Aelon had been stuck on this rock for a while now. At least three days have to have passed.
Food and water were the main problem. He found himself without energy.
'Fuck. I need to take the gamble.'
Whether he wanted or not, he sooner or later had to take the leap of faith and climb down. Best do it now where he was a little bit recuperated and still had a sliver of energy left than in two days where he would be left hallucinating.
Helping himself up to his feet, Aelon summoned the [Azure Daggers] and began his descent.
Making sure to do it slowly, he embedded the blades into the stone, and slowly climbed downwards.
The descent was slow. Painfully slow.
Every few seconds, Aelon had to stop and catch his breath. His arms trembled, his legs threatened to give out, and his stomach had begun to protest its lack of contents with increasing fervor.
'One step at a time. Just one step at a time.'
He drove the daggers into the stone, tested their hold, and lowered himself.
Then repeated the process.
And repeated it again.
The surface was uneven, with occasional protrusions that offered him a place to rest his feet. Unfortunately, they also forced him to stretch his already exhausted limbs in ways he would have preferred to avoid.
'I swear, if I survive this, I'm never climbing anything again.'
A lie, of course. If there was one thing Aelon had learned about himself, it was that he would do just about anything to survive.
Even things he really, really didn't want to do.
He lowered himself another few inches.
His right dagger slipped.
Aelon froze.
For one terrible moment, his entire weight rested on his left arm. The blade embedded in the stone creaked, and a small shower of pebbles tumbled into the darkness beneath him.
'Oh, fuck.'
He didn't move.
He barely breathed.
The dagger held.
Slowly, carefully, he shifted his weight back onto both arms. Then he waited until his heartbeat had settled before continuing.
'Okay. New rule. No sudden movements.'
He wasn't particularly fond of the idea of dying after everything he had endured. Being swallowed by a Corrupted Beast, spending months eating his way through its insides, and finally killing it from within had been an unnecessarily elaborate way of reaching the same outcome as falling off a rock.
It would also have been rather embarrassing.
Not that anyone would be around to laugh at him.
'Actually, no. That's worse.'
He continued downward.
The rock face gradually became steeper, and the protrusions that had once offered him footholds grew scarce. He had to rely almost entirely on his daggers now, carefully choosing where to embed them before lowering himself.
His arms were beginning to feel numb.
His vision blurred whenever he looked down for too long.
And the bottom was still nowhere in sight.
'How fucking tall is this thing?'
He couldn't tell. The darkness swallowed everything beneath him, leaving only the stone directly around his hands visible.
For all he knew, he had barely descended a tenth of the way.
Aelon clenched his teeth.
No.
He wasn't going to think about that.
He was going to climb down, reach the water, and find something to eat. Preferably something that didn't require him to crawl through its digestive tract first.
That sounded like a reasonable plan.
A good plan, even.
He just had to—
His foot found nothing.
Aelon lurched forward, his stomach dropping as his body swung away from the rock face. One dagger tore free, sending fragments of stone tumbling into the abyss.
He desperately tightened his grip on the other.
The blade held.
For several seconds, Aelon hung from one arm, staring into the darkness below.
Then he began to laugh.
Not because anything was funny.
He was simply too tired to do anything else.
'Yeah. Very funny. Hilarious, actually.'
His laughter faded into a ragged breath.
He pulled himself back toward the rock and managed to find another foothold. His arm screamed in protest, but he ignored it. There would be plenty of time to complain once he was somewhere safe.
Assuming he ever reached somewhere safe.
The descent continued.
And continued.
Until, finally, his dagger struck something that wasn't stone.
Water.
Aelon stared at the dark surface beneath him.
For a moment, he didn't quite understand what he was seeing. He had spent so long climbing that the sight of the sea seemed almost unreal.
Then his body caught up with his mind.
He was almost there.
He was actually almost there.
A grin spread across his exhausted face.
'I'm a fucking genius.'
He lowered himself the last few meters, then released the daggers.
The water swallowed him.
Cold engulfed his body, and for an instant, Aelon forgot to move. He sank beneath the surface, watching the faint light above him grow distant.
Then his instincts took over.
He summoned the [Aquatic Hide].
The familiar enchantment settled over him, and his gills began to filter oxygen from the water.
Aelon kicked upward.
His head broke the surface. He drew a breath out of habit, coughed, and blinked the water from his eyes.
Then he looked ahead.
And froze.
The Bright Castle stood before him.
Its colossal walls of grey, polished stone rose above the slope of the crater, their ancient surface looming over the dark sea. Even from here, Aelon could make out the immense gates and the structures rising behind them.
He had seen it before.
He remembered seeing it from the rock, but the realization that he had finally reached its vicinity was almost too much to process.
Civilization.
People.
Food.
Fresh water.
A place where he could lie down without worrying about being swallowed by something.
Aelon's lips parted.
'...I'm actually going to make it.'
For a moment, he simply floated there, staring at the castle.
Then his stomach growled... very loudly.
Aelon grimaced.
'Right. Celebrations later.'
He began swimming toward the shore.
It was not a particularly impressive display of athleticism. His movements were sluggish, his limbs heavy, and every stroke seemed to consume an unreasonable amount of energy. More than once, he had to stop and let his body float while he gathered enough strength to continue.
Still, the castle grew closer.
The shoreline gradually became more distinct, revealing a stretch of dark rock at the base of the crater's slope. Aelon aimed for it, pushing himself forward with the determination of someone who had long since run out of alternatives.
When his fingers finally brushed against stone, he nearly cried.
He grabbed hold of it and dragged himself out of the water.
For several seconds, he lay on the shore, unable to do anything but breathe.
He had made it.
After everything, he had actually made it.
The Devourer of Seas. The months of isolation. The endless digging. The pressure that had nearly killed him. The miserable descent from the rock.
All of it was behind him.
Well, almost all of it.
He still had to reach the castle.
Aelon slowly rolled onto his back and stared up at the towering walls.
They seemed considerably less welcoming now that he had to climb toward them.
'You have got to be fucking kidding me.'
The slope wasn't particularly steep, but that hardly mattered when standing up already felt like an insurmountable task.
He tried anyway.
His legs trembled.
He made it halfway to his feet before collapsing onto the rocks again.
Silence.
Then—
"FUCK!"
His voice echoed across the shoreline.
Aelon stared at the sky, breathing heavily.
'Okay. Fine. We'll do this the easy way.'
He summoned the [Mussel Bed].
The familiar shell appeared beside him, looking as absurdly harmless as ever. Aelon stared at it for a moment before crawling inside.
He closed it.
And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he allowed himself to stop.
The mussel bed began its slow journey upward, carrying him toward the castle.
Aelon lay motionless in its cramped interior.
He was hungry. Thirsty. Injured. Exhausted beyond anything he could properly comprehend.
But he was alive.
And soon, he would be somewhere with people.
His thoughts drifted to the last people he had seen before the Devourer of Seas swallowed him.
A silver-haired girl.
A shadow.
A blind girl.
Their faces were distant, obscured by the haze of exhaustion and the strange memories of his time beneath the sea.
Yet one thing remained clear.
They had left him to die.
Aelon closed his eyes.
He didn't know what he would do when he saw them again.
He didn't know whether he wanted answers, an apology, or simply to understand why.
But he would find out.
Eventually.
For now, he had more immediate concerns.
'First, food. Then water. Then sleep for approximately three hundred years.'
A pause.
'And maybe a bath.'
For the first time in months, Aelon allowed himself to smile.
He had survived.
And that was enough.
For now.