Book 3, Chapter 74

Void creatures could and did eat through solid objects, though not as a speed that mattered in a fight lasting only a few minutes. The reason armor didn’t work was that voidlings fed by proximity, not because they physically bypassed it. With that thought in mind, Sorin had long ago worked out what to do in exactly the situation he found himself in.

He burrowed.

Veins of the World speared into the dirt and stone beneath him and tore it away. It wasn’t subtle or precise; there was no time for that. But it was the one thing Sorin needed: fast. In the time the colossus spent descending from the rift overhead, Sorin dropped thirty feet straight down into the earth. More importantly, he closed the ground back up overhead.

Thirty feet wasn’t enough distance to consider himself safe, but it was far enough that he could spend anima on magic without having to worry about it decaying before the spell could go off. That allowed him to dig even deeper. He was safe, for the moment, but he also had just entombed himself with no air to breathe.

Hardly the first time I’ve done that. It’s really the weight of the dirt more than the lack of air that makes this such an unpleasant experience, though.

The biggest issue facing Sorin was that he didn’t know if the colossus that had just fallen out of the rift was the guardian that they’d been fighting. It probably was. If the rift had enough extra void-stuff to make a second colossus, it only made sense that it would already have done it. That his reasoning made sense was no guarantee that he was right, however.

If there was a second colossi, then Sorin needed to get back above ground and get it away from the rift before the first one arrived. If there wasn’t, then his best bet was to sit tight and wait for reinforcements. He was gambling with no way of knowing which call was the right one.

I can always go back underground if I need to, he reasoned.

Calling on Veins of the World again, he shoved himself backwards through the earth. The direction didn’t make any particular difference to him; he’d just decided he’d rather feel the ground pushing against the back of his head than his face. Ten seconds later, once he’d judged he’d gained enough distance from the rift, he shot upward and raced into the sky.

The colossus was on him in an instant. Its main body wasn’t directly over him, but one of its long legs slid across the ground and caught him before he could reorient himself. Sorin’s defense was his void-destroying sword combined with Void Eater, Anima Resistance, and the native void resistance the tower had granted him. That was enough to keep him alive for a few seconds.

He couldn’t channel Wind Strider while fully engulfed in the void. Truthfully, the pain was so maddening that he probably wouldn’t have been able to maintain his concentration well enough to use the technically demanding soulprint anyway. He hit the ground hard, but he barely felt it beneath everything else.

The greatest danger to his escape was the waves of disorientation crashing through him as his soulspace was slowly devoured. Sorin knew he needed to pick a direction and run, that void creatures weren’t solid the same way flesh and stone were, and that all he had to accomplish to escape was to move in a straight line faster than the colossus could shift its limb to keep him trapped inside its body.

It was far easier to say than to do. After two dozen steps that he’d thought all went in the same direction, there was no change. His sword still acted as a talisman, cutting through the void pushing against him, but it never broke through to open air. Shaking his head, Sorin switched tactics. If he couldn’t run out, he’d have to jump.

The big advantage to that was that once he left the ground, he was going in one direction until he touched down again. No amount of disorientation could change that. He’d likely have to pull off two or even three jumps more or less lined up in a row, but that was far more manageable than thirty or forty steps.

He burst back into open air, only to be swallowed up by the darkness again. It was enough, though. Now that he knew which way to go, a single jump broke him free of the colossus. Once he could see again, it was simply a matter of outracing it to gain the distance he needed to work more magic. The whole process, from breaking out of the ground to escaping the void creature, hadn’t taken even five seconds.

Once he’d gotten free and back into the air, Sorin could see that this was indeed the same colossus as before. It was no wonder it had felt comfortable wandering away from the rift when none of the other guardians had. Being able to teleport back all but eliminated any risk. That did make it a lot harder to execute his plan, though.

The rest of the assault force was visible in the distance, not moving as quickly as he knew they could, but probably at a speed that accommodated the slowest and most injured of them. They’d arrive in a few minutes, he guessed, though judging by the carpet of black crawling along after them, he suspected the majority would be stalled dealing with that.

By then, it would be too late.

The only reasonable choice was to retreat. They’d lost people, but they’d closed two of the three rifts. With time to recover and to come up with a new plan, they could try to close the last rift again. It would grow bigger and replenish its forces, but unless a second rift opened, they’d have the advantage when they came back.

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None of it would matter, he knew, if that colossus was still the guardian. Without a way to beat that, they’d fail over and over again. Eventually, they’d lose too many people to death or desertion. Climbers would decide having a single rift remaining was good enough, that it wasn’t too high a price to pay keeping it contained.

He wouldn’t let that happen. They’d sacrificed too many lives and put themselves through a hell unimaginable to those rank zeros safe back in the city. There was no way he was giving up when they were a single step away from victory.

