Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 92: Beast Tide

Rain.

The settlement was destroyed and upturned, a field of deep and wide craters and rubble strewn across what had once been a beautiful plain.

The skies were dark and grey, rain falling harshly, cold and sharp, pelting down with roaring might.

Across the ruined landscape, white boxes could be seen and, one after another, they burst open, the white shards fading to nothing.

From them, humans emerged.

Uriel blinked as the cold air of the settlement touched his skin, closely followed by harsh rain that soaked him. He undid his mantle of natal aether and let himself be drenched.

The smell of blood in the air was thick for some reason, and across the expanse, he could faintly sense the lingering natal aether of all the dead, as well as those still clinging to life beneath the rubble.

Through the passive effects of his sensory ring, he could hear their whimpers, their weakening heartbeats, and through the dormant filter of his sparks, he could feel them.

Fear, sadness, rage, sorrow; it was bleak.

Uriel took a deep breath in, allowing the deafening echoes of rain to anchor him.

He turned to Amon and Lady Emmet—if that was even her real name—and inwardly nodded to himself.

Amon seemed to have dropped his act, and through his magic rings had regrown his arm.

Uriel didn’t understand why the young man had let himself be beaten up so badly in the first place, or why he feigned weakness so much, but he didn’t have the heart to care at the moment.

Uriel looked up at the skies above, staring at their grey indifference. He searched for Thoryl for long minutes but couldn’t seem to find him.

’What game are you all playing?’

Evidently, they’d had a week left before the barrier fell, but now, what were they supposed to do? He’d most likely be fine, but what about the rest of humanity?

’If I had to guess, this is unique to our settlement.’

As if on cue with his thoughts, a loud crack echoed across the air. All gazes panned upwards, fear erupting across every heart.

The dome of silver light hanging above the clouds and shielding them from the forest—the settlement barrier—cracked.

At first, it was a tiny and minute fracture, the echo loud and pronounced, followed by a long stretch of silence.

But then, just as the people began to settle and sigh in relief, another crack echoed, and then another, and then another.

Through the fractures of the barrier, dark light spilled in, piercing through the clouds to ominously loom over them, as if an abyss hung overhead, waiting to collapse onto them.

BANG!

The barrier broke and shattered to nothingness.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Harsh and ridiculously powerful winds tore through the settlement, the rain somehow becoming harsher and, shockingly, turning toxic.

Each droplet burned like acid on their tender skin, evolved or not.

But that wasn’t the most shocking change of all.

Now that the barrier was gone, the truths of the world were laid bare to them.

The aether in the air they had all so easily interacted with—docile and pure—suddenly vanished, replaced by a tide of heavy and impure aether, wild and untamed.

It was so violent that most who once thought they had a firm grasp over aether lost all their progress in a blink, to the point where many couldn’t even absorb atmospheric aether to replenish their cores.

’...’

The skies above darkened even more and, on the horizon, they could finally see it.

The forest.

Their destroyed little patch of land was totally out of place in its expanse.

Tall and towering trees, so tall no normal planet would be able to harbour them, loomed, surrounding them to almost form a bastion-like enclosure of wood and leaves.

Their bark was a dark brown, almost black, and the leaves a bloody red, so much so that from them a thick and nauseating metallic smell emerged, flooding the destroyed settlement.

The forest beyond was dark and foreign.

RUMBLE!

Pah! Pah! Pah!

Stomping echoed loudly, so heavy the ground trembled and the air shook. The sound of what seemed to be millions of overlapping hooves and rushing steps thundered, all stampeding and converging towards them from all sides.

RUMBLE!

Roars tore across the air, one after another, all more bestial and ferocious than the last, all so powerful they sent waves of sonic booms snaking forward.

The leaves and trees shook as creatures rushed across them.

RUMBLE!

They felt it. Tides of bestial natal aether, chaotic and frantic, reflecting the famished and mad beasts coming.

The barrier had fallen.

"RUN!"

And a beast tide was coming.

...

Amon’s gaze narrowed.

Screams erupted across the ruined city, those who’d survived scrambling to escape or gearing up to fight the coming monsters.

In the distance, he could see them: mostly tall and hulking boar-like creatures with seemingly metallic silver fur and a singular piercing horn of pure obsidian.

Beside them, and sometimes atop them, humanoid monsters stood, with light wet blue skin, webbed feet and hands, and a ridge of fins starting at their brow, arching across their heads and snaking down their backs.

Their eyes were beady and pitch black, their maws void of any teeth, only dark gums, covered in wafting and oozing poison that trailed down their chins in mad slobber.

Amon himself hadn’t even interacted with elemental aether, neither had most, if not all, humans at this point; but he could clearly sense the lightning and earth aether flowing within the former, and the wind and water aether dancing with the latter.

A set of notifications appeared before all of them.

[Torkun Tribulation Boar Strider (Silver)!]

[Turkon Storm Flon-Men (Gold)!]

All beasts, at worst, radiated aura in the depths of the F-Rank, and at best were in the peaks of the E-Rank—half-step D-Rank beasts.

[All Mark-Bearers must fill their Quota and feed their Marks!]

[0/100 Torkun Tribulation Boar Strider (Silver)!]

[0/100 Turkon Storm Flon-Men (Gold)!]

BANG!

[Quicktime Survival Event has begun!]

Seeing the last notification, Uriel hummed and finally seemed to understand part of what was going on.

’Quests, theatric guides, trials, events and competitions across rankings... how strange.’

A theory was forming in his mind, one he’d been considering for quite some time already, a theory he wasn’t sure he wanted to be right about.

The implications would be catastrophic.

’Focus.’

But aware this wasn’t the time for distractions, he pushed it to the side, emptying his mind and entering a sharp state of honed-in focus.

Taking a deep breath in, Uriel regarded the coming avalanche flooding from all sides.

There was no escape.