Chapter 263 – Floor 53: Part 1

  Floor 53: In the Midst of Crisis, Lies Opportunity

  You have been infected by the Blood of a Primogenitor, Aether-Blood of an incredibly old lineage. Survive the effects, and you will gain new powers. Fail, and your body and soul will be lost forever.

  Rewards: A new Lineage Essence will be provided.

  In his mind, Mathew fell.

  His descent through the abyss felt infinite. The darkness wasn’t just an absence of light. Instead, it seemed alive. It was a suffocating void that pressed against him from all sides. There was no wind, on the sensation of falling, endlessly falling.

  But there was sound in the void. The darkness whispered to him, speaking in a language he couldn’t understand. It was calling to him, simultaneously offering things and providing forbidden knowledge.

  Mathew’s breath caught in his chest as the pitch-black expanse seemed to pulse faintly, as though the darkness itself was a living thing with a heartbeat and a mind of its own. Each beat from the darkness sped up his own heartbeat, creating an involuntary connection between them.

  Slowly, imperceptibly at first, the darkness began to lighten as the whispers grew louder. A deep red glow bled into the void. The light was faint and far away like a small sun rising over the horizon. The colour intensified, spreading until the sky around him was a violent, bloody crimson.

  Tendrils of dark smoke writhed and twisted across the heavens, forming shapes that dissolved as quickly as they appeared. Mathew could hear screaming and shouts in the distance and the ringing of metal striking metal.

  The ground appeared suddenly as though conjured by the malevolent crimson sky. It was barren and cracked, its surface a mosaic of jagged fissures that glowed faintly with an otherworldly light.

  Mathew braced himself for the impact as he hurtled toward the ground, but his body hit the ground with a soft thud. He stood up slowly, completely unharmed, and looked around cautiously. The air was thick and choking and it hurt his throat with each breath.

  He could smell smoke and blood and the faint spice of Aether.

  “Where the hell am I?” Mathew wondered aloud. His last memory was of reaching the Sacred Vessel from the Ashen Pact, where something struck his face, and he fell.

  As he looked around, the screams and clanging of metal grew louder, as if it were just behind him. Spinning around quickly, Mathew witnessed the scenery suddenly change, and he was suddenly in the middle of a battle.

  The clash of steel echoed across the battlefield. Men screamed as they charged into the fray, their faces twisted with fear and anger. The ground was churned into a thick, blood-soaked quagmire, and what had once been a green field was now littered with broken bodies and shattered weapons.

  Swords flashed in the light of the crimson sky, their edges wet with blood, while axes cleaved through armour and bone with sickening ease. The air was thick with the stench of blood, sweat and smoke.

  Horses screamed, adding their shrill cries to the overwhelming harshness of the din as they reared and bucked, their riders desperately trying to control them. Some lay dying, their sleek coats matted with dirt and blood, their bodies twitching in their final moments.

  Knights in gleaming armour, once proud and pristine, were now battered and dented, smeared with gore as they fought in brutal combat. There was no order to the conflict, no frame of reference for Mathew to latch onto.

  He had been in battles before, some as large in scale as this one, but there was always a clear opponent and purpose. This seemed like a free for all, with people fighting side by side only to turn on each other a moment later.

  Mathew watched as a soldier stumbled, his face pale as he clutched a wound in his side, only to be struck down by an axe before he could raise his shield. Another man, his chainmail covered in blood, let out an angry roar as he plunged his sword into an enemy’s chest, only to be stabbed in the back by another.

  This wasn’t a battle of honour or strategy; it was survival, pure and primal, where nothing mattered but the weapon in their hands and the death of those around them.

  The ground was littered with shattered shields, broken spears and the mangled bodies of men and horses. Blood pooled into puddles and soaked into the ground, and everyone was covered in mud until it was impossible to tell which person was apart from the other.

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  Through the maelstrom of blood and death, a figure moved with an unsettling grace, untouched by the chaos that consumed the battlefield. They strode through the carnage like a nightmare given form, their steps light and deliberate, as if the ground were paved asphalt and not a muddy mess.

  Their body was an abomination of flesh and bone, twisted and reshaped into something inhuman, almost alien. Its limbs were elongated to an unnatural length, and its skin was stretched taut over protruding ridges of bone that jutted out like grotesque armour.

  The creature’s face was a mockery of a human, with hallowed cheeks, too-large eyes that glowed with a malevolent light, and a mouth that twisted into a jagged, toothy grin. It was revelling in the death around it, savouring every scream and every drop of blood that seeped into the earth.

