A grit-storm descended. It churned the air, a dry, rasping breath across the Chasm-Basin. Stone-dust, fine as flour, scoured the exposed skin, leaving raw trails even through brief exposure. This maelstrom held no power over Corin.
His connection ran deeper. The wind’s clawed touch, the stinging grit – these were but surface irritations. The earth beneath him, even in its most broken forms, was an extension of himself. Though his reach was finite, it was more than enough to shield his form in this desolate expanse.
Heat shimmered by day, cold gnawed by night. A coat of cured Chasm-Beast hide clung to him, thin and light. Its unique properties insulated him from the worst, keeping him cool under the searing sun, preserving what warmth he had against the deep chill. It conserved his very being.
Stepping beside Eldrin, Corin’s gaze swept the horizon. Nothing but the endless, scoured landscape met his eye. No towering petrified titan, no jagged ridge. Just the vast, featureless stretch of ground where humanity felt utterly lost.
Ahead, Eldrin moved with an unnerving purpose. He never faltered, never looked back. Only those driven by an absolute conviction could traverse such desolation with such unwavering resolve.
Days blurred into an endless march. Eldrin spoke little, his past and purpose veiled in silence. Yet each evening, as the sun bled away, he would sit, an ancient Aethel-shard before him. He’d speak to it, quiet words lost to the wind, his face softening with a profound, almost painful tenderness.
Corin had once dismissed it as the madness of the waste. A talking stone? Yet the ritual repeated, night after night. Eldrin’s eyes, usually hard as flint, would hold a distant, aching light when he communed with the shard. Dawn always brought the return of that stern, fierce glint, a raw fury that seemed capable of tearing apart the very bones of the world.
He chewed on dried Chasm-Beast jerky, the taste like dust in his mouth. Since consuming the beast’s heart-meat and bile-sac, Corin’s body had changed. All soft tissue had given way to taut, unyielding muscle. He walked without weariness, oblivious to the journey’s brutal toll.
Without Eldrin, Corin would never have known of the Chasm-Beast, nor its transformative power. Who was this ancient man? What ancient burden drove him? Why did Corin follow?
Questions coiled in his mind, sharp as stone splinters. Asking Eldrin seemed futile. There was a silence about him, deeper than any chasm, that forbade such casual trespass.
Corin swallowed the last of the jerky. His throat felt parched. He reached into his coat, pulling out a leather flask, also crafted from Chasm-Beast hide. It was supple, light, yet held a surprising volume of water. He had filled it at the last trickle-spring, now long behind them. He drank sparingly, a single sip enough to quell the worst of his thirst.
As he secured the flask, a subtle vibration caught him. From deep within the scree, a movement, a shift. Corin stilled, focusing his senses.
Ten distinct pulses registered. They approached, closing in from all sides. A radius of ten paces, sensing life through stone – his perception had deepened. Yet this was no time for contemplation.
Slowly, inexorably, they formed a loose ring, preparing to erupt. Their forms were familiar from old warnings: armor-like, glinting obsidian carapaces, pincers split like crude wedges, six jointed legs, and a pair of searching antennae.
Grit-Husk Scarabs. Unlike common burrowers, these dwarfed a human. They moved with the silent, predatory efficiency of ancient predators. In the desolation of Aethelstone, they were a blight on any passage.
A single scarab implied a nest, a teeming labyrinth beneath the surface. Hundreds, even thousands, might lurk within. Prey would be dragged to the queen, to the writhing brood.
The true terror lay in their venom. It immobilized the body, but left the mind starkly awake. To be devoured, piece by piece, fully conscious – it was a fate worse than any oblivion. Whispers in the settlements spoke of choosing the deep chasm over the scarab’s maw. Corin knew their horrifying reputation.
Their mineral-like eyes caught the sun, a momentary blur. Undisturbed, Corin unleashed his power. He stamped down, a silent command. Five spikes of sharpened rock, Earth-Rends, burst forth, aiming for the scarabs’ heads.
Impact. The creatures staggered, their obsidian shells ringing. But unlike the brittle bones of lesser beasts, their heads remained whole. Their defenses were formidable, capable of shrugging off most attacks from even the lower ranks of the Awakened. Most would flee at the sight of them.
Corin knew little of such ranks or common tactics. His purpose was simple: survive. Enraged by the assault, the Grit-Husk Scarabs surged forward, their pincers clashing with an eerie click-clack. Corin retreated, continuously summoning Earth-Rends.
