After stopping Victor from dying, I wrapped everyone in my smoldering smoke whips and shot through the canyon. With every step, the sound of rocks being crushed echoed louder, growing in intensity as I pushed forward, as if something colossal were chasing us right on our heels.
Even so, I completely ignored that brutal warning. I mean, between simply running from an anomaly I couldn’t even see and staying behind to fight it, it was obvious which option I was going to choose.
So, without looking back, I pushed my speed to the limit. Either way, I wouldn’t feel tired even if I ran for hours, my breathing stayed steady, and my legs responded perfectly.
Besides, it wasn’t like Victor, Rupert, and Arthur were extra weight. Important detail: I wasn’t even the one actually carrying them. Still, shrill sounds echoed behind me, confused shouts slicing through the air, blending with the frantic rhythm of hurried footsteps.
Most of it came from the reaction team members, but I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying. From my perspective, their voices sounded distant and scrambled, reduced to a jumble of half-muttered words as I kept moving without slowing down.
I continued running at a steady pace, my breathing controlled, while the heavy, relentless sound of rocks being crushed thundered just behind me.
Then, without warning, something came flying straight toward me, a small asteroid, or something very close to it, spinning through the air with brutal force, large enough to completely block the path ahead.
Behind me, the reaction team let out loud grunts and muffled exclamations, clearly having noticed the deadly projectile. The panic in their voices was unmistakable. I, however, didn’t break my stride for even a second.
Instead, I forced myself even faster, my steps accelerating as thick, living black smoke engulfed both of my hands, coiling around my fingers as if responding directly to my intent.
I thrust my hands forward, and two claws shot out toward the asteroid prototype. The curved blades snapped shut with precision, each gripping one end of the floating rock.
With a firm pull, accompanied by a sharp, resonant crack, I split the small asteroid in two, opening an uneven gap right down the middle, wide enough for me to pass through.
My original idea had been to simply jump over it, but honestly, despite calling it a prototype, it was far too large for that.
A jump would have thrown me out of the canyon, and that maneuver would have placed me dangerously close to the territory of the anomaly chasing us. Taking that kind of risk wasn’t an option. Forcing my way through, as brutal as it was, turned out to be the safest choice.
I passed between the shattered halves of the asteroid and kept running. I still couldn’t see anything ahead; everything around me seemed to repeat endlessly, as if the path were a constant copy of itself.
With no landmarks or alternatives, I had no choice but to keep moving forward, relying solely on momentum and speed. That was when, through my aerial vision, I noticed ripples forming in the fog, first above, then along the sides, as if something were disturbing that silent void.
My head turned instinctively toward the movement at the exact moment a bad feeling tightened in my chest. At the same time, I felt Victor stir, his unease confirming that I wasn’t the only one sensing it.
Still moving at high speed, he opened his mouth to speak, air escaping in an uneven breath. His eyes darted from one point to another, tracking the distortions rippling through the mist, until they finally locked onto me.
“B-be careful...” he said, his voice hoarse and trembling, as if every syllable took an immense effort.
The instant he finished speaking, distortions formed among the pale clouds, and from them, massive crab-like hands burst forth, lunging brutally in our direction. At first, I thought the attacks were aimed at the reaction team, and I prepared to act accordingly.
However, at the very last second, the hands shifted their trajectory, I had become the new target. Even caught off guard, I managed to react in time. I leapt to the side in an instinctive, agile motion, feeling the cutting wind of the attack rush past me as the colossal limb slammed into the ground with a deafening crash, crushing the exact spot where I had been moments earlier.
The assault didn’t stop there. Two more crab hands suddenly emerged from my flanks. Those I couldn’t simply dodge, if I avoided one, the other would inevitably hit me. Faced with that, I changed tactics.
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Black smoke completely engulfed my arms as I twisted my body toward one of the hands, skidding across the ground to buy myself angle and time. The next instant, the impact came. The colossal hand struck me with brutal force, but I managed to intercept it with my own hands.
The shock rippled through my arms like a wave, making them scream in protest. Holding it back felt like trying to stop a collapsing building, not that I knew exactly what that would feel like, but it was the closest comparison my mind could come up with.
While my arms blocked the crab claw coming from the front, the other one behind me kept advancing without hesitation. At that moment, a dense shadow spread beneath my feet, spilling across the stone like ink.
In the same instant, dozens of black filaments erupted from that shadow, writhing through the air before embedding themselves into the crab’s limb. They stretched taut, anchoring themselves to the jagged canyon walls around us, creaking like ropes on the verge of snapping.
