"Hey, you're seeing this too, right?" I asked Cassi, glaring at the towering outline of a mountain in the distance. Both of us slowed our figure-8 footwork using the same water from the cave to glide over the ocean surface.
"Yeah, for fucks sake how high do you think that shit goes?" Cassi asked as it appeared to only grow higher the closer we drew.
"Doesn't matter, a little climbing never killed anyone. Let's hurry this along though, yeah? I doubt the next shift will be any less destructive when we're on land." Korbin said, sitting between Cassi and I on the mana current floor. He'd slowly grown less and less 'chipper' over the last couple of hours, not unlike a child near the end of a roadtrip.
"For one, climbing has 100% SO many people. I'd argue more than a select few would go so far as to say it's in fact dangerous to climb, actually." I countered, wondering if he somehow forgot what being a human's been like for us before affinities and levels were introduced to our day-to-days. Korbin just shrugged, not really addressing the matter much at all. Which really was no bother the closer we drifted to the massive mountain that only grew larger and more steep. The mountainside itself was strangely multicolored, covered in patches of blue foliage and teal sands, as well as dark stone and thick brown soil alike. Tree logs and boulders were actively cascading down the side of the mountain from everywhere, as each protruded awkwardly from the steep, jagged mountainside. There was really no rhyme or reason, it looked like a bunch of the world just smushed up against itself like the system was building a geographical sandcastle.
It didn't take us long to float up to the face, avoiding the cascading debris luckily by a happy accident, as we never really needed to change course. Cass and I both shared a tired look after scanning what we had no choice but to scale. Korbin slipped his armored shoulders between us, shaking out his limbs approaching the wall.
"Welp, no time like the present." He said, igniting orange flames from his calves and forearms before leaping several feet in the air and piercing his fist into the rockface. Cassi activated the two orbs of water over both of her own hands,leaping up fluidly ascending the wall.
"Seriously? Why am I the only one doing shit normal all of the sudden?!" I angrily protested watching them both effortlessly scale the compressed mountainside. Sighing, I leapt off the water snatching a thick piece of bark protruding from the wall. Yanking myself up, my foot kicked off the bark as I continued grasping at natural handholds like gaps in stone or burring elbow-deep into soft soil. The climb itself felt about as long as our float here, especially with how quickly Cassi and Korbin disappeared into the distance. By the time I'd shakily reached the top after several near-falls, they were both sitting down looking quite comfy.
"Ah shit." Korbin said with a sigh as I pulled myself over the last of the thick teal sands that made the last 20 minutes of climbing yet another living nightmare to add to my list.
"What? You're mad that I made it?" I asked, but not before Korbin begrudgingly tossed Cassi a health potion. The bottle immediately disappeared after she caught it, indicating she'd stowed it away in her internal storage.
"Did…did you make a bet that I wo-"
"We should get going, the next shift's already within the hour." Korbin interrupted, immediately leaping off the other side of the cliff. I jogged over, wondering if he'd just royally fucked himself for a joke. Instead, my eyes fluttered in excitement spotting his orange figure swinging off a thick tree branch several meters further down this much more sloped mountainside.
"Finally, I get to use my fucking legs as they were fucking intended!" I happily exclaimed, but before I could leap after Korbin, Cassi's forearm pinned across my chest.
"Wait. Before we go, we need to get something straight." Cassi said, wearing a rather serious look.
"Okay? Shoot." I replied, curiously.
"It's Korbin. Something's still really off, but I can't really put my finger on it. I don't really know why, but something tells me he's due to snap at any second now."
"Damn, been there. I know what you mean, but it wouldn't be the first time he fooled me for some stupid fun.
"Just…watch your back." She said, before leaping ahead of me off the cliffside. Annoyed at once more being the last to go with this fucking mountain, I dove straight off the cliff firing my grapple hook around the same branch I'd seen Korbin snag. Leaping and flipping with my line freed, I located another crooked tree's extending branch and fired my hook. Swinging through the thick forest at several hundred feet in the air however, I couldn't help but notice the absolute mess of biomes ahead of me. In the same way the cliffside, it was like a new climate took hold every few hundred feet. Releasing from the branch a little sooner, my body rolls across the last of the forest foliage across warm teal sand.
Cassi was difficult to make out in the distance given the consistent speed her wavy movement skill seems to carry her, while Korbin's glowing figure was a beacon I used to point my way for several biome switches, including a thick, foggy marsh suffering a constant downpour. Korbin simply refused to slow down for over half an hour, until we found ourselves atop a towering bluff that was smushed noticeably thin by the raised crust of the planet at its base.
"Okay, this feels like a good spot to see how this works." Korbin said as I finally caught up at the top, letting the flames igniting his limbs extinguish and brushing some dirt off his armor. Cassi stood beside him, scanning the valley below thoroughly.
