He was weightless and groundless, his body slow to move or respond. He was floating, but he could feel the particles that brushed past him.

  This was no wind, but some manner of liquid… strangely familiar...

  A painful groan escaped him and his eyes flickered open, just in time to see the air bubbling upward, through turbid and corrupted waters.

  Gazing around him, it was obvious.

  Somehow, he found himself in his mind's world, submerged within the seas, specifically the half that was crimson blood.

  Towards the other side, he could see the wall of ichorous corruption that infected the line between the two seas, and even beyond, were the fragments of what remained of the luminous white sea.

  The blood sea was not untouched either, polluted by pockets of ichor and globules of corruption, each churning about as if boiling oil.

  Miles's ears picked up the sound of a strange sizzle, followed by the stench of something rancid set ablaze. As if half-digested meat, sauced with bile, deep fried.

  He traced the ghastly stench to its source and eventually... stared down at himself.

  Miles grit together what remained of his shattered jaw to hold back a scream.

  He was barely himself. He was missing both arms and a leg. Only patches of skin held his torso together. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle, spine and bones crushed and deformed. He was a facsimile of a human body.

  Even the little skin and flesh he had left was rotting and sizzling as the ichorous corruption had set upon it.

  Miles had been wrong. Falling into the seas had not killed him. He was only being rotted alive.

  The only silver lining was that he was numb to it all, feeling none of the agony he should have.

  What a mercy it was to watch one's body shrivel away, without the pain.

  A distraction, a thundering roar reverberated through the mind world, rattling through what remained of his bones.

  Miles raised his head, surprised to find a massive shadow cast over him. No, the entire world.

  He flinched at the sight.

  Only a Grand Giant of legend could hope to match the sheer size of this creature, for its head alone covered the skies.

  Even deformed through the turbid waters of the seas, Miles could see the ugly face of the red-skinned demon, its beady eyes flashing with fires of greed, its tongue looping through the skies like a pink, fleshy dragon.

  A single bead of drool trickled down from its lips into the seas, the impact rolling through him, and as if a tsunami, towering waves rose in response. Such was its scale.

  It seemed swallowing him whole had given the Imp the opportunity to consume his mind world as well. And it seemed more than eager to do so.

  The giant imp stretched its mouth wide open, expanding it endlessly and unnaturally.

  Eventually, a hideous, cavernous hole of serrated walls covered the skies.

  Terror and disgust possessed Miles in equal measure. He was little less than a living corpse, but he could not, would not, allow such a fate without a fight.

  This was his mind world.

  He attempted to gather an attack, some manner of opposition, at least a disturbance or distraction. But his last remaining limb was like rusted machinery, his mind was mud, and he wasn’t even sure if the seas responded, or it was the demon's effect.

  Whatever control he attempted to gather would be shattered, divided, then scattered elsewhere.

  At the end, Miles was gasping in exhaustion and disbelief.

  Mind world meditation was supposed to reflect on his self. If he could not even control himself… what could that mean?

  Well, the answer came.

  A current of dark scarlet looped around him as if a mermaid toying with a mesmerized sailor. The darkness gathered and coalesced, finally forming an abyssal shadow he was quite familiar with.

  The Beast Within stared right in his face, its fangs curled in a horrifying grin. It seemed amused, pleased, and entirely uncaring of the creature that were about to consume their world.

  A growl reverberated through the water opposite, and a mass of liquid white forced itself through the corruption, into the red sea Miles found himself in.

  The Beast Within turned towards it with barely veiled hatred, and the Lupine Soul manifested from within the luminous blob of liquid.

  The wolf seemed even more battered and injured compared to when Miles had last seen it, but there was a fire in its yellow eyes, one he had not seen before.

  The two Beasts hissed and growled at each other, but neither made a move to attack.

  Miles expected they would do something, perhaps gather their forces in a momentary truce, but… there was no such thing.

  The Beast Within was grinning, eyes twisted with sick pleasure, as it stared upwards at the cavernous maw in the skies. The Lupine Soul stood still as well, though its muscles were tense, as if prepared to launch upwards at a moment's notice.

  Miles refused to do the same and attempted a counterattack once again, not that it fared any better than before. He continued to do so until he realized it was futile.

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  The Imp’s bulging maw fell closer and closer, and as it did, it inhaled deeply.

  The seas rose higher and higher, droplets of liquid floating upwards in defiance of gravity, and finally, the demonic tongue touched the seas.

  The Imp squealed in joy, its delight echoing through the skies. It was as if it the creature had discovered a novel delicacy.

  The demon continued to consume and consume, only stopping to giggle in eerie bliss.

  The scarlet blood, the luminous white, that it could consume easy enough. But that was not all that was here.

  The mind world was (un)balanced, and infecting it was a festering corruption. An acidic, ichorous poison.

