Belly of the Beast

The wind howled as Kai's grip tightened around Kallen's wrist, their bodies cutting through the air above the glassy black sea. Kallen kept his eyes locked on the jagged silhouette of the Crimson Spire looming above, its peak lost in the swirling gray.

"Lower," he shouted to Kai. "But not too close."

Kai dipped sharply. The sea below left Kallen more than a little uneasy. No waves, no foam, just an endless sheet of obsidian that swallowed light whole.

"Gods," Kai muttered. "It's like flying over a grave."

Kallen didn't answer. His hand reflexively reached for the flask at his hip. The stillness was unnatural, even for a mostly still sea. It appeared even Corrupted Leviathans avoided this stretch.

That meant he was in the right place. "Stop."

Their forward momentum halted. Kai's arms trembled with effort as the two of them hovered some hundred feet above the surface. "You're sure about this?" Kai asked.

Kallen nodded. "Drop me."

The idol didn't argue. He let go.

Kallen fell silently, and his body sliced into the water barely a splash. He expected it to be cold like always, but the water was warm. A tad hot to the touch even.

Above, Kai disappeared from his view. Kallen exhaled slowly, feeling the liquid respond to his presence, curling around him. He could barely see, but his skin registered every shift. And that was how he noticed the slow pulse of something large in the distant depths.

He reached out with his aspect, shooting forward at impressive speed. Somewhere in the darkness, a Titan waited for him. Nothing to be afraid of.

Right?

The water grew hotter as he descended. The oppressive darkness gave way to a faint, eerie glow from thermal vents along the seafloor. The currents there were sluggish and thick with minerals, but utterly devoid of life. No Nightmare Creatures were around.

It's too quiet.

Kallen pushed himself further down, reaching the seafloor. A batch of crimson coral brushed his fingers. His foot scraped against something. 

A scale.

The same color crimson as the coral, twice the size of his palm.

Kallen recoiled, water surging around him in a defensive swirl. He knew this scale. He'd fought against the Lesser Wyrm; watched those scales peel off its body and chase him like seeker drones, detonating on impact.

This one was dormant. It didn't explode.

Cautiously, he pressed a finger to its surface. The heat seared even through the water, and the faintest tremor ran through it, as if sensing something.

Is it somehow watching me?

A cold spike of fear split his stomach. He withdrew his hand, scanning the gloom for threats. The entrance to the Titan's dwelling was probably only about a hundred yards away. Though he couldn't see it through the haze of darkness, he could feel faint pulses coming from there. 

While Kallen did have a Memory that helped him see underwater—a recent addition to his soul arsenal—he left it for Kai in the case the charming idol needed to dive in and get them out of there.

Well, if he did, they were probably both dead anyways. In all honesty, Kallen fully expected the man to just fly away if things went wrong. He wouldn't blame him.

As Kallen moved forward, it was eerie how there weren't any creatures around. No guards.

He swam, moving slowly as the dire heat continued to increase. It was bearable for now, but he suspected he wouldn't make it too far into the cave before being forced to turn back.

But still… he needed to see it. He needed to draw it out and figure out what it could do before he built a plan around defeating it. 

He hesitated when he reached the threshold of the cave. Its entrance was lit by an orange glow. Then it exhaled—a slow, rhythmic pull of current.

