章 104: Hacker
A.N. I have exams coming up, so sorry for the inconsistent updates of this story.
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A green tentacle wrapped around Lyze and smashed him against the walls of the cenote. Struggling with what strength he had in himself, he wrestled his sword arm out of the slimy appendage's clutches and slashed downwards. He cut a deep wound into the tentacle and Zepha shrieked as it pulled the tentacle back.
It then lifted one of its clubs, one of the flat tentacles that had hooked spikes and suckers on it, and brought it down through the water on top of Lyze. The hooks sank into the back of his legs and sent him rushing down and connecting with the bed of the cenote. Blood seeped out into the water as he screamed in his throat in pain.
The pressure increased several times over as he was pushed deeper into the water and blood began flowing out of his nose as he ran out of oxygenated blood. Under normal safer circumstances, Lyze was very good at keeping his breath underwater but he had been dragged under so suddenly that there had been little to no air in his lungs to begin with. It had only been because of his superhuman body that he had not imploded from the pressure of the water.
And for perhaps ten minutes now, he had been fighting an underwater battle with this giant squid in which it had given him no space to gather his bearings. Water magic was already his weakest point on a normal scene, but underwater with no oxygen going to his brain and a growing heat in his head as more and more carbon dioxide was entering his blood, while a giant squid monster was trying to eat him the whole time, it was exponentially more difficult to focus.
Zepha descended upon him similar to how octopi did to crabs, its beak wide open to clamp down on him. Lyze weakly activated his flight magic and moved to a side as the beak sank deep into the rock bed, effortlessly tearing through like it was made of marshmallows or something akin to that matter.
You may be asking why he was not using his overpowered magics to save himself.
The problem was that he couldn't focus. He needed his brain to help him do anything but it was quickly shutting down because of the lack of oxygen. This whole fight had been conducted in delirium as Lyze slowly but surely began losing light.
Zepha tore himself from the rocky bed with a large boulder in his beak. The squid's bulging eye swivelled around to focus on Lyze. The squid nonchalantly crushed the boulder between its beaks and grabbed Lyze again with its tentacles. Zepha pulled the boy towards him and held Lyze before its face, squeezing its tentacle tighter and tighter as he tried to crush the human.
Lyze desperately kept his mouth sealed so he didn't scream and lose the air in his body. Eve though the golden armour was holding up against the squeezing, but his legs and his arms were not protected in such a shell. Trying to focus in his already extremely agonized state, he focused on the squid before him to find any point of weakness in the squid's fleshy body that actually caused significant harm.
But now that the squid was holding Lyze so close to itself, the boy was able to see properly now what he was looking at. Zepha was green in colour but looking closely, Lyze could see that in addition to being green, Zepha's skin was slightly transparent and Lyze could see right to its organs.
And there Lyze saw three certain organs contracting and pumping just as a heart did. Somehow, in Lyze's dying brain, he remembered how squids had three hearts. Two brachial hearts for the gills and one overall systemic heart to pump blood. And nearest to Lyze at the moment was one of the brachial hearts.
With one of his throbbing arms, He drove Excalibur by twisting his wrist, right through the tentacle holding him and through the skin of Zepha's hood, puncturing and rupturing that one heart. Zepha screamed and threw Lyze off as volumes of blood exploded from the wound in his hood. At the same time, Zepha let off a cloud of ink from his underside and the already dark water became even darker as the ink mixed in.
With the force Zepha had flung him, Lyze was now on the other side of the cenote, while the squid flailed in pain ad tried to find itself. Lyze with the last of the life that his brain gave him, put his full willpower into focusing water magic. Instantly, a bubble formed around his head as water was pushed way from his head and a helmet of air formed around his skull. Lyze worshipfully gasped the newly available air and drank it in as life returned to his body and burning hot air was expelled from his mouth in exchange.