I thought I’d have at least a second to breathe. Of course, I was wrong again. The anomaly’s assault didn’t stop for even a moment. A faint tremor ran through the ground beneath my feet, almost imperceptible at first, but far too fast to ignore.
The earth shook harder, and then I felt the ground give way, sinking slowly like hungry quicksand, pulling me down inch by inch, as if something hidden deep below was about to surface at any second. The air around me seemed to grow heavier, loaded with suffocating pressure, and before my mind could even react, my senses screamed a single warning: imminent danger.
Victor seemed to feel the same chill that ran through my body, because his voice rang out loud and clear through the air.
Victor seemed to feel exactly the same as I did. I noticed a shiver run through his body, his muscles tensing for a split second before he moved in the next. His words rang out loud and clear, sharp as an alarm: “Shit! The ground!” he cursed, his voice tight, almost hoarse, as his eyes swept over the earth: “There’s another one coming up from the ground!”
The moment Victor’s words rang out, my body reacted before my mind could even register the danger. I used the crab’s leg in front of me as a springboard, pushing off hard and vaulting over it, hanging in the air by mere inches.
In the same second, the ground beneath me erupted violently, cracking with a sharp snap as another crab leg burst out without warning.
It emerged exactly where I would have been the next instant, rising over my body. Its claws spread wide in a terrifying motion, grinding as they pulled apart, making it painfully clear that I was the target.
My mind caught up in a flash, and I realized there was no way to avoid the claw completely. So I did the only thing that would minimize the damage. I twisted midair, lining up my foot with the claw that snapped shut around it seconds later.
The next moment, I braced both hands against the claw’s rough surface. They darkened almost instantly as thick smoke billowed from the point of contact. I gathered every last ounce of strength I had and tore myself free, escaping the trap at the cost of one leg.
My body rolled violently across the ground, my face scraping against the uneven surface as dozens of tiny stones slammed into my skin. There was no pain. Just a faint discomfort. And honestly... who cares?
I took a short run-up and launched myself into the air again. Even before I landed, I felt my leg reform almost instantly, as if it had never been damaged. I hit the ground in a skid, my soles tearing through the dust, and immediately broke into a run.
The crab legs fell behind, shrinking until they disappeared from view as I put distance between us. I kept a steady pace for about two uninterrupted minutes, with no sign of the anomaly chasing us or appearing ahead. That was when the path split.
One passage continued forward, veering slightly to the right, while the other also went forward but curved to the left. I slowed to a stop, my eyes shifting between the two routes as I silently weighed which one to take.
Thunderous crashes echoed again, followed by a roar that was painful to hear. They came from behind us, along with the sound of rocks crashing to the ground as something, most likely the same anomaly from before, closed in fast on our position.
“This can’t be a good sign!” Rupert growled, horror written all over his face as his eyes darted wildly around the area. He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. A tense snarl slipped from his throat before he spoke again, his voice cracking under the weight of panic and urgency: “Move it... he’s coming back! What are you waiting for?!”
I stood there for a few seconds, letting my gaze drift between the different paths ahead. The silence around us only made the decision heavier, and as I considered each option, the doubt echoed in my mind before slipping out loud toward the others: (But... which way do I go?)
The instant my words echoed in their minds, a new crash tore through the area, far louder than any before. The impact was immediate: Victor’s, Rupert’s, and Arthur’s shouts blended with those of the rest of the reaction team, forming a chaotic chorus of shock and anxiety that reverberated through the space.
“Are you serious? Does it really matter right now? Just pick one!” one of the reaction team members yelled, his voice thick with irritation and panic.
“Just get us out of here!” another snarled, hoarse from screaming.
“Shit! We’re gonna die!” a third shouted, nearly sobbing, desperation dripping from every syllable.
Ignoring the hysterical pleas around me, I just shrugged. There was no time, or certainty, for a better choice. I followed my gut and pointed at one of the paths at random: (Left, then)
With that, I took off down the chosen route. Behind me, the reaction team members were still yelling, complaints, orders, curses, but I ignored them completely. All my focus narrowed to the run, to the repeated impact of my feet against the uneven ground.
Even so, the sounds followed us. I could still hear the sharp crack of stones breaking loose and shattering on the floor, mixed with the unsettling noise of something moving above us, just a bit behind, heavy, vast, oppressive.
In the end, I couldn’t say how long I ran. Any sense of time dissolved, reduced to nothing but the instinct to keep moving forward. All I know is that, eventually, the noises stopped. No more falling rocks. No more sound of something colossal dragging itself above us.
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