Chapter 372: Abyssal King

Words : 1078 Updated : Oct 9th, 2025

Chapter 372: Abyssal King Malik saw no bottom because— SPLASH! The darkness led into an ocean. He shot straight into it, and the moment he pierced the surface, he realized something was off. This wasn’t water... No, it was something else. Something he’d already experienced in the North. In the Well of Eternity. Indeed, this liquid was concentrated Aether. But unlike the Well he emptied, it held no Aspect. This Aether was pure, and its purity held only pressure. A thousand needles pressed against every inch of Malik’s skin, down to his bones. His cloak flared out behind him, dragging like a mountain, and yet he didn’t seem to care, not even a little. Without much thought, his arms flared backward, and fire blasted out of his palms, shooting him down. His feet ignited soon after, increasing his speed even further. The Aether near the surface was deceptively calm, almost crystal clear due to light shimmering from the floating islands above—massive rocks with roots dangling like rope bridges into the abyss below. It was pretty. Peaceful. ...A lie. The moment Malik shot below ten or so miles... Everything changed. The Aether turned murky and hot. His ears filled with the crackle of boiling currents somewhere deep below. And the deeper he dove, nearing double digits, the more the light above faded... swallowing him into an endless blue-black void. Eventually, he was met with a monster. A single shape darted from below—no... five, ten, a swarm. Aqrab al-Maa. He knew of them, his knowledge courtesy of one or two books. These were massive water scorpions with thick, crab-like shells covered in cracks, leaking some kind of neon green slime. Poison. The moment Malik reached them, their tails lashed like spears straight at his neck, slicing through Aether so fast it warped. Malik didn’t dodge. His hand simply flicked sideways. Without sound, a jet of golden light shot out. The scorpions exploded mid-lunge, pieces of burning shell spiraling past his head. Was that all of them? No. Did the rest care for how easily their kin died? No again. They were already rushing him, tails stabbing from every direction. Left. Fire. Right. Fire. Above. Fire. Below. Fire. Every limb was just a launcher now. Malik spun, twisted, and turned, leaving behind many trails of flame. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. A Hundred. Gone. Eight-core Ṭāghiyas were killed like they were nothing. Which they were, at least when compared to him. Malik didn’t pause; he kept shooting down. Aether had grown near pitch black now. Breathing was impossible. But of course... he wasn’t breathing. He hadn’t needed to breathe since Mithqal rewrote his existence. So he kept going, deeper and deeper, nearing three hundred miles. If this pace remained uninterrupted, he— Crunch. Something bit his left leg. Malik glanced down. It was a... A fish? A black fish, almost impossible to see. It was nearly the size of Sinbad. He didn’t read about this one. Perhaps it was new, or perhaps, and most likely, those who chanced upon it died a cruel death. Malik kicked his feet, flinging the fish away, and then spun, using his fiery limbs as lamps. His surroundings were revealed, and he discovered company. He was surrounded. Right in the middle of a swarm. They were everywhere, only their mouths visible. Giant, ripped-open mouths splitting all the way past their gills. Rows and rows and rows of fish. Rows and rows and rows of teeth. They all piled on him, attacking at once. Malik paused his dive and calmly raised his right hand. Snap. A sphere of flame erupted at once. The fish sizzled before they even touched it, their skin melting off bone, their fins popping. They were dead. All of them. Malik shot through their carcasses and kept going. Deeper. Deeper. Deeper. Passing six hundred miles. He kept going until his body started to feel weird. Aether was doing its work, compressing his insides and pressuring his being. Malik looked at one of his hands. His skin looked... thin and plain, almost alien. His fingertips were blurring, veins almost shaved off. There was no doubt that his body was going through incredible pain, but still, he didn’t seem at all affected, almost like he didn’t notice it. And he likely didn’t; pain was no different than home. Besides, his focus was better spent elsewhere. For example... The glow that flickered in the distance. Long and thin humanoid shapes. He saw no faces, only empty masks where faces should’ve been. Jinn al-Bahira. The Djinn of the Deep. They matched his pace and drifted around him. Not one of them attacked; they just circled... They whispered... Whispered memories. But Malik heard nothing. He long since accepted his failures. ...His complacencies. They were a bit too late to try and take advantage of that. Malik’s eyelids lowered slightly. His fire flared again. Nothing remained. Eight hundred miles down. The pressure was now crushing. The Aether down here didn’t only press against his body and being but also his soul. Most would’ve been turned into pulp by now, reduced to nothing, but he, a Mithqal, was protected. And so, Malik kept the same pace, his body piercing through it all, unpaused. All until the ground finally came into view. No... not ground; that was still two hundred miles off. It was a monster, a black mouth splitting the ocean open. He saw some of its body, coiled, spiraling in on itself like some nightmare of fins, wings, and mouths. Al-Qa’ra. The Abyssal King. Of course, Malik had to meet it. Every book spoke of this monster. It was no different than the Venerable. A Simurgh... a protector of this ocean of Aether. The chance of actually diving into it was as low a number a scholar could think of, and yet, that didn’t seem to matter before Malik’s horrendous luck. It stirred as it felt his heat. Dozens... hundreds of golden eyes flicked open across its body. Smaller mouths peeled open, rows and rows, each one miles long. It saw him. All of it saw him. Malik didn’t care. He pushed downward. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. A ’step’ that was faster than any before it. Fire roared, Aether split, and Malik disappeared into the dark. The entire ocean screamed. Or maybe that was just Aether parting. Either way, Malik shot through it all, a column of fire trailing behind him, carving the darkness apart. GLUUUHHHHHHHRRRRRHHHHHHHH. Behind him, Al-Qa’ra stirred fully... WHUUMMMM—WHUUMMMM—WHUUMMMM! It chased.

Chapter 372: Abyssal King

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