Depthless Hunger

Chapter 98: In the Wake of Gods

As the achromatic point of light approached him, Kai knew that it would obliterate everything he was. Now that it was facing him, he understood it in some terrible sense: the non-light was the opposite of soul, a power that simply removed the existence of whatever it touched. He was helpless to move, so he could only watch as it drew closer...

Koleiman struck the gray man from the side, flicking a paintbrush across his arm. The gray man grimaced in pain as his arm began to dissolve, the destruction rapidly rising to his shoulder. It looked like he would evaporate entirely, then he somehow stepped away from his own arm. As it vanished into flecks of blue light, he grew a new arm and frowned at his opponent.

Reality began to tear between the two of them and Kai was finally free. He stumbled away before their conflict could kill him accidentally.

So few were left alive. Zae Zin Nim sat forlornly, but the others continued to march up to the edge of the pit and die. There were only three others left, and the one approaching the pit was Yangil. Kai didn't like the man, but even here at the end of the world, he couldn't let a hunter just throw his life away. Now that no one was watching, Kai ran up and grabbed the remaining hunters and officials, pulling them back.

Unlike Zae Zin Nim, they struggled against him, as if still controlled by their desire. Kai shoved back with his superior strength, but he had been off balance. He staggered and realized too late that he was teetering over the pit. His gaze was drawn directly down...

Nothing. He could see the enormous shaft into the earth darkening for what looked like a mile, then it was entirely lost in darkness.

For several heartbeats he heard nothing but his own breathing. Wasn't this where he was supposed to explode, or melt, or simply die without explanation? He didn't see anything that would kill someone just by looking at it. Just when Kai was beginning to think that Koleiman had done something to kill the others, he felt the world lurch underneath him.

The depths before him ceased to be a pit in the ground, it was a puncture through the world. Everything he had ever known was just a thin sheet of silk drifting on the surface of an indifferent void. No matter what he believed, that truth was forced upon him, increasing the pressure in his skull...

And Kai felt hungry.

When Kai turned away from the pit, he did so as a monster. There was a gnawing emptiness inside of him that could not be filled, but he wanted to consume the world until it was gone. In that moment, he could have eaten anything.

As he saw the others, the experience passed. All the realities that had seemed so obvious and undeniable to him the moment before suddenly felt bizarre. He almost turned back, just to see what would happen if he stared into the pit again, but then he managed to refocus.

No, if he died, he would die as a human. Yangil was rocking back and forth sobbing while the others lay unconscious or raved, but Zae Zin Nim still awaited her death. It might all be futile, but he knew he couldn't end everything like this. Even if his story was nothing except meaningless chance, he would at least face it.

"Zae Zin Nim." When she opened her eyes, he extended a hand to her. "Why not die fighting?"

"Fool." She shook her head, but she did take his hand and let him pull her to her feet. "Very well. I didn't want to die, but I'll die alongside you if you really want."

"Then I guess..." His words trailed off as the rainbow aura that had been protecting them the entire time pulled away.

Kai had the briefest glimpse of Koleiman and his gray opponent fighting one another into the melee, then he staggered on a deadly battlefield. He couldn't see any movement or strategy, there were simply explosions and bodies tearing apart on all sides. Now he was every bit as vulnerable as the slow monsters dying on all sides.

More were crawling up from the depths of the pit. Kai turned with Zae Zin Nim and charged into the horde.

Something caught him in the back and his world froze into crystal.

When it shattered, he was staring at a different sky. Kai realized that he was in midair and flailed as he slammed back against stone. He groaned and rolled to the side, then flinched as he nearly went over an edge. Somehow he was lying on the top of the wall that surrounded the Frontier.

He wanted to see if any of the others were still alive, but the sight before him was entrancing. Armies and attacks blurred in the distance, moving so quickly he couldn't understand anything. Even the largest explosions winked in and out. Was that how the battle looked from the outside?

It ended with a column of raw power that tore through the sky and scattered the clouds. He couldn't see from so far away, but he felt certain that it had erupted from the depthless pit. Afterwards, he expected to see further fighting and strained his eyes for the nearly instantaneous movements.

Nothing. Just the empty wasteland and the subsiding sense of the world twisting underneath him.

"It's already over. How many phases up was that?"

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"Couldn't tell you."

Two voices, a man and a woman. Kai tried to forget about the battle and rolled back over. He saw two strangers who he assumed must be the speakers first. The man was a tall Krysali completely encased in crystal armor, while the woman had a jungle of hair erupting from her head. It flowed out like limbs and gripped several others: Kai recognized the surviving hunters and diplomats. They had been struggling, but it was futile against the living hair.

Thankfully Zae Zin Nim was there beside him. She and Kai weren't bound by the hair, presumably because they were in control of themselves. Zae Zin Nim turned to him with wide eyes, gave a strange smile, and then collapsed. Kai wanted to catch her, but he ached as if he'd been fighting for a solid year.

"Are you..." His throat hurt, but he forced himself to continue. "Are you the Frontier elites?"

