Chapter 137: Abyssal
The castle was quiet. Fin sat on the stone floor. Every muscle was sore. His head throbbed. The Mark on his chest glowed a dull red. His domain felt weaker than usual.
Meg coughed. She pushed hair out of her eyes. "Fin? Are you okay?" Her voice was shaky. She looked nervous.
Arachne got to her feet. She wobbled a bit, one hand pressed to her side. "My Lord," she said, her voice tight. "That was the Abyssal Lock. I never imagined. The old stories are true."
"Stories?" Fin asked. His throat felt dry. He stood up, a bit dizzy. "What stories?"
"It's a prison," Arachne said, her eyes looking distant. "The first Admins built it. To contain things they couldn't destroy. Things from a very long time ago."
Fin didn't ask what was before that. He needed to know something else. He looked around the main hall. It was empty. Just the three of them.
"Scarlet," he said, his voice sharp. "Mara. Where are they?"
Meg looked confused. "Weren't they with us?"
Arachne looked at Fin, focusing. "My Lord, they remained outside that room. In the Spire's lower levels. When you opened the door to the Lock, they were still fighting Unit 7."
Fin felt a sick feeling in his stomach. He'd been focused on Meg and Arachne, on escaping the Lock. He'd forgotten them. He'd closed the door. He'd left them there with Association killers. And who knew what else.
He felt angry. This was his fault. He'd dragged them into this.
"Damn it," he said, clenching his fists. The Mark on his chest pulsed red. He felt how weak his domain was, how tired he was. Opening another portal now, back to the Spire, would be bad. Probably too risky.
He didn't care.
"Arachne," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "How fast can you be ready to fight?"
Arachne straightened up, seeming to push her exhaustion away. "I can manage, my Lord. Give me ten minutes. I will be adequate."
"Meg," he said, looking at her. She looked scared but met his gaze. "Stay here. Seal the castle if anything tries to return. Use the main hall control Arachne showed you."
"Fin, no!" Meg cried, grabbing his arm. "You can't go back there! You barely got out! And the castle, Arachne said your domain is weak!"
"They're stuck because of me," he said, his voice final. He gently removed her hand from his arm. "I'm not leaving them."
He closed his eyes, pushing down the pain and tiredness. He pictured the tunnel outside the Abyssal Lock chamber, the smell of gas, the Association armor. He focused on the Mark, pushing his will into it, forcing a response.
Reality tore open in front of him again. This portal was smaller, unsteady, flickering like bad reception. It made an angry, crackling sound.
"That looks bad," Meg said, backing away from it.
"It'll hold," Fin said, feeling himself weaken further as his domain protested. "Long enough." He looked at Arachne. "Ready?"
She nodded, pulling out her two dark knives, her expression determined.
"Watch our backs, Meg," Fin said, giving her one last look. Then he stepped into the shimmering tear. Arachne followed.
The portal snapped shut. Meg was alone in the large, quiet hall.
---
The air was hot and thick. It stank of burnt metal and gas, and something else, something like cooked meat. Fin stumbled out of the portal. The jump had been rough. The tunnel outside the Abyssal Lock chamber was a wreck.
The reinforced door to the Lock chamber was shut. But the tunnel itself was destroyed. Walls were blackened and buckled. Pipes were broken, hissing hot steam and noxious fumes. And there were bodies.
Three Unit 7 members lay twisted on the metal floor. Their armor was blackened and melted in places. Limbs were bent at unnatural angles. They weren't just dead. Parts of them were missing, as if vaporized.
In the middle of the carnage, Scarlet leaned against a section of wall that was mostly intact.
Her red hair was matted with blood and grime. Her clothes were torn and scorched. Ugly burns blistered her visible skin. One arm hung limp and useless, clearly broken. She clutched a large, smoking Association firearm in her good hand, its power cell dead. She'd obviously been using it as a club. More bodies lay around her – two or three more Unit 7 operatives, barely distinguishable from the melted armor and charred flesh.
She looked up as Fin and Arachne emerged. A wild, manic, and furious grin spread across her bloody face.
"Took you long enough, Boss," she rasped, then coughed, spitting a thick glob of bloody phlegm onto the floor. "Party got a little out of hand after you left."
Fin stared at the scene, at Scarlet. He'd expected her to be dead, or captured. Not this. Not the last one standing after an elite Association kill squad was annihilated.
"What did you do?" he asked, his voice very quiet.
