Elder Cultivator

Chapter 990

Chapter 990

The inverted sensor did not explode. Nor did it implode. Whether or not they would be able to extract useful readings from it later was another question. No doubt it would have a phenomenal amount of information to record if it was functional.

Simply figuring out how to move around in the space was more complicated than it seemed. Occasionally the group would run into each other where someone had just been... or, seemingly, was about to be.

Traveling in a particular direction was more difficult than it seemed, as walls and the like seemed to move. From certain perspectives, they appeared to be surrounded on all sides- but just a slight movement and they might seem free to travel in all directions.

Alva furrowed her brow. “I think I’m beginning to figure it out.”

“Yeah?” Velvet asked. “It’s not really clicking.”

“Just give me ten years and I’ll have a decent explanation of how this works,” Alva said. “Maybe.”

So far, they had been cautious about damaging any walls. That was because of the break Alva had detected at the edge. Catarina also had something to say about the dimension’s stability as well.

“I think... something happened to this location,” Catarina said. “Or it’s a very convincing disaster. First evidence- no bodies. Second evidence- no guardians. Third, no treasures.”

“Just poison,” Fuzz growled.

“I don’t know if it is poison,” Velvet commented. “Though I guess I don’t have a better word for it? It’s certainly not something we want in or around us. But it might not have that purpose. It could be a coincidence.”

“What is it, then?” Fuzz asked.

“It feels like...” Velvet frowned. “I don’t really want to say-”

“Distortion beast,” Alva concluded. “Not because I recognized this particular thing, though. Instead, it’s... that.” Alva waved her arm vaguely in an arc. Even that wasn’t sufficient for what she was pointing out.

Her senses had been freaking out for a while. Expanding and contracting, revealing everything and nothing. Now, they were expanded again- and she figured something out. “I don’t mean to panic anyone, but I think the space is being eaten by a distortion beast. This time, I’d say it’s a worm. The good news is we’re surrounded by walls and we’re not going to have teeth from all directions.”

“What’s the bad news?” Timothy asked, holding his shield at the ready.

“It’s still gonna be a full cylinder of teeth. And this thing might eat our ship. Or Metenin.”

“Well we can’t allow that,” Catarina said. “It would be quite difficult to dig our way back out to realspace if it eats the intervening stable zones.”

“Should we hurry...?” Velvet asked.

“I think it’s been here for a while,” Alva said. “So we’d better try to avoid startling it. It’s weird, though. I can see... most of it?”

“That’s because we’re in one of the layers they hide their vital organs,” Catarina said. “We might be able to ambush it instead of the other way around.”

“If you can ambush a moon, sure,” Alva said.

Fuzz shook his head. “I’m splitting off.”

“Me as well,” Velvet said. “I’m hoping... to find some soft spots.” She held up her voidsteel blade. Some parts of distortion beasts were incredibly durable, but just like everything else there were weak points. And they might actually have access to them here.

-----

Smashing golems was fun. Durff didn’t care that space was a bit weird, and he honestly found it quite useful because he sometimes smashed things from the inside. Other times his hammer got stuck inside the fist of a golem or inside his own hands, but he managed to carefully extract it with a bit of effort from the more important of those things. His hands, obviously. Though maybe if he messed them up he could take some golem hands?

There had been a half dozen big ones guarding some sort of vault, and then the vault had tried to smash them when they entered it. Durff had something like three broken arms, and he’d never had more than two of those before. Oh, that was a golem arm kinda stuck in him.

But the inside of the vault was pretty cool. It had a bunch of shiny metal that was probably good for making stuff out of, and a glowing rock.

“Nice,” Durff said. He turned to look at everyone else. Jyotsana had blood trickling down her forehead, and her eyes were literally on fire. He waved his arm in front of her, but they were focused on the glowing rock. “Hey you alright?”

“Is that...?” Juli whispered towards her brother.

“I have no idea,” Misi admitted. “But... it might be.”

“Might be what?” Durff asked.

“A fragment of... starheart...” Misi said, as if it was difficult somehow.

Durff tilted his head. “Can you make a good hammer out of it?”

“I think you can make anything out of it,” Misi frowned.

“It would be a pretty small hammer,” Durff said, reaching forward to pick it up, a small object the size of a pebble. It was... heavy. He had to really put his back into it. The floor cracked as he held it up.

Space cracked. It was probably unrelated, but that was when the snake showed up. At least Durff thought it was a snake. What else was that long and had spiky things?

One moment, it wasn’t there. A moment later, and it was everywhere. Durff wasn’t what people called ‘highly perceptive’, but even he could feel the snake as it suddenly surrounded them, intruding spikes into their little dimension. Well, pretty big dimension. They’d been walking around for what, days, weeks? Either way, they were trying to figure out how to get out. There wasn’t much point in their cool cultivation advancements if they couldn’t.

One of the fangs- that was what snakes had, right?- one of the fangs tried to stab either Durff or the glowing rock. Personally, he didn’t like either result, so he yanked himself away. When it did, the fragment starheart went somewhere. Or stopped being somewhere? It was gone.

“That’s a big snake,” Durff commented.

“Distortion beast!” Misi cried out. “Planet devouring class!”

“Oh, good,” Durff said. “I was worried it would try to eat us.”