Waking just after the sun rose, Nico gathered his things and then climbed onto Shaman.
The possessed Messenger, its pale body laced with ropes of powerful, taught muscles, tensed. Letting out a guttural caw, it burst into a sprint, wings flapping and gales rising as it ascended into the bleak skies.
The aforementioned young man rested cross-legged on the Fallen Beast's back. The wind kissed his hair, floating it in rings that framed his sharp face — jawline snatched, eyes closed, a faint glow issued from undeath the lids. His mind was steady, calm, and precise. His breathing was controlled, but relaxed.
Meditation was something that had come naturally to Nico after his conquest of the First Nightmare. His Flaw was mostly to blame, of course. Without emotions of his own it was much easier to slip into the tranquil, contemplative state that followed alongside total relaxation. With the curse, it was like trying to release a valve that had only been sealed, not pressurized. The lingering trivialities of the day were easy to dispel when he had none to speak of.
That is, whenever he wasn't perturbed by other Sleeper's souls or emotions, anyway. When he was, there was no harder task. Flaws weren't a surmountable obstacle, after all. They were, and always had been, indominable. His own seemed like it was moveable at times, but that was merely by design. When surrounded by hundreds of others, each with varying sentiments at any given time, it was easy to draw himself towards whatever feeling coincided with his current way of thought.
The Spell, too, was frugal with its words. It hardly explained anything with sufficient information. The way it described his Flaw was proof of that.
Flaw: [Cold Flame].
Flaw Description: [You are unfeeling, and you feel everything.]
He took a breath.
Using context and his own experience, he knew that what it meant was that he had no internal feelings of his own, but he felt everything and everyone else's instead. The range of it wasn't very large though. Most of what came into his mind was just sensory information — like how one could see or hear.
But there was hardly a silver lining. His cursed Attribute, [Empath], made it so that everything he sensed was turned into understanding, connection… empathy. It bolstered the radius of his Flaw and perverted his own mind. Even forced him to think like others would.
Thankfully, it was only an Attribute. Shaman could easily suppress its effects. It was a blessing he most likely would've gone mad without had he ever returned to the waking world. Only a mere thousand lived in the Bright Castle, and that by itself was a lot, yes — he had never encompassed more than a couple hundred people in his Attribute's radius — but with the density of people in the siege capitals so high, he was bound to need to either condition his mind or use Shaman.
And he had no intentions of conditioning, either.
'There's no need to poison myself.'
The light momentarily dimmed as they passed under a thicket of clouds. Nico opened his eyes.
Below, the coral labyrinth spread like an infectious rot.
Was that what it truly was?
The sea of snaking pillars wasn't really made from coral. It was some deep red, coagulated material. Could've been solidified blood for all he knew. That's certainly what it looked like.
Sighing, he tilted his head upwards. There was a thick wall of clouds blocking the sky and more seemed to be rolling in the father east they went.
No, it wasn't coming from the east. It was forming right in front of him.
He propped himself up and straightened his posture. Something above the clouds was shifting. Within his soul sense it was like a void had opened in the sky above him — not a lack of soul or spirit essence. Or even a lack of anything. Just… darkness: all-consuming and insatiable.
Nico realized what was happening just before he had any time to react.
The sky's veil transformed before his eyes. Truly dark, umbrous clouds replaced the mottled gray shroud, and a couple of drops of black water panged against his forehead. Then a dozen. Then hundreds. Before a couple seconds had passed, the day had been swallowed by storm, and a torrential downpour threatened to cast them down with all the rage of a temperamental god.
Gales twisted and flowed through the rivers of water like wrathful currents, and from the ground, the first signs of flood appeared, drowning a few feet of coral rock in a current blacker, thicker, and more malevolent than the deepest of ocean waters.
Lighting flickered eerily above; thunder roared in tandem, each instance a soul-piercing clap that settled in his chest like sunken stones.
His helmet began manifesting from ethereal light.
Nico finally managed to clench his fists around a handful of the Spire Messenger's feathers.
Just a half-second later a dreadful squall slammed into him and the Messenger with enough force to shift the mighty abomination.
"Find the nearest peak!"
The possessed Messenger didn't let out a caw of acknowledgement, but its wings suddenly began to beat swifter, harder, and with more ferocity than should've been possible. A knowing glint flickered in its crimson eyes before it swooped downwards, wings folded inwards to accelerate even faster.
Nico's whole body tensed to keep himself from being flung off. His helmet formed and cleared his vision of wet hair.
The rain seemed to slow to a crawl as they dropped several stories a second. Despite his status as a Monster, he couldn't help but feel queasy. The world felt like it was spinning. When they reached a low enough spot to hover just above the walls of coral below, the Cursed Herald's wings bloomed and began beating again with ruthless strength.
Still, the menacing storm loomed above, and Shaman's ability was almost pitiful in comparison.
He didn't know what pace the Nightmare Creature was really going at, but he figured it somewhere up at the low end of a hundred kilometers per hour.
By all means, at that speed, they should've reached the nearest pillar in seconds. And they did. No Corrupted creature swooped out of the marsh to attack them — most likely cause the water had only risen to waist-level — and no native abomination leapt from the walls to chase the blazing comet. By the time they would've react the two of them would've already streaked passed by hundreds of meters regardless.
Now, the sky was entirely blotted — dark as any night, illuminated only by blinding bolts that momentarily painted the whole world white.
Shaman's crimson flames flickered like torches in the darkness, even the enchantment of the [Glass Torch] insufficient enough to bind its light from sight.
Then, Nico saw it in a blur of motion. A pillar of coral a couple hundred meters tall and wide, with several small cliffs and large stalagmites rising from its weathered surface. Shaman veered upwards, and the rain transformed into furious black bullets that pelt against his engraved armor.
With a flourish, Shaman spread its wings in an arc and caught the wind, rising several dozen meters in the air with excess speed before they fell and glided down to the island, landing just atop a tall cliff that marked its peak.
Shaman's claws dug into the ground. The Specter was subtly grateful to be on solid ground once again, despite its incorporeal nature.
Nico remained reserved. He dismounted the Fallen Beast, then stabilized himself by crouching low and against the cliffside.
His eyes narrowed in consideration.
He had known about the possibility of a storm, but never seriously considered it. They were rare. To see one so early on in his journey was… questionable. Not disheartening or displeasing. Just odd.
His luck didn't appear to be the best.
Only, it was even worse than he'd ever thought.
Because in the next moment, his eyes widened, and his thoughts turned to sludge. Not from fear, or shock, or any other raw emotions. Just… realization — cold, profound, and damning.
And damning it was.
Because out there, scaling their coral haven in a swarm, were several dozens of Awakened souls. Some Beasts, some Monsters, and even one Demon. All of them had ascended to escape the storm, and each one had seen a pair of crimson flames burning in the sky like a beacon. With it, a delicious, untainted soul.
With it, beckoning them to slaughter, Nico.