CHAPTER 462: INFESTATION

A pulsing sense of place had assaulted Amarena ever since the dream of her mother. But her task was not yet done, and so she ran over mountains and hills, over ash plains and hardened bogs. Until she reached a sea of lava she did not recognize.

What is this? Amarena asked in her mind, saving her breath. The land for great measures around had glowed, but only near its burning shore did she see the true extent of the unfamiliar formation. A red-orange ocean that stretched beyond the horizon, embers flying into the air like a fiery rebuke to the falling ash.

And then she looked up, and saw something she hadn’t seen in what felt like years.

Stars. And centered amongst them...

Ayther.

The blue world, its lands still lush with life.

Her pause lasted only long enough to place the next beacon, away and hopefully safe from that molten shore, and yet she felt renewed by it as she dashed and leaped over the lava flows. Moving in a full arc around the crater, she realized where she was.

The Eye of Hell, opened as it had never been before

At the highest cliffs, she saw the sea stretch before her, and an island in the middle, half hidden by the heat haze, no matter from where she looked.

And every time a Hellquake pounded, more land fell into the burning sea.

Even while in motion, she found the destruction strangely beautiful. A primordial battle she alone was the witness to. A thing not of justice or wrath but of existence. Was she the only one who would know this sight?

But she needed to leave it. She was gambling. Taking the chance that her dream hadn’t been just a dream. That her mother’s words were not a hallucination of stress but rather a chance at overcoming her waning strength.

And so after crossing only half the arc of the Eye of Hell, she continued forward, towards that pulsing sensation which grew ever so slightly more insistent with every step, leaving a line of beacons in her wake...

And then she reached the trees.

Amarena had never seen a world tree, but she knew they were supposed to look better than what she saw before her.

The nearest leaves had browned, and the more distant leaves looked to show only the best hints of green. Spaced apart as they were, she saw many gaps between them. When she stepped near, she heard something strange and looked down.

Mud. Ashen mud. Not the heated, semi-molten mud of a hidden flow, born of steam more than water, but true mud. But where had the water come from?

As if in answer, a Hellquake began, and Amarena dashed up the nearest tree, spotting the shockwave as it came her way. But above the pulse of earth and wind, she saw it. A landing world tree, the metal at its base flaring once before breaking beneath it. And from the tree fell leaves, branches, and ice.

Water had never been common on Hell, but it existed. Deep beneath the earth, in the most stable places far from the Eye. And every world tree brought an uncountable amount of it with it... and more.

As the dust settled, Amarena saw something else. Nodules like wooden flesh breaking open as unfamiliar beasts began to slide forth.

Are these the beasts of Heaven? They had to be huge, for her to see them at this distance.

Holding both a beacon and Orby, she watched as they surged out amongst the roots, digging into the black surface of Hell with a unity of purpose that quickly brought the largest ones below ground.

Thinking she’d paused too long, Amarena shook her head and leaped from the tree, accelerating herself to the next branch as she sought to continue above the disturbed, grey-brown dust kicked up by the shockwave.

Branch to branch, she leaped, and as the summoning feeling in her skull grew to a crescendo she saw a dead world tree, yet one whose hollowed core had become a reservoir of murky water and the strange Heavenbeasts. The beasts moved back and forth in lines between the world tree husk and the nearest trees, where the large, armor-bug-like beasts spat up clear mucus flecked with glowing green amidst the slime.

Other beasts, further in the distance, seemed to be eating clear patches of the ashen ground.

It’s down there, isn’t it Mother... Amarena thought, but there was no answer. The rest of her heartstone. The might of Leviathan.

Power enough for Amarena to complete her task, she hoped, or survive and return to Ayther.

*

Ann let a fear demon feed on some of her mana. A heightened spike of fear, and then a sudden cessation marked the end of the feeding. It was... oddly therapeutic, and after, she sat with Keiya and petted Nimfi.

For days, demons and angels alike waited in the abandoned palace of Dis for Amarena to return.

She would find out if her dream was true, and then return.

That was Amarena’s promise. She knew that as long as Kiryu’s orb continued to produce beacons, she would need to prioritize placing them even over saving her own life... But still, Ann wanted to try to save the few survivors her companions had found.

Another Hellquake shook the basement, and she wondered if there was something else she could do...

And then Nimfi stood on Keiya’s palm and sniffed.

"Nimfi?" Keiya asked, then listened. "She says there’s water nearby..."

But then another Hellquake pounded, closer, it seemed, and another... and through the rumbling thrumm, Ann heard it.

The pounding upon the ground, getting closer... each strike shaking their sanctuary just a bit harder...

Thud.

Thud..

Thud...

*

The caretakers, for that’s what they were doing, were slow. But Amarena could tell they were dense with mana. So dense, she’d only ever seen a few beings like them. Those who ascended past their archdemon phase and into the realms of evolution that could not be encapsulated by such meager terms. And yet, here such beings dwelled in the thousands and more.

Amarena knew where she stood, and that was at the beginning of her being an archdemon. But the beings she passed, content to ignore her as long as she stayed a certain distance away, would have each been her equal if not more.

A thought occurred to her about the dream. In it, her mother had been aware only of the trees, their motion, and their roots. Amarena knew Leviathan Attika well enough that she knew her mother never held back details when it mattered. Which meant she didn’t know about these beasts.

Which meant that if her mother could somehow see around her heartstone, then it was not in a place where she could see the beasts.

Amarena wandered around the roots of the dead tree until she found it. A crevice that led inside, far and deep.

But at its entrance was a heavenbeast not unlike a beast of Hell. A thing of four scything arms and legs that ended in wicked blades, who waited in repose, its blue eyes serene and unblinking, its mandibles spinning a web out of some white material. And its wide abdomen, whose tip dipped into a pool of murky water, was blocking her from the place her senses told her to go.

Had she not spotted this, Amarena might not have taken a second look at the ground, which was laced with filaments of what she assumed were the beast’s web. Sitting atop a root that extended from the tree behind her, she thought up a plan.

"I apologize, but you’re in my way," Amarena resolved herself, drawing one of her short swords. She would try to pass it, but if it gave any sign of hostility, she would remove its head. Coiling herself like a spring, Amarena leaped, her accelerated mind watching the moment its serene eyes became black, and then a deep, crimson red as it slowly raised its scythed arms and-

Too slow!

Amarena severed its head with a single strike. It wasn’t even as hard as she thought it would be. She’d expected it to shoot out webs or that she would run into such inside the tree, but there was nothing else waiting for her as she landed in the water the beast had guarded.

She didn’t know what made her pause until she surfaced, perhaps a sense of sound and motion, but when she did, Amarena found her opponent was not dead. Even with a severed head, its body fought and struck blindly forward, somehow retaining its mana, until a pair of dragonfly-like beasts hovered overhead.

One latched itself onto the scythe-beast’s back, while the other lifted off the ground with its head. The one with the head hovered over the decapitated torso as the one on its back began to weave what looked to Amarena like bone into the gap between head and neck.

It was a process so fascinating and yet horrifying, to think that the smallest of these monsters could resurrect the bigger threats.

Why did I think this place would be safe for everyone? Amarena thought as she watched, aware of Orby absorbing the water from around her through the slight motion of the depleting substance.

And when the dragonfly-like beings droned away from their work, the scythe-beast spat its ruined work upon the ground before turning its head to the left and right, eyes blue... until the moment its head turned almost completely around and focused its red gaze on Amarena.

Swearing, she dove as it slashed for her.