Alma 143 A Daring Escape For Two

Lu'um was in right to have started closing the fissure as soon as she noticed the changes down below. The destructive power that was below was not something that the surface could handle, let alone the seas.

Had they opted to not close the fissure, the consequences would've been apocalyptic. Forget about the creatures in Centlani Deep dying, the entire eastern coast would have been obliterated to kingdom come.

Vaporized instantaneously in a flash of heat and light, much like Lei-en had been several years ago. That would have been the fate of the hundreds of cities that populated the eastern coast of Mulia. If not by the initial purge blast, then by the collapse of the coast itself as entire cities plunged into the sea.

But it was an immense struggle even for her, who by all rights, should have been the strongest person in Mulia at the moment. The stone-cold expression on Lu'um's face only made what she was doing look even more awe-inspiring. That was just a reflex brought on by her conditioning though; inside, Lu'um was starting to panic...

Not because of her own situation, of course, but because of Reed.

Wrapped around her arms were two indescribably large chains made of Anima that had been embedded deep into either side of the fissure, which were, in return, connected other chains in the distance. The smaller chains had the thickness of a small hovercraft, while the larger ones were as thick as the hull of a warship.

The sight of the enormous chains around Lu'um would have been somewhat comical, if a bit excessive... had they not started snapping. That is, the larger ones. They could not handle the immense forces exerted on them, despite the fact that they had only received a small, distributed portion of it.

That was the entire reason Lu'um had created many of them, so as to lessen the load on each individual chain, but even that had not been enough to prevent them from breaking.

Even so, she continued her arduous labor in silence. Not so much as a grunt of pain had escaped her lips since she had begun. This was not because she had developed a superhuman tolerance to pain, or some other grand feat of inhuman physicality.

Lu'um had simply shut off her pain receptors beforehand, so she could not hear the hundred warning alarms in her mind telling her to stop. She knew her body's own limits, so pain itself was an unnecessary bodily function to her.

For every chain that broke, she would create another two to take its place as she continued to strain her body to its limits.

The earth beneath Lu'um continued to groan and rumble in protest, but she paid no mind to the cataclysmic sounds around her until something unexpected happened.....

Reed was out of options. Even with his superb skill, he still couldn't make up for the difference in power he had lost.

Had he his old power, Reed could have simply opened a spatial tear and walked out of this mess. That was how simple it would have been for Reed with his power, but he had made his choice back then.

He would walk his own path, on his own terms. And that meant that he casting aside the power he once possessed.

It wasn't even mine, anyway. I refuse to go back to that sort of arrangement ever again. Giving that bastard a way to manipulate me is unacceptable. No matter the cost.

Reed continued to wrack his brain as he pushed his meager reserves to their limits. He had one very extreme idea, but he didn't want to use them unless it was absolutely necessary.

The only real idea that had popped into his head involved increasing his speed by any means necessary. Reed had figured that since he literally could not accelerate himself any faster than he was going right now with his maximum output, then the only way forward would be to... lessen his load, so to speak.

If I lose some weight... I should be able to increase my acceleration. All I need to do is lose some weight very quickly...

Reed grit his teeth and put his hands onto his hips. He was confident that if lost half of his weight, he'd probably make it. All he needed to do was make a quick and decisive cut.

If Reed severed the bottom half of his body — everything below his waist — he was positive that he would lose enough weight. The only thing he needed to do was close his eyes, take a deep breath, and do it.

...........I-I can't do it. Goddamnit, this is such a pain in the ass...!

Something inside was warning Reed that if he did it, he would fail what he set out to do. Sure, he would come back alive, and yes, the injury was healable, but it wouldn't be what Reed set out to do.

This was not what he envisioned when he wanted to prove himself dependable to Lu'um. Coming back as half of a severed torso would not send the message he wanted. Surviving by the skin of my teeth isn't what he wanted. That would not cut it this time around for Reed.

I've never seen a dependable sock puppet before, much less a living one. Don't think Sweetcheeks would be very happy if she saw me return like that...

Then again, I'm pretty sure she'd prefer to see me alive rather than dead at the end of the day, so...

The fissure had been closing for some time already, to the point that Reed could now faintly the shadows of either end of the fissure. If he didn't make up his mind, he'd turn into mush when it was completely sealed.

Reed had nearly given up on getting out in one piece as he envisioned until...

He saw a tiny, gleaming dot in the distance. It was small but it continued to grow larger for every second that passed until it turned into a giant, shining comet.

Oh, great. What could it be this time? Another problem for me to deal with, huh. Just my goddamned luck.

Reed gathered Anima around himself and strengthen his aegis the best he could since there was nothing else he could do. He was already going way too fast to doing any kind of evading.

He was on a crash course was imminent with whatever had been unlucky to fall into the fissure. Either Reed could break through it with his immense force, or it would turn him into meat paste should he fail.

That was what Reed initially thought it would go down until he realized how very... familiar the comet's shine was to him, as if he had seen it somewhere else.

W-Wait, should—

The gigantic comet suddenly passed by Reed in the blink of an eye and suddenly performed a graceful 180-degree drift back toward the surface, dragging him in its tremendous wake, accelerating him way past what he had been capable of.

It was Mother-Bound-In-Stars. She had descended into the fissure herself to recover Reed after she saw that he had not yet returned.

Reed quickly figured out what Mother-Bound-In-Stars wanted him to do and hurriedly clawed his way onto her shell as fast as he could. She was several orders faster than he went it came to speed, so he focused all of his efforts onto the simple task of holding on to her.

Mother-Bound-In-Stars was akin to speed incarnate in Reed's eyes. He couldn't even keep up with their surroundings as they blurred into a haze of color and light. It was a genuinely terrifying experience as he screamed his lungs out in fear.

He could literally feel his bones rumbling precariously within his body, as if they were made of glass. His sweat and tears poured out and streamed backward as he struggled to keep onto the blazing comet with all of his might.

"CAN... YOU... SLOW... THE... FUCK... DOWN!!!!!!!"

When Mother-Bound-In-Stars heard Reed's frantic request, she turned her head around and, in an all too human fashion, did something he had never seen before. It put the fear of God in Reed.

Her eyes gleamed mischievously, as if she had been amused by the request. For once, Reed had said something she liked.

She loved it when someone tried to tell her, the Empress of Centlani Deep, what to she should do —when someone dared to challenge her rule.

Reed felt a sudden chill run down his spine when her shell started to shine even brighter than before. An enormous amount of Anima gathered around them and then...

Mother-Bound-In-Stars got serious. She unleashed her full power and cut loose, hurtling upward so fast that her shell had caught on actual fire.... along with Reed.

She had seemingly turned into an actual meteor. There was no stopping them now....

Chapter end