Every step Valen took seems like it was an earthquake.
Kaelen understood that his world no longer followed the laws.
A single stride sent ripples through the leather that sent gusts of displaced air that would have wrenched his fragile, insubstantial body from the thread-bound seam had he not been clinging to it with all of his might.
[Biological Decay Timer: 140 seconds.]
Move.
Now.
Kaelen pulled himself along the stitching, struggling against a current of air that wouldn’t have meaningfully affected any creature heavier than a feather, feeling the strain in his own body as he was forced to conform to its expectations in ways that made the timer’s steady count feel less like a threat and more like a mockery
“Structural scan ongoing.”
No viable means of ingress has been found yet.
Search continues…
I know.
I’m doing it.
It was on the inner crease of the heal, hidden within the crook of an overlapping section of leather Kaelen would have bled to get to that he spotted the minuscule pore where the runed enchantments had left a gap in their protection, a space no faster than some conjured by the most patient of mages’ hands would have been able to slip through during the weaving process.
[Ding!] [Structural Flaw Detected]
[Holy Aura Saturation at Flaw Point: 12% — Significantly Reduced]
Two thousand something in decimal?
Kaelen thought, feeling something not unlike hope bloom in his chest.
Not safe
A layer of dead skin and salt had plugged the opening with considerable tightness, something that would take far longer to bore its way through than he had time to waste.
[Biological Decay Timer: 97 seconds.]
There was no room for hesitation, no time for thought.
What came next was no better than the mercy it was, but it had been enough for a dying wolf in a decaying forest weeks ago and that was more than enough for Kaelen.
[Ding!]
[Emergency Reactive Mutation: Corrosive Secretion]
[Effect: Localized tissue and mineral mass dissolution via excretion of acidic enzymes]
An oily film of his own making excreted itself from his body at the point of pressure and the sealed mass of dead skin and salt began to break down, hissing and smoking as it did.
Unregistered trait manifestation
His companion’s voice was almost impressed as it filtered through the channel in his mind.
Your organism is continuing to generate survivalist mutations outside the normal parameters of evolution.
Noted for later analysis.
You can analyze me after I get through this, if you don’t mind.
[Timers: 61 seconds]
The bundle of dead tissue unclamped itself with a sound like wet leather, the plug gone and the pore wide open and waiting.
Kaelen pushed himself through without a second’s hesitation, tumbling headfirst down the narrow passage his vision filling with the unmistakable scent and texture of skin, even on the impossibly vast scale he had been compressed to.
[Barriers Breached]
[Warning: Holy Aura Perimeter Bypassed — Barrier Flaw Point Accessed]
“Confirmed clean access,”
Nix’s voice was distant, almost dreamlike, “No external alarm triggered.
You are inside.”
For a moment Kaelen let himself bask in the surreal enormity of this particular turn of events.
A scout, then a worm and now something small enough and patient enough to slip past the one thing in the world that was designed specifically to keep things like him out and out entirely unnoticed.
[Timers: 34 seconds]
No time to bask, no time to think only move, skin, find the vein
The instant Kaelen’s body made actual contact with Valen’s physical matter, a change came over him.
It was nothing like the chaos of a wolf’s blood but it was just as impossibly vast something that thrummed with an organization that made even the well-oiled machine of the wolf’s circulatory system seem like a child’s toy.
It sent shivers of recognition and longing down Kaelen’s impossibly thin spine, an almost painfully familiar sensation of warmth and light vibrating through the pressurized walls of his body despite the sheer impossibility of being anywhere this large.
[Timer Cancelled — Host Contact Established]
[Ding!
Emergency Infection Protocol Available]
Just a little further Kaelen thought, feeling his entire body relax in the strange relief granted by the sudden change.
[WARNING: An important warning–]
[Divine Bloodline Immune Response Detected]
[Target biological system forcibly seeking out and destroying invasive organic materials]
Of course it does.
The instant Kaelen’s body registered the presence of the foreign invader, the sensation of presence of some pressure building up around him, the feeling of the body it was happening to invading beginning to press in closer, he felt the familiar sting of rejection and repulsion.
Cells were surging towards his present location, thick and fast enough to make every white blood cell that had ever fought in defense of the wolf inside his arm feel like a pack of ambling babies, all speed and no skill.
[Threat Assessment: Immune Response Efficiency — Exceptional]
[Estimated Time to Neutralization if Unmitigated: 45 seconds]
Forty five seconds to get through to an artery, forty five seconds to die by the hand of the finest immune system nature had ever seen.
“Recommend immediate evasive action,” Nix’s voice was steady, sure as Kaelen had ever heard, “Direct action opposition to something of this caliber is not recommended in your current state of health.”
Understatement of the decade, Kaelen thought as he tore through the tissue, faster this time, feeling his body narrow itself in size just to get through some of the tighter passages, his body feeling the edge of something scrape along the length of his spine, pealing away another fragment of his substance before he forced himself through another threshold.
Just keep moving, keep moving keep moving!
HP: 1/1 — Critical.
Cells had found him.
Not the fast ones, the slow ones had given up searching and were beginning to gather at the edges, closing in to meet the fast ones as they surged towards him in tight formation.
Outside in the maw of an unforgiving world, Valen’s foot met the ground and shifted.
One of the knightly attendants at his side paused their steady progress with a thoughtful frown as Valen’s armored hand rose to his chest, pressing lightly with concerned curiosity at his breastplate as though the metal itself might contain some information pertinent to the matter at hand.
“Sir Valen?”
“Nothing,” the Knight-Commander’s voice was uncharacteristically tight with something almost akin to fear, “I’m fine.”
His breath caught, uneven and unsteady and for the first time since Kaelen had been observing him from the shadows, an actual look of bewilderment crossed Valen’s golden, unblemished face as he ran his fingers along the seams of his armor, the sensation of something not quite right beginning to settle along his bones like the first inkling of illness.