"Not so elite compared to that." The strange woman snorted and turned away. "It's even worse than you think. They were focused on one another and the power phases were restrained by the wall. Some of those forces could have destroyed entire countries if they'd wanted."

Her companion bent down beside Kai with a more compassionate expression through his crystal helm. "I know you've been through a lot, son, but I need you to focus. How many were left alive? You were part of the hunter expedition, right?"

"I'm not a hunter," Kai said, then realized that was utterly insane.

"I don't think that matters very much right now, son." The Krysali man gently helped him to his feet. "There was one group of southerners, then the hunters from Monskon City. After your groups merged, we lost track of you completely. When you reappeared I tried to pull you back, but I almost couldn't just due to the raw concentration of power out there. That's why I asked you how many others were left alive."

"Just us." He looked around the group, noting Yangil, another hunter, and a southern official. "One of those... those people out there was killing us. By the time he got distracted, there were only the five of us left."

"You see?" the woman said. "It still works in theory."

"For whatever that is worth." The man sighed and turned to stare toward the Frontier again. After everything he had seen, Kai couldn't think about it the same way ever again.

"Do either of you know what happened?" he asked. The man shook his head and the woman chuckled.

"I have fought on the Frontier for a hundred and fifty years," she said, "including more than twenty monster incursions. This is a first."

"Remarkable that you're still thinking clearly after all that," the Krysali man said. "I am Aeglien of Torleen and my companion is Handelrey Orgoron. I know you must have questions, and we do as well, but the truth is that all of us have been forced onto a new frontier. There are no answers."

Though he couldn't examine the essence of either hunter, Kai felt certain that they were far more powerful than him. And all three of them were basically nothing compared to the battle they had just witnessed. These elites with extended lifespans would normally never have a reason to speak to him, but now they all just stood and stared.

Still... they might not understand everything, but he was fairly certain they knew more than him. He forced himself to face the two older hunters. "So you've always known about that... giant pit?"

"You saw the pit and you're still sane?" Handelrey let out a low whistle.

"So you did know. Why not tell anyone?"

"What good would it do?" Aeglien asked. "We don't understand what it is, despite centuries of study and experimentation. Just a hole torn in the world. Monsters crawl out of it, but it's not the source of every monster. We aren't a strong enough power to know everything about Rosemount and Cloudspire, but we're fairly certain they don't have an equivalent pit."

"And I guess there's not much you can do except manage the monsters." Kai thought back to the sheer scale of the pit and shook his head. "Even if you could somehow seal the top, the monsters would probably break through during the next incursion."

"It's not even possible to seal. According to our records, the people in the distant past who built this wall tried and failed."

"So it's some sort of... flaw in the world. It makes or draws monsters, and twists them."

"We call that the taint," Handelrey said. "It's some sort of power wholly different from anything we've found elsewhere. It ebbs and flows over time, which is why some incursions are worse than others. My guess is that this time was some sort of peak that occurs after centuries. All our foreign visitors wanted to take advantage of it somehow."

"You know, Gunjin was right." Aeglien turned toward his partner with a somber expression. "He might have underestimated the timing, but the distortion was clearly rising to a peak much worse than any in recorded history."

"Wait, Gunjin?" Kai looked back and forth between them. "You know him?"

"Why do you think you're alive, son? He came to tell us that an expedition of southerners was charging in and that there were probably hunters going after them. That was the only reason I was able to pinpoint you early. Otherwise no one could have removed you from that battle."

"Is he alright?"

"Just organizing our defenses elsewhere. Gunjin isn't bad, but he's no elite."

"He'd be a menace if he could master phases," Handelrey muttered. Kai immediately fixated on the word.

"That's the third time I've heard that." He glanced between the two elites. "Just what does it mean?"

"It's decades too early for you to think about that." Handelrey seemed about to dismiss him, then gestured over the wasteland. "Let's just say that once you get fast enough, you need to be able to enter a fundamentally different state. That's why everyone out there seemed to be moving so quickly. They're fast on their own, certainly, but their power goes deeper than that."

That would finally explain the rainbow aura: Kai and all the others must have been carried along in a different phase, moving faster than the ordinary monsters. Judging from what the elites had said earlier, there had to be many tiers of phases. Since he was tired of being out of his depth, Kai just tucked the information away for later.

"Well, I should get back." Aeglien rolled his shoulders, producing a hideous crunching sound from his crystal armor. "The Krysali City States are in no way prepared to deal with this. Unless we change a few things, this incursion will go through them like a scythe."

"Send the southerners to someone who can debrief them," Handelrey said. "It might not have mattered so much this time, but we can't have them undermining us. Oh, and send the kids back too."

"Wait." Kai hastened to get in front of the two elites before they could move away from him. "Are you saying we still need to defend ourselves? I saw so many monsters destroyed, I assumed..."

Both elites glanced at one another and then Aeglien answered sadly. "The foreign powers killed the majority of the horde, but they also scattered many of them and destroyed many of our spiritual barriers. This one is going to break every pattern we've seen before."

"Then you mean the incursion...?"

"You thought it was over? Everything may be finished for the gods who fought over the pit, but for us mere mortals... the monster incursion is just beginning."