479 Maal-Shateth

Maal-Shateth| Level: 489,019

My heart raced. Its level was beyond anything I’d ever imagined. It could level entire planets. No. It could wipe solar systems with a wave of its hands. I took a moment while it tried to break in, but-

It shattered the shield covering the city. As it did, a disgusting radiance oozed over the Capitol. People here began losing their sanity, and I shot up to attack the congregation of what appeared to be concepts. It warped in front of me.

"You...Are the one Kryyaa spoke of? I...I."

Its amorphous, ever-changing limbs latched onto my throat. It clasped stronger than steel.

"I found you."

Chapter Begin

I grimaced as anguish spread down my neck. It shredded through my pain resistance, evoking agony in a palpable, icy torrent. My skin bled as my pores screamed out, and my insides poured down my chest. I opened a strange mouth before pulling myself out of my body. I reconstituted nearby, and I gawked in horror at my corpse.

My face turned into something resembling a sea anemone covered in porous holes, and my body vomited up my entrails. The ever-changing entity threw the corpse aside, and it crashed into the ground, destroying several city blocks. I winced as my mind eroded. I took a deep breath and willed Event Horizon onto the monster.

It let out a laugh and rejected the impulse. It raised a hand.

"Kryaa was correct. You are dense. A...Tiny one. Or not? I cannot tell what you are."

It took one step toward me, and space bent around the creature. It appeared in front of me, and I shot out a strike at its face. It grabbed my arm, and I began molting. Insect legs crawled out of my flaking skin, carrying silver chunks of flesh with them. I gagged before feeling the creatures in my stomach, eyes, and-

I bolted out of my body, recorporating elsewhere. All around me, yellow mana and shadows exploded from rituals all across the city. It flashed my surroundings in darkness, and I gawked at the magic before refocusing on the fight. Another of my corpses landed on the ground, and the entity laughed.

"I am Mal-Shateth. I am a general for Cygna, the Silent."

Reality roared in outrage, but its voice was silenced by this monster. It continued,

"Kyraa called me here to inspect your level of threat. I...I am unimpressed. Or impressed? Hm."

It was upon me again.

"Both. I can be both, can't I?"

It smashed a hand over my head. My skull exploded like a watermelon, and I regenerated with a fist midstrike at the creature. The space between my strike and the entity grew, making me miss my attack while its backhand did the opposite. The movement wasn't even near me, yet its hand clapped against my face like a sledgehammer on an egg.

I abandoned the ruined corpse for another body. I tried creating a singularity storm over the creature, but the air bent in strange ways, preventing the gravitational detonations from forming. They shifted positions and exploded over me, once more my attacks rendered mute by some absurd sorcery.

The creature laughed, and my mind peeled apart. I blanked out before coming too. I blinked, silver vomit covering the ground. Pulsing eggs expanded on my hands and in the shimmering pool before monsters crawled out of the liquid. My eyeballs pulled out of my skull, having been given life once more.

I escaped, and I experienced intense whiplash from the sheer potency of Mal-Shateth's corruption. I remade myself and gawked around, not aware of where my enemy was. I gazed at a street, finding the creature holding one of my guildmates. It was a man whom I'd seen before but never asked the name of. I remembered seeing him walk in and out of Isa's office at the dungeon clearing corps at Mt. Verner.

Horror washed over me like ice water as I watched the man splinter into abyssal creatures. Crickets writhed out of his skin before he split apart into a skin flower of tongues. His body ate itself, becoming an abomination. The gurgling screams echoed across the city, and my knees shook in fear. It had been so long since I was afraid, yet it came in full force as if the emotion had never stopped.

I couldn't even understand what was going on, but it didn't matter. I swallowed my fear and dove at Mal-Shateth before it bellowed out a cry. I blanked once more, but I abandoned my body as the attack landed. Using my mana sense, I moved my dimensional wake over Mal-Shateth before pressing down onto its own aura. I failed, unable to contain anything.

It laughed before tilting its ever-changing head.

"You're not a normal sentient, are you?"

It slapped at me, and even my dimensional wake rippled. The aura around the creature darkened.