The heat inside his head receded though he felt the oncoming of a migraine from the pressure he'd been under. But his strength was very nearly gone from not even managing to have gotten a break from fighting Amphisbaena, let alone this green squid bastard that just suddenly popped up. Looking beyond the pocket of air around his head that he'd made for himself, he saw the giant squid give him a hateful gaze before it started using its tentacles to spin around at incredible speeds.
As it grew faster with its spinning, it encouraged a whirlpool to form and before long, a storm of water and rubble began circling around the cenote. The air pocket around Lyze's head dispersed as his body was spun round and around in the whirlpool. Lyze's body flailed and spun as well, with him not being able to tell up from down as he was disorientated once more, water forcing itself through his nose into his airways.
As Lyze tried to get himself out of that situation, his other hand knocked against something hard. Looking that way, he saw a flash of gold and found the Golden Helmet flowing alongside him. Zepha's whirlpool had dislodged the armour piece from its resting pace on the stalagmites and delivered it right into Lyze's hands. As quick as he could, Lyze hooked his finger into the beak of the helmet, since it was formed in the shape of an eagle's face. He pulled the helmet close into him and stuck it onto his head as firmly as he could against the currents they were being dragged around in.
Zepha saw the human lay claim to its treasure and it howled in anger and defiance as it flung a tentacle in Lyze's direction.
Fed up of the slimy limbs, and now that he had some of his strength returned to him, Lyze lifted Excalibur which had somehow stayed in his grip the whole time. Even so far underwater, silver fire coated the blade and Lyze slashed at the special angle in which he was always able to channel his physical strength best.
If you want to know just how physically strong Lyze was, picture it this way. They say a silverback Gorilla has the strength of fifteen to twenty grown men. Lyze's overall physical strength was perhaps equivalent to more than twenty-five of such gorillas.
So although the water certainly held back the usual force of his slashes, his strength was still easy enough to create powerful slashing shockwaves even underwater. And so a line of silver flame slashed right through the large club tentacle and split it off from the main body. However, Zepha opted to ignore the pain this time and charged towards the boy, intent on killing him off once and for all.
Lyze's strength began leaving him again and he knew he may not be able to prevent himself from being devoured this time. Chaos had been knocking upon the walls of its host several times now, begging to be granted permission from Lyze to act on his behalf. Lyze hated his powers being in control of him.
Whether it was Excalibur, Chaos or his skills, Lyze wanted to be the one in control. But he knew this time that such personal pride was going to get him killed, especially as the pressure of the water started making blood seep from his nose again. So for the first time in years, Lyze allowed Chaos to aid him to protect him.
He sheathed Excalibur and held his right hand forward as he pushed aside all his other powers, and pure Chaotic Force spilled out from his soul and filled his body. Immediately, he felt the internal pressure of Chaos started threatening to make his body explode. But such was the unparalleled willpower of Lyzof Keele, that he had a mental fortitude of no equivalence. Even the indomitable will that was the inherent power of Drayfus of Liones came short against the raw emotion and resistance of Lyze's mind and spirit.
Lyze had been drawing up several theories in which he could cheat the burden his current state enforced upon himself. His soul was not fit to completely channel the full brunt of Chaos's powers, and his body suffered the consequence as a side effect. Every time Lyze activated Chaos, he ran the risk of his body being disintegrated due to the onslaught of cosmic power that filled his body.
But that was in this plane of reality where other Laws were at work. But what about in a space in which Chaos and by extension Lyze was the ultimate Authority, the overarching Law, whom nobody could escape from?
It was upon discovering this theory that Lyze suddenly remembered a very popular franchise he had been invested in back on Earth, one of many he regretted not being able to follow up on but something that really went along with his character. Full of an equal measure of martial arts, weapons and mystical arts in a modern setting no less, had Lyze been given a choice in where he reincarnated if that had been a direction he'd wanted to go, that world would have been the one he'd want to go to.
