II-101 Into the Dark

I’ve been trying to bind my mind closer to my Class… my spirit. I’ve been trying so long to give myself a soul. I know that the Inheritors think that we’re special because we’re untouched by the Fathoms—that we’re not from here, that we can take any spirit, become any Class, or even take on a System…

But when we die… what’s left? What’s there? Nothing. Even if you live forever and become a powerful being, eventually you…

The Hound takes the dead, right? And the dead are the ones with souls. Ones with Classes. They have an after here. The Fictionals. They are remembered and kept by someone at least, after everything is over and done. But we’re not. We’re just lost to the darkness. Given to the nothing. And I don’t want that. I didn’t want that the first time I died, and I don’t want it now.

I have to keep trying. I have to leave something of myself—a continuation, even if it is an imprint in the dark.

I don’t want to go away.

-The Trespassers’ Compendium

II-101

Into the Dark

For a long while, there was just darkness. Darkness and numbness. Wei wasn’t. He didn’t exist to himself, or to anyone else. His omniscience was still there, but it was a far-away thing—like his eyes were opened, but his mind was closed. Lost to the world. Drowned in sensations of pain and misery, drowned at the moment of triumph.

Or so he assumed. He didn’t see Lein vanish into the black. He didn’t watch her die. There wasn’t enough of him left in that moment. He was barely a sliver of himself.

Source: [7/1400]

The world boomed with warbling noises, like explosions heard underwater.

Perhaps this is what death felt like: that forever in-between place at the moment of life’s end, and the great unknown that followed thereafter. Or at least, that was what he would believe if he hadn’t seen the abyss—if he hadn’t fallen over the edge and been granted a stay by the Hound themselves. A voice rumbled in the back of his mind: “It’s not time yet,” declared the Hound. And faintly, quickly, from the distance came color—a shard of glistening white, trailing emerald green behind it.

Another voice called out to Wei, this one feminine, more affectionate. It screamed his name over and over, and as it approached, the world became aglow in the radiance of nature, of life itself. Suddenly, a wave swept over the young master—a wave that splashed through his pain, dulled the agony drowning him, and began mending his eyes and restoring his hearing.

With a ragged gasp, Wei snapped back to himself. His Omniscience expanded around him, and he found himself falling, twisting in blank horror. Not far from him, he saw the Duchess of Hell—Lein the Last—screaming as she combated the darkness of the abyss. Though she channeled flame and lightning, frost and every power of her summons, she was nothing beneath the final end. She strained herself until every bit of her power was drained from her very spirit.

But again, Lein the Last was a warrior, and she would not go quietly into the dark. And so it fell to Wei to help her on her way. But not alone.

“Wei!” Mourning said, her voice high with worry. “God of Life… Oh, gods Wei.” She sounded horrified, and more of her power poured over him, centering his thoughts. He could feel a five-hundred-meter distance between him and Lein, her power rapidly diminishing—his own Class Essence long since drained dry. He wasn’t sure how long he spent in the agony-fugue, but it must’ve been longer than a few seconds, since he could no longer see any light above him, or the Hound’s platform.

“I’m fine,” Wei wheezed, lying through his teeth. He didn’t much feel fine. He felt so miserable that he had half a mind to succumb to his wounds and discover if a half-Trespasser would find rest in the Final End, or if he would simply cease to exist. Wei manifested his scythe, but his vision doubled. Trying to move filled his insides with nausea.

“Wield me!” Mourning cried out. “I cannot reform your body, but perhaps I can still settle your pain.”

“No,” Wei muttered as he manifested his Chassis. “Can… can you guard me? I need a moment to… to…” He didn’t even have the focus to finish his words—he needed that strength to call upon his Shell.

>Chassis of the Self-Devouring Ruminator (Rare) - Consumes Source and (Ambition) to amplify the Shell’s other Aspects. Rumination sets (Fortification) to 0 and leaves the Shell vulnerable but allows the Shell to regain Source.

Mourning answered Wei’s plea by growing branching limbs around his person. Winding vines, emerald bright, blossomed and engulfed his person with fresh and colorful flowers. A dense growth of thorns became as if a layer of interwoven armor, protecting him from the draining touch of the abyss. Through it all, Wei remained connected to Mourning’s hilt as she pulled him along.

“YOU!” Lein roared, turning her lance upward. But Mourning exploded outward to greet the Duchess’s wrath without hesitation or fear. “We are not finished! I am not done. This bleak place may take me, but I will find a final note of satisfaction in your death first.”

