Re:Cursed

Chapter 172 - 168: The Depths of Coral

Suddenly, a whole new world opened before Nyxala. And this new world was a fucking mess.

Lines everywhere. Some soft, fuzzy and indistinct. Others bold. Her eyes flickered over the chaos of interwoven lines, failing to comprehend the images that entered her mind. It was as if she was staring at a pile of a million needles; one that shifted with her continued flight. Nyxala's new mutation had come in, and she was seeing something… she just wasn't entirely sure what.

A foul roar of creaking metal, loose bolts and machinery snapping drowned Nyxala's ears of the whispers. She glanced back, and even without the eye in her sternum, the massive, razor sharp teeth of what had once been a door stood out with such pure clarity to the pandemonium of patternless lines that surrounded it.

Her new sight, Nyxala realised, could perceive edges. The sharper, the clearer.

There was no time to properly take in her new perception. While she couldn't understand all the nonsense it showed her, one thing was clear: empty space. Nyxala beat her wings and flew where the lines were not.

At her sides, as the walls twisted in on her beneath the influence of the animate-spawn, new lines snapped into existence from nothing. Empty space — as empty as the air ahead of her — broke into a screen of spears. Immediately, she realised these new eyes couldn't tell the difference between solid wall and void. Not when there were no sharp edges to perceive.

Nyxala hesitated. Her third eye flickered on for just a moment to reassure that she wasn't about to fly headfirst into a wall she couldn't see. The heavy gaze proved the hall continued for a while further, but her hesitation cost her. One of the floor to ceiling machines exploded at her side. A few bits of ancient metal shards grazed her back, but it was the putrid liquid exploding over her right wing, searing feathers and bubbling skin, that knocked her back to the ground.

Her eyes shut as she hit the metal grid. The chaotic world of colourless, texture-deprived lines vanished, leaving her engulfed in darkness once again. Nyxala clamped down on the immediate instinct to fall deeper into her third eye's sight. It had already shown to only make things worse. She snapped her eyes open again, twisting her head to take in the approaching maw as her tentacles carried her along the warped iron walkway.

The dominant lines of the teeth that might have resembled doors — if she had normal sight — overwhelmed the million other edges behind them. The Animate-Spawn's jaw grew as it tore towards her. Each second, those massive doors open and shut, shredding through machinery that must have remained dormant and untouched for millennia. Nothing in the hall was left intact.

Each line that entered this spawn's gullet first broke down in a thousand more — tiny — lines, before vanishing entirely. Or maybe they joined the chaos of the background noise. It was hard to tell.

Nyxala's wing was half melted and in no state to fly again. She scampered along, desperately trying to force her mind to find reason and consistency within the assault of information. Curious and the tip of her tail hung limp. More useless than even her human legs after their unfortunate interaction with phantoms. Those creatures themselves were entirely invisible to her new sight. That was good, in that it didn't enrage the creatures into an all out chase once more, but it was also horridly damning. She was left blind to their existence. She could be running head first into one, without any way to know.

And that's exactly what happened.

Pushy was the next unfortunate part of her to fall limp with a viciously painful spear through the soul. It wasn't as painful as before, and upon checking her soul, she found a new, unevolved name had lost half its components in a single touch. Nyxala hadn't worried about the long term effects until now — hadn't had the time — as some core part of herself felt reassured in its ability to recover a damaged name. But what if a name were to be swallowed by a phantom in its entirety? That instinct no longer reassured her; it screamed in terror.

But Nyxala had no time to worry about the potential loss of a name she never even realised she had. As soon as she touched the phantom, and subsequently flinched back, the approaching maw bent the machinery at her sides out of shape. They folded inwards, crushing the supports that held up the walkway Nyxala beneath her feet.

She tumbled down to the lowest floor. The rest of the boardwalk collapsed ahead of her, blocking any path of retreat.

The Animate-Spawn never slowed. Its automation circuits were twisted and abused to send it vaulting over any obstacle in the way of its objective. And that objective very much looked like it was 'butcher the intruder'.

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Thankfully, no phantom had fallen down on top of her along with the broken walkways. She put her hand out ahead of her. When her claws traced along bits of the former path, she found it lined up with the softer, dull lines right in front of her face. Apparently, ninety degree edges — which the walkway almost entirely consisted of — were only barely enough to form a line. However fuzzy.

With the animate-spawn getting ever closer, Nyxala considered cutting her losses and facing it directly. She couldn't see how any ability she had could destroy a being that now permeated the entire hall, unless she somehow got infinitely lucky and was able to destroy the automation system that hosted the creature. Such would not be easy; it was likely hidden behind metres of corruption altered steel. Maybe it had even shifted the original circuitry beyond anything of recognition.

