Chapter 1011: Where Am I?

The Ouroboros Serpents were not willing to delay their feast, so they had an internal debate between all six of them, and a quick game was played, and the loser was sent upwards to get rid of the annoyance. Who said there could not be accord in madness?

The game they played was simple, the six of them had surrounded the most succulent feast they had ever come across, which turned out to be the bodies of Old Man Seed, Elura, Caine, and other higher-level beings that Rowan had come across, these beings had been marinating inside a large vat of Primordial Darkness for Eons.

The rules of the game were that the serpent who could not hold back their appetite and went for the meal first would be the loser.

The unlucky Ouroboros Serpents turned around in fury and headed towards the outside, in a few short moments, despite their rock-like constitution, the Ouroboros Serpents had devoured nearly a third of the mass of the massive swelling from the flesh below the earth, making it deflate like a rotten fruit.

The speed of their consumption only increased from this point. At this moment, a single serpent was consuming as much as all six of them were previously consuming, and this process would not stop. It would keep increasing, and in this world, the thing that it did not lack was high-level energy. The serpents had met a feast, worthy of their appetites.

Unleashing the Ouroboros Serpents was like a wildfire that could not be controlled. Rowan knew it, but no one here was aware.

The unlucky and angered serpent burst outward from the deflating flesh with a roar that released massive shockwaves.

The Ascendant Explorers had seen these six alien creatures burrowing their way into the flesh of the Calamity God, and they hurried down to rescue anything that would be left of them, it was common knowledge that nothing escaped the stomach of a Calamity God intact.

Several of them were tugging at their ends that were entering into the fleshy mound when a massive serpent head exploded the flesh around it and charged towards them with opened jaws, and inside of it was nothing but nothingness.

Now what was important to note was that when the serpents had entered the flesh, they were all around seventy-seven miles in length, far more massive than any mortal creature was supposed to be, they almost resembled mountains in the shape of snakes.

What emerged from the deflating flesh was two times larger than what entered into it. Barely a second had passed!

The Ascendants Explorers had reached a few hundred feet above the flesh, and when the Ouroboros Serpent emerged in its fury, they were so close together, that the distance that separated them was negligible, and they all practically fit inside the mouth of the serpent.

The jaws of the serpent snapped shut around the seven Ascendants, but these were ancient figures with countless battles under their belt. Their bodies were discorporated, and the serpent jaws closed over nothing. They recreated their bodies outside the head of the serpent, surrounding it, and as one they slammed their collective Wills against the serpent and froze time, locking it in place.

The influence of Time-stop did not end with this single Ouroboros Serpent, but it spread downwards, encircling the flesh of the Calamity God and holding it in place. One Ascendant would not be capable of this, but seven of them had enough power to hold these two powerful entities for a while.

"What sort of anomaly is this?" An Ascendant breathed out in awe, its gaseous form vibrating with excitement, "I can not detect any presence of Aura in its flesh. This is nothing but rock, yet it is still alive, and also without Aura!"

"Fascinating...There is no Aura, but I was severely damaged by the sheer power in their bodies, do you notice it is bigger and stronger, and barely a moment has passed? How can you rate such a growth?" One of the Ascendants moved closer to the serpent and began touching its rocky scale.

The Ascendant traveled to the opened eyes of the serpent that was bigger than a small town, and although it seemed to be carved out of rock, there was no denying the sheer ominous glow that emerged from it. A lesser creature would not be able to look at the eyes of this creature, even the Ascendant shivered and moved ahead, looking for an opening so he could investigate within.

"There is not a hint of damage on this, could this material be immune against the touch of Calamity? We should harvest what we can below and retreat, there is much here to learn..."

"Rhion, get back!"

Rye Ascendant Rhion turned around irritated, he was the leader of the Ascendants here, a member of the Council of Nine, and this discovery would push him towards the highest seat in the Council, his annoyance at the interruption of what was going to become the crowning moment in his future endeavors, angered him,

"What! We can hold the Time-Stop for long enough to..."

Then he felt the air stir behind him, and his form shook in fear, amazement, and dozens of myriad emotions hard for him to describe, he yelled and dispersed his body, and when he reappeared he was within darkness.

A darkness so deep that his Aura senses could detect nothing outside of it. 'Where am I?'

Rhion shivered, he was suddenly so cold. A sensation he had not felt for millions of years. His thoughts were becoming slow, and it was a struggle to keep them in order.

He summoned every scrap of Aura he had in his core, and in the end he could only create a tiny flame that was not even bigger than his palm, holding it overhead he looked around him, and could not see anything for miles, except endless darkness.

Looking at the ground below, he thought it appeared strange, but he had already begun to forget the reason why it was strange. The only thought he had in his head was to leave this place.

That coldness he recognized. It was one of death, and every moment he spent in this place was stealing everything from him. Rhion stumbled forward, every step was torture, but the tenacity of an Ascendant Explorer was ridiculous, they could push their bodies to heights that defied reason.

He had not even realized that his body of Aura had vanished sometime in the past, and his mortal flesh that had not seen the light of day was all that was left. Rhion green skin and long red hair that touched the ground were slowly losing their color as if the darkness was leeching even that away.

'I need to leave this place... I need to leave this place...'

This mantra echoed over and over inside his head, and he did not notice when his skin vanished, and the muscles underneath, but when he stumbled to his knees when his ligaments simply evaporated, he knew he would never leave.

He lay on the ground, pieces of himself vanishing, and with a last act of Will, he pushed the sputtering flames forward, if he could not escape, at least his flames should not share the same fate.

His eyes followed the flame as it traveled in the air, and as the darkness encroached on his sight, he saw the flames impact against a great shifting mountain and explode, vanishing from reality.

That explosion had revealed the truth to him. Those shifting mountains were teeth, and the earth had felt strange to him because he had been walking on something that felt like flesh but was not.

Rhion finally knew where he was, but he could no longer care. What was left of him was just a rapidly vanishing skull.