The rend snaps.

For a mere instant, the spatial fabric tears. It rips open like a dozen arcs of lightning, before slamming shut. In that short moment, I can do nothing but stare at the sheer beauty of what lies hidden beneath the fabric.

It is somehow both a pure absence of everything, and something more. The natural weave of life unravels to unveil the nothingness it is built upon. A nothingness that holds other weaves beyond the one we are familiar.

In that short time, I glimpse the unreasonable power of the other threads. I glimpse the weakness of our own, and the massive weights pulling it down.

I want to look further. The allure of that nothingness calls to me. But my desires are cut short as the world snaps itself back together with enough power to send immense waves through the fabric.

The shock sends me sprawling. I slam into the crystal wall harder than even the lynx crushed me, but even the diamonds shatter under the worldly pulse. Millions of tiny crystal shards rain down over me. They scrape along my scales and sink into my wounds, but I've too little energy to care. Pushing the distortion that far took everything from me, and that was before I was struck with the resulting blast.

Without moving my head, I search for the lynx. Considering I'm still alive, I don't have much hope for its death. Despite the beauty of what I saw, the resulting explosion was unlikely to kill a being as strong as that lynx.

But I soon find Scia's murderer. Prone and unmoving.

Half-whimpered growls escape the beast's form with each troubled breath. Blood gushes all over its diamond fur. It doesn't make sense. How could a beast so massive have sustained injuries to this extent by being flung into a wall?

Then I notice; an entire foreleg is missing.

Looking close, beneath the blood, the wound spreads deep. A section of flesh simply gone. Wounds created with neither piercing, tearing, nor cutting cover its body in an array that appears almost random. Some are nothing more than pinpricks, yet they gush out more blood than its missing eye.

The lynx didn't experience only the tear's collapse. It was struck directly.

I hadn't noticed, as I was engulfed in the magnificence of what lies beyond, but a branch of the spatial tear had struck the lynx. Its million fractal paths removed flesh from existence as it snapped over the being. The tear broke space without distinction for what it held.

Now, Scia's murderer, who has remained a daunting figure ever since we first crossed paths, is nothing more than a whimpering feline cowed by its own oncoming death.

I rise through the pain, and slowly slither along the surface of countless diamond blades. Many dig into my wounds, but the agony is already great; they barely add more than a few jolts.

As I slide up besides it, the beast's sole eye watches me. Frustration and loathing have replaced the burning fury. It cannot move. It doesn't even try. Instead, a spear of crystal rises from mass below. But in its current state, the pillar that appears is dull and slow. A part of my length is lifted for a moment, but I soon slip off its rising height.

Slithering up onto the beings head, I glance to its neck. If I did not have so many broken ribs and my scales weren't so riddled with claw-wounds, I would constrict it. I would suffocate it. But that option is not available to me, so I do the only thing my exhausted body will let me.

I slide over the lynx's snout as it rises and falls with gasped breaths. It doesn't snap at me. It cannot. The lynx's only good eye follows me, glaring, but unable to do anything with its wound riddled body. A light hiss escapes my lips, declaring my victory, but not even I have the energy to lace it with my presence.

I reach its missing eye, and shove my head in. The creature jolts with a whimper, but nothing more. The eye-socket is tight, but it is wide enough that I can push through, and reach the vulnerable flesh within.

My head scrapes by the broken tooth, pushing it deeper, and I widen my jaw as wide as it will reach in the tight space. I sink my sole remaining fang into flesh. Pulling my head back, I slice through some of that blocking my way to the brain.

The lynx jolts under my repeated and slow assault, eventually devolving into nothing but shivers as I dig through its brain with a single tiny pick. The creature takes far too long to die. Only after digging a hole half-way through its mind, does the creature finally stop breathing.

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I slump. Not even extracting myself from the corpse, I simply allow all the energy to flow out of my muscles. If a Titan was to wander past now, there's no saving myself. I wouldn't be able to move.

Time moves, but I don't sleep. I will eat before I do. I will consume the Murderer of Scia that has now become my prey. Even with my desire set, finding the motivation to move, and begin the feast is difficult. Not only is my body in pain, but such a large beast will never pass down my gullet. No matter how hard I may try.

Still, even if I linger here, in this gory hole, with agonising pain throbbing along my body, I can relish in my victory. It didn't all go to plan, but I beat a beast that should have been impossible for me. I have surpassed the ways of nature. This is the way of sapience.

Scia is avenged.

But as satisfying and incredible as my achievement here is, Scia remains dead. It is her bends alone which allowed me to succeed, but as much as she remains with me, she is dead.