Kallen took a deep breath and entered.

~~~

The cave was… it was odd. Kallen had been forced to summon Wyrm's Tongue to activate the [Fireproof] enchantment for protection from the heat once it became too much to bear. 

He knew how dangerous being in the same environment as a Titan was, but his fight with Puddle's corrupted incarnation had disillusioned him.

Ironic, huh?

He moved forward, noting the scales lining the walls. If they somehow activated, he knew he could escape in time. They weren't the dragon's own scales like the one outside the cave had been. 

These were much too small. Nearly half the size. As long as he avoided stepping on any of them, they shouldn't blow up and cause any sort of chain reaction. Still, the fear was nothing to scoff at.

He was moving through a death trap, not a place of dwelling. The deeper Kallen swam, the more the dark water seemed to resist him. It thickened, each movement requiring more effort. His lungs burned from the oppressive heat, even with the enchantment. 

Behind the scales lining the walls was a rhythmic glow where veins of molten rock threaded through. It felt like they would blow any moment. 

I should probably be heading back now. This isn't something I can contend with.

There was a vast chasm between the version of Kallen that had fought a Dormant Titan, and who he was now. The Kallen of then was like a child to him now in terms of combat ability. 

Sure, the before Kallen had spent hundreds of hours training, but since then, he had fought hundreds of battles. He'd developed instinct and power and strategy, but most importantly, fear. 

He knew what he was feeling wasn't normal fear. The type that made you hesitate, but that you ultimately overcame. What he felt now, was dread. True dread. The type of dread brought on by walking into the belly of the beast. 

He shook his head.

I'm out. 

There was nothing he could glean from the dragon that could be worth dying for. He'd have to return empty handed and admit that he had failed to that serpent of a Bright Lord. It would be a hit to his pride, but at least he'd be alive.

Gunlaug would send Harus after him, but Kallen had Sunny to help him with that. He turned around and took a step.

And then he hesitated. He hesitated because he felt something. A vibration that was tugging on his senses gifted by [Amplifier], as well honed by his time in the Iron Spider nest. He threw a glance back.

A scale on the wall twitched. It was larger than the others around it. It was a deep crimson. A hairline fracture split across its surface. Then another. It shot at Kallen.

Oh hell.

Kallen kicked backward just as the scale detonated. The blast—several times worse than that of the Lesser Wyrm's had been—sent him sprawling. His vision whited for a moment and his eardrums popped. For one terrifying second, he tumbled through ringing silence.

Then his senses returned and the whole damn cave woke up.

A hundred—no thousands of other scales lit up in response, cracks spiderwebbing across their surfaces. 

Move. Move!

Kallen twisted, summoning a current to hurl himself deeper into the cavern and away from the assault. Away from the entrance. Away from escape. It was suicide, but the alternative was being shredded by a chain reaction of explosions.

Weaving deeper into the system, Kallen brushed away the seeker drones as they exploded, not on impact, but on a sort of timer. If he could put enough distance between him and them, they'd all detonate before reaching him.

Of course, they would also set off the others in their radius. Thus he needed to keep moving.

It wasn't long before the cave narrowed into a thin tunnel, the walls closing in until Kallen had to turn sideways to avoid brushing against the scales. Behind him, a cacophonous cry of compounding explosions grew closer. He hurried.

The glow ahead intensified as he moved through at blinding speeds, painting his skin in an orange glow. The heat was almost too much to bear… his lips had cracked and it felt as if he'd swallowed hot coals.

Then the tunnel opened into a chamber. 

And Kallen saw it.

The Titan wasn't coiled in some grand lair. It wasn't even asleep or lying dormant. It was trapped.

Massive chains of crimson coral, each link thicker than Kallen himself crisscrossed its body, pinning those mighty wings, sharp claws, and thrashing tail. The coral glew red-hot where it touched the Titan's scales, steam boiling off in furious geysers. The beast itself was emaciated, its reptilian features diminished, ribs pressing against scaled flesh. The once red hide dulled to the color of dried old blood.

But those eyes. Two furious pits of molten gold locked onto him. 

Only a brief moment had passed since Kallen had entered into the new chamber, meaning the chain reaction of exploding scales was imminent. 

He reacted on pure instinct, doing something he hadn't even considered when he'd come to the cave. Something he didn't even consciously think about.

Kallen summoned his trident. A divine tool. The most powerful thing in his soul arsenal, a Memory that could only be used against a worthy opponent. Iit formed in his hands, a torrent of white sparks reaching him at just the right time.

A certain unexplainable power erupted inside of him as the golden metal graced his fingers, and then his palm, channeling through him and nearly stealing his breath away. 

In the same instant, he activated one of the Trident's seven enchantment's, [Earthshaker]. The ground around Kallen warped, shifting around him and drawing from the surroundings. Every grain of silt, every molecule, every atom in his near vicinity answered his call, condensing around him layer after layer. It compressed into a dome so impeccable that it would have appeared sculpted by the gods.

Something rocked his dome of perfect earth. Kallen felt an enormous strain coming from somewhere deep inside him as he maintained it; and so after the cacophony of explosions died down, he let his shelter fall as well.

Shit!

[Tideweaver] mixed with Ocean's Wrath, forced him to the side quicker than he could've with just one of the abilities. 

A breath of scalding, boiling hot fire billowed past him, smashing against the far wall of the cave before its composition failed it.

For a brief moment, Kallen noticed a slight concave in the floor near the dragon. It was located in a spot that had previously been constructed of Crimson Coral, holding the Titan down and feeding off of it. 

Now that part was gone. And the minor structural failure allowed the dragon a brief bit of movement. It was enough to set it free.

