Author Note: "I hate the way this chapter turned out so I'm probably going to come back and fix things when I finish the Forgotten Shore arc."
~~~
Kallen stumbled within the nest of the Iron Spiders. Another vision crashed into him, showing him a daunting, jagged crimson spire. This time, however, there were twin golden eyes staring at him from the depths below.
A monstrous silhouette, daunting and large as a skyscraper, waited there for him. It had a long, scaled snout. Its four legs were monstrous and powerful. A pair of wings sat on its back, and a mighty tail lay slithering behind it, whipping and snapping as it idly watched him.
Though he didn't have a physical form, he could tell that the water rippled with oppressive heat. Not real, yet it scalded all the same.
The molten-gold eyes narrowed.
"Come."
The word wasn't spoken. It clawed in his mind, a voice not his own, resonant and ancient like Ariel's
As though it had waited lifetimes to be heard again.
The creature's wings shifted, and the wind howled above the sea in which it dwelled. Then Kallen awoke suddenly, kneeling on the webbed floor, hands bracing him from falling over.
His breaths came short and shallow, sweat trailing down his face. He'd seen his new target with his own two eyes.
Clenching his fist, he raised to his feet and looked around his small corridor, thinking: How the hell am I supposed to fight a dragon?
~~~
The second phase of the Iron Silk Campaign: The Siege, had gone into full effect. The Nightmare Creatures were done engaging him entirely. Kallen was quickly running out of food and would have to go back to eating the spiders again.
A reality he loathed.
The good news was that he had finished crafting his new lightweight armor. He barbed parts of it with various bits of chitin to better allow him movement within the nest, and with it, he'd learned how to stick to the ceiling, which had improved his trap-making speed as well as his ambushes.
Kallen had collected nearly fifty soul shards by now, and the marks in his room told him that he was in the second month of the dream realm. The war seemed to be going in his favor, but he knew that a false reality.
Despite that things seemed to be going up, the siege got worse the longer it went on. Of course, he was running low on food, but for now, that was the least of his current problems. The spiders were going to start getting bolder as time went on. It wasn't just he who was adapting to them—they had begun to adapt to him as well.
He had initially chosen to systematically harass the spiders, but his night raids were now proving fruitless as they had set up larger, slower patrols that he couldn't take down all at once. At most, he could engage in a short offensive, deal some damage, and retreat.
They had stopped following his retreats, quickly learning that it was often a deadly affair since he'd set up traps in his area.
Afterward, he'd begun to escalate his psychological tactics, leaving mutilated spider corpses in high-traffic areas. He would arrange the corpses in unnatural poses, but it failed to get a response out of the matriarch—or whatever had been leading the Nightmare Creatures thus far.
Just about the only thing that had been working was a new tactic he'd developed that involved Puddle mimicking spider distress signals, which allowed him to lure away small groups from their patrols.
But they had begun to mimic his strategies, which had made him increasingly unwilling to leave his territory. The traps that they weaved were dangerous and often difficult to spot.
However, it wouldn't matter.
Kallen had discovered something. Something about the true location of the nest he'd found himself a part of. He'd found why the monstrous spiders only hunted in the daytime, and it wasn't because they were diurnal creatures by nature. It was because there was a vast and boundless ocean out there beyond the nest, only it didn't stay for long.
It had taken nearly a full month of secretly carving away at the edge of one of the small tunnels he'd claimed, to glimpse what lay beyond the nest. After a few days of careful observation, Kallen had found that the sea retreated during the day in this strange portion of the dream realm.
And though he should have been excited for a such vast amount of water that would allow him to use his aspect, he quickly doused any notion of traversing the dark sea in any meaningful way. Much like the sea in the waking world, it was teeming with Nightmare Creatures… some of a rank and class he couldn't begin to comprehend.
It made sense when he considered the spiders. They were large Awakened creatures with powerful silk and impressive coordination. But they were nothing but bottom feeders here.
This meant that if he could take them down, then he could grasp hold of their territory and find something of a foothold until more humans—his sister especially—found him.
He'd told her if they were split up upon entering the Dream Realm, then he would sit tight and wait until she found allies and then found him.