But what was considered to be the peak of that universe's mystical arts was the ability to create your own personal space, a domain in which you were unrestricted and your powers ran as you saw fit. And anybody caught in the crossfire had little chance of escaping it unless you were special. But certain actions had to be performed and proper visualization had to take place, not to mention the absolute precise control one would have to have over their powers to build such a construct. Lyze had little control over the majority of Chaos's powers, and that control was even less pronounced when it came to commanding or manipulating something as abstract as space.
But he had no choice now. It was now or never. His whole journey thus far had been one of risks and suicidal moves. What was one more to add to that list?
Lyze pulled back his left hand and raised his right one higher. He folded the pinkie and the ring finger, crooked the middle finger, but held the index and the thumb straight. This was his chosen hand symbol, one of the apparent conditions of this new art and technique he was about to attempt to pull off for the first time. This particular hand symbol appealed to him in certain ways.
The Hand of Sabazius.
And thus, he spoke his next words...
.
.
.
"{Domain Expansion...}"
---
Zepha came to a screeching halt as its instincts suddenly told it that something was very, very wrong. Absolute darkness overcame the cenote as all the water completely disappeared around both Lyze and the giant squid.
A pocket dimension filled the expanse of the cenote, a piece of reality cut off from everything else that served as the playground for Chaos to act freely without being restricted due to the limitations of its host's body. In place of the water, there now came an empty void in which both the boy and the Beast floated.
Lyze cheered fiercely inside as he realized that his plan had worked, for the pressure that had filled his body before was now completely gone. Instead, Chaos was free to fill into the Domain he'd created around himself, sealed by a tight spatial barrier.
He'd hacked it!
But of course, he had to finish it off now didn't he?
"{Domain Expansion: Cacophony of Chaos}!"
His voice came from all around them as he activated one of his Domain's features. And just like the original idea, it was a sure hit attack.
From Zepha's perspective, a storm of horrific creatures rose put of the void behind Lyze and billowed out in every directions. Creatures that could not be named or described accurately. Some had billions of eyes, other had beaks filled with spiky teeth. Some were long fleshy tubes of flesh but with giant mouth on the end. Some had arms, while some just had feet. Some had claws and talons, while some had tentacles. Some looked like like slugs but with human features, while some looked like humans but had the features of insects.
This was but a small part of the billions of creatures that circled around Lyze protectively. If there was any possible way to describe the scene, it would be called an Eldritch horror scene or perhaps something out Lovecraft's lore because of how horrific and monstrous these creatures were. They were so ugly, so filthy, so horrifying, and yet mixed amongst them also were creatures so beautiful that their radiance would burn the flesh of mortal beings, there would be no way to imagine these things with the human mind if one had not seen them
And yet, despite all these creatures being separate from each other in appearance, in essence they were one and the same. These creatures were all the entity known as Chaos, for in this realm separate to the physical plane, Chaos had no fixed form, which was why it appeared in amalgamations of horror and beauty. Because it's turbulent and chaotic nature made it contradictory in essence, and contradiction was about the truest form of Chaos.
Chaos circled its host, and Lyze had absolutely no fear. For the boy knew what was lurking behind him, he also knew that Chaos religiously protected him and would put itself in the way of any harm approaching Lyze, given the chance.
Lyze looked up at al the abominations hovering over him and smiled.
"You are free to do as you please in this personal realm of ours." He said to Chaos. "Please, destroy our enemy."
...
Every single creature there smiled in their own ways. Had any normal mortal seen how these creatures looked when they smiled, they would have honestly and literally died from the fear that would have consumed them at the mere expression of these abominations.
Zepha was no different except in the case that it didn't die because Lyze's domain did not allow him to. The giant squid knew however that it was in trouble, but in the absolute futility of it all, it tried swimming away through the void to escape Lyze and Chaos.
Chaos pounced, all those billions of abominations falling upon the Beast as its flesh was torn apart. But the influence and cruelty of Chaos reached beyond just that. For each time a part of Zepha's body or Zepha's soul was destroyed, Chaos regenerated it again.
