Letting himself slowly fall, Noctis relied on a few threads wrapped around his hand to brake his descent, their ends disappearing into the far distance above, the goal of reaching the nureshing fragment of the fate realm closer than ever before.
Wrapped around a branch of a ginormous tree, these threads clung to wood thousands of meters high. The tree towered above the cliff where Noctis had been resting and stretched downward to the canyon floor he hoped to reach.
The red shimmer from above was now fully blocked by the cliff to his back and overshadowed by the golden luster of the thread reaching and breaking through the sky, making the tree with its lustrous blue leaves look minuscule in comparison.
On complete alert, Noctis was closing in on the floor, the beasts nearby fully able to jump and attack the completely open Noctis, who looked like an easy meal.
A few beeted breaths later, waiting for something to happen, a bit of a perplexed expression found its way onto his face.
Waiting for a few more silent moments, still steadily descending, nothing happened. More time passed now, and the floor was almost reached, only about fifty meters away. Why was it so quiet? Where was everybody, everything?
This was highly unusual, to say the least. Did the creatures in the surroundings notice that the realm would soon retaliate?
Holding out his eyes for any abnormalities, he noticed his body feeling lighter. Not just because he was closing in on the golden light, there was something different.
And was it him, or did the blue luster of the tree's leaves dim a little, a dark black vein difficult to discover, because of the already dark bark of the tree, spanning upwards from the tree's trunk, giving a brittle feeling.
Stopping his descent deliberately, Noctis swung his body toward the trunk of the tree with a swaying motion. In one seamless movement, he snapped off a small piece of bark, the ancient bark giving little resistance, which then whirled upward with only a small flick of his wrist.
What he saw was what one would expect, and at the same time, completely unexpected.
Watching the dark piece of bark fly up, way too far, for the little force he had put behind the throw, the movements in slow motion, it slowly started its descent, just as slowly. The bark's descent slowed further with each second; it closed in on the floor.
First, easing downward.
Then it slowed, resembling a gliding motion.
And then it started crawling down inch by inch, barely making any progress.
Before stopping in mid-air, floating a few meters above the ground, not even inching forward anymore.
Watching this, Noctis was intrigued; at the same time, he felt the strong need to hurry.
"Are there any creatures left in this area?"
Waiting patiently, a friendly voice resounded throughout Noctis' mind, a certain somberness hidden in it.
"We are too close to the void, so my predictions won't be very viable… But, I have yet to see a singular thread cross our path since entering the canyon."
Rubbing his forehead for a few seconds, he felt a bit of annoyance at the constant interferences to his ability.
Tuning out other distractions, Noctis released his grip on the thread, purposefully dropping the remaining twenty meters to the ground below, fully committed to a free fall.
Well, what was the fun of knowing everything beforehand, right?
"Ha, ha"
"Could you please stop risking our lives so thoughtlessly?"
Ignoring the somewhat strained voice trying to uphold politeness ringing in his head, he mused.
Would he not start floating shortly before hitting the ground, similar to the piece of bark? Trapped there in the air, maybe forever?
Of course not; that was unlikely, and even if he were trapped there for the rest of his life, it would be quite a short one, considering everything here would soon be disintegrated.
Mid-fall, Noctis twisted his body for an appropriate landing and touched down with agility, his feet landing first, before falling into a crouch to lessen the impact. The instant he landed, a loud crack shattered the forest's silence, sending a wave of dust into the surrounding area. Peculiar enough, the dust didn't seem to make any attempts to settle.
Standing up, Noctis first looked at the piece of bark pecfully floating next to him, a few bebles having joined it the next moment.
Below him, a rock was lying shattered, a huge web of cracks marred its exterior.
What am I made of, these days?
Staring at the sight, his body had not the slightest scratch.
"Ha, ha, ha"
He let out another chuckle; he found the scene so terribly funny, for whatever reason.
The slow decay of the word. It was just so similar to the decay of his own...
He slid one hand into his pocket, then tapped a pebble hovering in front of him with a light finger. He watched as it drifted away, retaining its full momentum.
"Ha, ha"
Laughing once more, a bit self-deprecatingly this time. At least this effect won't be hindering me too much in my own goals.
This phenomenon was one of the space realm's signs that it was about to retaliate against the intruder that had made its nest in its own body.
Noctis himself was far less affected for the moment, since he was not of the Space realms descent, so everything connected to it was less effective on him, creating this effect of all the debris floating around him without truly affecting him.
After all, most of the plants and minerals here were born of the space realm and so were part of it, and therefore, being affected by it to a far greater extent, while he was an outsider, his species coming from the hearth realm, the birthplace of humanity, and he himself was a wielder of a fate fragment, an authority of another realm.
However, such disturbances to the environment would only increase with time, eventually growing strong enough to crush even him, who was less affected by the anomalies.
Walking through the tightly packed forest, Noctis noticed the flora growing less and less lively the closer he moved towards the golden light. Trees growing small and brittle, the remains of flowers falling apart, dark veins disrupting their bluish glint, carcasses and bones, spread throughout the environment.
What was this place before the descent of fate?
Judging from the unnatural number of long-decayed corpses, either a beast of the death or a change authority had made its way through here, or the place as a whole had a special meaning beforehand.
Thinking about it, why did that bird try to intimidate the void sea so vehemently, even when by all means its instincts should have told it to run?
As the one-man party closed in on the center of the circular canyon, the number of corpses began to increase, and the black decay, infecting and absorbing the plants, grew visibly stronger as well.
The source of this decay wasn't hard to guess. Unlike the corpses littering the vista, it seemed new, foreign to these lands. Averting his gaze from a particularly liquifide plant, its leaves no longer leaf-shaped, the stem of the plant, all that was left of it, drenched in a black sludge. Surrounding it, a puddle of the tar-like liquid had formed.
Observing the sight with an apathetic gaze, his eyes eventually landed on the source of it all.
Before him spread a near-endless sea of black sludge. Beyond it, a golden string—obscured by a dark, foggy substance—shimmered. This string had broken through the world barrier, allowing it to invade and corrupt these lands.
Was this intended by the god of fate or a mere coincidence, he could not tell, not nearly arrogant enough to guess the thoughts of the gods.
Watching the substance with a deep-seated primal fear.
Focusing his eyes for a split second, a magical yet terrifying sight revealed itself before him.
Golden threads, before unseen, were all pulled towards the sea before him, turning black in the process, fading and eventually decaying.
Every single one of them showed a possible fate of his, every single one revealing how he could end up, what he could become if a single misstep shattered his path. The sight struck him with a cold, gnawing fear—the kind that settled into his bones and threatened to paralyze. Each future unraveled like a delicate thread before his mind's eye, some ending in darkness, some riddled with agony or despair. Yet beneath the heaviness pressing into his chest, awe flickered, mingled with a stubborn resolve not to become just another broken strand. His heart pounded, determination rising to meet dread: whatever awaited him, he refused to let these visions define him, after all, fate was not absolute… not anymore. Noctis inhaled slowly, brow furrowing, and fixed his gaze on the golden light ahead, letting the fear sharpen his purpose.