Chapter 544 - 544: The Moby Dick

"How is he keeping up with all of us?"

One of the demigods said it through gritted teeth. He hovered in the air with his sword raised, and his chest was heaving under the armor.

"He hasn't even used his circle. And he's surviving in the Abyss with no protection."

Silva stood in front of them, wings spread, a faint smirk on his face. He had dodged every strike they had thrown at him, and he was not even out of breath. The three of them were growing frustrated, and their faces showed it.

'He's playing with us.'

'This is impossible. We're demigods.'

'How is he this strong?'

Silva looked them over, one by one. He pointed his sword forward.

"Are you giving up already?" he asked. His smile was confident and a little proud. "If so, then can you leave me alone now?"

He rested the blade on his shoulder.

"I don't have anything to do with you, and I don't want to have anything to do with you."

They stared at him.

The best option would have been to leave. They knew that. But their pride as demigods had been struck, and they could not walk away from a fight where they had been made to look like children. They wanted to stop him. They wanted to catch him.

The one with the chains stepped forward.

"We do not know what business you have here," he said. "And we cannot allow you to move freely in the Abyss, especially now, when the Empire is trying to defeat it."

Silva let out a long sigh.

'They won't stop. Then I'll end this quickly.'

"Fine," he said, and lowered his sword. "Come."

The chain demigod moved first. He spun his chain in a wide circle, and it burst into blue fire. He whipped it forward, and the single chain split in the air, forming dozens of copies, each trailing blue flame. They rose above Silva in a canopy and then fell like meteors, growing larger with every foot they dropped.

Silva watched them come.

He lifted his sword into the air and brought it down.

SHING!

A massive flame arc tore upward and met the falling chains. It cut straight through the middle of them, obliterating the entire path in front of him, and chains and fire scattered like sparks in every direction.

He shot through the gap.

He crossed the distance in a blink and attacked the chain demigod head-on, swinging at his chest. The demigod threw up his chain, and the blade crashed into it with a deafening ring.

The impact sent him flying backward, and he spun end over end through the void.

The other two came in fast.

The scythe wielder swept in from the left, and the swordsman dropped from above. Silva turned just in time and caught the sword on his blade. The scythe passed an inch from his neck, and he tilted his head, felt the wind of it, and leaned away.

He fought them both at once.

He dodged a cut and parried a thrust. He ducked under the scythe and knocked the sword aside, and he pivoted on the spot as if he was dancing. Every swing they threw missed or met steel. They were fast, but he was faster, and he moved like he already knew where each blow was going to fall.

The scythe wielder swung at his legs. Silva jumped, kicked the shaft out of the way, and drove his boot into the demigod's chest.

BAM!

The man flew backward and smashed into a floating chunk of rock. The rock exploded under the impact, shards flying out in every direction.

The swordsman rushed in with both hands on the hilt. Silva turned his blade and slid it along the other's, and with a twist, he knocked the sword out of line and kicked him in the stomach. He crashed into another body of rock, and it too was blown apart.

The chain demigod came back, his chain glowing. He whipped it at Silva's back, and Silva spun and caught it on his sword, slashed, and the chain flew off sideways. The man was forced to retreat.

They kept attacking. They kept getting knocked back.

The fight grew wilder. Silva and the demigods tore through the void, crossing from one floating landmass to the next. Their blows shattered boulders the size of houses. Slashes cut mountains in two. Shockwaves rolled through the Abyss, scattering debris, and the dark was lit up in flashes of gold, blue and black.

It was destruction on a massive scale.

Then the rumble began.

It was low at first, a deep vibration that seemed to come from beneath them. It grew steadily louder, shaking the rocks and rattling the stones that floated nearby. The whole Abyss trembled.

Silva stopped in the middle of a swing.

Something dropped in his stomach.

It was a strange feeling, cold and heavy, and he had not felt it in a long time.

Silva, Zion said, in his head. Something massive is coming.

Silva's eyes narrowed.

'I know.'

But he was not the only one who had felt it. The three demigods had gone still too. Their weapons hung loosely in their hands. They looked down, and fear had drained the color out of their faces.

"No," the swordsman whispered.

"It can't be," the one with the scythe said.

The chain demigod swallowed and managed to speak.

"The Moby Dick is coming."

"The what?" Silva asked.

"It's one of the strongest known monsters in the Abyss. The Empire has been studying it for a long time. We came here to look over its territory and find a place to build a base without waking it, until we were ready to kill it." His voice shook. "But our fight, the three of us against you, it must have woken it up."

Silva looked down.

The dark beneath them was moving.

Two eyes opened in it. They were huge, each one wider than a city, and they glowed like stars in the void, cold and white and ancient. This was no ordinary Moby Dick. It was a father of them all, the ruler of every Moby Dick in the region.

For the first time in a very long while, Silva felt true fear creep into his chest.

Everything around them seemed to lose its life. The light dimmed. The floating rocks stopped drifting. The silence was so complete that he could hear his own heartbeat.

The Moby Dick was staring straight at them.

Then its mouth opened.

It was a complete black hole in the void, so massive that he could not see from one end of it to the other. It was empty, and hungry, and deeper than anything he had ever seen.

And it began to suck.

A vortex formed around it, pulling the rocks and debris and light toward its jaws. Chunks of land twice the size of Silva's tower crumbled and were dragged in. The wind howled, and everything in the Abyss began to spin toward the mouth.