Infinite Body Prince-Chapter 103: Sacrificial

Hadrian followed the group through the shadows of the city, his consciousness divided between his rodent and seabird vessels.

He kept a cautious distance, trailing them through the narrow, salt-crusted alleys of Twain.

They were twelve in number, just as they had been during the previous cycle, and though they took a different, more winding route this time, their destination remained the same: that jagged, secluded stretch of the beach where the cliffs hung low over the churning surf.

Six minutes later, they stood upon the damp sand, the same desolate place as last week.

From the vantage point of a seabird circling lazily above and a dozen rats scurrying among the rocks, Hadrian watched.

The group began their rhythmic chants and low, guttural hums. It was a haunting melody that seemed to vibrate against the stones.

This time, however, the heavy, cloying presence in the atmosphere arrived earlier.

It felt thicker, a suffocating weight that pressed down on the lungs and made the very air feel stagnant.

A woman stepped forward, splitting from the circle. With a slow, hypnotic swaying of her hips, she began to undress.

Her movements were fluid, almost liquid, as the fabric of her garments fell to the sand.

Hadrian's brow creased in concentration. His focus wasn't on the woman, but on the sea.

The splashing waves suddenly parted with a violent, silent grace, as if moved by the massive, invisible hands.

A narrow, dark path opened through the water, leading directly into the surf. Once fully undressed, never breaking the rhythm of her ritualistic dance, the woman took three steps forward and one step back.

She repeated the sequence, moving deeper into the watery corridor. The others watched her in a trance-like silence, their low hums providing a dark, droning heartbeat to her progress.

At a distance, three of Hadrian's rodent vessels slipped into the freezing sea.

They had no need to breathe; the vessels remaining on land could draw oxygen for the collective.

Even without that link, channeling force path essence allowed them to hold their breath for longer, especially at rank two.

Because Hadrian could manipulate the flesh and space paths simultaneously with his other abilities, his control over these small forms was exquisite.

Using flesh path essence, he didn't need to rely on substitution. He stretched the skin of the rats at their claws and tails, flattening them into makeshift paddles and rudders to navigate the currents more efficiently.

He augmented their small limbs with rank two force path essence for power and channeled space path essence to maintain a perfect sense of direction and bodily awareness despite the oppressive, blinding darkness of the deep water.

I wish I could manipulate the water itself, he thought.

He designated one rat as the "main vessel," a central relay node to extend the range of his vessel control.

As the woman reached the end of the path, the towering walls of water collapsed inward. The waves embraced her, and the sea slowly returned to its deceptive, rhythmic calm.

Hadrian moved. He was no longer perched on the high rock cliff as he had been before.

He crept closer to the shoreline, staying low and hidden behind a cluster of massive, barnacle-encrusted sea rocks.

Beneath the surface, the rodents darted through the depths toward the woman.

Soon, her heat signature and displacement entered his spatial sense range. The unnatural presence in the atmosphere seemed to drift downward, following her as she sank deeper into the cold, black expanse.

Back on the shore, the party of eleven disbanded without a word, retreating from the water's edge.

The rodents kept their distance, maintaining a steady, rhythmic pace as they swam.

They trailed the woman, who was now encased in a shimmering, translucent bubble.

At rank two, Hadrian's spatial sense was sharp enough to discern the shapes of objects in the dark; he could feel the woman's form coiled in a tight, fetal position within her sphere.

Altering his vision to peer into her essence sea, he confirmed his suspicion: she was a regular human.

As they moved further from the shore, the seafloor dropped away into a yawning chasm.

The descent grew steeper, and the dim light from the moon above was swallowed by a total, pitch-black void.

Hadrian found it unsettling that they hadn't encountered a single fish or predator. The water was unnervingly empty, as if the local life knew better than to be near this path.

He was reaching the absolute limit of his control. The primary relay rat was a hundred and ten meters from the shore, and the furthest vessel trailing the woman was another hundred and thirty meters beyond that.

Cursing silently and preparing to pull back before the connection snapped, the water suddenly shifted.

The pull increased, turning into a violent, localized current that threatened to sweep his vessels away.

A cold premonition washed over Hadrian, a primal instinct screaming of imminent danger.

His senses flared. He forced himself to remain calm, after all, he was still two hundred meters away from whatever lurked below.

Then, it appeared. A massive, writhing shape entered the spatial sense of his rats. It moved with the terrifying, sinuous grace of a titan-sized serpent. A second shape followed, then a third, until the darkness was filled with a tangle of colossal, moving forms.

Even with his sight augmented, he could see nothing but the abyss. Sensing the sheer scale of the shapes made his heart sink.

The woman, still encased in her bubble, was suddenly yanked forward at a tremendous speed, vanishing from his spatial sense as she was pulled into the center of the writhing mass.

Hadrian disregarded his drumming heart. He pushed his luck, altering his sight to his "essence view." It was a massive risk; if he were noticed, he would have to sever the connection to the rodents instantly to protect his own mind. But with his fog shroud active on the surface, he gambled on his own concealment.

Six...

Surrounded by a vast expanse of black, Hadrian saw six massive spheres of spinning, corrupted fog.

They were centers of condensed, foul energy. Just peering at them made his own blood boil, his very essence recoiling in disgust.

In the next heartbeat, the connection to the lead rat and the one closest to it went dead.

He hadn't cut the link; the water had solidified, crushing the vessels into nothingness in an instant.

Hadrian didn't hesitate. He immediately severed the connection to the third rat, the middleman, and snapped his consciousness back to his own body.

Simultaneously, one of his seabird vessels swooped low, snatching his physical form from the rocks and carrying him away from the shoreline.

His eyes remained fixed on the spot where he had been standing. The water there remained indifferent, the surface unbroken and calm.

A rank six corrupted creature…

The realization was staggering. But as the wind battered him and the bird carried him higher, his mind raced with a different thought.

The ritual was a sacrificial offering.

Below him, on the dark ground of the, his other rodent vessels and a brute vessel kept pace, their cores humming as they channeled force path essence to keep up with his flight.