Meanwhile – Somewhere Else on the Island
Darkness.
Not just the absence of light, but something dense, tangible. The blackness pressed against Rioji's senses like liquid stone – ancient, heavy, and still. No sound. No wind. Just the dull impression that space and time had paused for a moment.
Then a jolt.
Sudden. Violent. Like a vacuum tearing itself back into motion.
Rioji (internally):
He felt the impact first. The ground beneath him was hard, cold – and seemed to pulse at irregular intervals. Not like an earthquake. More like breathing. A distorted rhythm, as if the earth below had lost track of its own structure.
His head throbbed. Thoughts moved through him in broken fragments, sharp-edged and without direction. He drew in a breath, deep – but even the air smelled like metal and foreign energy, as if someone had liquefied resonance and poured it into the atmosphere.
A low curse broke the silence from somewhere to his right.
Rex (tense):
"What the hell was that?"
Stones cracked beneath his boots. He pushed himself upright, brushed dust from his face, and stared into the darkness.
Rex (grimacing):
"Were we… teleported?"
Rioji (dry):
"Looks like it."
He pushed himself to his feet – slowly, with control. His knees bent slightly – not from weakness, but from the strangeness of the place. Beneath them, stone slabs were stacked at impossible angles. The ground wasn't ground – more like a patchwork of broken geometry, as if reality had been stitched back together incorrectly.
Cracks split the surface in all directions. Some sealed themselves with a shudder, others yawned open like hungry mouths. Black mist crawled up from the depths – too thick for vapor. It moved slowly. Alive.
Rioji (inwardly):
The Earthquake Sea. They were really here.
He remembered the stories. The map fragments. The whispered rumors in the slums that called this zone a place outside the world. No day. No night. Just movement. Time that didn't move forward. Space that shifted like a memory of a dream.
Rex (low voice):
"We should move. Before this place decides to swallow us."
Rioji said nothing. He closed his eyes for a moment. The resonance here was different. Unstable. Not wild – but wrong. Like it followed a logic no human could grasp. And yet it was here. In the stone. The air. Their bones.
Beneath the surface of his awareness, something stirred. A pull. A weightless pressure.
Something inside him responded to this zone. As if he was the only body the terrain couldn't fully interpret.
The air was thick – and yet particles drifted toward him, slowly, like dust bending toward a hidden axis.
Rex (hesitant):
"If something here's trying to kill us, I'd rather kill it first."
He stepped forward – instinctive, like a fighter who doesn't think but moves. But before his foot fully landed, Rioji grabbed his arm.
The grip wasn't harsh, not aggressive – but impossible to ignore. A command, without words.
Rioji (calm):
"Think before you move."
Rex (snapping):
"And what if we're attacked while we're standing here thinking?"
Rioji (quietly):
No reply. Just a look. Unshakable. The kind of look that didn't allow argument.
Rioji:
"Then we kill it in one strike."
Rex (half-grin):
"Exactly what I was thinking."
But before he could move again, something shifted.
The pulse of the ground stopped.
A sound – not loud, but deep – resonated through the slabs. Not a rumble. More like the hum of a long-lost song rising from the rock itself.
Then, silence.
So still they could hear their own heartbeats.
Rioji (internally):
Something was moving.
A shadow rotated slowly in the air – not like flying, but as if space itself had turned something over. A massive block floated above a shattered platform. At first it looked like a rock. Another chunk of debris. But then the edges sharpened. Lines became form. A jaw. A skull.
A head.
The eyes opened.
Two slits of glowing blue. Not light, but information. As if the gaze itself was scanning, evaluating.
Rex (sharply):
"Okay. That's new."
The colossus rose. Stone grinding against stone. Cracks lit up – not randomly, but in patterns. Ancient lines pulsing with power from something no longer human.
Rioji (watching):
A guardian. Not alive. Not dead.
A construct of resonance, stone, and time.
Then it raised its arm.
A block of mass, the size of a building, moved with precise intention. No hesitation. No warning. Just the judgment of a machine recognizing trespassers.
Rioji (still):
He waited.
The strike came. Massive. The air tore apart.
But Rioji simply stepped aside. No dodge. No sprint – just a step. Exact. The arm shattered the ground behind him, ripping through the fractured plates like a blade through cloth.
Dust swirled. For a second, gravity distorted around him – like ripples on a surface too calm.
Rex didn't notice. But the stone beneath Rioji's feet didn't hold him – he anchored himself.
The zone responded to him like he was a center it hadn't accounted for.
Rex (staggering back):
"Shit. It's serious."
He landed on a crumbling slab. His resonance reacted instantly. A spear manifested in his hand – kinetic energy, condensed and razor-sharp.
Rex (grinning):
"Finally, something worth fighting."
He threw it.
The spear drove straight into the guardian's chest. A blast followed. Blinding. Deafening.
Then… nothing.
As the dust cleared, the giant still stood. Untouched.
Rex (disbelieving):
"No way. That was a direct hit."
Rioji (quiet):
"It was."
Rex (angry):
"Then why is it still standing?"
Rioji (stepping forward):
"Because it's not an enemy."
He moved slowly. The ground trembled beneath each step – not because it feared him, but because it registered him.
Rioji:
"It's protecting something."
Rex (dry):
"So what now? We ask nicely to pass?"
Rioji (stopping):
"I will fight."
It wasn't a plan. Or a question. Just truth.
Rex (half-sighing):
"Now you want to fight?"
Rioji didn't answer. His posture shifted. Not like a soldier. Something else. Something that moved with rhythm, not strength.
He raised his hand.
A step. A trace of motion. Then – a strike. No force. No impact.
A beat.
The contact point lit up. A fracture spread – not in the stone, but within the guardian's structure itself.
The giant's arm didn't break.
It dissolved.
Rex (staring):
"Okay. That was… damn impressive."
Rioji (eyes fixed):
But it wasn't the guardian that mattered.
Something had opened.
Behind it – not a door, not a tunnel.
A wound. In space. In resonance.
He felt it. A frequency that whispered not with sound, but with intention.
Rioji (calm):
"We go deeper."
Rex (grinning):
"Hopefully something down there tries to kill us too."
Rioji (softly):
"Maybe it doesn't need to."
They moved forward. The Earthquake Sea swallowed their steps.