"I got eyes on several groups clashing at once. It's quite a lot, well over a hundred between them all by the looks of it." Cassi said, cupping her hand at her forehead to block the sun. I shuffled over to see for myself, just barely making out the multicolored flashing of mana streaking in the distance.
"Can't believe so many people are still working together like this, I would expect absolute chaos to erupt by now." Korbin scoffed, sounding both surprised and unamused.
"I mean, when shit hits the fan, it makes sense to want friends with me." I added, wondering exactly how strong the average person down there really was by his point.
*RUMBLE*
"Ha-ha, perfect! Everyone hang on!" Korbin hollered, bending low and digging his glowing arms into the hard ground. My blades dug in as well, while Cassi plunged her own staff through the floor too as the world began to sway.
*BAM*
A heavy impact rattled the backside of the bluff, rocking all three of us forward. An ear-shattering shriek echoed across the valley as the ground itself scraped and overlapped through my rattling vision. The world roared in concert with the trembling, as did the bluff that bent inland like peeling a metal lid.
*RUMBLE*
*SLAM*
With a thunderous burst, the world itself felt like it ripped up several layers before slamming down hard on itself. My feet ascended high off the ground, then thrown back down again in concert, throwing my vision amuck. By the time the constant rattling and quaking finally subsided, it'd already been over the whole 5 minutes of the world below crumbling under us. Meanwhile the land at our backside compressed over itself, until several crumbled biomes stacked themselves even higher than the cliff we'd leapt from. What's worse, the geographic anomaly arched over our misshapen 'bluff', the highest point now being several hundred feet behind us. I staggered to my feet, quickly locating Cassi and Korbin who seemed to manage remaining pinned to the ground the entire time.
"Are we good? Anyone dying?" I asked, feeling surprised at how shaky my tone was. To be fair, it still felt like the world was passively swaying, like I'd just spend an extended amount of time sailing the ocean…again.
"I'm fine, but THAT, that was not fine. That was… incredible! HA-HA, can you believe it?!" Korbin suddenly exclaimed out, leaping up with his hands on his head as he scanned the view. Everything that was once a valley had all been buried under us miles ago, leaving a massive open plane surrounded in debris as far as the eye could see. I glanced over at Cassi, whose eyes narrowed tightly as she too took in the scenery.
"It's…truly fuckin' catastrophic, I'll give it that." Cassi finally said with a decent level of resolve in her even tone. Still, her wide eyed expression indicated to me she wasn't a particular fan of earthquakes of that magnitude. Honestly with the sheer speed at which everything collided and ripped over itself at once all around us, who would be?
"Damn?! We covered some serious ground sitting up here. You guys can thank me for my excellent taste in bluffs later." Korbin said with a smirk, climbing over a mess of fallen trees and ripped up ground.
"Wait, where are you going? We don't even have a target right now and you're pushing ahead?" Cassi protested chasing after Korbin. Being personally unopposed to moving forward, and more importantly away from the massive wall of planet that piled to the clouds behind us, I decided to check the live feed to see how much we've moved based on the titans location.
[ KILL & BE KILLED ] - Final Event (LIVE)
Remaining Participants: 433,107
Titan's Path: East (24,904.1 m)
Eliminations: 1,263
Time Until Catastrophic Tectonic Shift: 3:57:42
What?! Only 400,000 left?!
I stopped right before climbing over the debris myself, realizing how close we were flying toward the end of this event. The fact that nearly 400,000 people died within a 4 hour stretch still just doesn't fully sit well with me, even if we'll inarguably be benefiting from the ends. I also noticed that Korbin was right, as we'd moved considerably close to the Titan in a relatively short amount of time since we got back on dry land.
"Tom! Let's go, I'm not sticking around for another one of those!" Korbin yelled in the distance, snapping me from my thoughts as I finished mantling the debris chasing after them. Both Cassi and Korbin stood just a few feet ahead atop rapidly melting, lime green snow arguing quietly when I caught up to them.
"You know if you two don't have any ideas on what to do, I think I might have one." I opened, hoping to defuse their clear frustration with one another based on the arched brows and beaming glares.
"Do you, ole Tommy-boy? Hah, alright this should be good." Korbin chuckled, rolling his eyes. Yet, a moment afterward it was like he'd surprised himself, flashing a weirdly confused look my way.
"Please, please tell me it's better than what he had in mind." Cassi pleaded, locking her hands together and dramatically waving them at me.
"I mean I know it'll definitely be fun, but I don't know if it's by any traditional definition a 'good' idea." I began, making sure to set the bar exactly at the height it belonged for my plan. Cassi nodded attentively, while Korbin simply raised a brow.
