Heir Of Azathoth : EXtra's Limitess EvOlution-Chapter 33: Lethyrae

The messenger slowed.

He stopped several paces short of the chamber ahead and did not look back at me.

"They are waiting," he said.

The chamber doors were already open. I resolved myself and crossed the threshold.

It was vast, yet deliberately so, its ceiling swallowed by darkness, the walls receding just enough to make distance feel intentional rather than excessive.

The air was colder here, heavier, pressing faintly against the chest with each breath.

Andestine again, though darker than the halls I had passed through, its surface untreated, left raw.

My steps slowed on their own.

Suspended above the ground was the Lethyrae.

Its mass was held aloft by thick organic cords that grew directly from its back and shoulders, not attached but grown.

The strands disappeared into the darkness above, stretched taut, bearing its weight without strain.

The body hung slightly forward, elongated, wrong in its proportions in a way that resisted quick understanding rather than inviting fear.

One arm was longer than the other.

Both ended in hooked claws, the joints inverted, bending against instinct rather than anatomy.

Secondary limbs rested along its torso, folded and still, their tips twitching with controlled tension.

Bone protruded through the skin along the ribs and forearms, not broken, exposed by design.

Sinew remained visible, dense and reinforced, layered for strength rather than protection.

Its torso was narrow and segmented, ridged with hardened tissue that locked the body into a permanent forward lean.

Below the waist, the legs were underdeveloped, little more than stabilizers, confirming they were never meant to carry its weight.

The head was partially masked.

A rigid plate of pale material fused directly to the skull, smooth and featureless except for a single vertical opening, and a maw.

Within it, several eyes were arranged in a fixed pattern, unblinking, tracking independently.

They adjusted the moment I entered its vision.

No expression followed.

No acknowledgment.

’So this is what they call a male...’ I thought to myself, as the Lethyrae’s grin spread, sharp and cynical, teeth catching what little light the hall offered.

"...It occurs to me that you are not stunned by me. Very unusual for someone of the human race, an amateur, no less, to meet me and not be captivated by my appearance."

The voice was heavy, layered, as if two tones spoke in unison, each word pressing against the air like gravity.

I pushed unnecessary thoughts into the corner of my mind, letting them linger out of focus, then stepped carefully, deliberately, keeping the weight of my gaze unnerving yet controlled.

"I see no reason for myself to be intimidated, neither by your appearance, nor by your kin in general," I said, each word deliberate, calm.

"That is a vile assumption on your part. One is meant to fear their foes, not their allies. Long trusted allies."

My voice was even, neither stern nor soft, a neutral cadence meant to convey nothing beyond conversation.

This in particular was a dialogue I remembered from the novel spoken by the protagonist when he first met the Lethyraes.

Speaking of the Lethyrae, they were among the very few races that had remained neutral, or rather, openly friendly, and had agreed to coexist alongside humans, establishing diplomatic, economical, and even geological relations where possible, a feat that in itself spoke volumes.

It proved them to be a race possessing intelligence and sentience on par with humans, if not surpassing them in several aspects that humans preferred to believe were uniquely their own.

Their existence alone was rare, but coupled with such high intelligence and a cooperative disposition, it bordered on an anomaly.

There were no other races besides them that had ever demonstrated this degree of balance, most excelling in only a single aspect, raw intellect without empathy, strength without restraint, awareness without reason.

Because entities emerged from the Reality cascade were, more often than not, portrayed as hostile, grotesque, and irredeemably dangerous.

And that portrayal was not without merit.

They were instinctively lethal, their very existence shaped around impulses humans struggled to comprehend, let alone coexist with.

Which made the Lethyrae stand apart even more.

Not because they were harmless, but because they chose restraint.

They were stronger than humans.

There was never any real debate about that, not in strength, not in endurance, not even in adaptability.

And yet, they chose to coexist. Even after countless attempts by humans to erase the fractured dream before it could stabilize into a reality cascade.

Attempts that were reckless, desperate, and more often than not, ignorant.

Humans paid for it too, in their own way.

None were slain outright, but many returned broken in places that could not be seen, minds bent out of shape, memories hollowed, will eroded until there was nothing left to anchor them.

Still, the greater cost was never ours.

For the Lethyraes, those years meant deaths. Repeated ones.

Loss of territory, collapse of structures they had built within the dream, depletion of resources they could never truly replace.

They were ground down slowly, patiently, over years of constant struggle, only to finally emerge into reality stripped of almost everything they once possessed.

And yet, when they did, they chose peace.

They did not retaliate.

They did not demand recompense.

They did not even demand acknowledgment, as the humans feared.

They stayed neutral, cooperative, and almost accommodating despite their fearsome appearance.

’Strange, isn’t it?’

That was why I had always favored the Lethyraes.

Because they made sense.

They spoke when it mattered, and stayed silent when it didn’t. In a world defined by excess and instinct, they alone exercised restraint.

They alone earned my respect.

Though the reality cascade had taken place over a millennia ago, what remained of it now were nothing but twisted, interwoven tales, stories retold just enough to glorify humans, and carefully trimmed wherever the Lethyraes were concerned.

History, they called it. A convenient word, one that dulled edges and buried blame.

"You reek of Narvasthla," he said, very much.

I had barely settled when his eyes darkened. "Tell me," he continued, his voice spreading through the chamber, pressing against the stone, against my ears, "did you pay our homeland a visit recently?"

Narvasthla.

A world where the Lethyraes had once thrived, a name humans avoided unless wrapped in metaphor or stripped of context.

A place I might not have even known, let alone carried the scent of.

I hadn’t left this room.

I hadn’t left this body.

I hadn’t left anything.

That much I was certain of. And yet, as the name settled into the air, something crawled up my spine, cold, as if the world itself had just tilted its head and asked a question it already knew the answer to.

How could that ever be?