Millions, billions, trillions of times a second, Zepha was made and unmade, over and over again. One fraction of a second, Zepha was whole, and then it would be nothingness. Then from that nothingness, Zepha would be brought back and tortured again. This was Chaos's hold over life and death. And the agony of such an experience could never, ever be put into words or into writing.
In Lyze's opinion, Arthur Pendragon's use of Chaos was narrow minded and primitive according to what he saw from the manga material of 4KOA. Arthur failed to truly understand the extent of Chaos and what the concept of Chaos was. But Lyze was not a primitive, medieval boy. He was born in a day of modern science, a day of abundant knowledge both spiritual and logical, as well as scientific and faithful.
He understood what Chaos as a concept meant, as a state meant, as a force meant. He was not a boy given a magic sword and power he did not deserve nor understand. Lyze knew how to maximise the power of Chaos, by embracing the concept off of which it was based.
For what else could be expected of one born from the True Universe?
The problem was that Lyze was too weak in body to properly channel Chaos in its full form. But the stupid boy Arthur, whom Lyze still hated with extreme passion even in this life, would never have been able to think up of a trick like this. The boy was too stupid and unfit to wield the power of Chaos, that he could not even separate the consequences of his actions in one realm acting in another. In trying to build new parts of New Camelot, Arthur was destroying and taking bits of land from Britannia because he could not break out of the balance of the world he lived in. Lyze would never have made such an ill use of Chaos's power.
In this disconnected space, Lyze could do as he wished without restriction and he could destroy his enemies easily and anyhow he wished.
Having had enough of torturing the squid, Lyze gave it one final twist and the giant squid was turned into nothingness. There was no body, there was no soul, nothing was left. It was as if Zepha had not existed in the first place because there was no remnant, nothing of the Beast to live on. To a person of Danmachi, that would mean they could not enter the cycle of reincarnation after death because their very essence would be destroyed.
That was the fate that befell Zanis Lustra, a punishment Lyze had made sure to reserve for specific type of enemies upon discovering it.
Satisfied with his win, Lyze made sure this time to take a gulp of air before dismissing the Domain. Chaos retreated back to the confines of Lyze's soul, but not before the boy felt something strange come from the entity. As it passed his flesh to go back to his soul, he was hit with something very peculiar and mind-boggling to him.
As it passed his flesh, the entity projected love to him. A fierce, protective, warm love that he did not expect from anyone ever. Something that did not befit that of a mere host. So raw and sincere was that sincere and powerful emotion that Lyze was caught off guard and he was left to wonder as the Domain collapsed around them.
He would have dwelt on it longer had the chill of water around him not brought him back to reality. The Golden Armour disappeared once more at his command so it would not pull him down with its weight. But he found that still, his body was tired and weakened from such strenuous attacks and environments.
So he did the only thing he could do for now. He called upon his Goddess form and golden light shined in the cenote as his hair became white and four wing burst out of his back. Flapping them rapidly with great strength, he created a tiny maelstrom of his own before magic carried him forward.
---
The panicking Loki Familia were taken back by surprise as a pillar of golden light burst out of the water, and from it emerged Lyze in his Goddess form again, his wings stretched to the fullest as feathers dislodged and fluttered around him, showers of golden sparks cascading from the beautiful extensions.
He hovered above them all in an unintentional T-pose as he revelled in the proper air again before fatigue overtook him and he finally lost consciousness.
"I've got him!" Tsubkai shouted as she used her naginata as a vaulting pole and launched herself across the water, catching the winged boy in her arms and landing on a sheet of ice that had been broken by Amphisbaena earlier. "Don't worry, he's safe!"
"Oh, thank goodness." Finn said in relief, his clothes dripping with water as well as several other members of the Familia.