"And you are dense. Very much so. Odd that you let me act on you as I am, but perhaps you are young and unable to wield your true power. Haha, fun."

It threw its hands out, or where hands should've been at least. Each casual swipe was a strike against my mind. I tried dodging, but space was its friend. It carved reality around me, making its approach, strikes, and proximity inevitable. Even as I gazed upon its form, I couldn't remember what it truly looked like, as if my mind kept forcing me to forget.

It was like a nightmare the day after it happened. I could hardly remember its visage, yet the feeling was potent as a knife on my throat.

Mal-Shateth laughed.

"You've fallen outside of the little AI's allowed power curve. Not enough for me or those like me. Not until you can take what you have. Will I let you grow? Hm."

Mal-Shateth pulled out some kind of vorpal sword. It created a dimensional resonance, similar to the construct Amara created earlier. All of reality bent towards it, and even gazing at the odd, piercing blade set off alarm bells in my head. Mal-Shateth lifted the sword.

"To cleave reality is to feast upon the blood of gods. Do you believe yourself a god?"

It swiped, and I bled. The real me. The entity that manifested my physical self, my dimensional wake, ruptured. Dark energy coursed out of my intangible body, reminiscent of interdimensional energy. However, it created stability in place of corruption, and it coursed over the expanse, creating dull gray metal over everything it touched.

I regenerated in a moment, but it hurt. It tore. It gnashed. It left my entire soul shocked to my core. I couldn't even move as all had become pain. I pulled my aura down to a small point and shifted around. I dodged lazy swipes of the shivering, difficult-to-perceive blade. Even as it aimed to cleave me apart, I admired its beauty.

Its visage came into focus. It was like a slice of the moon, and it held the weight of the sky. Mal-shateth was swinging an entire world at me each time the entity moved. Each scrape and graze tore into my dimensional wake. I spilled out blood I didn't know I had, and it lowered my maximum life total, mana regeneration, and general cognition.

I was dying. Genuine death, the approach of oblivion.

Mal-Shateth shook its head.

"You aren't a weaponized subspace or domain. You are the domain, but...Alive. What an oddity. I've not seen anything like you, and I've seen many things. More than you could imagine."

It cleaved another enormous wound across my intangible body.

"I've walked across stars and peered into black holes. I've become one with entities beyond our realm, and I've seen the edges of reality. Yet, I've never seen such a dense and powerful domain. It's incredible, yet unused."

It shivered and jittered as it spoke.

"But you die the same as those tied to domains do, though with far more resilience."

It swung again, and I made my body around my dimensional core. I caught the blade in a hand, and the city around us evaporated. A shockwave flattened everything in all directions. I wielded every bit of strength I had, and my feet created a crater beneath me. Concrete turned to powder, and metal melted into slag. Mal-Shateth pushed down, and the ground beneath me cracked.

Yet I held.

Mal-Shateth smiled.

"You hold it? The World Slicer?"

Mal-Shateth's sword was as heavy as a continent. I trembled under the load, all my magic firing in tandem to reinforce my physical power. I growled as blood poured out of my eyes and mouth. It was from internal pressure alone. Mal-Shateth lifted me and the sword before gawking at me like I was a fish hanging for sale.

"You aren't weak, yet you are. I don't understand you. But yet...I do."

It smashed me into the ground, and my city splintered.

"I will call you Paradox, the strongest weakling."

From its single swing, I was a smashed, bent-out-of-shape sculpture. I snapped back into place, my body moving with violence. I gazed at where its eyes should be. My head droned and ached and screamed at me to stop. I willed myself to stand straight and roar.

"Why are you here?"

The city was gone. The walls were split apart, and the rest of the settlement was flattened smooth into a magma-filled crater. The warp drive and conversion centers were the only protected parts, though Schema's receptionist had already abandoned their post. Mal-Shateth gestured the World Slicer at his surroundings.

"This world allows me to exist without all collapsing. That shivering corpse of a planet you call home, it does not. I cannot go there as Cygna wishes to time that blue marble's collapse for a certain purpose."

