Depthless Hunger

Chapter 227: Bloody Fragments in the Current

What followed were some of the most grueling days of Kai's life. Not the closest to death, not the tensest, not the roughest, but grueling. They needed to be constantly alert for threats that, when they came, arrived with deadly force. The bone-deep weariness made it easy to sleep, except that at any moment he might be woken up because his abilities were needed against the newest threat.

Small fish like the crimson one that had effortlessly killed the kraken proved to be one of the most common threats. They were durable and vicious, but not particularly interested in the ship. Even though they could swim faster than the Blood Current, the flow still moved them at a high speed, so if he could deflect a charge or two, the fish would fall behind.

His fear was one of them shooting up directly beneath the ship, puncturing the deck. Yet after seeing the threat level here, he didn't dare get in the water to stand guard. Kai had Sahagin's Soul prepared at all times, just in case.

He hoped he'd never have to use it.

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One day a sapphire dragon swooped overhead and he prepared himself for a brutal fight, maybe even displaced revenge against the golden dragon that had spurned him, but they were completely ignored. Instead the dragon unleashed streams of blue flame that sank into the water, toward some unknown target. Something fired back with a stream of boiling water

For several chaotic moments they wove between the attacks of the two combatants, then they left the battle behind. Kai glanced over his shoulder, but didn't see the resolution before the dragon was lost in the distance.

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Of course he tried to take bites of the monsters, hoping to gain a newly powerful ability, but it proved difficult. When he finally managed to take a bite from some sort of floating jellyfish, his stomach burned. He didn't manage to retain any of its essence and only his monstrous hunger seemed to grow. As much as he wanted to eat more, it was just too early.

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During a quieter day, Zae Zin Nim did her best to search for the qi of their pursuers. Her techniques lured some sort of clump of ghostly monsters, but they burst the thing apart and it scattered into blobs that just stained their deck. Meanwhile, Zae Zin Nim reported that the cultivators had renewed the chase and tried to brave the Blood Current briefly, but in the end had been forced to retreat.

Kai slept heavily that night.

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Several days later, the first accident occurred: one of the crimson fish was too fast and it swallowed Zae Zin Nim's left arm from the elbow down. He and Omilaena managed to fight it off while she cried out in pain, and they treated the wound after, but the Blood Current was beginning to take its toll.

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The sun seemed to be swallowed in an eternal purple night that rendered the waves into shifting phantasms. Omilaena began injecting herself with something strange, Zae Zin Nim retreated to the cabin to nurse her wound, and Kai nervously looked for attacks that never came.

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Just when the phantasms faded, they were attacked by a water elemental. Omilaena died in an instant, crushed by one of the waves. No time to say goodbye, no last quip, she was simply dead. Zae Zin Nim managed to ward it off with her blue flames and Kai tried to turn them out of the Blood Current, but they were caught up in waves that swept them ever further onward, leaving the crushed body behind.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

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Soon water and sky seemed to twist around them, spinning endlessly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, or even the last time he'd seen Zae Zin Nim. Kai grabbed the wheel and forced himself onward with nothing but sheer force of will.

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Suddenly Kai jerked awake, his teeth snapping down over monstrous flesh. It tasted putrid and for a moment he was utterly disoriented, but his instincts forced him up. He staggered out of the cabin and to his shock saw Omilaena, apparently sleeping but with several ghostly blobs covering her. Even though he was sure he must be dreaming, Kai rushed to her and slaughtered all the blobs, which made her stir slightly.

Then he turned back and saw that Zae Zin Nim stood slumped against the wheel. She looked barely awake, barely alive, but she was holding off more of the blob-like creatures with feeble flickers of blue fire. And her arm was intact, like it had never been gone. That sight pushed Kai to help her, then destroy as many of the blobs as he could.

Once Omilaena recovered, she figured out that the apparently dead blobs had in fact infected their minds and twisted their dreams into nightmares. Nothing he'd experienced over the past several days had been real, just the creatures trying to drain his soul. Zae Zin Nim had barely defended herself but Omilaena might have died if Kai hadn't managed to adapt and break free of the nightmares.

For the first time, they turned south and left the Blood Current. They all grimly stayed awake the entire time, fearing the last dark stains might still attack their minds.

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They took a day of rest in waters that were merely tinged red instead of crimson. Most of all, they needed to clean the ship and then sleep. Kai experienced nightmares, but they were only reflections of everything they'd survived, not an assault on his soul. Several aquatic monsters attacked them, but by contrast it was downright restful.

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Once they dared, they slipped back into the strongest part of the Blood Current and headed east. When they ran across the corpse of one of the crimson fish, Kai considered eating it but flinched back when he realized there was some deep festering corruption that had killed it.