  It’s long, spindly fingers twitched as it walked, and it would occasionally reach down to caress the broken body of a fallen soldier or dip its fingers into a pool of blood and lick them clean. It would inhale deeply, breathing in the smell of death, and Mathew saw something else.

  Faint blue Aether mist would gather above the bodies of the dead, swirling around the creature before it absorbed it. It would even flick its wrist and pull the essence from the dying, causing the bodies to convulse as the Aether surged toward it.

  The battlefield seemed to respond to the creature’s presence; the shadows deepened, and the air grew colder as it passed. Soldiers on both sides recoiled slightly when the caught sight of the monstrous figure, but soon they would fly into a frenzy and hurl themselves at their enemies.

  Everywhere it went, the carnage intensified in response to its presence. Mathew knew that this creature wasn’t a spectator taking advantage of the situation. This entire battle had been orchestrated by it as a way to feed and accumulate Aether from the dead.

  The battlefield shimmered and dissolved away like mist under the morning sun. Time folded in on itself, but the creature remained the same, unchanged and ever-present. The blood-soaked fields of the medieval skirmish melted away and were replaced by another war in another age.

  Mathew stood in the midst of bronze weapon-wielding warriors and chariots under the glare of a bright red sun. The clash of spears against shields rang out, and soldiers clad in leather cried out as spears pierced flesh. The creature walked amongst the warriors, its form blending into the smoke and fire.

  The scene shifted again, a jarring leap through time that brought Mathew to the trenches of World War I. The battlefield was an expanse of mud, explosions and death. The creature stalked across No Man’s Land, unseen and unharmed by the bullets and shrapnel that flew through the air as it fed on the Aether here.

  There was another shift, and Mathew was brought in another time. Then another. Dozens of time periods and the only thing that stayed the same was the creature in front of him. The shifting scenes of carnage rippled and bled together, leaving Mathew as a silent witness of this creature’s slaughter over millennia.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the scenes stopped shifting. The creature, busy feeding on the Aether, paused and looked up at Mathew. Their eyes met, and the monster smiled. In a blink of an eye, it was in front of him, its eyes locked onto his, and Mathew felt like he was falling through the void once again.

  Mathew’s body was frozen, and every muscle was locked in place by an invisible force as the creature loomed over him. He couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe. It’s gaze held him captive, an ancient and all-consuming stare that seemed to strip away the layers of his being.

  With deliberate slowness, the creature raised its hand and revealed it’s palm. Its fingers were long and gnarled, the skin stretched taut, and each nail was a razor-sharp talon. Slowly, it pressed the nail of its finger against the center of its palm.

  The nail pierced through the skin, and a single, unnaturally vibrant red drop of blood welled from the wound. The creature lifted its finger to the drop and caught it on the tip like it was the most previous of jewels.

  It moved closer to Mathew and then gently, almost tenderly, ran the blood-covered finger along Mathew’s cheek.

  The moment the creature’s blood touched his cheek, a fire unlike anything Mathew had ever known erupted within him. It spread through his body like molten metal, consuming everything as it did so. The heat surged outward in waves, setting his every nerve aflame.

  Mathew collapsed onto his knees as he felt something beneath the surface of his burning skin moving, trying to tear itself free. The fire began to affect his mind, flooding his every thought, every memory, until he could no longer discern what reality was.

  It felt endless, an eternity of agony compressed into every second. The world around him was swallowed by heat and chaos. Mathew screamed, or he thought he did, but no sound reached his ears. His skin rippled unnaturally, and his hand twisted and stretched, mimicking the monsters, before snapping back to normal.

  His body rapidly changed, growing larger, with more muscles, before shrinking back to normal. Bones ripped their way out from beneath his skin, forming armour that covered his body before returning.

  And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the fire dulled and left him gasping for breath. The agony receded, and his mind slowly cleared. The last thing Mathew heard before the void shattered around him was the loud ‘Ding’ announcing his success.

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  In the endless void that existed outside of reality, a creature of impossible size observed Mathew silently. Its form was impossible to define as it constantly shifted and contorted. Tentacles of darkness spiralled and twisted from its core, only to retract and change. Eyes, too many to count, opened and closed across the surface of its body.

  It was an existence that was beyond the comprehension of mortals, one that had once existed outside of the Tower of Avarice but had recently found a place amongst the deities that ruled it.

  When the drop of Aether-Enhanced blood from the Sacred Vessel touched Mathew’s face, Mischievous Depravity felt the connection established between them. Like a thread, it wrapped itself around the deity and stretched off into the Tower.

  Satisfied, the Former Outer God closed its eyes and waited.