Because of her Thread of Connection ability, she always knew where he was, but if he kept moving from spot to spot, she would never be able to find him. On the flip side, Seren was an eleven-year-old girl who was ill-equipped to find him herself.
Of course, the Elder Gargoyle was a powerful companion in its own right, but Kallen wasn't sure how easily it would fare in this area of the Dream Realm.
He didn't know too much, other than the sea was dangerous and there was a coral labyrinth.
That and I need to find a crimson spire.
Regardless, before Kallen went after the leader of the nest, he had some business to take care of first.
A long burn scar ran down the length of his chest, courtesy of a horrifying half-eel, half-shark creature. He traced its length as he waited for night to fall and the water to come back.
Kallen was going hunting tonight.
~~~
Kallen began his final preparations a few hours before nightfall. Yes, he wanted revenge on the fire-breathing fish, but he wasn't reckless enough to challenge a Nightmare Creature of that class and power level purely out of spite.
No, there was a reason he was hunting it, just as there had been a reason the first time, back when he'd been driven off.
The creature was a variation of an Awakened Beast he'd killed during his first dive into the dark waters. That earlier beast had been fast, but speed in water wasn't much of an obstacle for Kallen. Thanks to his aspect, he had more than a few ways to trap or slow aquatic enemies.
But there was something strange about this particular breed. He felt… drawn to them. A pressure in his mind urged him to study them; fight them; dissect them; and understand them.
And eventually, he thought he understood why. They weren't just random threats. They were lesser kin of the same bloodline as his real target. The second Legendary Leviathan. The massive thing he'd seen lurking in the depths near the Crimson Spire.
A dragon.
He'd met its underlings before.
Thus, he would be stupid not to challenge the lesser versions of that titan… to learn the abilities of the creatures that served under it. It would help when the real fight came, even if that was still far off.
But still… an Awakened Titan, he thought, steeling his nerves before the floodgates opened. I'm just a sleeper.
Regardless, as he patched the entrance to what had once been a kill box—now turned into an exit from the nest, he walked down the long hallway and began to meticulously undo the webbing that held the dark sea at bay.
It began with a slight trickle of dark water into the room. Soon, it developed into a sizable gap, one large enough to squeeze through.
Kallen looked down at himself once more before plunging into the sea. He'd left his spider armor back in his home corridor, and his Hadronite carapace rested unused in his soul sea.
Naeve had tried to procure a memory that would help him wear his armor and still have full water coverage, but he'd been unable to. And while he could fashion portions of the armor to take in water… it was all pointless in the end.
Against these powerful Nightmare Creatures, he needed maneuverability more than anything, and it wasn't a worthy tradeoff for an armor that could only take one or two hits before shattering.
When Kallen finally plunged into the dark sea, he was delighted to once again feel his flaw lift as the waters enveloped him. He would have shouted in excitement if the act wouldn't have lured several horrors of the depths to him.
Because of the fact that he—and his opponent—were relatively low on the food chain, he'd need to lure his opponent to a secluded location for their battle.
Especially considering that it breathed a weird type of fire that could burn underwater… somehow.
He would also need the secluded area for another, much more important reason. The biggest problem with defeating his opponent, Kallen realized, was his own severe lack of firepower.
The fire wyrm as he had deemed it, was several classes above his tier I Awakened Weapon, Hydra. The khopesh, while powerful, just simply wouldn't cut it against what he believed to be an Awakened Devil at the very least.
He had his tideform, of course, but the problem with that was he would only get one solid shot with it before it left him extremely vulnerable.
And thus, he needed a secluded location to protect himself once he'd summoned the powerful suit of armor.
But finding the secluded area wasn't the issue. In fact, he'd already scouted one out a few days ago when he was beginning his preparations. He'd found a small cave that wasn't home to any Nightmare Creatures for him and that dreadful fire fish to do battle in.
The problem was actually finding the damn thing and luring it to that cave without dying or attracting a deadlier foe first.
All in all… he liked his chances.
It certainly beat those revolting spiders in his opinion. At least if he lost he wouldn't become some sort of incubator for eggs. Or whatever else they did to the things they killed.
He tried not to think about that.
After only a few minutes of searching, avoiding more powerful creatures, and swimming for his life, Kallen found its target.
