Chapter 308: The Stagnant Sea Again

With a sudden burst, the terrifying pressure from before emanated from his body. Except, this time it was much more terrifying. It wasn’t just a use of his Error Vision, he was coating his entire body with his Error nature. Making his entire form an anomaly to the world in and of itself. The reality around him began to warp and stutter, the colors of the world bleeding into shades of neon green and absolute void as he rewrote his own presence.

The erratic disturbance alerted Madoc and Osmund where they were, signaling that it was time to go. They quickly gave their last orders and rushed to the shore, just in time to see Finn start a soul chant.

It was very silent and subtle, their ears could barely pick up the sound through the oppressive emanations of Error magic roiling off of Finn like a cascade. Despite the safe distance they stood, it was a task just to keep their legs from trembling from the strain alone. But at least they could manage.

It was for this reason they were still of sound mind enough to pick up on the quiet soul chants Finn was reciting.

An assimilation chant? Madoc and Osmund looked between themselves. Finn was chanting edicts meant to be used when assimilating a soul mass…

But the issue was… there was none in sight!

What then was he assimilating?

The two space fragment bearers could only watch curiously as Finn recited the whole chant, even going as far as to use a full thirteen-word edict despite his extraordinary soul strength! Just what was he trying to assimilate?

They didn’t get to finish that thought when suddenly, without any build-up or preamble whatsoever, the surroundings darkened like it had turned to night…

No.

It wasn’t night. They could still see the light of the sun when they looked to the distant sides and horizon.

Above!

Their heads whipped up sharply, and immediately, their pupils dilated in shock.

Floating above them like an apparition, was an impossible serpentine creature. Osmund took a step back instinctively, but didn’t know when he fell to his bottom. His legs had simply given out under the weight of the sheer physical and spiritual scale of the summon.

This thing was not logically possible. All that filled their view were scales the size of Finn’s Storm Prowler Wolf, Syf, which was already a terrifying sight to behold on her own.

There were thousands of such scales on this creature that hung in the sky above them, swimming and coiling slowly through air, blotting out the entire sun with its black, obsidian mass. Each scale had a faint green sheen that hummed with the same Error energy Finn emitted, making the beast feel like an extension of his own soul.

From their vantage point, they couldn’t even see the head. All they knew was that they were staring at its belly… probably. The creature was so long that it seemed to stretch from one horizon to the other, a monolithic entity that ignored the gravity of the world.

A slow, but majestic cry tore through the air from the distance where they guessed the head was, vibrating the very grounds they stood on. The sound was deep, resonant, and carried an authority that made the Stagnant Sea itself seem to ripple in response.

A peak Calamity Grade beast?

No. Even that seemed too little a term to classify this… this monolithic aberration of a creature.

The two space fragment bearers watched with wide eyes, refusing to believe such a creature once roamed this world at all. In fact, it was an unspoken conclusion the both of them came to separately: There was no way such a creature had ever lived or existed in this world…

This was surely a creature of another world.

Which begged the question: just how had Finn gotten his hands on such a thing? Where had he gotten it from? And more importantly, how was he able to assimilate such a monolith of power totally, stably, and with such ease as he had?

Those thirteen words he’d chanted earlier now seemed severely insufficient to them looking at what he’d summoned with those few words!

The beast lowered its massive body, the obsidian scales brushing against the top of the treeline back towards the center of the island as it descended toward the shore. Its green, glowing eyes finally came into view, each one larger than a village hut, filled with a terrifying, deep and ancient intelligence.

“Are you not coming?”

They were broken out of their stupor as they heard Finn’s voice call out to them from where he stood. He was already standing atop the creature’s head, looking as comfortable as if he were on a solid mountain.

“It’s time to cross the Stagnant Sea.”

Madoc and Osmund scrambled to their feet, their hearts hammering against their ribs. They moved forward, their bodies feeling light and fragile in the shadow of the serpent. Finn reached out, his Error magic expanding in a shimmering, green dome that encapsulated the top of the beast’s head.

As they stepped onto the obsidian scales, they felt the strange, buzzing energy of the Error nature. It was an anomaly that shielded them from the laws of the world.

“Hold on,” Finn said calmly. “The transition will be jarring.”

The massive serpentine dragon began to move, its body coiling and striking forward like a whip. It flew with an immense speed for its size, carving through the space between the shore and the sea in no time.

The moment they crossed the threshold into the Stagnant Sea’s influence, the world changed. The familiar weight of the atmosphere vanished, replaced by a weightless void that made Madoc and Osmund’s stomachs flip. Yet, at the same time, an all-encompassing pressure descended on their bones, as if the same gravity that had fled from the air had moved inside their bodies.

Finn didn’t flinch. He stood at the very front of the beast’s head, his eyes glowing with his Error Vision. Unlike the first time he had faced this Stagnant Sea, he wasn’t in a trance this time. He was standing with absolute authority, his gaze cutting through the fractured time and broken space easily.

He could see every path, every flaw, and every seam in Casmir’s masterpiece. Where he had once moved on pure instinct and grit, he now navigated with precision like it was nothing.

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