CHAPTER 93: VESTIGES OF TIME LONG PAST

The further up he climbed, he saw things that would make any Archon or any Preceptor, no matter how strong, go weak in their knees.

Leviathans. Horrors from the deep. Things that had no names because nothing that saw them lived to name them.

They swam through the frozen wave, moving in their own pockets of trapped time. Massive serpentine things covered in scales the size of a large ship. They wound through the frozen water in pursuit of the many climbing vessels, as if seeking to bury them forever.

Their jaws were stretched wide open, enough to swallow a city block, with rows of teeth like building-sized blades gleaming under the storm’s lightning.

But Finn moved past all of them without batting an eye.

He weaved through, following the rhythm of error that only he could feel. His flight path brought him perilously close to the frozen sea. So close that the displacement from his movement left ripples below. So close that he could see his reflection on the sea’s surface, lit by the chaotic lightning display tearing through the darkness.

And in this moment of placid observation, below the frozen sea, within its own pocket of time, his eyes met one of the leviathan’s.

Just for an instant. Just for that fraction of a heartbeat that stretched across two different streams of time. They regarded each other.

The Leviathan’s massive eye the size of a house lingered on Finn within that split second. And within it, something flickered.

Recognition? Hunger? Surprise that anything was able to move at all?

The creature’s massive head began to turn, tracking Finn’s movement across the boundary of two different time-streams. For one terrifying moment, it seemed as if the leviathan might break free of its temporal cage through sheer force of will. As if Finn’s presence had reminded it that escape was possible.

But before anything happened, Finn was already gone.

He continued to climb higher.

The wave seemed endless, stretching up and up into the stormy dark sky. But gradually, a crest became visible. The peak of the frozen apocalyptic wave, where water met the sky.

Finn mindlessly continued towards it.

More ships passed by in his peripheral vision, some climbing up and some climbing down, but all with a much different design, almost as if they were of a different age... A later age.

More creatures blurred by. More pockets of trapped time where everything within had been frozen mid-motion blurred by.

And then, finally, he reached the peak.

Finn crested it slowly, carefully weaving through a path to the absolute top. And there, immediately he crested... immediately his eyes took in the view, the trance state he was in threatened to break for a second.

Behind him, in the far distance, the Weald forest spread out like a patch of featureless green. From this height, the massive, prehistoric-looking forest he’d fled from looked like a section of a map rather than a real place.

Needless to say, the Husk leader couldn’t be seen from this height. He couldn’t even be registered as a speck even if Finn tried.

And before Finn, ahead... Lay an island — An island so vast, it remained large even from this height that made the world seem small.

Its terrain was diverse. It was covered in patches of green that signified jungles, covered in icy blue that signified tundra, and covered in patches of bronze and red...

Finn regarded it all without reaction, grounding his mind solidly back into the trance state as he descended.

He noted more ships on this side. All with totally different designs.

These were much newer. Built in a much later age than the ones on the other side.

Besides them, he also spotted Leviathans. And also, something totally new.

Titans.

That was the only word to describe them.

They were humanoid giants so massive that their heads would have broken through the dark clouds if they stood.

But they weren’t standing. They were drowning. Sinking into the frozen sea with their enormous hands stretched upward, as if even they, for all their size, couldn’t help but succumb to the might of the Stagnant sea.

The sight made Finn’s trance state shake again.

And in that brief moment, he questioned how long they had been trapped this way. He questioned how long they would continue reaching for salvation that would never come.

He forced his mind to remain bare, trying to hold on to the trance state for as long as he could to descend safely.

But the clarity was fading. His mind knew most of the danger had passed. The immediate threat of the Husk leader was gone, left far behind him on the other side of the wave.

And even the wave that he had felt was certain death, the same wave of the Stagnant sea that had trapped titans and Leviathans, had almost been fully crossed by him.

So without the threat of imminent death breathing down his neck, he now struggled to maintain absolute immersion of the Error fragment he was embodying.

Still, he moved. Weaving down through the safer paths, avoiding the pockets of broken time, navigating around the drowning titans and the wrecked ships and the hunting leviathans.

Until finally, the sea level approached. Normal waters waited below. And beyond it, growing larger with each passing moment, was a shoreline that he could see.

A new shore. A new island... and hopefully safety.

He had just descended, finally dropping to sea level again, leaving the towering wave of the Stagnant sea behind, when, as if his body couldn’t take it any longer, the backlash of the Error fragment he’d used for so long rocked his mind abruptly.

It came all at once, hammering his brain with a wave of agony that had been held at bay by necessity of survival.

Blood burst from Finn’s seven orifices, spurting like a stream. His eyes wept red. His ears bled trickles of crimson. His nose and mouth fountained gore that the wind caught and scattered in droplets like a trail behind him.

His vision darkened immediately. The shoreline ahead blurred and doubled in his eyes. His wings suddenly felt heavy like lead weights. Each beat became taxing, requiring conscious effort that became harder and harder to maintain.

J—Just a bit... more—

His body started to skim across the surface of the water as he swayed drunkenly in the air. All while he fought to maintain altitude even if he could just glide the rest of the way.

But his body was shutting down. The blood loss alone should have killed him. He could already feel his head throbbing madly like it was being pounded by a hammer.

The damage from pushing the fragment that hard for that long seemed to have really done a number on his brain.

He tumbled through the air, catching himself and falling again.

The shore grew larger in his view. Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty...

Just a little more... J—Just—

At twenty meters from the shore, Finn’s wings finally gave out. His vision went completely dark as his consciousness slowly faded.

He felt himself falling, then hitting the water immediately.

And then nothing.

He would have tried to struggle if he could. But he couldn’t.

He allowed the darkness to swallow him whole as his mind finally found rest.

But as his consciousness finally faded, he seemed to have heard a din of voices coming from far away...