing both pincers.
Jack circulated the beast, intent on climbing its body to get to its vulnerable eye slits. But, as soon as he did so, a new opponent showed itself.
A pincer shot from just under his feet, apprehending his armored leg and exerting incredible force on it. The still-buried Caparace Scavenger lunged with its second pincer, exploiting Jack's now-limited mobility.
The young man quickly parried the blow, slightly staggering from the force behind it but also leaving the Beast's only free pincer in a poor position for defense.
Using the opportunity to cover his off-hand in True Darkness, he took hold of the abomination's now-exposed head and sent copious amounts of the energy inside its frail mind.
In a mere fraction of a second, the beast let out a terrible screech as its mind was corroded by its recently created connection with the Void.
'How do you like the voices inside my head?'
Before Jack could even properly feel the satisfaction of a successful counterattack, the first Carapace Scavenger gently reminded him of its existence.
With a sideways swipe of its pincer that took Jack on his left arm and left a dent in his armor, it sent him flying straight toward a wall of coral pillars as if his armored body was as light as a feather.
In a reflex action, he touched the True Darkness hovering over his left hand midflight, calling upon his Intrinsic Form. Even during his partial transformation, the heavier body soon reduced his momentum, and Jack used his tentacles to arrest himself to the ground.
The first Carapace Scavenger, seeing his enemy's unstable stance, tried to rush forward and exploit this disadvantage.
Jack would have laughed if he could.
From the soil just beneath the Carapace Scavenger, a pincer took hold of two of its legs, destroying them both in a brutal clench of its jagged blades.
'Void Madness.'
The two Beasts, one deranged by voices from the beyond and the other enraged by the friendly fire, entered a vicious melee, with both taking body parts from one another in each attack.
In the end, the enraged killed the maddened Scavenger, surviving with a single pincer and a heavily injured torso. It tried to take a single step toward Jack but crumbled in a heap due to its missing legs. In moments, the light left its cruel eyes. Lifeless.
Jack unsummoned his True Darkness and swiftly left his Intrinsic Form.
[You have slain an awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[The Darkness in your soul grows deeper.]
[You have slain an awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[You have received a Memory: Azure Axe.]
[The Darkness in your soul grows deeper.]
'Ah, how I've missed your voice, Mr. Spell. I think you and me will have a lot to discuss very soon.'
Jack could barely wait to encounter the carcass and the inevitable gathering of Scavengers that would be surrounding it.
'An Echo next, please!' He'd always loved gifts.
