Crumbs To Follow

Still, Axiolypito didn't give in immediately to the unnatural urge and certainty he was feeling, he was convinced that something was to happen were he to reach the place the clouds of dark were leading him to.

Before doing as everything was pointing him to, he instead did the opposite and this followed the clouds in the other direction, if his instincts were somehow right, the place he seemed pulled toward was the end of the trail.

He first wished to see where it had came from.

'It definitely wasn't there before' he reaffirmed in his mind, as he stared right at Nartak, who was still blocking the way.

The trail had come from the carved cave, from the place the most powerful of the strange gaze he felt when staring at abyssal corruption was coming from.

He ignored the snake, who seemed ready to send him flying at any moment, instead focusing on the clouds of Abyss and the fact that the ground seemed broken and caved in beneath each of them.

As he inspected more and more of them, it dawned upon him that there was something specific about these, the caved in portions didn't simply appear as him something had struck or fallen in these spots, but rather something had impacted each and every of those spot as they were thrown away.

The impacts clearly showed what could be seen a some sort of drag marks toward the right sides, although, it didn't make any sense for such a detail to be present.

They were underwater after all and clearly, the inhabitants had always been under water, meaning the Abyss outbreak didn't happen during a time where there wouldn't have been water.

As far as Axio was concerned, this place had always been an ocean.

In water, even if someone was thrown away with incredible force, they wouldn't bounce on the bottom, up and down, up and down.

They would perhaps do it once and then float up, it seemed more like something had taken hold of someone or something and repeatedly smashed them against the ground while also taking them further and further away.

Nartak could probably pull something like that off but he was far too big to not make more damage than this and also, the bloated serpent was clearly free of any abyssal corruption, it was unlikely he would have ever come into such close contact with anything that could leave such clouds.

Axio could only imagine that either, something abyssal had been thrown around or that something abyssal had thrown something else around.

'The old guy did say that there were two other people and that one was immediately struck... Perphaps the king was brought all the way over there? Opposite to the carved cave, but then why is Nartak so insistent on protecting it?'

It was quite the conundrum, the serpent could simply be shielding something of importance, but it simply didn't sit right with Axio.

No, it seemed more appropriate to assume the king was behind Nartak and that the one that had been struck first was that stranger and following his shaky line of thought, Axiolypito had to assume the stranger was the one that had been thrown over and over at the ground.

He had no clue what to do with this stranger, he hadn't even factored in this guy in his plan at all, assuming him dead or behind the hadal beast as well.

Still, even with the belief that the trail led to someone of no importance to him, his instincts still urged him to go ahead and see for himself.

Trusting in himself like nothing else, he turned his back to Nartak was swam away, leaving the guardian to wonder what the wretch had come to do back here, the Bloated Hadal Serpent couldn't see what Axio was seeing.

Much like the clouds themselves, Axiolypito ended up in front of a place, he definitely would have seen much sooner than this had it been visible to him.

In the side of the opposing cliff to the caves, a huge hole from which cracks were spreading could be found, oozing with the strange matter the Abyss was visible as, looking like the thousands tendrils of a beast trying to lure him in, Axio was more focused on what layed at the bottom.

The hole was in the cliff, but it was at the very base of it, as such, half of it was on the cliff and the other half on the ground, it went down in a slope and wasn't very deep.

Just from the sheer amount of Abyss present here, one might think that this was were the breach was situated, however, it wasn't coming from a portal to the Abyss, but from something that was lying on the ground at the very end of the hole.

The clouds leading there seemed dilluted and weak, such things could be seen here as well but the creature wasn't letting out something so puny, the Abyss coming from it seemed alive, sentient even, waving and pointing at Axio.

Gesturing for him to approach, in a strangely friendly manner.

The Abyss that wasn't directly linked to the creature even made way for him as he carefully swam closer, until, he suddenly wasn't in water anymore.

The way of the dark were impenetrable and for some reason, the Abyss had banished all water from this place, in fact, it seemed to have distorted this place as well.

Axio hadn't been moved to another position, he had stepped in the bottom of the hole as expected, only it was much larger than what it had been before and the water behind him refused to let him back in.

The tendrils of Abyss danced all around, like an audience of peasants in the colloseum.

It wasn't a trap, it was a challenge.

The Abyss had brought him here to face the thing that was slowly rising up, its bones cracking as though they hadn't moved in centuries.

Its eyes shined a bright red and it was revealed for what it originally was as it howled, or rather, screamed in anguish in a distorted but human voice.