  It was a danger that threatened the very existence of the Beast Within and the Lupine Soul. It had been agony to Miles himself.

  So how could some lesser demon consume it?

  Well, the Imp only realized so, when the ichorous tar splattered into its open mouth.

  The same corruption was currently burning through what remained of Miles. It was still festering upon the wounds of the Lupine Soul. It had rotted a living plant to death.

  But all of that was… muted, for this was a thousand times worse.

  The reaction was explosive. In an instant, an entire patch of imp mouth flesh turned black, sickly, and rotten.

  The demon screeched in agony. Thin stick-like arms appeared from its sides, clawing at its own mouth.

  The corruption spread like an infectious wildfire.

  The imp tried to scratch it out, but all that fell was rotten flesh and blood, revealing the ichor had already burrowed deep inside.

  The skies stormed, and the seas roiled.

  The imp was in a frenzy, struggling to rid itself of the corruption, but it was too late.

  All it could do was scream.

  ***

  The immaterial existed on one side, and the material on the other.

  Vawulan, the hungering ones, were neither material nor immaterial, but reliant on both for existence.

  Wurkan, the wolves, were both, but trapped in one, bound by the commandments of those at the pinnacle.

  These were the rules of this world.

  It, however, was born of both, neither and more, all at the same time.

  That was also how it knew there was none other of its nature, no existence akin to itself.

  The outside world rejected it. Its existence harmed its own creator. It appeared only when the two sides clashed. It was limited in what it could do, and when.

  Yet it so easily dominated those that had allowed its birth.

  It was an accident, a strange oddity, a one in a never chance, something that was not supposed to exist.

  It was grand, great, everything and nothing, all at once.

  That was why it had been so intrigued by the little plump red one, the one that actually dared to try to… consume it? Consume its world?

  Since the creature had bested its creator, it had allowed the creature the first strike. But as expected, it did not even need to fight back.

  First the--Imp(?)’s mouth had fallen to its dark dominion, and the pointy little teeth had rained down into its world.

  The creatures' screeching and screams were... intriguing. It had not heard many sounds, not beyond those of its own creator.

  Next came a gangly rope of flesh, darkened and shriveled, so much so that a light movement of the Imp's head dismembered it. The worm-like tongue sank to the depths of its seas.

  The tenor of the screams changed, and that was interesting as well.

  Its domain had expanded over the Imp’s head, veins shriveling and blackening.

  Something interesting happened then.

  That was the wolf, the same that had had a part in its divine creation. It really did like the furred one, for they were the only thing that kept it entertained, obstructed from consuming every drop of the two seas.

  The wolf bounded through the gaping hole where the imp's mouth had been, diving deep into its barely alive carcass.

  It was no longer interested.

  Its opponent had been disappointing. This imp had lost simply by facing its nature, not even facing any attempted retaliation.

  As expected, it was born of conflict, imbalance, and destruction. It was chaos and death made physical.

  It was named…

  The screams were barely audible now, and soon, the Imp had become even smaller, for its dominion had shriveled the flesh, leaving only a giant rotten prune in the sky.

  Right.

  It had tried to give itself a name, one fitting for its manner of existence.

  It was not well-versed in the practice and had failed.

  Until that moment, when it came across, a whisper carried in the wind.

  One word, whispered by its own creator from deep within the seas, staring at the splendor of its nature.

  How fitting.

  Even the world seemed to accept the name, and that was how it should be. For it was unique enough to warrant such attention.

  What remained of the Imp collapsed in a thundering explosion of red, white and black.

  Bubbles rose and giant waves rolled, and what remained of the creature melted, vanishing into the seas.

  An acceptable celebration for its naming ceremony.

  Yes, henceforth, it would be named…

  Aberration.

  ***

  Miles had let the word slip out of his own mouth.

  The impossible events above him had filled in any gaps or confusions he had about the previously glitched term. He had known then and there what the corruption was.

  Aberration.

  Who could blame him? What he had witnessed was--ridiculous, to say the least.

  An Imp rivaling a grand giant, turned into a shriveled prune.

  He had watched, from closer up than he wanted to be, how even that had rotted further, melting into the surrounding seas.

  The ichorous corruption, the Aberration, was far more dangerous than he had ever expected, but… at least it had done something.

  He had survived, and his injuries were lesser.

  Even the Beast Within, who vanished with a wink and a cunning smirk, seemed more solid. The Lupine Soul was in better health as well, its injuries no longer fatal, or perhaps it was simply the fact that the wolf was no longer enraged with him, too busy gnawing on…

  ‘Is that a heart?’

  The wolf flashed a glance, guilty, but determined, and then it too was gone.

  It was as if their presence was all that had kept him anchored to the mind world...

  For the moment they were gone, Miles returned to darkness.