There was no time to think. Only to react. Kallen turned to flee… and the trident disappeared. 

He faltered for a moment. 

Come back! he willed, but after an agonizing few seconds, nothing happened, and the dragon across from him was still working on breaking free. 

Cursing, Kallen forced himself out of the opening, squeezing in between the gap of the narrow tunnel. Behind, he could hear the sounds of the Titan's hulking Crimson chains snapping under its newfound strength.

It roared, followed by a loud crash. 

Fire came hurtling down the hallway after him. He didn't even glance back as he applied a more complicated application of his aspect, twisting himself like a bullet, and shooting out the entrance of the cave just as the blast of fire reached him.

A sharp, burning pain came from his back. He couldn't see it, but he knew that his armor had been chewed through by the flame.

He cursed again, trying to rise as quickly as possible, but in the next moment, the dragon appeared. Its face was that of desolation itself, a ruin of melted scales and exposed bone. Its jaw unhinged revealing rows of ruined fangs. One of its horns had been sheared off, regrowing as a mass of coral, weeping red fluid.

There was real hate in its eyes.

Kallen didn't think. He threw himself upward, water surging around him in a vicious spiral. The dragon's maw snapped shut where his legs had been, and the force of its bite sent a shockwave through the water that kicked up dust from the seabed beneath them. 

Kai! He shouted in his mind. There was no sign of the idol. Kallen couldn't see him through the haze of darkness.

No time to wonder.

The dragon lunged, still half-restricted by the chains pinning its wings to its side. It lashed out with a ruinous claw. Kallen barely dodged, but the wake of its swing sent him tumbling. 

He righted himself.

Then the Titan inhaled. The water around him warped, rushing toward the beast's maw in a swirling vortex. Kallen managed to overcome the pull, legs kicking wildly.

It's going to shoot fire.

The thought came a second before the creature's throat ignited.

Kallen shoved himself to the side. Right where it wanted him to go. Right where one of its few healthy scales was flanking him. The detonation came just as the helmet of his armor formed over his face.

The explosion sent him spiraling to the ground, below the dragon. He hit the seafloor where a cloud of smoke had formed, and the beast followed only a few seconds after.

Kallen looked out of the ruined mask of his armor, seeing the Titan diving for him, mouth agape. He snarled, Olympus's Boon forming into his hands once more. Power surged once more, and he activated [Stormcaller], his intuition telling him it was the best option in this moment. 

A brief second, then light. A blinding bolt of white hot energy and destruction smited down from the heavens, striking the dragon through the top of its head. Then another. Then another. Dozens of bolts crashed down in the span of half a second. 

Kallen forced himself past the dragon, facing it the whole time so that his weapon didn't disappear. The lightning's fury hammered the Titan into the seabed, arcs of electricity searing through its scales. The thing roared, body convulsing, turning the dark-sea into a cauldron of searing light.

For one desperate moment, Kallen thought it might be enough. But through the fog of cloudy, dark water, he saw something that filled his heart with dread. The chains holding its wings had shattered. 

The Titan's wings—twisted things of bone and ragged membrane—unfurled with the sound of tearing leather. The remaining shackles snapped, and it rose, twitching, its body wreathed in steam and flame.

Kallen's gut twisted. It can fly now.

His trident trembled with anger in his grip, but its divine energy drained him with every passing second. He could feel it, the enchantments locking away, barred by his own limitations. 

There was only one option left. He couldn't get close enough to the dragon to strike, the heat it omitted was far too hot. All he could do now was throw it.

But the dragon was already moving, its wings churning the water into a maelstrom as it lunged after him. Kallen's mind raced. He needed force, enough to pierce through those scales before it could dodge or counter.

Then he remembered something. A technique he had developed, and then been forbidden from using by Naeve. The Mantis Fist. Storing energy, compressing it, then releasing it all at once.

It could work…

Only this time he wouldn't use his own body as the conduit.

Kallen exhaled, and the water around the trident warped. A vortex spiraled around his golden weapon, tighter and tighter, pressure building until the divine tool's golden metal hummed with anticipation. His muscles burned, bones ached, but he held on.

The dragon was fifty feet away. Twenty. Ten.

Now.

He released.

A deep groan came from Kallen's soul as the vortex detonated, propelling the trident forward like a harpoon fired from a divine ballista. Water parted in its wake, a swirling vacuum forming as it streaked toward the Titan's head. 

And it struck.

Kallen's aim hadn't been true, missing his intended target. But the impact sent a shockwave through the dark sea. The trident buried itself through the left eye of the dragon, piercing through and driving a hole out its head and into its wing.

Pain lanced through his shoulder.

The titan staggered.

Its screaming roar tore outward, attracting anything within a few miles. Golden ichor thick as lava poured from its ruined eye, swirling in the water. The remaining eye fixed on Kallen, brimming with hatred.

His triumph turned to ice in his veins. The trident dissolved into the distance as he dismissed it into his soul sea. But then, strangely, his armor dissolved into white sparks as well.

A fresh wave of pain wracked Kallen from within. He couldn't understand why, but his armor wouldn't reform, and he was strangely exhausted. 

What…

Then the Nightmare Creature inhaled again.

He knew what came next. He made an underwater dash, trying to summon Ocean's Wrath to aid him, but even it wouldn't show. He willed it to aid him, but it wouldn't.

Kallen almost felt too exhausted to care. But when the flame spilled out of the Titan's mouth, and death reared its ugly head, he found that could muster the courage to at least die facing his opponent.

Right before his world became pain, before the flame unmade him, something—someone slammed into him from the side, tackling him out of the way just in time.