Chapter 5247: Survival! II

Ubergulden Dietrich arrived on the obsidian beach without his right hand.

The stump ended cleanly at the wrist, the Source energy at the terminus cycling through the slow regenerative process that a Seidr Source performed under catastrophic injury, which was to say it worked, and it worked at the pace of something working against odds that had not been calculated in advance.

Blood, real and warm and crimson-gold, dripped from the stump into the dark sand. He had forgotten blood could do that! His power had been filtering that particular detail for so long the forgetting had been complete.

Beside him, his Sororis Prima Custodes had arrived with the left half of her torso present and the right half reconstructing itself from what her Source could provide, the process producing visible results and visible cost simultaneously. She was on her knees in the dark sand, both hands flat on the ground for stability, her expression set with the rigid concentration of a being whose primary cognitive resource was entirely committed to not losing the regeneration’s progress.

Dietrich knelt beside her and pushed his own Source expression toward her, the gold of it pressing against the injury site with the intent of a Custos bond trying to do what Custodes bonds existed to do.

It was slow.

Seidr Sources under critical injury regenerated slowly. He knew this now in the empirical sense of having observed it across the last several minutes, which was more immediate knowledge than the theoretical understanding he had arrived with.

He pressed harder, but at such a time..

BOOM!

The impact came from his left and slightly above, the force carrying the specific signature of something that had been moving invisibly and had decided the moment for invisibility was done. Dietrich’s hand came up and caught the incoming mass, his Source expression flaring gold around the contact point, and something struck his palm hard enough to drive him two feet sideways across the dark sand!

He held.

Where he had caught it, the invisible thing became visible on contact with his Source, the crystalline exterior revealing itself as the expression that had been concealing it failed against the direct energy contact. It was a bullet ant, enormous, its body the length of his forearm with a crystalline carapace that caught the faint ambient light of the beach and scattered it in all directions, its Source energy blazing Seidr-bright as it gathered the surrounding obsidian Infinity and drove it outward in a focused stream toward his chest.

The obsidian Infinity hit him and he felt it differently than he had felt anything in Observable Existence, the impact not on his Civilization but on his Source directly, the raw core of what he was taking damage rather than the architectural layers built around it!

WUU!

He smashed his remaining hand into the ant’s carapace and heard the crack of crystalline material giving way under the force of his Source expression, and the ant disengaged and skittered backward across the rock, gathering more obsidian Infinity from the surrounding terrain for its next impact.

He looked at his Custodes, still on her hands and knees in the sand, still reconstructing.

He looked at the ant circling for its next approach.

He moved toward the ant and away from his Custos and felt the specific cold of that movement, leaving her exposed while he addressed what was coming for both of them, making the calculation that a slower threat to her was preferable to an immediate one arriving at her back while he remained where he was.

The ant came at him, and he met it, and behind him his Custos continued her slow reconstruction in the dark.

This place was very dangerous!

---

Elsewhere.

Arjun stood on the body of the giant Seidr Crab and ate.

The crab’s carapace had been split across its dorsal surface from the force of whatever had ended it, the interior meat exposed and glowing faintly with the residual Source energy the creature had carried. He ate without ceremony, tearing pieces away with his hands and consuming them with the focused efficiency of a being who had identified this as the primary task and was executing it.

His muscular frame gleamed faintly in the ambient dark, the leaves covering his lower body the only concession to the environment’s preference for basic coverage. He was broad across the shoulders and composed in every line of his bearing, the imperious gold-blue of his Source expression radiating outward from him in a steady ambient glow that the darkness of this place did not quite manage to suppress.

Even stripped to his Source, stripped of every layer of Superbius engineering and Royal House identity, Arjun carried himself as something that had never received information about what peers looked like.

His Custodes sat at the edge of the crab’s carapace, breathing heavily. The crossing had cost her and the first engagement after had cost her further, and she was eating her portion of the crab with the focused intent of someone restoring themselves against a deficit that was not comfortable to be carrying.

Arjun chewed and looked at the dark landscape ahead.

"We will delve deeper while killing and eating everything in our path."

He said this between bites without turning his head, as though he were narrating a plan he had already fully formed and was now simply communicating for the benefit of whoever was present.

"The creatures here are dangerous. They are steeped in the power of this place in ways that cultivated strength does not fully account for. Even a Silurian Paleozoic entity can fall to them if they are not careful." He tore another piece free and ate.

"What matters is one’s Source. Infinity is a large factor. So are others. Seidr is one stage, and we have to reach Galdr Source quickly. Then we will have the confidence to go truly deeper."

He looked at the dark horizon where the one-mile perception limit cut off his view.

"Galdr is the stage, and we will be the first ones to reach it." He paused on this, not out of uncertainty but with the patience of someone giving a statement the weight it deserved. "Looking at the dangers of this place, the monstrous creatures and the ambient pressure, that poor sister of Dietrich’s will likely die soon if she has not already."

He consumed the last piece he had taken and stood upright on the crab’s body, looking ahead.

"If we meet her, I will be magnanimous enough to offer her shelter. In the end, even across separate Houses, we all seek the same glory."

His eyes carried the bright imperious light of a being who had stripped every external layer away and found that what remained was entirely comfortable with what it was.

"The glory of Gilded Ones."

...!

His Custodes finished her portion and stood beside him, her breathing steadied, her Source expression cycling back toward functional.

Arjun looked at the dark landscape with the expression of a being who had located the horizon and found it his for the taking!

He stepped off the crab’s body and moved into the dark, and his Custodes followed, and behind them the crab’s slowly dimming Source remained on the dark sand like a marker of where something had ended so that something else could continue.

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