Lein’s declaration set things in motion, but Wei was in no condition for a direct confrontation. Yet. “Don’t… die…” Wei grunted, offering the only advice he could to Mourning. He didn’t know what it meant for her to be fighting alone away from her brother, but it had to cost her something if they didn’t usually operate that way.

“Don’t worry about me,” Mourning said, blossoming with tides of life. Suddenly, water splashed down from on high. Streams of limpid liquid slammed into Lein, pummeling her ceaselessly as Mourning followed thereafter. Then came the sound of life, of birds entering the fray, of strange and curious beasts, of massive fungal spores. Wei saw the Duchess trying to bring her own summons to bear, but everything she had was sapped and withered, the black fingers of the abyss peeling pieces out of her spirit like a flaying blade.

A colossal clash was joined. From Mourning was life birthed—cast into the place of death, and as hordes of beasts and monsters beyond Wei’s imagination rained down on Lein, the Duchess’s own summons manifested for the merest instants, only to be snuffed out by the hungering darkness that ruled over this place.

The abyss drank Essence from Lein like a great leech would empty a vein. Yet, Mourning remained untouched, unburdened. This might be the only reason why Wei was still alive in the first place, why there was any fight left at all.

Materializing his chassis, Wei began to rapidly draw Source back into himself, and it occurred to him that there were two people beyond the reach of death here: he and Mourning. For the blade, she was probably the counterpoint to the Hound—for without a life to lose, what was to plunge into the Final End? But Wei himself was a greater mystery—as was his System. The Concept-Breaker might have hold over the quintessence of magic and spirits, but even so, to maintain himself here—

“Focus,” the Shell said softly. Even Wei’s great Skill sounded exhausted. “Your mind is drifting from your wounds. Let it drift further, and we might condemn Mourning to this fight alone. It is already shameful that she had to intervene for us. And there is no knowing what she sacrificed, parting from her brother. They hold to each other for a reason.”

The Skill’s words broke through the fog drowning Wei’s mind, and he let out a muffled groan. As Source flooded into him, basking the insides of the floral cage in colors of clashing light and dark, Wei felt his body solidify once more, felt missing limbs and grave wounds flood with substance.

His mistake in the last fight was predictability. While he was trying to outthink and out-maneuver Lein, she was watching him for limitations and mistakes as well. And the fact that the Gunhead projected its path so obviously and loudly was going to be a problem. It was still an immensely useful Component, but he needed to take more care in masking where he was going and what he was doing. The scythe held the subtlety advantage here.

All he could do was survive and learn.

A loud cry of pain sounded from Mourning as the bloodied phoenix flared around Lein again. But invoking it took something great from the Duchess—something she would never get back. It flared bright for but a moment, burning away a great many of Mourning’s branches, even melting the edge of her blade, but its glow died to quivering ashes just as fast.

Even if the phoenix could resurrect, Wei suspected it needed Essence to do that. And that was exactly what the Duchess lacked down here. Essence. To be trapped in this place was a death sentence for her, though she remained a titan compared to Wei and Mourning, she was a titan with her throat slit and her heels sliced.

They could finish this fight. They could win. And they could silence her forever.

Source: [431/1400]

A flash of shadow and white pulsed out from Wei as watched the scene. Mourning was forming a dense layer of foliage around herself, healing and mending faster than the flames could consume her. But the Duchess was fast approaching—and her lance blazed like a meteor, certain to punch a hole through the Scion of Life’s protections—and likely through the Scion herself.

Wei wouldn’t allow this. Though he wasn’t finished restoring himself, he was whole enough, and that meant he could fight, could kill, could win.

With a burst from his Spearstriders, Wei jolted out from the nest of green holding him in place and greeted Lein before she could strike Mourning down. He slashed thrice with his Harvester: the first blow broke distance, sending her off course by three hundred meters; the second shattered the intervening distance, closing with her; the third struck her Speed directly. 

A cry of outrage exploded out from the Duchess, and with his Class entirely drained, Wei felt his flesh bubbling and melting from the sheer heat pouring out of the phoenix.

“Vermin!” she roared. She exploded into him with a jolt. He dashed through her in a perfect counter—a heavy impact slamming through her a moment thereafter. Twice more he cut her with his scythe. But the flames around her melted through the broken pieces of armor covering his body, ate through his skin and ignited his muscles and marrow. Wei’s body was failing him again, and he didn’t have enough Source left to call upon his full Shell for more than—-

A blast of life hit him. Dense bark and flowers sprouted around his form. He felt a surge of vitality rush through his body, not truly restoring his Source, but augmenting his mangled form, keeping him in the fight.

