Darkness swelled along the recesses of the gaps in the floors. Whispers and murmurs seemed to rise in erratic waves and a baleful light seemed to shine from everywhere at once.
Within the gaps, between the various kingdoms that had established in this accursed graveyard comprising of the discarded sins of the Ten great families, a sharp crack suddenly echoed.
Shatter!
Reality shattered like a mirror into a thousand pieces and from a gap fell a humanoid figure tightly wrought in gray white tentacles that seemed to be forged out mist and starlight.
The figure had an impassive look on his face and it's eyes were unfocused and muddled. They stared into the void as if beholding the infinite knowledge in the ether.
One by one, as the figure rapidly descended to the ground, speeding up as it fell, more figures appeared around it.
Every single one of them had a monocle resting upon their faces and their bodies were covered with a shimmering fog.
Phantaminum felt the world spinning around and melting into a continuous blur as he sped to the ground. All of the angels in the sky 'stole' their own momentum and 'gifted' it all to his body.
Booooom!
Breaking the sound barrier, the axis slammed into the ground, triggering a small earthquake. The earth webbed open into ravines that led to the abyss and the glowing lava began to rise from the underground pits.
Phantaminum gritted his teeth and his power began to spread above the ground. The dirt seemed to come alive, becoming sentine and zooming towards the avatars at speeds faster than light!
Poof! Poof! Poof!
Shredded paper floated lightly down to the ground as the angels appeared unharmed.
Some escaped into the spirit realm while the others merely 'stole' the control over the rocks, redirecting them deep into the ground!
One of the angels extended 'His' hand and 'stole' Phantaminum's desire to escape.
For a moment, the axis looked dumbly across the streaking lava that enveloped his body like a cocoon. At that instant, as the desire to escape began to form again in his mind, another angel 'stole' it again.
The angels and Phantaminum got locked in a perpetual struggle.
The flying debris, propelled by the authority of the author were almost self evolving, changing courses, leaping across dimensions, splitting off into more versions of themselves. In some ways, they were behaving increasingly like Winston himself.
They couldn't be very easily destroyed, as the remnant power merely escaped into more debris to try again.
Shiiiiiiiii!
The sky lit up with the light of a thousand suns and a burning body appeared amid the shattered gap in space. It was a blazing sun, resting in the 11th dimension above all of them.
All of the angels smirked and escaped into the 11th dimension, phasing through the sun and leaving behind afterimages to continue stealing Phantaminum's thoughts.
The thousands of avatars and the uncountable debris fighting constantly made for a bizarre view to any onlooker.
With a smile, the Sun avatar, with 'His' gigantic body established his own place in the spirit realm.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
At the speed of light, all the debris, as if locking onto phantom coordinates dashed right at the shimmering sun in the sky, ignoring all afterimages.
"Coming closer to the sun is prohibited here." A clear voice proclaimed from nowhere. It was soon followed by another.
"I say it's effective!"
The debris melted instantly the moment it crossed a certain threshold. The remnants of Phantaminum's powers attempted to escape back to continue their assault, but it too burned away beneath the heat of the sun.
With that done, all of the avatar adjusted their monocles; then with a smile, they again extended their hands to the ground and 'stole'.
...
...
The tower went along without knowing that two behemoths were fighting right under their noses. The angels in the gaps of the tower and the axis deep inside the earth would not be found to the normal populace.
However, at this moment, what was a fiery news spreading uncontrollably, was the return of the number one ranker in the tower.
Phantaminum, the 'Riddle' had returned.
...
Sigh!
A man with light, shining blue hair sat before a table with many different documents in place. His sapphire blue eyes bore into the screen of his phone, reading some alarming lines of text.
With a dry expression, he could not help but sigh again.
The disappearance of thousands of people across the tower a year ago, two of which include Winston and Zarhan. The shinsu across the tower turning red for a moment, symbolizing the return of the 'Red Tower' and now this... what the hell is even happening here.
He leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling.
"I know irregular are supposed to shake up the tower and all... but isn't this way too much?" He said to no one in particular.
Just then, the door to his room flew open after a light knock and in came a beautiful woman.
"Endorsi." Khun raised an eyebrow at the princess.
"Did you hear the news?"
"I did. Yes." Khun snarled. "It's like the entire tower is going to shit. No leads on Winston or Zarhan for a whole year. Even the Jahad forces have been quiet after the Last Station became Ground Zero."
Hearing him begrudgingly explain his headaches, Endorsi couldn't help but have a sour mood herself. "You think this relates to Winston and Zarhan in any way?"
"It might. We can never know with that guy."
"Well, since we can't investigate it anyways, there's nothing to worry about then. God, I feel like the power level are swelling a bit too large now. Some time ago, all we had to worry about was going to the next floor. Now, we're trying to figure out what happened to one of the strongest irregulars in the tower and trying to figure out clues for the number one."
Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Endorsi motioned to the door with her head.
"Whatever. There's some other news you should be worrying about."
"Like what?" Khun raised a brow. Something happened with the new recruits?
New recruits. Yes, they had been recruiting a lot of people in the past year. Naturally, people were very very eager to join them. Especially since they had two Jahad Princesses and were said to still have ties to the 'Beauty Goddess Charlotte' who had inexplicably disappeared after the Workshop Battle.
