"What the heck!"
Aziel screamed in his mind, eyes widening in astonishment due to the scene unfolding right before him.
Two hands slowly emerged from the dark, pressing shadows, fingers curling unnaturally, backs replacing palms, rough and knobby.
Scarred skin stretched tightly across them, nails hooked and crooked, pressing outward, eerily alive yet gripping absolutely nothing.
The surroundings staggered violently in chaos, as if tectonic plates had collided violently below.
Those hands slowly curled around either side of the rift, which in itself felt completely unbelievable.
The rift trembled under the immense weight of their touch, edges flickering like liquid metal as the hands pressed closer, curling inward with deliberate, controlled force.
"W-wait… is some powerful monster, sucked in by mistake, trying to carve its way desperately out?" he thought.
The slit pulsed slowly, as if protesting against the strange touch on its surface.
And then those coiled hands repelled, or better said, pulled apart, stretching the rift from either side, as if trying to widen it forcibly, tear it open completely.
The fingers flexed, knuckles cracking audibly against invisible resistance, and the energy around them shimmered with intense tension, waves rippling outward as the rift strained heavily to maintain its fragile shape.
The force was so intensive that the ocean shook violently, as the slit spontaneously attempted to maintain its original, stable form.
It made sense to Aziel, far too much sense — after all, whose organ in the world would not try to fight its own demise?
As the clash went on, the black liquid rushed outward, desperately trying to escape.
It was also now that Aziel realized clearly that the rift, for some strange reason, had been venturing farther with every single passing moment.
The pull, which had seemed impossible to escape, had suddenly stopped.
The liquid thrashed his body with speed far beyond the normal limit.
The liquid forced its way into him, flooding through all his senses, seeping into every tiny gap and passage, claiming every possible space it could reach.
Even the dull shade of the black liquid had changed strangely.
His thoughts blurred completely, along with his drifting, unfocused vision, as for one last time his gaze wandered to the hands which were on the verge of being completely decimated by the rift.
He was shot out to the surface like a cannonball from a giant cannon, tearing violently through layers of water before bursting finally into open air.
For a brief instant, he soared, weightless, blinded by the sudden crimson glare, before gravity quickly reclaimed him.
He fell hard, crashing back into the sea with a deafening, monstrous splash, the impact rattling his bones and scattering his thoughts violently.
Thrown far away, he drifted slowly at the other end of the shadowy, dark ring.
That pull would begin again, he was certain of that. If those hands were broken or retracted in a few more seconds, he should hurry immediately.
He forced his body to move despite the sheer, intense pain that ran through him because of the powerful water jets, and swam carefully across to the area where the light rays fell naturally in one single breath.
At the last moment, however, he murmured under his breath.
"Imagine… if I was a second too late to react."
Eyes widening further in horror as he scanned his leg and then the ring, which had caught the tremendous pull from before at the last possible moment he crossed the shadowy area.
Furthermore, the pull that he had been experiencing since his departure in the sea felt like it had almost completely ceased to exist, except for the lightless area.
The pull he was experiencing right now was barely noticeable, only as he experienced it on the quiet shore, minimal.
Aziel floated on his back, chest unaturally calm and steady.
The sky above was a smeared haze of crimson and black, the red rays bleeding faintly through the thick mist that had recently appeared out of nowhere at all.
'To complete the quest… do I need to ensure even that thing cannot harm me?'
'Would this plasma species know about it? Maybe, yes, after all that ship had passed from there too.'
'What are the odds that it is their creation as well… just like those energy whirlpools and tornadoes?'
A storm of thoughts raced quickly through him, fading into heavy silence.
Unanswered.
And the more he thought, the heavier his head felt, as if the thoughts were slamming violently into each other.
However, he decided to let himself rest for some time, to recover properly from the fatigue that had gradually built up.
●●●
Aziel's eyes suddenly flickered open as his body immediately detected a surge in energy.
His plasma form had become impossibly sensitive, capable of registering even the faintest, tiniest fluctuations.
And this sensitivity was amplified once the disturbances entered his expanding plasma field.
Plasma field — a term he had coined for his own understanding — represented the area around him where his instincts sharpened unusually.
He had noticed repeatedly that whenever a sea monster carrying dangerous energy entered this range, his senses reacted almost preemptively, compelling him to stay on guard for no apparent reason.
It was as if their mere presence alone threatened his survival entirely.
And, yes, the black sea, he realized, was home to countless sea monsters, varying wildly from terrifying leviathans to pitiful, malformed creatures, each differing in appearance, frame, and structure.
Yet strangely, these beings only appeared once he floated past the dark shadowy area.
And despite their menacing, threatening forms, they neither ambushed nor attacked him.
On rare occasions, one of the weaker, pitiable creatures would rise to the surface, examining him with careful, deliberate scrutiny.
The truly fearsome ones, however, did not even bother.
Honestly, he wanted to keep it exactly the way it was.
But…
Except for this one.
"Except for this big boy right here!"
He muttered, tension tightening sharply in his chest as his senses screamed urgently at him.
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Thanks for reading, and btw this is where thr story will pick up the pace. Expect some really logical lore...wait? Should lore even be logical....
And if you are reading till here, leave a review.