Tentacles erupted from its sides, massive enough to wrap entire mountains a few tis over, and, contrary to their size, they moved fast, real fast.
One snapped past Malik’s left side—missing by a hair.
The wake it left behind cracked through the liquid Aether for tens of miles, sending him spinning for a mont before he righted himself, a flicker of fire balancing his montum.
Another tentacle slamd down from above.
Malik twisted once more, casually dodging the attack.
One of Al-Qa’ra’s front appendages lashed out next, aiming horizontally, trying to corner him into the coils of another.
Malik folded his arms back, let his body curl like an arrow, and blasted straight between them; he was so fast that by the ti they closed behind him, he was already a mile or two away.
Yet they still affected him, a CRACK ringing out, snapping the ocean in two.
As he balanced himself again, it switched tactics, focusing on catching up and using all its limbs to move.
Al-Qa’ra managed to do exactly that, hot on Malik’s tail, but now that its limbs were pulling and pushing, only its mouths could attack.
And they did, in their hundreds, rows opening within rows, extending outward.
They snapped at his trail, missing him by less than an inch.
One tooth nearly scraped his back.
Aether cracked.
His cloak tore at the edge.
Still... Malik didn’t stop for a mont.
He kept his body angled down, eyes locked below.
Not too far beneath him was the trench, the entrance to the Sixth Layer...
And nothing was going to stop him from reaching it.
Al-Qa’ra shuddered in annoyance at that, and the world felt it.
One of its tendrils coiled, pulled back, and then launched like a javelin, detaching from its body.
It tore the ocean in half, burning with Aether, piercing straight toward him.
Malik, without changing his stance, spun his body once.
His threads of golden fla spiraled behind him, as thick as chains.
The tendril t his fire—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
And the ocean detonated.
Currents slamd outward, chunks of coiled body exploded backward, and Al-Qa’ra twisted with a shriek that echoed through water, body, and soul.
But Malik wasn’t free.
Two more tendrils were launched at him, crisscrossing to crush him in the middle.
He faced them, kicked upward, then imdiately pushed downward, a blast of fla from his soles turning the Aether around him to fire and dropping him under the attack.
Still, one tendril clipped him.
It hit his shoulder.
CRACK.
His bone splintered.
The joint dislocated instantly.
Malik didn’t react to the pain; instead, he raised his left hand, his fingers curling into a fist.
With no sound, a geyser of white light erupted, crashing into the tendrils while pushing him away.
Al-Qa’ra staggered, hurt by the purity of his fire.
Making use of the mont, Malik shoved his shoulder back in its socket, turned, spun, and hurled both hands back and up.
Two blazing lances, massive ones, spiraling like drills of light, blasted toward the monster.
They punched into one of its eyes as he shot down, rupturing a so very tiny point.
Golden blood—or sothing like it—splattered through the ocean.
As it reeled back, Malik made so distance, but not for long.
Al-Qa’ra was old.
Older than the surface.
Pain was no stranger to it.
It continued its charge... but it was too late.
Malik had already reached the ocean floor.
He was now a thousand miles down, before the next entrance.
...Or what he believed to be the next entrance.
The ’trench’ was only a scar.
A colossal gash stretching for hundreds of miles, dropping even deeper into madness.
But it wasn’t hopeless, no, far from it, though this wasn’t the entrance; the entrance had to be within it, for it was the deepest point in this ocean.
Malik didn’t hesitate and dove.
And the mont he crossed the lip of the scar—
CRAAAAAAAAAAACK!
A massive limb smashed into the edge, trying to cut him off.
Malik snapped backward and raised a leg.
Fla erupted from his heel; he pivoted, spun like a wheel, and kicked the limb full force.
BOOOOOOOM.
Its entire body flinched, its limb smacked away, crashing miles off into stone.
He dropped again, vanishing into the scar’s depths.
Al-Qa’ra followed, or at least so of its body did.
Inside the scar... there was nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Not even sight.
Because yes, he was blind here.
Even his fire didn’t help; no light could exist.
Malik had to rely on his connection to Aether to see.
It was silent for a while, but the mont he crossed a certain point...
Sothing moved.
A wall of black Aether surged upward.
Behind that wall was another of Al-Qa’ra’s limbs, tiny in comparison.
It seed that it had arrived, or maybe so part of it was always here, waiting.
Malik didn’t have ti to think about that; he dodged the wall and limb, only to find himself facing spikes that erupted from dead flesh splattered into the nearby wall.
He dodged three, burned through six, and let the tenth one reach him as he took hold of it, spun around, and hurled it back.
It slamd into the dead limb, making Al-Qa’ra screech.
A screech that had gotten closer... too close.
Malik looked behind him.
He saw a pupil.
One glowing pupil belonging to an eye that spanned his entire line of sight.
It was locked onto him, so wanton of him, of his Aether core.
Limbs tore through the stone on his left and right, rushing towards him.
Malik, without ever thinking of backing off, roared upward.
Straight into Al-Qa’ra’s eye.
...It blinked.
SHHHHRRRAAASSSHHHHHH-WOOOOOOSHHHHH!
That blink alone sent incredible pressure upon him, nearly pushing him back.
But Malik punched through it, a Sun materializing above his palm.
After spinning around for a mont, he pitched it at its eye.
It shot forth, increasing in speed the further it went.
Already, it was incredibly fast, courtesy of his strength and use of montum, so the addition of his fire control made it so, so fast that it reached the eye in a blink.
The mont it hit, a bright light exploded.
This ’Sun’ was nothing more than his fire, extrely concentrated into a single point.
...And now that that point had exploded, destruction was the only aftermath.
Destruction that held no sound, even as charred skin and flesh spiraled off in globs, sinking around him like teorites.
Those very pieces showered many of the attacking limbs, pumling them down.
But most didn’t pause, even as barely any of their flesh remained, wanting his death above all else.
Malik spun once more, coating himself in a spiral of burning rings.
Every limb that hit him was torn apart instantly.
Entire mountain lengths of flesh were vaporized, bones shattering.
And yet, the monster still kept coming, even as he landed at the very bottom.
Even as he was standing before a crater of obsidian, bone, and a single black circle.
Standing before the entrance.
It pulsed once, welcoming him.
Al-Qa’ra sensed it, and it—
SKREEEEEEEEEOOOORRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUNNNGGGHHHHHHHH.
Scread.
A sound so vast it rattled the bones of the ocean.
It rushed down more of its limbs, falling mountains for as far as his Aether could sense, crashing through Aether, trying to stop him from reaching it.
Malik remained there, silent... waiting for them.
And the mont they ca within reach...
He turned, raised both hands, and let loose.
A soul-cry of fire, splitting the scar in half for miles.
Its limbs were blown back, crashing and destroying everything they landed on.
Malik didn’t stay and watch them tumble.
By the ti they fell, he had already dived into the entrance and vanished.
For the first ti in centuries, Al-Qa’ra had lost its prey.
Or perhaps it had unknowingly retained its life.
...A prey believing itself to be the hunter.
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