There was no knowing what it was capable of. The only way she could even consider facing it was if she allowed herself to descend into her slaughter state. If she did, she was sure she'd know where it could be killed… but it was an incredibly dangerous play. Nyxala didn't even know if Animate-Spawn counted as life. If it didn't, then she would die. Simple as that. It's not like there was any other life down in the shadow of Coral.

Actually, that almost assured that it wouldn't count as life. Phantoms were anathema to life. Nothing, not even spawn would survive down here if they, in any form, held a soul.

Nyxala's only way to survive was to run. Her claws cut through the metal railing with ease, but that did nothing to open a path for her. The metal poles, once severed, snapped an entire section of boardwalk and buried her under more scrap.

Her situation was nothing less than perilous now. What did it matter that phantoms were around if she was going to be chewed up by something worse.

"Fuck it." Her own voice echoed through the roar of broken machinery being shredded by the repeating shink of slicing doors.

Nyxala gazed up with her third eye. Full strength.

The flakes flowed towards her chest from everywhere. Dozens… hundreds of forms flickered through the shifting debris, each standing on the broken scaffolding and shattered machinery. All stared down at her. Instantly, the whispers escalated. Instantly, the phantoms were enraged. Worse of all: the animate-spawn loomed over them all. Illuminated by the very dim light that bled through Nyxala's coat, its teeth barely resembled the sliding doors they'd once been. Now, a horrific guillotine salivating for her head.

The phantoms lunged. Nyxala twisted, looking for something… anything she could use to defend herself from these things that seemed entirely unfazed by all she threw at them. Their presence, intensified by hate for light or being observed, drove their touch to shatter each little bit of metal in their way.

What had trapped Nyxala, was now her last barrier holding the creatures back. And holding them back was hardly an apt term. The shadowy beings still shifted past the metalworks in ways only the intangible and bodiless could.

Nyxala's eyes finally fell to the ground beneath her knees. The metal was old and rough. It was decaying, but without the cracks or missing shards of other parts in the shadows, it looked thick.

But… Nyxala's new eyes saw lines right below the surface. Thousands of them. Tiny little things, but they existed. Small, sharp edges mere centimetres beneath the metal that blocked her mundane sight.

She could, in this strange way, see through walls.

What was far more important to note, was that below this bundle of tiny edges, there was a narrow space voided any lines that ran beneath the floor surrounded by random assortments of lines. Brackets, screws, the connection points for wires. She could see them all. But one place was empty. Well, empty or entirely solid metal.

She didn't have the time to second guess herself. Nyxala burned into the floor with her eyes as she coughed up as much acid as her mouth would allow. Old flooring gave way to a hidden layer of circuitry — the thousand tiny edges — before it opened to what amounted to a tiny box.

The hole was barely wide enough for her shoulders when she dove in headfirst. The jagged metal still bubbling in acid grated at her arms and sides as she squeezed into the tight passage. She soon found herself unable to move further. The crawlspace — if it could even be called that — was no wider than the hole she crawled through. Acting quick, Nyxala slammed her spines down, dislocating her vertebrae and slipping inside in a way more akin to a serpent than a human. The sharp metal of the hole was not kind to her wings or tentacles as they were yanked through.

Nyxala's antennae never stopped quivering beneath the steady grinding slice or the screaming whispers. She had made it out of the hall, but she was still separated by nothing but a thin layer of metal. There was still a long way to go before it was safe.

Claws dug into the sides of the duct, dragging her forward as her tail pushed her from behind. A coat of blood once again hugged her skin, but right now, it helped her slide across the surface as if it were ice.

About time the obsessed name showed some sort of benefit.

Just as Nyxala thought she was safe from the Animate-Spawn — for how could a set of doors open beyond the bounds of the room they connect to — they shattered through everything behind her. She spared a glance back and found an entire area voided of lines for at least a few hundred metres. The teeth, just barely missing her tail feathers, stole every part of the duct she'd already slid through.

Yanking herself forward, she was not quick enough to stop the doors shutting around the already dead end of her tail. She didn't even feel it being severed, but she took the opportunity it gave her, and used the surface of the spawn's teeth to pounce with all the power her remaining tail could instil and shot through the rest of the vent.

It opened out into a vertical channel. Nyxala struck the opposite wall, her head taking the brunt of the blow, spinning under the concussive force. With one wing hanging limp and no lives to take, Nyxala couldn't fly. She fell.