Re:Cursed

Chapter 168 164: Shadows Above; Darkness Below

Wings swept and tail straight, Nyxala allowed herself to fall. The dim was rapidly replaced by the dark glow of a dozen red rings that fell far through the distance. A prickling heat slapped her cheek. She raised her arms to defend her face, but the hiss of steam rolled past her fingers and tingled her new tendrils.

Nyxala fell past the first ring. The smokestack of a massive boiler rose past her, embedded not into a wall, but a network of girders that connected it to the next. It took almost a dozen seconds of freefall before she passed the first. The second and third weren't far below.

Steam billowed from the chimneys, falling over the sides and tumbling into the depths like a misty waterfall. As she plummeted alongside the vapour, there was no missing the rapid acceleration of corruption. It seeped into every water molecule. Manifested in the unnaturally twisting space that only seemed to unveil more boilers.

The corruption created a breeding-ground for its own reproduction. Steam: its host.

Water vapour, when infected by corruptive touch, acted as unpredictably as water, but in entirely its own way. No seas of high waves formed where they shouldn't fit, nor did a storm brew, regardless of how thick the clouds felt as she crashed through them.

Steam, in the absence of air or liquid water, becomes clammy with the addition of corruption. It got everywhere. Neither the gaps between Nyxala's feathers, nor the expansive machinery that she fell past were exempt. Corruption latched on, and twisted whatever it touched.

It would be an absolute pain to get it out of her feathers later, but at least Nyxala didn't feel the horrific effects of corruption seeping into her body as most would. She wondered where Ta'Stralanov'r would have sent her had she not been resistant. Surely the woman knew about this hot-spot of corruption. The Technocultists were too precise in their way of things to overlook the results of boiling water in such a deep section of Coral. No, the corrupt steam was intentional.

For what reason… Nyxala hadn't a clue.

The further she fell, the thicker the tumbling steam. If she hadn't survived a Dark Star — created them even — Nyxala might have been concerned about how much corruptive influence dug through her skin on the way down. It was enough to have even a sixth evolution worry. The steam remained warm, but not enough to burn where it clung. It simply held on and refused to let go.

Nyxala soon passed the last of the massive boilers, but the expansive machinery didn't end there. She fell through the blades of an immense turbine. The racing masses of metal missed her by mere metres as they sliced through the corrupted vapour, collecting a mountain upon its blade-face.

The turbine was anything but normal. It somehow rotated along eight axis, and Nyxala passed through the same gap between blades a second time as she continued straight down.

She couldn't tell whether the corruption had caused the impossible-to-comprehend movement, or it had somehow been designed that way to take advantage of the odd space down here. Regardless, she knew her exit when she saw it.

Ta'Stralanov'r had been kind enough to mark where she needed to go with a circle of that distinct blue glow of hers.

Nyxala angled her tail — barely altering her wings — and flew through a tiny crack in the rim of the next turbine. She timed her entrance well, yet the blade still came close enough that her new ears were curling at the ripple of steam it washed over her.

The hole should have led to empty space. When looking from above, there had been nothing behind the rim. Instead, she barrelled into a long pipe barely wide enough for her wings.

When, after a few minutes of flight, Nyxala found the world opening up around her, she had to mumble. "Do all the cults have a hidden path to Coral's belly?" It seemed like a security flaw. Who knew if anyone had a name that gave them perfect intuition for direction? They could slip right in.

She pulled up before the tentacles of gravity could hook into her, and found some ancient maintenance rail. Her tail slid over the back as her tentacles clung to the long pole. Nyxala sat and collected herself.

The last time she'd been down here, she had Little God to guide her way. Now that he was gone, could she find her way up?

Her eyes slid over the chaotic lower surface. A thousand antenna reached for the darkness. From Nyxala's perspective, they seemed to stretch endlessly, pulled by the black hole beyond the means of reality.

At the base of that inverted forest of needles, she could see only metal. Only a single mound of flesh could be seen beyond the sharp-angled ridgeline of the Technocult's territory. From here, it was hard to tell if it was the shifting sinew of living creatures bound by the Scriptures' rituals, or the otherflesh of the Bodytwisters.

Around her, there were many tunnels and conduit openings that spilled steam like foggy showerheads. They all likely led back the way she came, but if she had learnt anything about the Technocult, then each path would be blocked, or laden with so many traps and explosives that nobody would dare try to enter that way. Nyxala doubted even the path she'd slipped through was safe anymore.

In the comfort of her seat, Nyxala stretched her wings and tail against the pull of gravity. The last time she'd fallen down here, her wings hadn't been enough to keep her from falling. Only her claws digging through the metal of a probe kept her from replicating her last life.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Now, she was certain she'd be able to fly around without issue. A combination of the tail, and the muscles of her wings being enhanced by sacrifice.

Of course, just because she could fly, didn't mean she would. Nyxala didn't think she'd ever fully cast aside the fear she held for the unknowable beings in the Darkness below.

Nyxala began to shimmy along her railing. As nice as it would be to sit and relax beneath the world, she still had to meet up with Lysyra. She couldn't leave the girl waiting. Well, not while she knew where Nyxala's prey was.

Without Eyeball, she had no idea which of the thousand crawlspaces or chutes would lead somewhere safe. They were as likely to lead into interior tunnels as they were to throw her into the feeding grounds of the skitter-spawn or an active trash compactor.