What was the main objective of this? Well, there's wasn't really a solid objective period. It was just a fail safe. Power came in many forms, and one of those forms was connections and numbers. Having many people to command made all the difference; especially now that they didn't have Winston to rely on anymore.
"Nope."
"What? With an old recruit?"
"You can say that. Someone brought a particular news back." A grin slowly bloomed on her features. "I guess we found someone. Someone who goes by the name of 'Blonde Bitch.'"
"Rachel?" Khun asked, suddenly feeling intrigued.
Endorsi nodded and continued, "Maddrock brought the news. Says one of his goons made it into their makeshift group. Apparently, Rachel has a... she has a strange power. Makes the shinsu around her turn red."
As her words landed, Khun's eyes instantly became colder. He had never really let go of his grudge, even though Bam had made the choice to imprison them and not kill her. He had vowed to kill her, make her taste despair in whatever way he ever could and he always fulfils his promises; much less those made to himself.
The only problem was that Rachel had disappeared after the last station incident.
But now... with the news that Rachel had some ability that turned the shinsu red, a precursor to the Incident leading to Winston and Zarhan's disappearance, well, it rang a few bells in his head.
Looking at Endorsi, Khun smiled cruelly and spoke, "I guess it's time to pay her a visit then."
...
Phantaminum rested in the underground. Lava streamed all over his body yet failed to hurt even a single hair. The world seemed to spin around and his thoughts were constantly getting jumbled up.
He had forgotten something. He wanted to move, but he had forgotten how to. He wanted to speak out in rage, but he didn't know why. He wanted to kill someone... Who?
Whenever a clear answer came close to forming, it escaped again; just out of reach.
Eventually, he reached the limits of his patience.
"Fuck this..." he muttered. His jumbled thoughts suddenly sprang back into place. The lava stopped and the world stopped spinning. Deep from Phantaminum's own body, a deep darkness began to shine that sprung outwards into the world.
From inside that darkness, hundreds of thousands of lights began to shine like the stars in the night sky. 6 lights among them were the most prominent, appearing directly on Phantaminum's chest like a tattoo. The world paused, as if holding it's breath.
The shinsu around him began to go haywire, as if it had lost all semblance of reason and laws. It slowly began to turn into pure darkness, leaving Phantaminum himself as the sole source of light. A dark cloak draped over his shoulders and even his face got covered by the deep darkness; his eyes lit ablaze with a red fire.
With all that done, Phantaminum's feet touched the sea of darkness below him and he 'looked' above him.
"You have some interesting party tricks. They're very effective if your aim was to make me angry."
"Aren't you already? You want to kill me." One of the angels retorted with a mocking grin. "Why do you even care so much about the 'story' and all that? I mean, not that it matters now. We're already enemies."
With the deep darkness covering him, Phantaminum looked at his arch-enemy and replied indifferently - "No reason."
...
...
...
A/N: Alright people, I know I haven't been uploading a lot and that's because I'm still getting ready for college. The way the counselling system works in India is that there's three rounds.
I got the college seat in the first round, so that's basically confirmed for me; but actual classes don't start till the second round is done; because many students will change colleges if they get an upgraded seat in a better suited college - which is also something I'm doing as well.
So while I haven't yet started with my classes, things have been pretty hectic. If my seat gets upgraded, I'll need to adjust to the other college as well so that's that.
Also, on a side note, my country is so fucked bro. Indians are getting so much hate, and with all the shit they're doing, I understand that. But just because some uneducated lot are doing all that shit, we also suffer the consequences.
Not to mention the political parties aren't doing much to improve on that. In fact, it almost seems like they want everyone to be illiterate. They're constantly furthering their own agendas by showing pro Hindu vs Muslim propoganda. They have removed essential Mughal Empire chapters from history books and even removed the fucking Periodic Table from the CHEMISTRY BOOKS. WTF!? Now, I found out even Darwin's evolution theory is getting removed (The whole chapter) and things like Manusmriti(A book that practically made the caste system and is the reason India is so fucked up in the first place) is getting taught in LAW SCHOOL!
Many schools have been demolished to make Bars and Clubs, the news anchors are all paid off to constantly praise the party and the majority of India doesn't know what basic civic sense is.
Add to the fact that many first world countries are being ravaged by the uneducated indians that think their religion is above all else and the world must adher to them isn't helping. Now, Japan for some reason is importing 50,000 skilled people from here. Those I can understand. But there's also 450,000 unskilled indians. Why tf.
I'd been learning Japanese for some time so I could eventually go there, but now it seems like there's no point.
So yeah, India is fucked.
I remember a time when being an Indian used to be a good thing. Now?
I can't wait to get out of this dammed country but I still have 5 fucking years here. FUCK!
Whew. Sorry, went on a bit of a rant there.
Sorry about that.
For those that read the entire thing, you deserve a thumbs up.
Anyways, I can't say when the next chapter will be. I wrote this in 2 hours of free time I had.
Also, my brother deleted the Game of Thrones fanfic and is trying a smaller scale fic. It's apparently a Percy Jackson fanfic and is called 'Bestiary Files' so check that out if you please.
cheers~