Chapter 1823 - 1823: One of A Kind

The haunting pools of brightness – the eyes of the creatures – helped distinguish where one ended and another began. All of them fed into the ambient darkness, striding it to keep up with the speed of the traversers effortlessly.

When Skullius met those shimmering globes – for a second time since the last – he felt their bottomless wealth of strength. It was rich with Heide.

Through constant refinement of this aspect of the |Greater Cosmic Law|, the creature had apparently become nigh unkillable – nigh invincible. There was a name for the creature it was attempting to become, Skullius knew.

Paliothese's worth justified itself in the few things he'd managed to share with Skullius before he passed.

They are called Prime Beasts, the Prime Worlder had said back when the Hybrid had been possessing Savast's body. It was contentious when I reached Breaking Chasm #59 riding one, but it was also my ticket inside. Thyrgga accepted me with open arms, but Navvexr's suspicions about me – about my identity – never wavered.

Prime Beasts are quite like the equivalent of Breaking Chasms as constants – ancient entities whose biology predates anything we now revere. Of course, unlike Chasms, they are living, intelligent, powerful, wise, and extremely difficult to befriend. They've made the South Western Quadrant of Reality their home, or at least everyone thinks so. Very few across Reality have ever managed to visit and form decent relationships with them, and of those few, none were Primeval Deities.

The final evolution of a Fiend was a Prime Beast. From what Skullius had gathered, Fiends also ascended to Divinity, but in a way that wasn't quite the same as with other living things. Back then, he'd had many conflicting thoughts about Paliothese's explanation, but part of them had been answered when he saw the golden skeleton above the Humble Paradigm.

The Prime Beasts are especially hostile towards the Primeval Deities, so they could never interact with them. Paliothese had said. However, the Primevals did manage to rear a few from powerful Fiends. It took eons, but they succeeded. We have…we had three in Paradise.

"Had? Wait. Don't tell me you took one from this so-called Paradise before you escaped?" Skullius remembered asking, scowling.

I took nothing. He saved me. He was the one who sniffed out the location of the Breaking Chasm and told me it would be the perfect place to hide. He masked me so well, morphing my flesh and soul into something that even monsters like Navvexr could not be truly sure was anything more than ordinary talent. Yet, I remained a Prime Worlder by substance. That protection only failed when…he died, and I was left to fend for myself.

That much had impressed Skullius. The brilliance and power of a Prime Beast was truly impressive. However…

Thyrgga was different, though. Paliothese had said, grinding his massive teeth. I'm sure he knew all along. He must have welcomed me because what I brought to his doorstep was genuine, regardless of my identity. I fit into his plan, somehow, as he said:

"Your arrival was fated. I have one more piece and two brilliant minds to my collection. Now, we wait for the miracle."

Even now, as he strode at tremendous speed towards the Quadrosphere, Skullius couldn't help but think about this.

Before he met Thyrgga, he interpreted that statement very differently: the Sovereign General was amassing resources in anticipation for something, and the last thing he desired was, much like the others, up to fate, when and how it would come to be completely unknown to him.

'That wasn't it,' thought the Hybrid. He locked eyes with one of the Abyssal Fiends outside the bubble of light radiating from Subossais' Tors Lampion while recalling every detail about his audience with Thyrgga.

'Thyrgga was waiting,' thought Skullius. 'He can see the future. How much of a limit he operates under, I can't be sure, but he had to have known.'

Paliothese had only ever met Thyrgga in person twice, once when he arrived, and twice when he was promoted to the rank of General. The person he was always wary of was Navvexr, whose eyes shone green with Conste perpetually. A red herring.

'It's Thyrgga who can see and know things everyone else doesn't,' thought Skullius. 'The miracle he was waiting for, the one he knew was coming…'

The Acceleration.

It must have been. Even the dead took advantage of the burst of Litte to come back to life. Was it too much of a stretch that a Radical, a trump card of the Aspire to Divine, wouldn't use that for themselves as well?

'What did he accomplish with it, though? Two brilliant minds – whoever those belong to – the corpse of a Prime Beast, and Litte. What could they possibly create?'

