Silence - Chapter 03

Chapters stop here, the rest can be read on Amazon via Kindle Unlimited or Audible!

* * * *

Felix took off like a shot, sending the floating island bobbing in place.

Racing among the hovering stones, Felix could finally appreciate the speed at which they were moving. Small, hanging rocks whizzed by at incredible velocity, more blurs than solid shapes. Pit zipped ahead, wings tucked back and legs pumping furiously. Felix panted, straining himself, heaving his Strength against the soft not-ground of the Void to propel himself faster.

Faster! Faster you fools!

The Maw zipped alongside them both, hair and dress streaming in a phantom wind. Her cadaverous face looked back in a confused mixture of fear and bright, naked lust.

Felix didn't have time to break down the thing's strange, unsettling emotions. His muscles burned, and his joints ached. They had been on the move for so long, and there was only so much his Body could take. Tempered or not.

Silence filled the Void. The lack of wind in his ears was an eerie sensation as they dodged and dove over the few rocky obstacles they encountered. The silence was misleading, however, as the gargantuan Corrupted Narhollow was still in pursuit. It had simply not yet reached their cluster of rock motes. The sharp cries of Harrowings flared louder for only a moment before the Void was filled with the cacophonous sound of the Narhollow crashing through. Felix risked a glance backward, and his eyes grew wide.

The Corrupted Narhollow simply obliterated the islands it came across, the massive bulk of the proving too much. Distances were so hard to judge, but Felix guessed it was maybe a mile away and gaining fast. The monster fixed him with a beady eyed stare before manifesting several dozen other eyes along the front of its wide, blunt head. Each one spun a moment before fixing on Felix and Pit.

Holy fucking shit! There wasn't a chance in hell he wanted to be anywhere near that thing.

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge is level 10!

Felix chained together as many Relentless Charges his Mana and Stamina allowed, each one sending him further and further from the abomination's massive gullet. All the while, the Maw kept pace, passing right through the scattered floating stones like a ghost as Felix navigated through the treacherous terrain. Through strained teeth, he gasped a question.

"What do you mean, it took your power?"

The Maw's glance at him was filled with such hatred that Felix felt his heart skip a beat. But then it answered. Because I gave it up.

"The Anchor," Felix realized. It had soaked up the huge majority of the Maw's power, siphoning it off to who knows where. To here, he realized. "So then that...thing has your power?"

Obviously. It fed on it, grew stronger and it's flesh form couldn't handle my majesty. Now it's transforming from the inside out. The Maw spun until it was floating backwards, contemplating the raging beast. It is surviving far longer than Grimmar did.

Larger stone islands loomed ahead, some of the largest he'd seen yet. They blocked the path enough to either side that going around was just as arduous as going over. Felix flared his Perception, searching for a path, a crevice, something.

"There! Pit!" Felix shouted, flexing a strange new feature he could feel coiling within his Skills. Etheric Concordance flared.

Convergence!

Felix leaped into the not-air, accompanied by a flash of vivid white light. Pit disappeared, only to manifest as a strange, heavy weight in his chest. Landing atop the side of the monolithic crag, Felix stabbed his hands into it. His Body was strong and tough, he'd learned that much, but it didn't stop him from wincing at each impact. He made his own handholds and scrambled up the side of the fifty foot stone to the booming sound of cracking stone.

Climb, Felix Nevarre! Climb as if your life depended on it, the Maw hissed from beside him. I do believe it does!

A wide crevasse loomed in the stone and Felix reached for the easy handhold. The moment he did, however, a swarm of mottled grey Tenebrils flooded out, chittering wildly. Rubbery, barbed tentacles lashed all around and struck Felix across the head and shoulders. They didn't get past his Armored Skin, but it was painful regardless.

"Ah fuck!"

Stop fooling around and continue! Or else ready yourself for a brief, and humiliating fight. The Maw wasn't quite screaming, but her face looked far more gaunt than usual. For a lightning quick second, Felix felt a thrill of fear that wasn't him or Pit. It came from the Primordial.