They wondered if they were going to face some terrible monster, but instead they observed a strange sort of algal bloom, glowing like emeralds within the red waves. It seemed to be killing and even corroding everything it touched. Before they ran into it, they flew the crystal star underneath the ship and lifted it into the air. After an exhausting day of carrying the entire ship, they got past the deadly algae and returned to the waves.

Hopefully they'd never see anything like that again, but Kai constantly found himself imagining specks of green ahead.

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After a strangely peaceful day, their ship froze in place out of nowhere. Nothing physical seemed to be grasping them, but a spiritual force suffocated everything. Kai staggered to the side, and when he looked down he saw something glowing in the depths. Three blue eyes, staring like they could pierce his soul.

They were getting bigger. Very slowly.

Kai drew on Void Gaze and stared back, which immediately made his soul scream. He just barely managed to arrest whatever was in the depths and their ship leapt forward again, but the three eyes continued to track them. By the time they escaped its gaze, Kai was barely holding himself upright on the side of the ship and his eyes were bleeding.

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When at last Omilaena announced that they could leave the Blood Current to turn toward Rosemount, everyone was too exhausted to celebrate. They left the strongest current, still carrying so much speed that they skimmed across the lighter waves.

It seemed like a relief until Kai realized that something was following them.

Whatever was pursuing them looked like an amalgamation of starfish, each tip ending in a biting mouth, and it spun through the oceans like a wheel. It was definitely native to the Blood Current, but apparently it had decided that it was worth chasing them into calmer waters. There wasn't likely to be anything in the central oceans that could threaten it, after all.

Qi attacks at a distance didn't seem to have any effect and it twisted aside from his Tyrant's Claw. Eventually it reached them, latching onto the back half of the ship and pulling itself overhead as a hideous wave of new grasping arms and mouths.

Kai immediately struck it with a Tyrant's Claw, tearing three massive cuts through its body. To his shock, it regenerated swiftly and tried to sweep over him like a wave. Only Zae Zin Nim grabbing him and pulling him back prevented Kai from being swarmed by those mouths.

It seemed to regenerate from everything they tried until Omilaena suddenly swept past them and hurled a glass sphere into one of the mouths. Immediately one of the starfish-like pieces twisted back, and she followed up by slamming a syringe into its side that seemed to make it shrivel up.

Zae Zin Nim and Kai intercepted the monster's attacks as Omilaena injected it repeatedly. As more of the creature shriveled up, it began to retreat off the back of the ship, then finally disengaged.

Except one grasping arm caught Omilaena's ankle and pulled her with it, into the red waves.

No. It couldn't happen again. Still feeling remnants of the nightmares, Kai hurled himself into the ocean.

Sahagin's Soul sent him shooting through the water after the monstrosity and he met it with a Tyrant's Claw, the talons cutting just around Omilaena before it could draw her into its mass. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back, but they weren't fast enough.

The abomination was spreading in all directions, arms twisting as if to surround them, mouths gnashing closer. He tried to cut his way out, but it regenerated too quickly. Omilaena was limp in his arms, alive but apparently unconscious. When one of the mouths moved toward them, Kai swallowed it whole, but his mouth tasted like blood and he couldn't hold the starfish off like that for long.

If he'd still had Void Gaze in his soul, that might have worked, but he'd switched to Baleful Breath and there was no time to switch back. In desperation he breathed out anyway, and to his surprise, the dark cloud surged through the water. Not exactly flame or smoke, but a deeper spiritual destruction - it bloomed out behind them, hitting the monster and sending it flinching back.

Kai sped away before he could see what happened. When he dared to look over his shoulder he saw the amalgamation limping back, burned but not dead. He would settle for that. After moving Omilaena into a better position, he built up speed and then leapt onto the deck.

Once on the ship, they both collapsed. Omilaena coughed up water and sagged against his chest. It was a mark of how close to death that she'd come that she didn't tease him or try to do anything sexual, she just lay there gasping.

As they moved further away from the red waves, it seemed they were finally free of the greatest threats. Kai needed the most recovery despite not being injured, since he needed to digest the bites he'd taken from the monster. He lay on his back in the middle of the deck and neither of the women made any jokes about him being lazy, not after everything they'd been through.

For a time the sky was an endless void of blue, but eventually he saw a speck flying overhead. A dragon at a great distance? Something worse? Kai groaned and struggled to sit up.

"What is that?"

"It's a bird." Omilaena gave him an odd smile. "They range far from Rosemount, but not impossibly far. We're within reach of civilization again."