The Abyssal Fiends grew even more ferocious, fighting against the light from the Lampion. It was unsettling. It seemed that given a few seconds more, they would breach it, but Skullius wasn't too worried.

Before, the Abyssal Fiends had been riled up because of the presence of the Grand General and the anomaly. There were fewer of its proxies pressing on them right now than at that time. Restless as they were, in the next instant, their dark, voracious fury finally vanished as the group reached the Quadrosphere.

Skullius could feel Elita and Uyuniya relaxing, finally. Unlike him, they hadn't had the luxury of being too steeped in thought to ignore the ire of the Abyssal Fiends. Subossais might have felt the same, but Skullius couldn't be sure.

"Say, mind if I ask a question?" he said to the Warlord.

"I do."

"Great, because this one has been bothering me for a while."

"I said I mind."

"Grand General Gylliard said the Abyssal Fiend is nigh impossible to kill, and according to you, the Observed Calamity Scale, Sthen, in particular, measures strength based on how well a combatant can rip through aspects of the Law. That's five levels in total, right?"

"Are you even listening?"

"Do you mean to tell me then that neither the Sovereign General nor his Hands have reached the last two levels of Sthen – Litte and Heide? Is that why they can't kill the Abyssal Fiend?"

Subossais didn't say a word. He did, however, answer the question with a harrumph moments later.

*

The group landed in Sector TIU (B) Negative, exited the Tors Gate, and then Subossais warped them outside the citadel, right to the landing port where all the vessels had been left behind.

The Quadrosphere looked a little different. Cold ash wasn't falling from the sky, but the ground was covered in cool ice, patched, revealing some of the reddish-brown sand beneath. Everything felt rigid – the ground, the air.

'Aspects of the Law in the atmosphere were cooled by Navvexr's Immors – that weird ash,' thought Skullius. 'But already the effect is wearing off. The Breaking Chasm fights back rather quickly. No wonder the Abyssal Field was able to grow so powerful before the Aspire to Divine settled here.'

Other than the uncomfortable tension in the air, a battle between the Breaking Chasm and remnants of Navvexr's immense power, there was some relief from the fact that cosmic parameters were lighter in the Quadrosphere – air density, gravity, temperature. Elita and Uyuniya certainly found it relieving.

Around the landing platform, a giant, dome-shaped field had been erected, and it too spotted bits of dirty ice that had begun falling off. As promised, the vessels were safe, even from Navvexr.

Subossais pressed his Tors Lampion against the barrier, and it receded, allowing them all to hop on the raised platform.

On seeing Amanas' modest appearance, at least when compared to the other vessels on the landing port, Skullius smiled.

"She looks so… humble," said Elita as they approached it.

"I agree. Properly humble," scoffed Skullius. Elita didn't get it, nor did she ask for clarification. She was too focused on the vessel.

"Be quick about it," said Subossais sharply.

"Sure." Skullius turned to him. A part of him wondered why Thyrgga trusted Subossais to accompany him alone when Gylliard had evaluated that he (Skullius) was stronger than the Warlord. Did the Sovereign General simply trust the system connecting his underlings together (as there clearly was), or was it that he knew Skullius wouldn't do something stupid right here?

"Could we get a bit of privacy? These are my friends, you see, and I want to give them a proper goodbye without you ruining the mood."

Subossais scoffed. "You don't have the luxury of privacy."

Skullius sighed. "Fine."

And so, when the Hybrid and the Void Users stepped into Amanas, Subossais followed. The Metgard was as sleek and pristine as it was before – a comfort.

"As I said to you before, my oversight caused this whole detour, and now I can only do less than I was hoping for. I can't accompany you to Zelozeld, but I still want to know details about a few things, in case there really is a crisis in your world, and we manage to catch up after all this," said Skullius to Uyuniya. "But before that…"

With a snap of the Hybrid's finger, Red Rage popped into existence, or seemed to, much to Elita and Uyuniya's surprise. Even Subossais was taken aback, though he didn't show it.

"Here's extra company. Some muscle," said Skullius. "One of a kind."