"I just figured since we've traveled so much closer to it, and the majority of the other participants are dropping like flies before we even see them…" I continued, Cassi's small smile now slowly dissolving.
"Oh no…" Cassi muttered before I could finish.
"-that we should probably go check out the Titan before the event ends, for research purposes."
"YES! That's my fuckin' guy, up top!" Korbin shouted in response. Meanwhile Cassi's head fell into her palm as she turned to walk away. It was then that I realized me and Korbin had shared the same half-baked, borderline childishly curious plan. Shrugging, I went to accept the high-five, only for Korbin to drop his hand first and walk away as if nothing happened. Cursing, I followed after him as all three of us headed straight east…
…for three in a half hours straight.
"Hold up, hold up, time the fuck out." Cassi declared, pressing her gauntlets against Korbin and I's chest mid-sprint. Korbin's legs simmered their glowing orange flames as he cocked his head to the side.
"What? We're almost there?" Korbin asked, confusedly.
"Exactly, meaning we should probably know what we're doing when we find that thing. For one, I seriously doubt we can just fight a system-made 'Titan'." Cassi so insightfully pointed out.
"Maybe not, but I imagine we're just going to shut the thing out, right? No need to piss it off if we know where it is at all times?" I added, wondering if she had any other ideas in mind. Korbin side-eyed me however, the guilt in his shifting gaze as unmistakable as ever.
"Oh I agree, Tom. Otherwise we risk being eliminated for no reason. Is that right, Korbin?" Cassi said, raising her brow at Korbin.
"…I mean we don't know it's a risk necessarily if we really want to break it down here." Korbin countered with a grin. Chuckling, I strolled past the both of them, just happy to find a forest that's still intact.
"Look, if one of you wants to get themselves killed for something stupid now? Who am I to judge? But it's been hours of running, filled with far more killing than I thought we had left out here. I just want to see this thing at least once." I said, firing my grapple hook around a thick, high branch and leaping through the air. With less than an hour left before the next shift, it feels like now or never getting to see the Titan before having to make some space from it. That is, unless we can kill it after all. Landing firmly onto the glowing foliage, the distant echoes of clashing metal and bellowing voices directed my path forward.
"Tom! Slow down, we don't know what's waiting for us!" Cassi hollered from somewhere behind me, though her and Korbin's incessant bickering had already grown far too annoying to bear hours ago. Instead, I slowed my sprint as flashes of white and blue mana pulsated in the sky. Then, a massive white hue enveloped the world for just a second, not dissimilar to the Death Echoes. Only those colors seemed based on affinity, and I've yet to see any pulses so deeply eggshell.
"Dammit! Vexa, fucking push in!" An authoritatively bellowing voice commanded from just beyond the brush. My head poked though the plant life, just barely making out the cloaked rogue sprinting across the forest.
Vexa…hey, i remember her!
"Tom, fuckin' hells you got water in your ears-" my hand cupped across Korbin's mouth, shoving him back and ducking under his reactionary headkick attempt. Both of us shared a glare, where I simply pointed my thumb behind me, then placed a finger in front of my lips.
"Oh good, you found h-" Cassi began, before Korbin's hand lunged out to cover her mouth. Cassi instead snatched his wrist, landing a brutal knee to the body before I could shuffle over and separate them.
"Fucking SHH…FUCK!" I whisper-yelled, shaking my head angrily as I peeked back through the brush. I couldn't see or hear anyone, making me wonder if we'd been spotted.
*THUD*
My body lurched back in response, seeing the rogue named Vexa's corpse slam down onto the soil, tumbling through the foliage nearly onto my feet.
"Oh fuck." I exclaimed, scanning Vexa's torn up corpse. It looked like something literally tripped her skin open in several sections, as well as deep bloody wounds pouring from her neck. Then, her body disappeared altogether, yet the space remained vacant.
"Hey, wasn't that the rogue we worked with that's from Frostroot last event?" Korbin asked me in a whisper, earning a wide eyed look of concern from Cassi.
"She's what? Ahh, why is our luck so fuckin' bad today?" Cassi angrily exclaimed through her own breathy whisper, pursing her lip and shaking her head.
"You got to start opening with the important stuff, Cass. And that's coming from me." I jeered as I continued scanning the forest. A bright flash jolted my feet into action, jogging through the brush. Sliding into a tall bundle of shrubbery, my eyes locked onto a light blue-skinned woman adorning a flowing all white military coat, layered with white armor standing tall in front of a towering tree. Her silvery blue hair fluttered in the gusting winds as she stood firm, gripping a long halberd with a crescent blade, covered in streaks of jagged ice at its pommel and around the blade. With a twist however, the weapons split in two as one another crescent blade popped out at the end of the second polearm. I turned and pointed my blade toward rustling behind me, finding Cassi who didn't even acknowledge my threat glaring at the same woman.