I can do this. I’ve closed rifts with the guardians up before. The only difference is it still has the tether this time, and I’ve already proven Void Eater can cut through that. Just stay a step ahead of the colossus, close the rift, and then we can deal with the clean up after.

There was no point in waiting. The others had already proven incapable of distracting it, at least in any way that would make it easier for him to close the rift. He’d just have to remain mobile while he worked. The colossus was fast, but not enough to catch him if he was smart.

Anima Tap gave him what he needed to keep fighting. His own reserves were dwindling, in part from heavy use and in part from the void consuming it, but the tower was replenishing him. He could keep fighting so long as he had the will to endure.

Distance was a factor, but he had a long enough leash that the colossus couldn’t just block him out with its bulk. It chased after him as he ran in a circle, new tentacles sprouting from its body and small, temporary rifts opening in his way. Second Mind devoted itself entirely to keeping him moving and safe, his body adjusting automatically while his mind grabbed hold of the rift again.

It quivered once, the edges wiggling as it fought back against him. Then the darkness started to shrink until it was tight against the tether wedging it open again. Slowly, Sorin cut with Void Eater, each passing second taking another few inches. It wouldn’t be fast, and it wouldn’t be pretty, but unless there were any new surprises in store for him, he’d found his path to victory.

The colossus reared back, three of its legs actually rising up off the ground as the mass surged up into the main body. Then a cloud of void-stuff blasted out of it, something too wide and too thick to be avoided. It wasn’t nearly as caustic as actually being trapped inside the colossus, but there was no way out of it.

The attack would have worked on almost anyone else. Even among the climbers who’d added Anima Resistance to their builds, the cloud would have been painful and disorienting. But for Sorin, it just meant taking a few seconds to divert Void Eater from chewing through the rift to dissolving the void-stuff trying to cling to him.

Two new legs descended back down to the ground, replacements for those the colossus had used up in its attempt to drive Sorin away. Neither was half as thick as the back legs, though they were rapidly filling out to match. The only thing Sorin could do about that was close the rift and sever the connection, and he was already working on just that, so he did his best to ignore the colossus and focus on his job.

That was why he was so surprised when the colossus gathered itself up and launched its entire body at him. A tentacle, he’d expected. Another salvo of void blobs was well within the realm of possibility. Even a new rift opening up right in his face was something he was equipped to handle.

Eyes wide, all Sorin could do was climb higher into the sky in the hopes that he could beat the void creature’s jump height. Having never seen anything bigger than a voidling actually leave the ground, he could admit that he didn’t have a clue how to judge that.

In the end, it didn’t matter if he could have escaped. He hit the edge of his range, where going even a single foot higher would have snapped his connection to the Banishment and Void Eater combination slowly closing the rift. There was no more room to run, and he was still well inside the colossus’s range.

This is going to suck.

The world vanished, replaced by soundless, endless void. Observer couldn’t pierce through it. His physical senses were equally useless. All that was left was pain and the tenuous connection he had with the rift.

Sorin protected himself as best he could for the few seconds he was trapped in there. Then he’d fallen far enough to slip out the bottom of the colossus, and everything snapped back into focus. The void creature was still rising, and that meant Sorin had time to dodge its fall.

He ran through the sky for all he was worth. Now the colossus’s ethereal nature worked against it; it couldn’t turn or alter its trajectory no matter what shape it took. Reaching tentacles lunged after him, but they were too far away and too slow. A dozen minor rifts opened around him, each one vomiting out a dark, twisting limb that homed in on his location.

With his muscles screaming in protest, Sorin dodged under and around them. He let himself fall a hundred feet to escape, then ricocheted off thin air when a new rift opened directly beneath him. All the while, his mind sawed away at the rift. With each passing second, it inched closer toward being sealed, and whatever entity lived on the other side clearly realized what was happening.

More void-stuff poured out of the rift to carpet the ground below. Void beasts rose out of it, more than a hundred of them popping up all at once. There was nothing they could do on their own, but they immediately started merging together into new giants.

The void flow shut off abruptly as the tether finally snapped. It was followed a moment later by the rift itself folding in on itself and vanishing, which coincided with the colossus shrinking by roughly a quarter of its size.

Sorin didn’t stick around to fight. Without the rifts open to support them, it was only a matter of time until the remaining void creatures were hunted down and destroyed. There was no further urgency, and he was so, so tired now.

The rest of the assault force was on their way. Maybe they’d clean up some or all of the mess. Maybe they’d retreat with Sorin. He wasn’t sure which way things would go, and he couldn’t honestly bring himself to care in that moment. The only thing keeping him from surrendering to unconsciousness was that he’d fall into a sea of void if he lost control of Wind Strider.

Then the red of an Antechamber portal stretched open in front of him. Sorin passed through it at speed, barely even aware of its existence before he was across its threshold. The portal vanished behind him, leaving him alone and safe.

He couldn’t fight it any longer. His eyes fell shut.