My eyes widened.

"You want to destroy the earth?"

Mal-Shateth spoke with amusement in its voice.

"Of course not. That world means nothing. We wish to destroy the fabric it rests on. It will become a wound in the beast, and the beast will bleed. Cygna will drink the blood until she is gorged full. She will become the beast. It is simple enough."

I frowned while parsing through what it said. It sounded like Cygna, whatever it was, wanted interdimensional energy. I frowned.

"All that energy does is corrupt whatever it touches. Why would she want it?"

Mal-Shateth pointed its blade at me.

"Follow her, and you will learn of her greater purpose."

I peered around me.

"You killed everyone. How can you give me an offer after-"

"The life here was meaningless dirt and soil that you've given some semblance of a purpose. They cannot mirror my or your abilities. They never will. We exist on a different paradigm, one that brings all to our heel."

"You're calling my guildsmates nothing more than dirt and soil?"

Mal-Shateth's voice was a monolith on an unseen horizon, one that crawled into your memory and mind.

"That is what they are. That is what you were. And I cannot tell you Cygna's-" Another groan from reality that this being suppressed. "-Greater plan. You will not remember it."

I squeezed a hand until it bled.

"You'd be surprised what I can hold onto."

A laugh like novas in the sky and the weeping of forgotten children crawled over me. It enmeshed two concepts that could not coincide, yet were. I held down insanity as Mal-Shateth pointed its blade at me.

"I have already told you her plan, but you have already forgotten it."

I took a step back. Mal-Shateth floated up, appearing in front of me.

"I have seen you. Kyrra will avoid punishment, but it will not be rewarded for its efforts. It should have stopped you, for you are both weak and strong, aren't you?"

It ripped reality, black ichor streaming from between realities.

"Goodbye, Paradox. Lean into your strength and abandon your weakness. I may not leave your planet as nothing if you do."

It's concepts laughed, and it left me chilled to my bones and beyond them. It gazed at me from an eyeless head.

"But I will, won't I?"

As quickly as it came, Mal-Shateth left. A looming silence lingered before the wind began to whistle from afar. It hovered over a flattened capitol, all progress reset to nothing. Mal-Shateth left oblivion in its wake. I lost memories of its existence with each passing second, and I gazed around myself in confusion.

No bodies remained of my guildmates. No mementos or fallen bodies to recover. Nothing. Not even memories. They faded from my head as I dwelled on mal-Shateth. It had unleashed enough might to evaporate a city in seconds. It came and used abilities I could not comprehend, let alone counter.

As I watched it leave, a hollowness rang through me. It built until I was nothing more than a husk of what I had been. My mind rang out for vengeance. It raged and wanted an answer to this abomination. Yet I did not feel wrath or anger or rage. Only one emotion rang through my mind.

A primal fear.

I trembled. I gazed at weakened hands, my lifeblood having spilled over this terrain. I analyzed my status. I lost fifteen thousand levels and a large portion of my stats. They were less than half their previous totals. In seconds, an enemy from afar crippled me, destroyed our progress here, and left me humbled. Deep in my mind, a haunting guilt emerged.

It radiated out and over me, becoming a suffocating cloak. It held me in a grasp firm enough to choke a child. I willed myself to move on, trying to breathe and handle the emotion. It kept holding me down in a torrent, my body shaking from the stress. Tears fell from my eyes as memories of the fight flashed over me.

As guilt ravaged me, a familiar hand grabbed my shoulder. I turned, gazing at Hod. His eyes were no longer hollow. Instead, they filled with a bright iris of golden amber, like sweetened honey. His body filled in, appearing more like a muscled phoenix than his previous emaciated form. A tremendous intelligence and awareness washed over me, his gaze as piercing as Torix, Plazia, or Shalahora.

He murmured.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't warn you more. I would have, if I could. However, there is still a tiny slice of time left for me here."

Hod spread his wings, his feathers glistening like dew drops on sunflowers. He glowed like a sun, a miniature star gleaming over his head and bathing the city in its radiance. He shouted over all,

"And I will make the most of it."