It was surprisingly small for a creature of its power, only about as big as the average worker Iron Spider was.
Instead of getting close, however, Kallen relied on his strangest attribute. One he didn't get to use enough in his opinion. [Voice of the Sea].
"Hey, you…" he tried to think of something clever to say to get the creature's attention, but he stuttered and then ultimately dropped the performance.
With Voice of the Sea, he was able to direct his voice toward the monster without it spreading anywhere else, which meant that they could hopefully battle in peace if he was able to lure it away where he wanted to.
He darted off as soon as the frill shark-looking creature whipped around to face him. Its hate-filled eyes burned like two pools of magma, and its red scales glittered in the inky dark waters as it chased after him.
Kallen knew of several ways in which to reach ridiculous speeds underwater, but this time, with something chasing him, he went for the tried and true method of water jet propulsion.
This was because it didn't require much conscious thought to keep going. It didn't test the limits of his ability, and it propelled him faster than his opponent could swim.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself downward, twisting and diving. The fire wyrm followed not too far behind. He could feel the temperature in the water heating up, but he had no time to think about that.
Kallen hit the seafloor, pushing off of it and cresting a small raised mound of sand. A massive figure emerged from the gloom as he did—a Nightmare Creature, its chitinous body layered in thick, jagged plates. It swung a serrated appendage at him, and he banked hard to the side, narrowly avoiding its snapping claw.
Through the haze of the adrenaline, a thought crossed his mind.
Maybe that crab will be able to slow the Tyrant down.
Right as he turned his head to look behind him, a blinding inferno consumed the crab. Kallen barely managed to shield his eyes as the Fire Wyrm's breath vaporized the poor thing, leaving nothing but curling streams of molten detritus.
Shit.
Kallen shot toward the cave. No time to think about the exchange behind him.
In the distance, an opening into the side of a sort of cliff formation was visible. He wasted no time, weaving through pillar after pillar of coral, bursting through the cave's opening at breathtaking speeds.
As he did, Puddle formed and got to work.
Kallen's adorable little Leviathan was essential for his plan to defeat the Fire Wyrm. Without Puddle there to cast a mirage, blocking light and sound from escaping the cave, any abomination within a mile would converge on their fight almost instantly.
But Kallen had no time to dwell on it anymore. Death was approaching and it glowed fire-red.
Using Ocean's Wrath, Kallen shoved himself to the side as the Fire Wyrm came crashing at him. The tyrant was wickedly fast with its slender eel-ish body and arrowlike head. It looked like a mundane frill shark, only much larger and bursting from the gills with underwater flame.
Well, that and it had four tiny, almost imperceptible legs sticking from its body. Kallen would have thought them vestigial if not for laying eyes upon the dragon that the thing was in its titan form.
The Fire Wyrm avoided crashing into the back of the cave like he had hoped, instead turning sharply at the last moment. Kallen was already upon it, flashing his khopesh at those frilled gills it had, seeming more like thermal vents than breathing organs at all.
Right before his curved blade met its target, a burst of heat sent him on the defensive, forcing him back and away.
There went his element of surprise. It was time to shift strategies.
Kallen had a few plans on how to take down the Fire Wyrm based on what he learned from their first encounter. He knew that the creature's fire burned hot underwater, leading him to believe that it was vaporizing the water before it could be put out.
But he quickly realized that wasn't quite the case, which ruined his second and third plans.
Think Kallen…
This thing probably didn't follow the normal laws of physics. That meant that his rudimentary knowledge of chemistry and physics would be useless. Often, regular laws didn't apply to Awakened and Nightmare Creatures. Or rather, mundane laws weren't sophisticated enough to encapsulate the chaos that was the world outside of the mundane sphere of influence.
But as Kallen dodged a billowing gout of flame, he observed something odd. The Fire Wyrm could only expel flame through its mouth, while its gills acted as thermal vents. But when it opened its mouth, the fire lagged behind by just a few short—extremely short—moments.
And then it clicked.
That bastard has an internal oxidizer.
It carried everything it needed inside itself. The fire wasn't being magically created… it was reacting to some sort of fuel that ignited as soon as its mouth opened. Or something like that.
Meaning it expelled something that wasn't flame, but then ignited it in the same breath.
He could use that, somehow.
