Gwin was shaken awake by Elena. Her face was pale and frantic against the pale morning light. The sun had just hardly risen above the horizon painting everything dull lilac for the moment. Behind her a huge whirlwind of white sparks illuminated her silhouette.
'What is going on…is that an echo!?'
From the sparks emerged a towering black eagle. It was nearly twice Gwin's height. Its talons and beak were deep black. It looked like a phantom in the dark morning.
"We need to leave!"
Her voice pulled him from his thoughts.
{What is going on?}
He signed hurriedly while looking around to see what had her shaken. He looked all around them and at the ground far below not finding anything out of place. It looked just as hellish as usual.
'What th- ,oh shit'
His eyes met the black obelisk in the distance, only now it was much closer and moving towards them.
'What the hell!'
The crimson labyrinth turned to dust against its monolithic weight. Giant stalks of pale blue kelp shot from the openings on its smooth surface and tethered it to the ground ahead of it pulling its immense weight. It was headed straight for them and had already crossed half the distance that was between them. It looked slow from here but Gwin knew that was an illusion. It was moving at a truly frightening speed. What also caught his eye was that its top was no longer empty. He could hardly make out a human silhouette sitting at a table made from the same stone as the rest of the monolith.
Pulling his eyes from the eerie figure after feeling the urge to jump from the coral to meet it he turned to see Elena scaling the side of her fearsome bird.
"Get on!"
{Are you serious?}
"Hurry up! What other choice do we have?!"
He couldn't argue with her point. There was no way they'd be able to outrun it on the ground and avoid getting ripped apart while doing it. He shuddered to imagine what would happen if it caught them. If they were lucky it would just crush them but if not then they would meet an indescribably gruesome end. After briefly considering he quickly began climbing up its side. Elena had made it look much easier than it was. Just as he landed on its back and got a hold on its massive feathers it spread its wings.
They were going to have to risk flying.
Gwin was certain that there was something lurking in the cloudy sky above them. His instincts had been on high alert every time they had been high up without the roof of the obelisks caverns over them.
'Gods, I hope this thing is fast!'
With a beat of its wings they were already soaring high above the ground. Below them the labyrinth flew by in a blur. They tore through the wind as booming crashes reached their ears from behind them. It seemed they had made it just in time. The echo jerked to the side to avoid an incredibly large stalk of kelp that had flown towards them. Gwin got a good view of its glossy and twitching surface as several more flew by them.
Gwin felt a chill on his back as whatever profane creature the obelisk really was gazed at them..
Elena's echo had proven to be a very fast flier. He began thanking his luck that she was a legacy.
'I could kiss this bird'
A buzzing sound resounded from above them. With a violent jerk they turned to the side just as a black blur tore through the air where they had just been. The jerks and spins continued threatening to throw Gwin off as more black blurs fell from higher up. He then saw their attackers when a large black bug attempted to snatch Gwin from its back. Its hooked legs sprung forward, nearly pulling right off before he summoned a tentacle from his forearm and used it to distract it. It tore his tentacle apart which sent blinding pain coursing through him but stopped it for long enough for them to put distance between them and it.
Above them he saw a small cloud of the same creatures. Each one was the same size as him at least and there were thousands of them.
'We are totally going to die.'
The swarm descended upon them surrounded them like black rain.They had only made it so far thanks to Elena's expert control over her echo and its blinding speed but what were they going to do against a swarm of man-eating bugs?!
One of them dived down heading straight for the echo, just before it could collide a red tentacle shot forward impaling it completely through the thorax. As its body fell the spell whispered into his ear.
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have taken your claim of blood]
He was going to have to start pulling his own weight. Using one hand to clutch the echoes feathers he began lashing out at any locust that got too close or the echo couldn't evade. He bared his teeth in focus and concentration while simultaneously impaling another locust. His strength alone was not enough to impale them completely but the added momentum from their dive let each attack be fatal.
