Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 138: Sand

After being teleported from place to place and flung from danger to danger, Uriel was ready to face anything that came his way.

At least, he thought so.

WHOOOOSH!

But even his wildest expectations were dwarfed by reality.

PAH! PAH! PAH!

Uriel blinked and finally, his eyes snapped open just as he soared out of the portal he had been travelling through.

’DAMN IT!’

His body flipped and twisted uncontrollably, harsh winds slamming into him, pushing and pulling him in every direction as white fog clouded his vision and filled his lungs.

He found himself as wet as he was discombobulated and panicked.

Why?

Because he was falling from the skies.

...

PAH!

Uriel tore past the layer of clouds, finally regaining his sight.

With immense struggle, he flipped through the air enough times to stabilize himself parallel to the earth he rapidly sped towards, arms and legs spread wide to slow his fall as much as possible, akin to a wingsuit flyer.

His flesh rippled and shook like water embracing momentum, the speed he moved at so high he would have already caught fire if not for his shells.

He stared down.

’...’

The earth stretched endlessly beneath him, sprawling in every direction, the skies a bright and vivid blue, void of any avian creatures.

The sun shone brilliantly, its rays radiant and warm.

But there was one oddity.

’A settlement barrier?!’

The land he was speeding towards was obscured from sight, covered by a dome of golden light that swallowed everything beneath it.

He could not see what he was falling toward; whether it be a forest, an ocean, or an abyss, he had absolutely no idea.

’I’ll be damned if I die impaled by a bunch of branches!’

His core shook, then revved into action, and after spending so long locked out of it, he instinctively reached out to seize the atmospheric aether around him.

But—

"Argh!"

—it did not listen. More than that, the aether in the air was so chaotic it vehemently rejected him, sending torrents of pain through his body as backlash.

Not having expected such a reaction, Uriel felt his mind blink in and out of consciousness as he, in a matter of moments, zoomed toward the dome of gold.

As if it were water, he dipped into it, entering the unknown at speeds no mortal could ever fathom.

...

Pain had sent him to sleep, and thus pain woke him from it.

His eyes snapped open just after he sped past the golden dome veiling the ground. Instantly, he activated his uniqueness to slow his perception of time.

’I should’ve done this earlier,’ he thought bitterly, frozen and suspended midair.

What lay dozens of kilometres beneath him was a vast expanse of sand, gigantic dunes rising and falling in every direction.

The grains of sand were a bright ivory, stark against the now grey and eerie skies, covered in smouldering clouds that echoed with loud thunderclaps.

The air was—

’Thunder? How can thunder echo in frozen—’

He barely had time to register the oddity before his uniqueness suddenly deactivated on its own, and before he could react, a monstrous wave of force slammed into him, sending him hurling across the horizon.

WHOOOOSH!

Time having suddenly retaken its course, another layer of the desert he had appeared in revealed itself.

Wind.

Ridiculously powerful gusts consumed the skies, dragging seas of chaotic aether with them, potent and frigid enough to freeze and slice flesh and soul alike.

The aether-fueled winds sweeping across the desert were so violent they seemed to clash against one another, so fiercely one might mistake them for thunderclaps.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Uriel found himself flung from one end of the sky to the other as he continued his descent, his state known to no one but himself.

...

POOF!

Sand burst into the air, almost instantly swept away by the wind, as something crashed into a towering dune, completely collapsing its structure.

’...damn it!’

Thankfully, due to his shell and pioneer scale, apart from a few broken ribs, Uriel found himself mostly intact, having miraculously survived the fall from the skies, let alone the backlash from the chaotic aether.

His shell was so sturdy it bordered on the absurd.

But, unfortunately, that was where the good news ended.

’Fuck!’

The first piece of bad news was that though he had landed and survived the fall, his body was still being dragged across the desert, flung—

’Damn it!’

—and flung—

’Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

—and flung across the sand, crashing into an innumerable number of dunes, unable to stop himself as there was nothing to hold onto but sand, and the wind was so powerful it felt almost mystical.

Well, it indeed was, because every time the winds brushed against him, he felt soul-chilling currents seep into him, so intense he felt his flesh nearly freeze and his mind nearly shut down into pure lethargy.

He moved so fast he could barely comprehend anything around him.

But that was not the worst of it.

BOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!

From Uriel’s body, from his insides and his core, loud and deafening booms erupted, sending tremors through his body and the surroundings alike.

The explosions were so violent it felt as though he held a world of bombs trapped within his core, his shell only barely strong enough to contain the impacts and keep his body whole.

"ARGHHH!" he screamed in pain, swallowing and choking on mouthfuls of sand as he did.

The sand.

The air, the wind, was his enemy—frigid and endlessly powerful—but apparently, so was the ground itself.

Every time he came into contact with a grain of sand from the desert, it sent echoing waves across his body, tearing through his core and veins, turning all his natal aether chaotic.

The now chaotic natal aether surged through his veins and—

BOOM!

—exploded.

Worse still, since the aether had turned chaotic, not only could he no longer control it, but it could reach into the deepest layers of his body, tearing apart organs, bones, and arteries alike.