An echo came. Wei dashed through another one of Lein’s attacks and slashed again. Distance broke between him and Mourning. She blinked back into form directly beneath the Duchess’s armpit and scored a deep cut along Lein’s side. Fungal grows exploded in blasting spores within the phoenix, and Lein’s voice gurgled with pain and fury. Wei dashed again—and took Mourning in his left, while alternating between scythe and his Gunhead with his right.

He tried to swing Mourning like she was a greatsword, but found her pulling him along instead. To his surprise, she made him faster by far—and he mentally cursed Vendrian for having such a potent tool. The Scion of Death would be a pale shadow if his sister wasn’t a living weapon.

“I will not… I will not let you have this… I will not go… into the dark.” Every last bit of Essence blazed out from Lein, but every beast she could summon was fading into the darkness. Despite the defiance in her words, Wei knew she wasn’t making it out of this place. He knew this mainly because his Omniscience caught sight of a tumbling rod glowing in the distance—his gun.

“Here’s hoping it can still fire,” Wei muttered as he barely avoided getting torn in half by a teleporting snake lined with jagged teeth instead of scales.

“What?” Mourning said, lashing out with vines and bursting flowers to help him ward off the vanishing spirits.

“You’ll see—”

Wei raised his scythe—but Lein vanished. A second later, a dot of fire flashed out from inside the snake chasing him, and the young master cursed. The phoenix erupted back into existence, draining Essence out of all the other summons to create a grand supernova. It was more luck than timing that Wei managed to avoid death—dashing instinctively through the spreading fire. But even so, he materialized behind her—and she was expecting that.

A lance rushed out to strike him. Mourning tugged him off-line—though she failed to save his right shoulder from being run through. In the same moment, his scythe fell—and the space between him and his distant gun ceased to be. Lein struck three more times in that time—her blows so fast that there was no possible Wei could have dodged the hits on his own.

But he wasn’t alone.

The first strike rang off Mourning’s edge, but the blade cracked and the Scion of Life let out a wail of pain that filled Wei with shame and rage. The second blow broke through most of the armor she layered over Wei, but protected him long enough to snatch a rifle that seemingly appeared out of thin air. The third landed horizontally along the young master’s body. He folded. Things inside him broke. But a surge of Strength and Constitution flowed from Mourning to him—and he didn’t let go the rifle.

The fourth hit from Lein wasn’t a blow from her weapon, but her burning hand sinking into his already ruined shoulder. Wei’s vision went black from the pain again, but his body was already moving, the rifle twisting up in line with her gut. Flames poured into his wound. Wei felt like he was about to cook from the insides. Mourning sealed a layer of wood to combat the flames—but her Essence was spent, and she could buy him no more than a half-second of life.

It took far less than a half second to pull a trigger, but considering the gun…

Heavens, please… Wei asked for little from the cold skies, but right now, he could use a miracle.

Or some very, very good engineering.

He pulled the trigger. The barrel, already deformed from the heat swelled. What remained of its burning stock broke off. The gun burst apart in a shower of gleaming metal and wood.

But the bullet still tumbled out fast, and with scant distance between her and Wei, it struck her, and treated her flesh and armor as it would a mere mortal.

It was like a dam suddenly went up inside Lein—her Essence sputtered. The phoenix flickered and wailed. Blood blossomed free from her back, and she gurgled as she jerked back, releasing her lance to clutch the wound in her chest.

A wound that Wei promptly widened by jamming both Mourning and his Pale Fang inside.

Lein cried out. Wei thrust deeper. And she seized him by the arms, stopping him dead despite her rapidly fading strength. “You… You… I wasn’t even going to kill you…” She whispered.

Wei snorted. Then released Mourning—who promptly accelerated through her wound like a missile, bursting out her back. And as Lein’s back arched, as she gave Wei her first true cry of anguish, he drove his Eidolon up under his neck and out the top of her head.

“Well,” the young master spat, watching the Duchess slide down his glaive, her eyes wide with horror and disbelief. “I was always planning to kill you.”

Then, she blinked twice, and her gaze went distant. No grander speeches were exchanged. No more conversations or threats. She lived. She acted. Then, she made a mistake. And so she died.

Such were the Fathoms. Such were the Claimed Hells. And such was the fate of anyone who dared to transgress or even scheme against the Drowned Sky Sect.