The portal vanished behind them, leaving Fin and Arachne in the hot, stinking tunnel. The strong smell of gas and cooked meat filled the air.
Fin stumbled again; his domain was really unhappy about that portal jump.
He looked up, and the scene almost made him forget how to breathe.
The reinforced door to the Abyssal Lock chamber was still closed. That was a relief.
But the tunnel was an absolute disaster.
Walls were black from fire. Metal was twisted and torn apart.
Pipes had burst. Steam hissed out. Nasty fumes burned his eyes.
Then he saw the bodies.
Three of them. Bent into weird positions. Their Unit 7 armor was melted.
They weren't just dead. Bits of them were just gone. Like they'd simply vanished into thin air.
In the middle of all this, Scarlet was leaning against a wall that was somehow still standing.
Her red hair was caked with blood and dirt.
Her clothes were ripped, some parts just gone. He could see angry, bubbling burns on her arms and neck.
One arm hung completely limp. It was definitely broken.
But in her good hand, she was gripping a big, smoking Association gun. The power was out. She was holding it like a club.
She was surrounded by more bodies.
At least two more Unit 7 guys. Maybe three. It was hard to tell. They mostly looked like melted armor and burnt meat.
She looked up when he and Arachne stepped out of the fading light of the portal.
A wild, almost crazed grin stretched across her bloody face.
"Took you long enough, Boss," she said, her voice all rough.
She coughed, a wet, nasty sound. She spat a thick clump of bloody stuff onto the ruined floor.
"The party got a little out of hand after you left."
Fin just stared.
At the bodies. At the wreckage. At her.
He'd figured she'd be dead. Or captured.
Not... this. Not the queen of this awful mess.
"What did you do?" he finally managed to say. His voice was really quiet.
This wasn't just a fight. This was pure destruction.
Scarlet's manic grin got even wider.
She tried to shrug with her good shoulder but winced hard. It clearly hurt a lot.
"Just returning the favor, Boss," she rasped. "They wanted to play rough. So I showed 'em how it's done."
She nudged the smoking gun towards the melted remains of a Unit 7 operative.
"Turns out," she coughed, that wet sound again, "when you get really, really pissed off... things just kinda... pop."
Fin stared at her, then at the devastation.
Pop?
Unit 7 commandos were S-rank badasses. Scarlet herself had said that. They didn't just 'pop'.
This wasn't some knife fight. This was... something else entirely.
The sheer level of destruction. The way they died. It was like a tiny sun had gone off in this tunnel.
And Scarlet was at the center of it. Burned and broken. But smiling like a demon.
Arachne moved forward silently. She took in the destruction, then focused on Scarlet's injuries.
Her usual calm expression was tight. Her eyes were wide. She looked shocked. And something else. It was almost like respect.
"Your internal energy is... chaotic," Arachne said, her voice low, like she was amazed. "The power you received... it appears to have catalyzed something beyond a minor enhancement."
Scarlet just laughed, a harsh, loud sound that ended in a pained grunt.
"Yeah, well, tell that to my arm."
She glanced down at her broken limb, then back at Fin. Her smile faded a little.
"Speaking of which, Boss... a little healing mojo would be great right about now. Think I'm running on fumes and pure rage."
Fin nodded, pushing down his own shock and exhaustion.
Later. He'd figure out what Scarlet was capable of later.
Right now, she was alive. Badly hurt.
And...
"Mara," he said, his voice sharp, cutting through the smoke and the smell of death.
His eyes scanned the ruined tunnel. He didn't see her.
Just bodies. Association bodies.
"Where is Mara?"
Scarlet's smile vanished completely.
Her face, already pale under the grime, went even whiter.
"Mara..." she mumbled, her good hand tightening on the useless gun. "Shit."
Her eyes darted to the closed door of the Abyssal Lock chamber.
"When those... things," she gestured at the nearest melted corpse, "blew through the outer defenses, I told her to get inside. Through that door you sealed. Figured it'd be safer in there than out here with me going nuclear."
Fin felt a cold dread wash over him.
Safer?
Inside the Abyssal Lock chamber?
With whatever ancient, terrifying entity resided in there?
The thing he'd barely escaped from?
'No. No, no, no.'
"You sent her in there?" he said, his voice tight with disbelief. A fresh wave of horror hit him.
The Mark on his chest, still aching, seemed to flare in response.
The Abyssal Lock.
It had sensed him. It had reacted to him.
What would it do to a normal human? A human like Mara. No powers. Nothing to offer it but fear.