Chapter 395: Mr Fluffy's Element Of Surprise
Northern stood and watched as stairs made of ice stretched into the sky, then saw a red blur rush into it with force.
Then he saw others he recognized begin to jump into the rift too.
This made him turn his eyes to the rift above him. It was silent for now, but undoubtedly something was still inside.
"Mr. Fluffy"
The beast growled in defiance as his name was called. Mr. Fluffy vigorously shook his head, ears falling down and eyes closed away from Northern.
"But I haven't even said anything yet...?"
The beast growled once more and turned away from him.
It was as if he knew what Northern would say at this point.
"Okay, since you are being so stubborn, I won't ask you to stay if you find a way to enter the rift yourself."
The beast's eyes popped wide open with ecstasy.
"Yes, I mean that." Northern looked around.
There were high buildings, but he didn't think any were high enough to give the beast an edge to leap into the rift.
However, as he finished talking, the monster growled and slowly, subtly but surely began to increase in size.
Northern's mouth fell agape. "What?"
Mr. Fluffy was twice his original size, enormous and almost colossal.
Northern had to crane his neck seriously to get a good grasp of the monster's height.
"What the hell, Mr. Fluffy?! If you can grow so big, why have you not been helping all this while?"
The beast grinned and galloped away, the ground shaking with every stomp of his feet.
He leaped off the ground and landed on the roof of a particular building, thrashing what was left of the decrepit roof.
But he managed to get a good standing for a powerful leap that propelled him far into the sky but left the entire building crashing in its wake.
And just like that, Northern watched Mr. Fluffy fly into the rift.
He stood there, momentarily stunned by Mr. Fluffy's unexpected transformation and departure.
The ground still trembled from the beast's powerful leap, and dust billowed up from the collapsed building.
Shaking his head in a mixture of amusement and exasperation, Northern turned his attention back to the rift looming above him.
The tear in reality pulsed with an otherworldly energy, its edges flickering and writhing like living things.
Northern could feel the pull of it, a subtle but insistent tugging at the very fabric of his being. Perhaps this was a particular feeling tied to the role of Chaos in his soul.
He took a deep breath, centering himself and focusing his mind on how to enter the rift. While using Shunpo seemed like the easiest answer, it would fail; the farthest Shunpo could take him was in front of the rift, and he would start falling right back.
'That's a lame idea, how am I even thinking about it?'
Gripping Grengar tightly, Northern began to channel his essence into the twin-bladed staff.
The weapon hummed in response, its blades vibrating with barely contained power. Purple light began to dance along the edges, intertwining with tendrils of void essence that seemed to leech the very color from the air around them.
Northern's eyes flared with the usual eerie blue light as he assessed his surroundings.
The collapsed building Mr. Fluffy had used as a launching pad was out of the question. He needed a different approach.
With a thought, Northern activated Velocity Dash.
The world around him seemed to slow as his perception and reflexes heightened to
superhuman levels.
He darted forward, his feet barely touching the ground as he zigzagged between debris and fallen monsters.
Spotting a partially intact structure nearby, Northern changed course.
He ran up the side of the building, defying gravity with each step. As he neared the top, he could feel the pull of the rift growing stronger.
Without hesitation, Northern launched himself off the edge of the roof.
For a moment, he was suspended in midair, the ground dizzyingly far below.
Then, with a burst of black flames from his feet, he propelled himself higher. As he soared towards the rift, Northern brought Grengar to bear.
The staff's blades cut through the air, leaving trails of chaotic energy in their wake. He could feel the resistance as he neared the rift- as if it was refusing him and he felt like he was pushing through an invisible barrier.
With a final surge of power, Northern breached the rift.
The world around him twisted and warped, colors bleeding into one another in impossible ways. For a heartbeat, he felt as if he was being pulled in every direction at once.
A dark, oppressive realm stretched out before his eyes, where the sky should have been. Instead, a sickly yellowish hue intertwined with the darkness, casting an eerie pallor over the
land.
It was as if the heavens themselves had been torn asunder, replaced by the remnants of a catastrophic destruction, now forming a twisted semblance of a sky.
Below, the land lay barren and lifeless. Every surface seemed to be corroded, plagued by an insidious disease that had drained all vitality.
The ground, cracked and desolate, bore the scattered remains of dried bones, stark reminders
of the life that once existed, forming mountains and valleys.
The air itself felt thick and oppressive, carrying the scent of death and desolation, as if the land was in perpetual mourning for what it had lost.
Northern glanced around, trying to find Mr. Fluffy, but saw no glimpse of him.
The next moment, however, he felt a massive tremor soar through the ground, accompanied heartbeats later by a deafening crash.
Northern swiftly made a turn and shot towards the direction of the crash, his form blurred as he scaled up a particular mountain.
He sprinted up the steep incline. As he climbed higher, a sense of unease began to creep over him. The air grew colder, and an ominous presence seemed to hang over the landscape. Pausing to catch his breath, Northern looked around, trying to make sense of the peculiar formations jutting out from the ground. His gaze traveled up the slope, and he froze, his eyes
widening in disbelief.
The ridges he had been navigating were not mere rock formations but the contours of a
colossal, horned head.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. He was running on the immense skull of a fallen monster, its ancient, bleached bones now part of the barren landscape.
The massive horns, curling grotesquely towards the sky, confirmed the horrifying truth. This mountain was not a mountain at all but the final resting place of a once-mighty creature, its monstrous form now a twisted monument to the past.
What Northern now feared, however, was...
'What in the world was powerful enough to kill such a monster?'