Felix spared a look backward and immediately wished he hadn't. The Corrupted Narhollow was shattering all of the stone motes it encountered, and it's hundreds of blue-green eyes were fixed upon Felix.  It was close, maybe a half mile away but it's bulk made distances misleading.

With a writhing flap, the last of the Tenebrils rushed out, but Felix could sense more within. His Perception twinged on the rustle-scrape of thousands of limbs dwelling deeper within. Those that emerged fell quickly before the host of nigh-invisible Harrowings that crowded the nigh featureless Void. Even the Narhollow's attention was briefly diverted as its massive, fanged mouths snapped at the flood of prey.

Felix got an idea, and from within him came a series of fluting calls. Shush, you. It's a great idea. We can't run forever.

Relentless Charge!

Relentless Charge is level 11!

The Skill threw his body past the crevasse and onto the very top of the huge stones. Sounding the pattern, Felix manifested twin whips of shadow in each of his palms; thick, four inch diameter cables of vaguely tacky shadow Mana that extended nearly fifteen feet each. With every ounce of his Strength, he lifted them up and brought them slamming down.

*KRAK!*

The stone islands, each of them as big as buildings, shuddered.

What are you doing!? the Maw screamed. Flee! It smells your Mana with each spell you cast!

Felix ignored her and lifted his whips up and down again.

*KA-KRAK!*

In the distance, closing ever faster, the horrifying whale let out a bellow that Felix could only describe as eager. And hungry.

*KRAK!*
*KRAK!*
*KRAK!*

"C'mon, you stupid whale!" Felix growled. He was sweating with panic. This had to work. They couldn't outrun the creature, and they couldn't fight it. He'd barely won against a weakened Maw. "What more could you want—?"

It smells my Mana. So did the voidbeasts!

Cloudstep!

With a series of uncertain hops, Felix coalesced what remained of his Mana into tiny, crackling platforms. He stood on them only moments before leaping to the next, their thin solidity holding just enough.

Cloudstep is level 9!
Cloudstep is level 10!
Mana Manipulation is level 7!
Mana Manipulation is level 8!

The steps firmed under him, just a touch more as the Skill reached that first threshold of understanding. Felix shifted how he was exuding his Mana vapor, and the crackling clouds almost made sense, somehow. Regardless, once he was far enough out, he spun and looked down at the rock faces.

"Come on out!" Felix shouted, his voice echoless in the Void. He pumped more Mana vapor from his hands, until his Manasight detailed a waterfall of crackling blue-white vapor cascading down the surface of the stone. "Time to eat!"

This time it was like an avalanche of mottled grey flesh that came pouring out of the stones. Twisting, a ribbon of conglomerate flesh, the Tenebrils swarmed his Mana with all the savagery of starving vultures. Soon it was gone, but Felix wasn't done.

Wrack and Ruin!

An orb of acid hit them with a splash of viscous green, but he ignored the kill notifications that flickered across his vision. He had their attention now. Felix poured all the Mana he could manage into a single, wobbling orb of acidic Mana. The Tenebrils inscrutable forms stared at him, writhing across their unfortunate broodmates. With a scream of effort, Felix sent this one streaming into the black.

Wrack and Ruin!

Wrack and Ruin is level 27!

The Tenebrils pivoted and immediately chased after the massive, clearly unstable spell. They thundered past him, battering his Body with their lashing limbs, but wholly focused on their meal. It arced through the darkness, going farther than even Felix had anticipated.

Directly toward the Corrupted Narhollow.

A tidal wave of Tenebrils crashed into the disgusting whale's strange, scaled flesh. Harrowings dove, consumed by a hunger Felix could almost feel, and their ebon claws tore into the endless wave of mottled tentacles. A terrifying bellow shook the Void, scattering some of the voidbeasts, but not nearly fast enough. The Corrupted Narhollow banked, ponderously slow but inevitable, and opened it's million fanged maw.  A net of crimson tendrils snapped outward, so many that it looked like an expanding gas cloud. Thousands of voidbeasts were snagged and pulled into its cavernous insides.

The abomination fed.

"Run," he whispered to himself. Felix's insides shook with each crunch and despairing shriek, Pit equally awed. "Now!"

Relentless Charge!

They fled into the black.