Unmade Chapter 12: Chapter 12: crimson flames

Read chapter 12 of Unmade by churro on NovelPedia.

The ocean of blood, which usually lay still and calm, almost serene in its crimson vastness, was no longer quiet. Ripples formed across its surface, faint at first, then spreading wider and faster until the stillness shattered completely. The waves grew larger, more violent, moving toward something. Something enormous. From beyond the obsidian mountains that imprisoned the sea, a monster had come. It was the same creature Vale had seen before, its ten arms slick and glistening with red, strands of muscle fiber dangling like torn ropes. Its flesh looked freshly skinned, its veins pulsing faintly beneath the open tissue. Its face bore a distorted echo of humanity, the shadow of what it might once have been, but no one could mistake it for a man. Its eyeballs hung loosely from their sockets, swaying as it moved, and where skin should have been, there was only blood and raw nerve. Thin, black strands of hair erupted unevenly from its skull like dying grass. Its torso was a ruin of red muscle and open organs that hung from within yet somehow did not fall. Beneath that grotesque body, its many legs writhed, some sprouting from others, forming twisted joints and overlapping limbs that gave its movement a grotesque, crawling rhythm. And yet, despite the awkwardness, it advanced, slowly and steadily, toward its destination. Toward the chained man. At least, that’s what Vale believed. He stood upon the shore of the crimson sea, watching the creature’s uneven approach and the ripples that raced toward it from beneath the surface. The sea itself seemed to tremble in anticipation, awaiting the collision of powers. As the monster trudged closer, the ripples approached it, sharp lines cutting through the red expanse. Then, suddenly, the creature stopped. Its eyeless sockets tilted downward, staring into the water below its feet. “So it has some consciousness after all, huh?” Vale muttered, lowering himself to sit, one arm resting on his knee. He spoke as though commenting on a play rather than watching the rise of titans. For a long moment, the monster remained perfectly still, watching the ripples. Then, all at once, the waves stopped. The surface went dead silent. No movement. No sound. Vale frowned. “Is that supposed to happen?” he asked, turning toward the chained man. The man didn’t move much, but his head inclined slightly. A nod. His expression remained hidden behind the obsidian mask, but something about his presence felt… stronger than before. The ragged wounds across his body, marks left by countless years, were closing. The torn flesh of his chest, where once a heart had been ripped away, was slowly knitting itself together. Odd, Vale thought. He’d fought the man countless times, died at his hands more than once, and yet, for all his power, Vale had never thought him capable of regeneration. Vale himself returned from death each time the man struck him down, but this… this was new. He turned his gaze back to the distance. The monster seemed confused, its head tilting, searching the still water as if it knew something deadly was hiding beneath. Then the blood at its feet began to boil. It happened fast, a violent eruption of bubbles and steam bursting upward, and from that churning red chaos, something emerged. The centipede. It rose from the depths, no longer small but vast, equal in size to the monster, perhaps even larger. Its body gleamed like molten iron, segments rippling with a metallic sheen. Its many legs churned the sea into a storm of crimson spray. Before the monster could react, the centipede coiled around it, wrapping its enormous length around the creature’s body like a constricting serpent. Each metallic scale cut deep into raw muscle, slicing the monster’s flesh as it thrashed and wailed in agony. The centipede tightened its grip, climbing higher toward the monster’s head. But the monster did not yield so easily. It roared, the sound shaking the very sky, and used three of its long, powerful arms to seize the centi