Chapter 23: "Sovereign of the Vastness"

Plants continued growing and mutating until sinking us whole.

The pressure the roots and trunks make over my organs is unbearable.

“This is the death of the ones that defy us who existed since the origin of the world.” The plants chirped.

I lost hope and my consciousness got clouded.

Following act, the amalgam got dissociated in a strong outbreak.

“Zera, are you alright?” I asked, alleviated by being capable of breathing again.

Two dark, humanoid figures started orbiting her.

Intermediaries. She succumbed to despair and made a Pact with them? It’s insane… how could she give in without knowing what they’d ask?

The insects on her arms calmed down, the shrubbery on her feet ceased their movements, the roots remained frozen, the animals stopped deforming and the black liquid around us disintegrated.

“In exchange of purifying the life around you…” one of the Intermediaries announced, rolling around in the air.

“You’ll pay absorbing everything that has been purified.” The other continued, shuddering from pleasure.

“That’s… that’s all? You won’t devour her limbs? You won’t claim parts of her body?” I asked, worried.

It’s not a high price, why? Could it be because she is a Daughter of Silence?

“That doesn’t matter, Darek.” she answered. “With this, we’ll gain time: if you stay by my side, that agglomeration won’t consume you.”

I recovered my sword and cut the mushroom on my neck.

A vegetal wall pounced over us. When approaching Zera, the tentacles with eyes and fangs lost those features, the leaves retracted their edge and the carnivorous plants shut their maws.

“We must attack it. Don’t worry for me, I’ll be fine: The Primordial Eclipse explained to me that the Pacts with Intermediaries only affect me for a short time.”

“That means you can call them infinite times? You’d have asked them to take care of the monster in front of us!” I answer, indignant.

That way we would have solved this problem entirely! What an ineffective girl.

“I still don’t understand well how this gift works, so…” A black liquid came out of her mouth, preventing her from talking.

“Zera…?”

Is this what they were referring to? It’s not as if she is immune to the thicket surrounding us. It’s more like…

“We have to end it right now.” She pressed her stomach, holding her pain. “I feel how my guts are rotting, Darek. Hurry, please.”

I carried her on my back and ran towards the interior of the cave.

“First, I’ll keep you away from its reach. The more contact you have with the amalgam, the more you’ll suffer. I won’t allow it. Let’s search a better place to face it.”

As I descended, crossing narrow chambers and labyrinthic nooks, the flow of the acid river increased: the atmosphere was unbreathable, the exasperating heat and the sinister light.

It’s a warm place but funereal at the same time: entering its depths would be like signing our death sentence.

“Fate claims you, humans: the fate I’ll impose on you. Kneel before me and submit to damnation.” The leaves clamoured.

The cavern’s walls shivered from the pressure that the torrent of nature coursing through them exerted.

“It’ll catch us soon; it’ll be the only chance we’ll have to defeat it.”

Zera recovered her composure.

She looks healed. How can that be? What kind of gift does she have? Why the hell didn’t The Primordial Eclipse explain it better!

Over the acid river, between stalagmites and rock bridges, the creature unleashed its fury.

It’s now or never.

With Zera on my back, I headed towards the cocoon, which tried to stop us with logs, vines and shrubbery, but it was in vain: Zera absorbed the corruption, returning their grace to the plants.

With her by my side, victory is granted. That monster is no longer a menace.

Around the core, a shell formed, a firm vegetal crust. However it wasn’t corrupted. Zera’s power didn’t work on it: I must destroy it with my sword.

If we kill what dwells inside, the plants will die as well.

I struck it a thousand times, without accomplishing anything: the shell grew faster than I could destroy. I felt how a black liquid ran down my back.

Zera is debilitated… Damn it! I have to hurry. How can I wound it?

I climbed one of the walls of ivy and shiny fruit until I was hanging from the cave wall. From there, I jumped towards the core. Zera’s new power purified the undergrowth and the insects that held the main body, making them detach from the ceiling.

I’ve got you.

We fell together. I used the momentum to land a brutal blow that cracked its exoskeleton. From inside, a tiny creature made of plants came out, carrying a white mask.

“And now who boasts of being inferior?” I mocked, pressing my sword on its body.

“You are ignorant if you think you’ll kill me. I’m Jix, the Sovereign of the Vastness. I’ve lived for millennia: I’ve seen The Creation, the birth and downfall of thousands of empires. And you? You are just pathetic humans.”

You call me pathetic while being at my mercy? I’ve never met someone so egocentric.

Zera kept weakening.

“The damage wrought by the Feather knows no comparison; it surpasses the human scale.”

I won’t hear your nonsense.

When I tried going through it with my sword, it shot out towards a far stalactite. After that, it created a platform of flying frogs, making itself unreachable once more.

It’s extremely fast. How am I supposed to catch him? What’s worse, Zera could crumble at any moment!

“If I can’t asphyxiate you with my essence, then I’ll melt you with my being!”

An echo distorted the reality’s fabric.

Roots released seas of blood, tons of shrubbery were created, skulls multiplied and the fungus became fortresses.

The strength in my muscles is vanishing. What’s going on? What is that noise?

Branches and flowers started sprouting from my inside, piercing my arms and legs. Then, they tangled on my limbs, preventing me from escaping.

Zera fell unconscious. Vines and briars climbed over her body, claiming her.

This can’t be happening. We had it, we were its hunters. And now… we are its victims again? God damnit!

In one of the chambers behind me, from the heart of an acid puddle, a creature appeared, retaling its limbs in a ghoulish way, rachitic. Bothered by the turmoil, it uttered a shredding croak, capable of inflicting horror to the dead.

There’s no exit… Our last chance to escape died when that thing appeared. I feel fear, terror, panic.

The acid descended, covering its chromated feathers, revealing a huge bird, with an outstretched and jagged beak, and wings that covered all the place. Its abominable silhouette shattered the parsimonious orange light of the cave.

From the heart of the cavern has born that creature, fed up with our aggravations.

It lifted its beak towards me, placed its eyes over mine and, announcing our perdition, it whispered to my soul that the sunlight would never reach my corpse, before incrusting its maw in my lungs.