"Yeah…that's her." She whispered, ducking even lower than I.
"That's who?" I asked, flinching as Korbin slid into the shrub as well.
"Fucking Selvarine. The same one me and Lonni were talking about after the end of the Labyrinth." Cassi quickly replied. Korbin's head perked up hearing this, shoving his way forward to see the lady in question. If memory serves me well, she was apparently intimidating in Cassi's eyes, though they never actually fought one another.
"Good, she must have had the same idea." Korbin replied, his grin audible in his voice.
"Why do you hide, creature? You showed no fear in blindsiding my men." The woman shouted into the forest, peering up in the trees. A distant yelp filled the air in response, followed by yet another white pulse.
"It got the commander! Push into the treel-Aagh!" A man's deep voice echoed before letting out a panicked shriek.
*THUNK*
A long, heavy maul suddenly spiraled onto the ground several yards in front of this supposed Selvarine before disappearing a moment later. Selvarine didn't even flinch, panning across the forest. Then her eyes panned over, then flicked back locking with mine through the shrubbery. Before I could even react however, a figure fell from the sky in front of Selvarine, piercing their white sword-like arms and feet into the ground. Their anatomy from behind reminded me of a mantis, only with much thicker plates of natural armor and a skinnier, more human-like lower body.
"Finally, a challenge." I heard her cold, determined tone proclaim before the strange creature dashed to the side at an untraceable speed. A wave of thick ice clumps emerged in the creature's place, exploding into tiny ice shrapnel as Selvarine dashed in pursuit of the beast. The sheer amount of ice that covered the forest was truly insane, consuming a huge area in a matter of seconds.
"Is she…chasing the Titan?" Cassi asked, her eyes suddenly darting up to the sky. Before I could check the event live feed myself, Selvarine suddenly flew back into frame.
*BAM*
Wood fragmented off the bark as her back smashed into the towering tree bark, sliding down to her feet with her axes in hand. Her woozy eyes refocused as she kicked off the tree, spraying the ground in front of her with ice that seemed to grow instantly into massive sharp icicles. Slapping her axes into the ground, a blurry white figure appeared for a moment as every shard folded up and slammed together, every sharp end slamming into a massive floating ball of ice. The creature she'd run off in pursuit of sat hovering inside the ice, as Selvarine's hands struggled trying to slam together.
"Holy shit, I think she's going to do it?" I whispered, wondering if another Titan would spawn if this woman could freeze this one to death. Maybe it'll respawn after a while, or bring a friend the next time one shows up.
"Frostroot! Group up if you still live!" Selvarine called out into the forest. All three of us sank down as low as we could, making sure none of the other members spotted us. I wanted to mention she's seen me already, but the loud footsteps crunching past gave me pause.
"I'm here, m'lord!" A deep, raspy, older sounding voice announced as a blue and white armored figure with light blue skin jogged into view.
"Ah, Vaelith. Glad to see you still breathing. And what of the others?" She asked, as I attempted to slowly snake back away from our shrubbery. Korbin's hand pressed against my back, shoving me forward in silent rebellion to my retreat.
"This thing hunted them down before accepting your challenge, m'lord. I did my best to defend them." The blue-skinned man replied, gesturing at the strange monster hovering in the ice block. After quickly checking the feed, it certainly seems based on distance that she indeed caught the supposed Titan.
Well…maybe the system didn't make it as strong as we thought?
"No matter, victory is all but assur-
*TSHHH*
It was like hundreds of windows shattered at once as the beast exploded from the hovering ice ball, its blurry figure swiping straight into Selvarine. Before I could blink, its sword-like arms both pierced through the talent ice mage's chest pinning her to the tree behind her.
"SELVARINE, n-" the Titan turned and pointed its sword arm, ejecting the entire limb like it was shot out of a cannon. The old man bent back unnaturally far, summoning a pair of blue jagged blades in an attempt to parry the arm. The bladed arm instead bent in half, before shifting its momentum straight down stabbing through the old man's heavily armored chest with ease. The blue skinned man squirmed silently as he tried to free himself as Selvarine disappeared from the end of the Titan's arm just as its pincers bit down around her skull. The beast roared up into the sky before damn-near teleporting over to the old man's corpse several yards away.
I glanced over at Cassi and Korbin, who's eyes looked wide enough to fall out of their skulls if they leaned over. All of us nodded without a word or a signal, as we very, very quietly crept backwards from the brush. After roughly 10 minutes of very careful steps through the forest, a low rumbling sent all three of us into a dead sprint west. As the earthquake began to wreak havoc in the distance ripping the world into itself forcing all three of us to dig out weapons into the soil and brace, I swear I heard Korbin enjoying a hardy belly laugh over the chaos.