Broken Chains

As Scarlet and Puck retraced their steps toward the heart, they encountered no resistance, not even at the place where their last battle had taken place. Or at least, Puck thought it was the same location, though no bodies remained. It seemed the heart had found some use for them.

They ventured deeper into the ever-darkening and increasingly sinister tunnels. The heartbeats grew louder and louder, just like last time. But this time, they came much closer. The sound neared the intensity of a physical attack, causing the entire eternal ice to vibrate with a terrifying force. They had entered the heart’s true territory, its innermost sanctum.

As Puck looked at the icy walls around them, he noticed dark lines threading through the ice, forming a sinister web that seemed to claim the very area where the heart dwelled. The environment around them changed rapidly as they moved forward.

Soon Scarlet handed Puck two earplugs against the sound of the heartbeats and reiterated her most important instructions one last time. From here onward, there would be no more talking.

At last, they arrived at their destination, perhaps two kilometers deeper than where they had fought before. The ice in the walls disappeared entirely, leaving only writhing tendrils of flesh and shadow. The tunnel opened into a colossal cavern.

Puck was overwhelmed as he took in his surroundings. Scarlet had tried to prepare him, but the scene before him was far more terrifying than anything she could have described.

The first thing Puck noticed was a massive pillar at the center of the cavern, stretching from the writhing ceiling to the polished floor. From this pillar extended all the tendrils of darkness and flesh, twisting up to the ceiling and burrowing into the ground below. At the center of the pillar was the heart of darkness itself.

The heart’s form was ever-changing, never allowing the viewer to fully grasp what it was. Each new iteration was more terrifying than the last. At one moment, it appeared as a glowing, sinister red eye, radiating burning malice that seemed to heat the very air around it. At another moment, it resembled a pulsing heart, pumping not blood but pure evil through its tendrils. The shape never settled, growing more menacing with each change.

Despite the terror it inspired, there was something fortunate about this view. Most of their plans relied on the heart’s need to display itself in all its horrifying glory. Had it hidden its body in the ice, far from any open air, they wouldn’t have stood a chance to finish it off.

That fortune though, didn’t make the terror before them any less terrifying and had Puck been alone, he would have started to run away a long time ago.

Forcing himself to take in the rest of the cavern, Puck saw no guardians or defenders of the heart. Only the polished floor and the slowly moving ceiling surrounded them. The walls and ceiling were terrifying in their own way, but the tendrils, though enormous and nearly infinite in number, were not made for combat. They were used for claiming territory, slowly burying themselves into the eternal ice.

Knowing full well they were walking into a trap, Scarlet and Puck exchanged one last glance before stepping into the cavern. Carefully they began their slow approach toward the pillar at the center. As they stepped onto the dark floor of the cavern, Puck felt some relief when his claws found traction even on the perfectly polished ice beneath. It wasn’t perfect but he would manage.

With the resonance from the cavern walls, the heartbeat intensified tenfold only over a few meters, and for a moment, Puck felt himself growing dizzy. The earplugs were no longer enough to protect him from the overwhelming sound, while the vibrations itself threatened to knock him off his feet. Thankfully he quickly managed to adapt soon, before they moved forward again.

Then, finally, when they were halfway across the cavern, it happened. The heart unleashed everything.

It wanted to devour, to consume...

Baboom. Baboom. BABOOM.

Thoughts were nearly impossible to form amid the roaring hunger and need that consumed its mind. But one command remained. It would need to wait a little bit more. Let the lights come close enough that they would not be able to escape when it struck.

Baboom.

Barley, it managed to control itself, waiting until the right moment. Then, finally, it could let go. Every barrier that had held it back fell, and the heart released its full power. Its tendrils writhed, and its creations were set loose.

Where the ceiling and walls had previously moved in a slow, steady rhythm, they now twitched violently as the heart descended into the madness Scarlet had warned Puck of. Wanting to cover as much ground as possible before the confrontation, Scarlet signaled Puck to quicken his pace.

Within seconds though, hundreds of bulges formed all over the ceiling, growing and stretching the tentacles layering over them until they burst. A foul, thick liquid started raining down on Scarlet and Puck, along with hundreds of nightmarish creatures.

Many of these creatures died upon impact, but even more survived. Puck barely managed to avoid being crushed by one that fell just inches away. Reacting quickly, he stabbed downward with Zephyrian, dispatching the creature before it could fully orient itself.

Hearing a resounding screech that managed to let Puck whirl around even over the beating of the heart and his earplugs, Puck became aware of just what all the creatures they had killed before had amounted too.

Hundreds upon hundreds of different bodies or just different body parts of all the creatures they had fought before, had been sewn together into an abomination at least seven meters tall.

The creature had four legs, each bigger than Pucks armspan, above that a massive torso rested. Tentacles, thin and thick arms, everything one could think of was attached to it.

And finally at the very top of that torso a single shrieking maw spanned above everything that likely was meant to be the head.

A true nightmare.

Having gotten caught up in the view, Puck gasped as he saw Scarlets axe whish by him to kill a creature that had come at his back.

Rousing himself and nodding to Scarlet, Puck knew what his task was. Nothing had changed just because everything had gone mad.