The monuments face far above, smiled back at him.
"FUSE WITH ME, MALIK."
Its words were truth.
Malik’s spine arched involuntarily.
"WHY CLING TO BLOOD?"
Malik had stopped falling.
He hadn’t noticed when.
"LET GO OF THE FLESH."
Now, he landed, even though he was still so very far from the bottom.
"LET GO OF THE PAIN..."
And his landing hadn’t come with a crash; no, he simply touched down like a feather.
Touched down on the open palm of this colossus monument.
A hand sculpted in devotion.
"BECOME WHAT YOU ALWAYS WERE MEANT TO BE."
"JOIN THE CHOIR BENEATH THE BONE."
Malik’s fingers moved.
They reached his belt.
Drew the Spine Splitter.
The blade trembled and screamed.
It didn’t scream aloud, for only he could hear it.
Only he could feel it betray its very purpose.
This sword was not forged for this.
Its Will fought against this.
But he raised it anyway.
He brought the edge to his wrist...
And it screamed even louder.
Malik paused and stared at it for a moment.
’Spine Splitter, my only weapon, why do you cry?’
It screamed, screamed, and screamed.
’You were bestowed upon me, but you...’
He took a moment to find the correct words.
Yet he didn’t seem to understand the reason why.
An answer louder than any other.
A line of flesh peeled.
Like a snake shedding skin.
"PEEL AWAY EVERYTHING... YES..."
The monument sounded drunk.
The bone hummed with anticipation as the eye far above stared.
Malik positioned to cut again, his other hand now.
The blade met his wrist—just beneath the veins—and sliced.
His skin opened, tearing raggedly; the blood thick and slow.
It didn’t spurt, it oozed, and he watched it.
He watched it drip down the length of Spine Splitter, trailing along its screaming edge.
Malik rotated the blade with a simple flick of his wrist, dug the edge beneath the skin of his forearm, and pulled.
It came off unevenly, too wet, too pink, clinging like wet cloth, a thick, stretching sound following it.
He had to tug twice to get it going.
The pain was incredible.
But he didn’t once cry out.
He only watched, completely detached.
Watched as the loose sheet of himself dropped into the pale palm beneath him, slapping the bone with a sick, wet sound.
The colossus’s hand trembled, welcoming the offering.
He turned the blade and cut again.
Slid it down his shoulder. Then his chest.
More blood, but it didn’t gush like it should.
It just wept, almost reluctant to leave.
Strips of Malik fell into the palm.
Fruit peels tossed into a God’s bowl.
The air was full of the smell of metal and meat. Warm and wrong.
His body kept resisting. Flesh didn’t want to leave.
But he kept going until the blade hit bone.
And that sound made the monument mutter in delight.
Malik moved the sword down, now to his hip, tracing the edge inward, drawing up more ribbons of himself.
If not for his cloak and robes, nearly all his muscles would’ve been visible by now, pushing through gaps of torn skin, twitching involuntarily like worms exposed to the light.
Shouldn’t Malik have stopped himself long before now?
Wasn’t his Will unbroken?
He reached his thigh.
Dug in deep and peeled.
Bone peeking white beneath red.
His leg trembled under him, almost making him buckle.
Following the voice, his sword left his legs.
But just as the edge kissed the skin along his neck—
Just as the final veil of his humanity was set to be sliced—
Malik paused his blade.
It was waiting until the lie was almost complete.
Waiting until the monument reached euphoria.
And now it had shown its face.
Malik would have finished.
He would have joined them.
But what buried deep within him—
"You don’t get to claim that."
Managed to dig itself out.
"You are nothing but a Fallen Malāk."
The last breath of a man long since broken...
"I will not Fall to the likes of you."
It pulled him down into it.
"CEASE YOUR REBELLION."
Its bone melted like quicksand, absorbing him.
Calling his sword to his left, he drove it down into the palm.
His Fire of Purity exploded forth.
It surged white and violent, rumbling through the entire monument.
The hand recoiled and cracked as it was sent down a few hundred thousand miles.
Malik didn’t hear or notice any of that, however.
GGRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRKRRAAAAEEEEEIIIIIIIHHHHHHH!
A primordial, deafening shriek, like thousands of mountains splitting, stone grinding, bones snapping, and cathedrals collapsing—all fed into a choir of damned Gods, screaming through molten marrow and shattering devotion.
In other words, that was agony.
Purity was not something it could handle.
Its face twisted, and its smile died completely.
But before Malik could process that, he was gone.
Not dead but gone, flung down, perhaps faster than light.
The energy required for such a speed was ridiculous, but a mere ’recoil’ from its hand caused him to reach it.
The sound that followed was unreal.
More than a million sonic booms at once.
So many that reality cracked around him.
Eight million miles vanished in moments.
His body should have been crushed.
Disintegrated and turned to pulp.
Be unmade into nothing.
And even as he was upon the ground, he...
He wasn’t squashed into paste.
The Tenth Layer accepted him.
Malik slowed, drifted, and landed.
He was silent and still, yet to process anything that happened.
...Right, somehow, some way, he’d reached the final Layer.
He reached it in one piece.