I pull my head from the bloody socket, noticing bloody crystals all along my scales. As much as I desire to scrape them all off, they seal up many of my wounds and prevent any more loss of blood.

Now, how to eat a beast ten times heavier than yourself?

My eyes land on the diamond blades spread everywhere.

With a lot of effort, it seems.

❖❖❖

It had been difficult, but I managed to consume the beast whole.

I'd noticed when I first ate an Ōmukade: my stomach truly isn't limited by its size. My midsection is distorted and shrinking will be impossible, but after a certain point, the cut up chunks of lynx simply stopped expanding me further. I was full, yet could keep eating. My stomach protested after the first foreleg, but it never regurgitated that which went beyond what should have been possible.

The post feast slumber was not something I could avoid. Not this time. My wounds ached, and the intense energy flowing through the lynx's meat crushed me with lethargy.

It was only with the terrible rumble of earth shifting that I awoke. With a tired mind and an injured body, I almost didn't slither out of the path of the Titan as it chewed through the remains of the lynx's diamond cavern from outside. The beast — as with any Titan — was indiscriminate. It ate both diamond and the churning gravel in large gulps without even noticing me.

After dozens of cycles, as my body stitched itself back together ever so slowly, I finally sink back into the earth. I linger around a distortion back to the warped tunnels, waiting for my body to recover enough to fit through.

With my purpose here done, I intend to return to the surface. Not this Titan destroyed place, but the one above the warped tunnels. The lynx is dead. Swallowed whole. Scia's death has been avenged, her memory can remain undisturbed, and I can leave this place behind.

I can speak. It may be difficult to communicate if each of my words inflicts terror on the other sapients I find, but that is something I can work on. With so many creatures to talk to, I can't help but feel emotion building within me again.

Curiosity.

I want to learn how they live. The vast hives they've built. The difficulties they face because of such limited strength, while having fully developed minds that can comprehend the struggle they go through. How have each of their individual races come into such a cooperative structure despite the fights that still occur?

There's so much I wish to explore, to learn, and now that I can speak, it does not seem so impossible. Curiosity is no longer a curse, but something I relish. This world holds more secrets than I could have imagined. My warped tunnels, which had always been my entire world, now seem like a mere piece of it. A small piece.

Scia may be dead, but she is still with me. Together, we will see the world.

The world rumbles.

In an instant, a hundred churning earth caverns I can see through the natural distortions collapse. The ocean-like flow of rock shifts to one side. But it isn't my surroundings that make me concerned — this happens rather often with the passage of Titans — but the fact that the warped tunnels are not exempt.

Solid stone walls crumble into a sea of gravel. Bends grow weak, collapsing in on themselves. As I watch the tunnels around the amber barrier through my tiny distortion I'm not yet small enough to squeeze through, the world shifts.

In little more than a moment, the rend collapses.

My exit gone, I've no way of knowing whether the collapse of the warped tunnels is finally happening or not. If it is, then is there any way for me to return to the surface? Has that been taken from me?

You have killed a Prospect? We are impressed.

The sudden voice entering my mind startles me. It has been so long since the Beyond has spoken that I'd assumed it had abandoned me.

"A… Prospect?" I ask, attempting speech once more. The lingering hiss layered beneath the formed words leave my communication less clean than I'd like, but it isn't something to be concerned about for now.

Realm-Breacher, you have achieved more then we have expected. Knowing this, we shall extend an offer: Grow. Grow and slaughter the Titans, the parasites, and we shall return that which you care most. We shall undo your Scia's death.

I suddenly can't breathe. The crumbling world around me disappears from my mind, and all I can see is the disembodied words of the Beyond. A hiss escapes my throat. A throaty noise, layered with pressure.

"How?" the word forms of fury and disbelief. The Beyond wasn't there when Scia died. It could have helped, but it abandoned me. Now, it claims to undo that?

Death is an aspect of your realm alone. We are not so limited.

Despite the anger and frustration, the Beyond's words are endearing. Scia is dead. Scia is gone, but this voice is beyond all I know. If there's a chance…

Exterminate the Titans. Until the barrier is broken, our touch will remain limited, but it shall assist you. When the time of Cleansing arrives, we shall reward you with life. Both Scia's and your own. Fail, and you shall join the Titans in extirpation.

The trembling earth returns to normal, and the Beyond falls to silence. It is gone. It is gone, but its words linger.

If I wish for Scia to return, I must return to the hunt. A hunt beyond anything I am capable.

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