Still, she had to find some way up. Hopefully a way that didn't take her through a battlefield.

Her antennae twitched. A second later, an explosion of expanding fire rippled from the other end of Coral. Harrowing, unnatural screams followed a second later. They clamped her throat shut as dread touched her soul like a knife to the heart.

The emotion overwhelmed her. She felt like the only way to remove the knife in her heart, was to yank the heart from her chest of her own volition.

Nyxala's name touch slipped from the crack and slapped aside the needles that had embedded in her soul. As the last intruder was pulled free, the dread that choked her — that forced her to stare at nothing but the falling fireball as it was consumed by the beings of the Darkness below — snapped and disappeared. An illusion. The emotion hadn't been her own.

Her gaze rose to the source of the explosion. If she were to take a guess, that was an attack from either the upper creeds, or a cult leader themselves.

A hundred drones raced by her feet. Nyxala watched them pass, wondering if she should… stop them, somehow. She remembered the guilt she felt for destroying one of their kind after confusing it for an aggressive machine. Where they were headed was not likely to be a very safe section of the undersurface. The battle must be on the bottom rungs of Coral for an explosion like that not to be swallowed by the corruption. Any damage the bots tried to repair would only be repeated.

Nyxala ultimately decided against getting in the drones' way.

They were machines. While it was commonly accepted that these bots held no connection to the Machine God or its Worshippers, she wasn't so sure she trusted that. If they didn't belong to the Ta'Stralanov'r or the Machine God, then who? For all she knew, they were sending back information of her location to the Worshippers right now.

With a little touch of fire under her ass, Nyxala stopped her slow scuttle across the bottom surface and took to flying between antennas. It was almost concerning how easy it was. More-so than walking. Her wings and tail carried her between the long spikes, which her tentacles clasped and flung her forward without so much as a moment spare.

Her mutations made the effort so simple, that she even let herself consider the idea of reaching one of the peripheral islands. They would be the perfect places to begin her hunts. Security was harsh, but should she slip in undetected, not even Solan could follow her without repercussions.

Of course, with how they were used for the highest stakes rituals, she was unlikely to find any but the strongest cultists. Ones she was not yet be ready to face.

Her pondering was cut short when her third eye found a chute that her mundane eyes couldn't perceive. Drowned in shadow, but otherwise no different than any other tunnel, Nyxala might have passed it by if not for Ta'Stralanov'r's words.

She thought the only way Nyxala would survive against Solan, was if she found a way to survive in the phantom's domain. It sounded appealing. If Nyxala could adapt to the lightless halls of Coral as she had the Dark Star, then she would always have an escape. One that even Solan would hesitate to follow.

Well, that was the hope.

No matter how idealistic the idea sounded, the phantoms that made the space so dangerous were not to be underestimated. Making any sort of assumption that she could survive there where countless others — stronger than herself — had fallen was lunacy.

Even with a fourth evolution and her mutations, she struggled to picture how she could survive. She'd overheard so many horrific stories about the shadows. Especially after one incident — back when she'd been in the custody of the Bodytwisters — where four full squads of harbingers had disappeared without a trace chasing a thief.

Still, she couldn't wait until Solan had found her to take the leap. Nyxala needed to be familiar with the dangers before the worst happened.

She curled her tail around a pole, redirecting her momentum. With another beat her wings, she soared up into the cavern as dark as the black hole below.

Nyxala tensed. She expected the phantoms to come at her all at once. Pushy held her rapier. Curious twirled her bloody blade. The claws in both arms buckled the joints of her fingers as they slid through her hand. She was ready for anything that dared come her way.

Her wings beat again, and she remained ready.

Eventually, the chute split into four offshoots with a rickety platform tilted before a sealed-off door.

Nyxala landed, and the loud creek that screeched from the ancient metal grating almost had her clawing through the innocent old wall. She waited, but nothing attacked. While she had her third eye, the lack of vision through the eyes she relied on most was getting to her.

The dark was never kind. The Darkness of the black hole had been her first death. Then, there had been the thick darkness of the Eternal Pharaoh's tomb. Something always lurked where you couldn't see.

Then, finally, something changed.

It wasn't an attack, or the revelation of some beast, but rather the crack in her name finally giving way and opening in its entirety.

Nyxala was startled regardless.

The mutation had come in, yet nothing had physically changed. She inspected herself, and as far as she was aware, she hadn't suddenly become pink or anything.

Though… her third eye wasn't exactly great at discerning colour.

Having a mutation manifest and lacking any information at all was thoroughly troubling. It was worse than not knowing what a name did after an evolution. But as she tried to contort her body so that her sternum eye could observe different parts of herself, the guiding touch of her Talent told her to close her eyes. To shut off her senses.

It only took an instant for her racing heart to realise she'd lost her Talent to O̅s̫stho̲th in her evolution. In the next, that guiding touch told her to calm the beat.

Such a horrible place to be listening to the guidance of a Talent, especially one that told her to blind herself to her surroundings, yet she did. Nyxala was far too enraptured in the thought of a new mutation — and this inkling of what O̅s̫stho̲th could do — to say no.

So her mind slipped into meditation, and she saw pink. She tasted pink. She felt pink. Nyxala's mind and soul was swallowed by an entire realm of undisturbed pink.