The rock shards hammered against the scarabs’ carapaces. They absorbed the blows, seemingly unyielding. This way, Corin realized, he could not win. He needed focus.
Stepping back, he channeled his will, pouring his intent into a single target. With a thunderous *crack*, the chosen scarab’s head exploded, a spray of chitin and black fluid.
Corin clenched his jaw. Faster. He lashed out, Earth-Rends erupting in rapid succession. One after another, the scarabs’ heads shattered, grotesque blossoms of destruction against the stark stone.
His power had deepened, growing in raw force since traversing these wastes with Eldrin. It was enough to breach their formidable defenses, enough to make a difference. Confidence surged through him.
Then, a sudden, high-pitched shriek. One of the remaining scarabs pulsed with a bizarre, agonizing sound – a scream of terror, yet also a summons.
Corin instantly launched an Earth-Rend, pulverizing the shriek’s source. Now, only three remained. He had to finish this, catch up to Eldrin. But the shriek had done its work.
From all sides, the ground shuddered. Numerous pulses registered, far too many. Before Corin could react, hundreds of Grit-Husk Scarabs burst from the scree, their obsidian forms gleaming. An unimaginable number. The high-frequency shriek had been a cry for aid, a summons to the depths.
They closed in, a tide of clicking pincers and gleaming eyes, completely encircling Corin. An eerie, collective rasping sound filled the air as they charged. Corin moved, a blur of motion. Earth-Flow, a subtle shifting of the ground beneath his feet, allowed him to dodge the first wave. He narrowly avoided a snapping pincer, then slammed an Earth-Rend into its attacker’s head. The creature exploded, covering Corin in its vile ichor.
The others surged with renewed ferocity. Corin fought back, a silent, primal roar in his chest. In the frantic dance of battle, he saw him. Eldrin sat atop a distant, wind-scoured ridge, the Aethel-shard resting beside him. He watched, unmoving, as Corin fought for his life.
“Grit-Husk Scarabs will always flock when one of their kind is threatened,” Eldrin murmured to the silent shard. “Never assume the attacking force is the full sum. Even now, they call for more.”
Indeed, Eldrin sensed the ground trembling, a massive swarm approaching. A nest must lie nearby. Corin exerted every ounce of his will, Earth-Rends blasting, each one shattering a scarab’s head. He was a whirlwind of stone and fury, a solitary figure against an encroaching tide.
“It is not enough. Far from it,” Eldrin whispered, his voice dry as dust.
Corin’s ability, his communion with the Deep Earth, was rare, a profound blessing in this world of petrified giants and shifting mountains. Yet he failed to grasp its full potential, its true, geological scale. Such understanding could only be forged in the crucible of absolute necessity.
They, the Arcane Councils, judged an Awakened’s strength by their insignias. Martial, Arcane, D-rank, S-rank – a rigid hierarchy, a predictable path. They guided Awakened, not towards self-discovery, but along a standardized, ‘safe’ trajectory. They choked the true wellspring of power.
One had to collide with adversity, stare into the chasm of their own death, recognize their profound shortcomings, and then, only then, truly ponder how to bridge that gap. That, Eldrin believed, was the only path to true growth. But the powerful figures in the precarious settlements saw it as inefficient, too slow. They scorned his methods.
“Hard-headed fools! They are so lost in their petty power struggles, they cannot see the truth of this broken world.”
A hundred years. A century since the great dying, the Sixth Extinction. Most perished, erased from the world’s memory. Eldrin was one of the last who remembered the true horror. He had seen its dawn, witnessed the despair, the countless lives swallowed by the monstrous transmogrifications.
Civilization crumbled. Monsters, born of the earth’s feverish dreams, ravaged all. No one could comprehend the searing rage that had burned within him as he watched his family, his loved ones, become little more than fodder for the emerging horrors, fading into dust. Awakening, surviving, carried a burden of memory he could never shed.
Some had told him to forgive himself. How could he? After a hundred years, the image of his wife’s final breath, watched helpless, still tore at him. He called others fools, yet perhaps he was the greatest fool of all.
A mad, distant gleam filled Eldrin’s eyes as he watched Corin. The young man fought, precise and desperate. Earth-Flow dodging, Earth-Rends striking. A standardized approach. Corin might believe it was his best, but it fell short of Eldrin’s ancient, brutal expectations.
“Prove your worth by surviving, you idiot. On your own.”
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