Higher Plain Ch 37: The Corrupted Man, Vorlith Appears!

The man was no longer himself.

He stood barefoot upon a jagged, writhing landmass of steel that seemed alive beneath him—iron plates shifting and groaning like the breath of some buried machine. The ground hissed when he moved, threads of purple light webbing across its surface as though the very earth answered his presence. His body was a broken husk, skin charred into a slate-grey crust, cracked and splitting with every movement. From those cracks ran blackened lines, pulsing like veins, and every so often they flared—glowing a sickly, violent violet that lit the contours of his arms and neck like molten brands.

Once he had been a Seeker. A man who walked into ruins to learn, not to destroy. That mind, however, was long gone. What remained was an empty vessel filled with fury and whispers that weren't his own. His gaze no longer belonged to a scholar, but to a predator.

Above him rose the Xylarion titaness—Faylina. Her very face blotted out the horizon, the span of her cheeks and eyes lost in the canopy of cloud. She was too immense to comprehend fully; her presence distorted everything around her. Just her breath rolling down from the heavens caused the steel beneath him to quake.

He should have collapsed in terror. Any sane man would have drowned in that scale, would have turned to ash beneath the pressure of her existence. But there was no fear left in him. Only anger. A deep, festering hatred that swelled inside his hollow chest until it burned brighter than the purple glow threading through his body.

His vision filled with her—her eyes like oceans, her expression unreadable—but he did not bow. He clenched his hands, and his fingers lengthened unnaturally, bone and char curling outward until they ended in jagged claws. The sound was wrong, a wet tearing scrape that echoed against the hollow steel landscape. He flexed them once, the claws rasping together with sparks.

The titaness shifted, tilting her head ever so slightly, and the movement alone sent the wind howling like a storm. To him, it was suffocating. To her, it was nothing. But he stood firm, his back arched, teeth bared in something closer to a snarl than a human expression.

She was everything—land, sky, storm, weight. A living continent. The embodiment of those impossible feminine powers that crushed and defined this world. She filled every corner of his sight, every breath in his lungs, every shadow over his ruined form.

And still he did not yield.

The whispers inside him grew louder, urging him, clawing at his mind with promises of strength, of vengeance. He opened his mouth but no words came—only a ragged hiss as his throat tore with the effort. Rage surged, trembling through his cracked skin until the purple glow erupted in violent bursts, streaking across his chest, his jaw, his eyes.

He lifted his claws, ready to strike not just at her, but at all that she represented—the towering, untouchable landscapes of flesh and power.

He was no longer a man. He was the weapon, a creature of hatred.

The land beneath his feet groaned like a dying beast. The plates of steel twisted and cracked, seams splitting wide as a deep vibration rattled through his body. His claws flexed instinctively, his glowing veins pulsing brighter as the ground itself seemed to rebel against his existence. Then, without warning, the surface split apart.

From the darkness below, a massive metal hand erupted, its fingers the size of towers. The sky was drowned out in its shadow, the world narrowing to a cage of cold iron closing around him. He thrashed, the glow in his arms flaring wild, but there was no escape. The claws of the landmass itself consumed him, dragging him back into suffocating black.

⸻

High above, Faylina's wide eyes followed the shift below until her focus was torn upward by the sudden roar of displaced water. Kaelira moved.

Her friend was rising from the ocean, still kneeling in the surf, the impact of her earlier fall steaming against the surface. Her hand was pressed to her chest where the purple glow had struck her, her teeth bared in a growl that carried across the sea. Anger radiated from her in waves.

Without hesitation, Kaelira snatched the little man from her skin, pinching his warped body between two fingers as if he were a poisonous insect. With a snarl, she lifted her hand to her face, glaring at the speck that dared to strike her.

Her voice rumbled like thunder. "Pathetic."

And then—without a shred of restraint—she hurled him down.

Her hand snapped upward before plunging down in a violent arc, wind screaming in protest at her motion. The air itself cracked like a whip, lashing against the sea, scattering spray into tiny waves that rippled against her steel-clad ankles.

The man's body vanished into the ocean with a hiss, swallowed whole.

Kaelira rose fully to her feet, water dripping in cascades from her form, the metal of her armored shoe gleaming in the fading light. She raised her massive foot high over the spot where he had fallen, fury burning in her one good eye.

With a roar, she brought it down.

The crash thundered across the sea. The waters bucked and frothed beneath the force, a surge spreading outward in every direction. Again, she lifted her foot, and again she slammed it down, each impact a drumbeat of wrath against the ocean's surface. The storm of her stomps sent tremors through the deep, waves curling outward like panicked beasts.

Faylina flinched, then surged forward, her voice sharp. "Kaelira! Stop!"

But Kaelira did not. Her foot fell once more, metal screaming against the water. Faylina reached out, grasping her friend's wrist to halt her descent.

Kaelira twisted toward her, her eye blazing. "Don't stop me, Faylina!" Her voice shook the sky. "You sensed it, didn't you? The same thing I did?"

Faylina's lips parted, but no words came. She couldn't deny it.

Kaelira's growl deepened, vibrating through the air. "It was the Vorlith."

The name hung heavy between them, a shadow greater than either of their towering forms.

Faylina drew in a sharp breath, ready to respond—but her gaze snapped downward. The waters below them were stirring. Not from the fading shockwaves of Kaelira's fury, but from something else. Something moving beneath the surface.

The sea churned unnaturally, currents swirling in defiance of the tide, a dark purple glow flickering just out of sight.

Both titans knew instantly. This wasn't over.