Pallums were the best of all races at being able to see in the dark and Finn had jumped into the basin to try and locate Lyze and the mysterious monster that had abducted him. He and his Familia came upon the hole in the basin floor but it went far too deep for any of them to go in and survive since it acted like a sinkhole. If they went in, they wouldn't be able to come up again.
And thus Finn was faced with the horrible and difficult decision of prioritising his Familia over a single member, as harsh as it was. He could only hope that Lyze would survive whatever ordeal that was and whatever mysterious monster took him. Seeing Lyze break the surface again, brought immense relief.
But it could not compare to Riveria's, who lunged for the boy as soon as Tsubaki brought him ashore.
"Let me take a look at him!" She fussed as she ripped the boy from Tsubaki's arms and looked him over. She noticed in alarm how cold his body was, and how his veins were bulging out from his skin. It spoke volumes on the water pressure down there. She then gasped at seeing rivers of blood pouring from his nose, a bad indication of what damage may have been going on in his head.
"I need to heal him!" She said as she raised her staff.
"Wait a second." Tsubaki said as she held a hand out.
"Why do you stop me?!" Riveria asked, angered.
"I want to see something." Tsubaki said as she pointed to Lyze's wings, the white feathers still showering the ground in golden motes of magical energy, from which abundant moss and flowers was growing on the rock. Tsubaki pulled out one of Lyze's feathers. "Remember how he healed us with these little sparkless after our fight with the monster rex?"
"And?" Bara questioned. "Just let Riveria do her thing."
Tsubaki ignored that and began shaking the feather over Lyze's face, the golden sparks showering over his complexion. The Loki Familia watched in amazement as he breathed in the sparks and blood instantly stopped running from his mouth, while the veins receded. His skin regained colour and a check of his temperature confirmed that warmth was also returning to him. Overall, Lyze looked much healthier now.
"The healing power of these things are phenomenal!" Tsubaki exclaimed as she held the feather aloft. "It would put the Dian Cecht Familia out of business, perhaps every medicinal Familia or organisation in the world out of business."
"And it remains his property to make such a decision with!" Riveria snapped as she grabbed the feather from Tsubaki's hand.
"Just saying girl." Tsubaki raised her hands and tried to pacify the elf. "You've got one special kid in the Familia."
"But he's still soaking wet." Finn said as he gave Lyze a once-over. He then looked up at Riveria. "Who would he trust the most with re-clothing him out of all of us?"
"...Ais probably." Riveria said after a moment's thought.
"Then get her to help. Get him down to the next floor and put him by a fire. Raul! Get his pack from the cart and find his spare clothes. We'll have to work our way around those wings of his but we'll figure something out. Go on, get to it!" Finn ushered them all off hurriedly.
Not wanting to make him repeat himself, the Familia began going down the stairs to the 28th floor. Riveria picked Lyze up and held him in her arms as she carried him down. A couple of the girls helped by picking up the tip of his wings so they did not scrap on the floor as Riveria carried him.
Finn stayed behind with Gareth as they looked at the water once more.
"What the hell was that thing?" Gareth asked. "I don't remember any tentacle monster like that being in any of these floor."
"Because they're not supposed to exist in these floors." Finn said. "Lyze has said that he's been running into new monsters that just come out of nowhere. I think we've finally seen a demonstration of that."
"Well it can't be good, whatever it was. But you know what, I'm only half surprised that he managed to make it out alive."
"Perhaps. But not without his scars. We'll have to find out once he's woken up." Finn said as he scanned the basin again. "There has been far too many anomalies in this expedition than is normal. Multiple monster hordes? The appearance of several rare monsters? And now this unknown quantity just attacks the member of our Familia who keeps running into all of these."
"I think we're finally seeing how a normal dungeon run is for him. He did say that that is what happens a lot when he's in the Dungeon."
"Yes...I remember." Finn's thumb began throbbing and the Pallum grimaced upon the implication.
They weren't out of the woods yet.
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