Kallen rocketed to the side to avoid another fire blast. As the Fire Wyrm reared up another blast of flame, he watched its tells, recognizing its scales shimmer as the pressure built up inside.
I could try amplifier to overheat the inside of its—Kallen shoved himself out of the way, feeling a sharp pain from his newly burned shoulder. But amplifying something like that within its body would require me to be point blank.
He twisted, dropping low to the ground. The Fire Wyrm dove for him, and he shot like a jet behind it, pressing his back to the wall of the cave.
It's always more difficult to enact my aspect and attributes directly on a target's internal structure… Kallen thought. It's why I can't just manipulate the water in something else's blood. But if I got close enough…
As the Tyrant whipped around, its scales moved. Segments of its scale armor detached, twisting like living things before shooting at Kallen like torpedoes. Each one pulsed with molten heat. He dashed off to the side, but one of the straggling scales caught him and detonated, turning his leg into ground zero for a searing cyclone of concussive force.
The damn thing blasted him into the side of the wall. His head cracked off of the stone of the cave, and stars clouded his vision.
More scales!
Kallen shoved with his hands, Ocean's Wrath forcing the scales backward just as they too exploded. He shielded his eyes from the blast but opened them again almost immediately as the Fire Wyrm charged in.
He barely had time to kick up and dodge the barrage. He dispelled the new plan immediately. It was suicidal at best to get close enough to amplify the Nightmare Creature's combustion process to blow it up from the inside.
Muscles screaming, Kallen dodged yet another bombardment of the Fire Wyrm's scales. Its Tyrant ability it seemed, acted as self-propelled bombs. But he noticed something else as he flitted around the makeshift battle arena.
Its scales didn't grow back immediately. Or at all really.
It lacked a regenerative ability quick enough to instantly replace its lost armor, and so tiny gaps remained if it lost too many. The Fire Wyrm needed to sacrifice defense for offense.
Kallen grinned through the heat. A new plan flourished. He lunged forward, baiting yet another barrage, twisting through the explosions even as pain lanced through his body. Agony filled him, but so did [Revenge].
The Fire Wyrm screeched in frustration, steam curling from its exposed body, its own internal heat struggling against the rapid loss of insulation. It wasn't much yet, but it was slowly overheating.
Kallen pressed his advantage. He surged forward again, reckless, dodging closer, the Tyrant's blasts growing more and more erratic. A molten scale clipped his stomach, detonating on impact, but he'd summoned his armor just in time.
It absorbed most of the blow, but burning anguish ripped through him. He hardly had a moment to react to its next attack… but he had it. He could win.
Kallen executed a brilliant twist, shooting up and shifting out of the way of the Wyrm's fire breath, but also applying his Ocean's Wrath in a complicated maneuver, flashing back down like the blade of a guillotine—right for the exposed hide of the Tyrant.
Right where it was missing a cluster of scales.
Hydra materialized at the perfect moment. [Revenge] flared through his muscles, and twisting jets of water propelled him at breathtaking speeds.
Kallen's blade connected with the Fire Wyrm.
And then everything went white.
A chain reaction of scales had detonated, expelled at the exact moment Hydra met flesh. The explosion sent Kallen into the rock-like wall of the cave, turning him into a missile of encased carapace.
His trusty awakened weapon was decimated by the blast. He knew he was only alive because he'd summoned his armor.
Not that he knew much at that moment. Everything was fuzzy. His ears weren't quite working, his legs wouldn't listen, and his balance was thrown completely off-kilter.
Where am I? Kallen thought, agonizingly pulling himself to his feet. Underwater… Nightmare Spell… Dream Realm.
The Hadronite Carapace fell off of him in small ruined pieces. Those pieces dissolved into sparks of white before they touched the ground, and he reached out a hand to catch them, but the spell resounded in his ears.
[Your Memory has been destroyed.]
Come to think of it, the spell had said the same when his sword had blown up as well…
Kallen's eyes went wide as a hulking leviathan suddenly rushed at him. Its terrifying jaws nearly unhinged themselves… it was going to swallow him whole.
He shoved himself out of the way just in time, the present snapping back in a flash.
I'm in a cave.
I'm fighting an Awakened Tyrant.
… And I'm about to die.