The swarm did not stop.
It never slowed… never hesitated… never questioned the futility of its existence.
The flesh-fish simply kept multiplying, bubbling up from the red-pulsing ocean below like spores, like tumors, like thoughts leaking out of a broken mind. Thousands rose, then tens of thousands, swarming over the air itself as if gravity meant nothing to them.
Kai kept firing.
Each shot from the white, shadowless gun cracked through the mirror-sky like a ripple made of compressed air.
PAP—PAP—PAP—PAP—!
Flesh burst open in sprays of wet, disgusting mist. His aim was fast, precise, unbroken. But it wasn't enough. It was nowhere near enough. The fish replaced themselves faster than he could kill them, dividing, swelling, ballooning out of the writhing sea.
Kai clicked his tongue, irritation spiking with fear.
He fired four more times. Six more. Nine more.
The gun was steady. His breathing wasn't.
He risked a glance to the side and saw the blue-gold door, still perfectly sealed, still perfectly calm, still perfectly useless.
No cracks.
No keyhole.
No sigils.
No engravings.
No hint of age or wear.
Just a flawless mirror-surface reflecting the chaos behind him, reflecting him tiny, desperate, and already being swallowed by an ocean of crawling horrors.
"Tch. Perfect. Completely, absolutely perfect…" Kai muttered.
He didn't have time to curse further.
A wave of fish surged over the edge of the broken palace gate no, above it swimming through air like it was liquid. For a moment the swarm blocked out everything. The sky. The palace. Even the reflection beneath him.
Just a wall of teeth and skin and wrongness.
Kai's jaw tightened.
He lifted the gun.
"Fine."
He activated one of his Crimson Eyes of Truth.
His right eye flared red. A black ring sharpened around the pupil like a divine execution mark. Reality twitched. Essence flickered. The world split into layers, the invisible becoming visible, the hidden ripping open like pages in a book.
He reached out not with his hands, but with the divine pull of the Third Vision's inheritance and manipulated the surrounding essence.
Wind answered first.
The air tightened around him.
Pressure condensed.
Invisible knives spun into existence.
"Move."
Wind lashed forward.
SHRRRRR!
A storm ripped through the swarm, splitting open dozens of fish at once, slicing others in half, shredding wings, fins, whatever counted as limbs on these fleshy monstrosities. Kai pushed harder, bending the air like a living whip. The pressure crushed swaths of them but the gap filled instantly.
He grit his teeth.
He forced the air again.
Wind sliced.
Wind exploded.
Wind hammered.
But the swarm continued to come.
Then.
BOOOOOOM.
Another roar rolled up from the deep flesh-ocean, shaking the entire floating palace.
The world trembled.
The mirror-sky cracked a little more.
And below… the flesh moved.
It wasn't just shifting.
It was gathering.
Mass converged.
Tentacles tightened.
A shape began to form, pulsing at the ocean's center.
Kai didn't see it.
If he had, he would have screamed or leapt off the palace anything to escape what was rising.
But his eyes were locked on the present threat.
His wind was fading.
His stamina was collapsing.
Even his breathing grew ragged.
He forced another burst of wind this one far stronger and compressed it into a sphere the size of a football.
A twisting ball of pressure.
A collapsing storm.
He thrust it forward.
BOOOOOOM!
The blast hurled the front wave of fish backward, clearing a momentary hole in the swarm.
Kai immediately backflipped, retreating toward the palace door. His hair brushed a passing fish's teeth with less than a finger's width of space. He landed lightly, sliding backward across the polished floor.
He looked at the door again.
Still nothing.
Still perfect.
Still mocking him.
He activated both the First Vision and the Second Vision, pupils dilating into crimson rings of truth.
He stared into the metal.
He pushed deeper.
Layers peeled.
Essence divided.
History flickered.
Reality trembled as his gaze drilled through time itself,
but there was nothing.
No hinges.
No lock.
No formation.
No divine layering.
No mechanism physical, metaphysical, or conceptual.
The door was doorless.
"Why…" Kai hissed under his breath.
"Why won't you open…?"
It was torture.
Every second he looked for meaning, the visions he saw as well did not really help he tried to peel open more truth none of which helped him.
Nothing made sense.
Behind him.
SKREEEEE—!
The swarm came again.
Kai spun and drew his dagger.
Flame erupted along the blade.
He moved like a phantom silent, deadly, red eyes glowing through the madness.
He cut down three fish.
Then eight.
Then twenty.
He leapt through the swarm, moving like a burning shadow, slicing through faces some human, some beast, some indescribable.
Fish after fish burst into cinders.
But more replaced them.
His energy was bleeding out.
And then,
A sound.
A tearing.
A ripping.
Like wet fabric.
Like muscle splitting.
Like a stomach opening.
Five titanic shadows rose behind the shattered palace gate.
Kai froze for a heartbeat.
The gate the gate that dissolved every fish that touched it was being ripped apart.
Not touched.
Torn open.
As if it were paper.
As if it were nothing.
Kai's breath hitched.
"This… is not good."
Five massive tentacles dripping with strands of flesh, covered in pulsing mouths, lined with rows of mismatched eyes rose above him.
They were thicker than pillars.
Strong enough to crush the entire palace.
They slithered over the ground, ignoring the dissolved remains of lesser fish, ignoring the wind pressure still rolling off Kai's body.
Then the gate collapsed completely.
And something stepped forward.
Not a fish.
Not a tentacle.
Not a mass of flesh.
A colossal flesh-fish heaved itself through the broken opening, its body spiraling upward like a mountain of deformity. It had a thousand eyes each blinking independently each holding a mirrored reflection of Kai.
It had a thousand faces layered along its body, some stretched sideways, some upside-down, some weeping, some laughing, some silently screaming.
It stared at Kai.
Not with hunger.
But with ownership.
As if fate itself had decided Kai belonged inside its stomach.
The palace floor trembled beneath its weight.
The air went silent.
Even the smaller fish paused to hover, awaiting the elder creature's command.
Kai swallowed.
"…Of course," he whispered.
"Of course it would look at me like that."
The beast leaned forward.
Its faces rippled.
Its mouths opened.
Every eye focused on Kai.
He couldn't help the small, strained laugh that escaped.
"I hate this place."