Black fetid blood sprayed on his as another fell to his tentacle. He could feel the spirit essence enter him with each kill which he used to maintain his transformed arm.
With each coil and thrust he reaped another life. Each whisper of the spell filled him with joy in their defiant escape from death. He had no idea where they were headed and he didn't need to. His job was to kill anything that got close and that was what he was doing.
The hum of wings surrounded them on all sides as the echo ripped through several of them. It had been forced to join the fight as well at this point tearing through their black and jagged carapaces with ease.
Two black comets fell from the sky both headed straight for them. He couldn't hit both…or could he? Through sheer concentration he split his tentacle into two. He immediately felt his reserve of essence draining even faster. The strain on his mind was not light either. He was now controlling two very alien body parts and yet even then he fended off their assault. Both tentacles launch forward their chitinous blades plunging deep into the locusts flesh before emerging from their backs. Immediately after he impaled two more with his red spears and felt the spirit essence replace what he had just used.
He was going to need every drop for this fight.
With a wide arc he cut through the wings of several more bugs causing them to plummet as well before being ripped apart by their own kin. He severed several more pairs of wings as the echo jerked and spun to rip through a half dozen locusts.
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have slain an awakened beast: Black Locust]
[You have taken your claim of blood]
[You have received a memory]
[You have…]
Several times had Gwin's tentacles been horribly mutilated or torn off. The pain was white-hot as he tore his own tentacle off to avoid being jerked from his foothold. They barely formed fast enough to reap a few more lives before being mutilated again. He hurriedly clutched the echoes feathers again and wailed in anger and pain as he took several more lives. He must have killed dozens if not hundreds of them by now yet the swarm surrounding them was still just as impenetrable. Above him the swarm clouded above him while dropping like rain, to his left and right were locusts that were closing in on the echo and under him was a layer of locust that were rising quickly ready to rip the duo apart with their mandibles. Their unimaginable numbers would have been overwhelming and fatal if not for the black eagle's dire speed.
Soon however a small drop of water landed on Gwin's head unnoticed by him among the sea of fetid black blood. However, then another landed and then another, before too long the skies had begun weeping and rain fell all around him like a flood. The rain was a welcome reprieve from the fetid black blood as it futilely tried to clean them off from the thick layers of black blood.
At some point the ground below them had been replaced by a deep crater. The same black mud formed an inconceivably vast crater. It stretched far into the horizon and Gwin could not even see the other side of it. They were right over the edge of it. From his peripheral vision he thought he saw an incredibly large woman with a raised hand through the torrents of rain. He had not noticed their fall in altitude. By now they had left the majority of the swarm behind with only a few stragglers still chasing through the downpour. It seemed the rain had chased them off.
It had been an eternity since they had started this chaotic escape from death. They had long since left the obelisk behind and the sky was getting darker all around them as lightning and thunder began tearing through the sky and illuminating their pitiful figures.
Their echo had sustained several wounds that spilled crimson blood below them mixing with the rain. Elena herself had slain any locust that came into reach of her blade suffering several deep gashes in the process and Gwin's tentacles ached in exhaustion which was safe to say a weird feeling. The two sleepers were hard to tell from the echo since they had been showered in torrents of black blood. They looked like three shadows falling through the sky.
Feeling relieved to see the last of the locusts disappear into the rain, he fell on his back. He had been holding on for so long his arm had trouble letting go.
He looked to his side and was stunned by what he saw.
Below him and all around him was a vast city encircled by colossal black walls made from the impossibly large bricks, each as large as the obelisk. Below him the city lay ruined and decrepit. In the center of this vast city was a magnificent white palace sitting atop a hill. Around it was a winding road designed to defend the castle that stopped halfway on the hill turning into a vast courtyard for troops to gather in. From here he thought he could see small little huts with movement around them in the courtyard. His scanning was abruptly stopped when they slammed into the roof of a tall building.