Seeing Ester's answer with the best of his abilities, Eva's eyes widened as they darted back to the large rift in the weave.
In particular the large glowing star that was previously on the top of the tree but was now in the middle of a donut.
[Y-you crazy baaassstard]
Words slurring as the ambient Aether flowing out of the rift chewed through the faraday cage's protections surrounding her throat, Ester had the distinct feeling that she was grinning despite it.
[You beettteer caaatch me]
Letting go of the rope that she was holding onto for dear life, the rope went lax as it unfurled from her hands.
Soon enough though, that line would go taut again.
Unless he cut it apart.
He reached out his metallic hand towards Eva, the blade glinting from within its mess of gears and pneumatics, despite the acid suddenly appearing around him as the world heated up in the advent of Project Void Buffer's phase 2, the blade was still sharp enough to cut the slack rope.
Especially with all the momentum built up from his leap and the Rift's personal bubble of gravity combined.
Having cut the one thing that was keeping her from being pulled into the rift without a way out, Ester slammed his feet onto the Hoverboard and felt the machine flare to life.
Pulses of antigravity flashed underneath his feet as his body angled forwards.
Flinching as splashes of chemicals found themselves on his goggles, Ester's now free hand found itself against a pair of hands that soon snaked across his body.
[Yoooouuu reaally are-are c-crazy]
"Am I now? Wasn't I your little knight in shining armor?"
Eva wiped the bunch of chemicals chewing through his goggles with the hem of her sleeve.
[N-nah, your just-just aaaaaa stupid idiot whoooo li-ikes taking-ing waaaay t-to maaany risks]
Ester forced a grin on his face as he met Eva's gaze that failed to hide the immense amount of fear and turmoil underneath the grey lenses.
Feeling the exact same as his heart beat rapidly under the constant threat of death brushing against his neck, Ester pressed on the front end of the Hoverboard, prompting its pulses to fire harder.
Chemicals rained down on his back as a near titanic wave of crystal fire and toxic acids rained down from above following the emanations of heat from the large super rocket in the North.
'How in the void did everything not look melted if that happened.'
Feeling his mind wander in an attempt to distract itself from the consequences of riding into an orb of much to twisted gravity and much to concentrated waves, his mind wandered into an area that he himself wasn't even aware of.
Feeling his vision rise from the previously constrained cone in front of him towards a sort of omni vision detailing even the smallest of acid droplets Ester let out a laugh filled with incredulity.
One time was chance, two times was coincidence, three times was fate. And this was already the third time.
'There's definitely something wrong with my head.'
It was disorienting and confusing, but with a sizeable amount of chemicals soon to be burying him alive in a coffin of pain and agony, Ester could deal with a bit of disorientation.
He would vomit later though.
"Eva!"
[W-whaaat!? Whaaaat!?]
Hearing her voice become worse as the tangible waves of Aether pressed against his skin, Ester felt the inexplicable urge to laugh as he yelled. "Do you trust me?!"
[Architect damnit maybe?!]
Ignoring the fact that her voice was strangely clear right now, he stamped Eva's body onto the hoverboard while closing his eyes in an attempt to filter out the level of information running through his head.
"Then drive!"
[T-this faaaaaaaacker!?]
Cursing him out verbally as her legs slammed into the places where his feet previously were, Ester put all of his focus into the omni vision, locking onto his position rather easily.
They were the only things in a several kilometer radius stupid enough to fly straight toward a Rift that was sometimes big enough to fit the both of them after all.
Wanting to laugh like a maniac for reasons unknown to him, Ester yelled out through his confusion.
"57, 20!"
[T-THE VOOOOOID ARE-ARE YOOOU TAAAALK-TALKING ABOUT!?]
Hearing her speaker get locked onto the loudest setting as it mimicked a scream of confusion, a flash of understanding swiftly passed through her eyes in the next second.
Applying her knowledge of the Driller's omnidirectional underground movement to their direct situation of trying to dodge past a minefield of gravitational wells, pockets of ADP and rocks of trash atop a hoverboard screaming with sounds loud enough to wake the dead.
The dead would soon return to being dead thanks to the wave of heat converting the air itself into a burning hellhole soon enough though.
"74,10!"
Feeling his stomach make backflips inside of him as they darted past a thundering clump of lightning reaching out with one gnarled hand, the hoverboard swiftly whisked them away from its grasp as the waves emanating from the rift become stronger and stronger.
It made sense that the waves would become stronger and stronger as they got closer to the Rift but by the Architects it made him sick.
"Neg 19, 3!"
Yelling out another number as they breezed past another clump of influences stickily forcing the now, Ester felt the dizziness of trying to track his own movements past fields of things able to kill him from a star bug's eye of view abate somewhat.
Then the chemicals that was slower than the heat made their appearance.
Acid chewed holes through the thick clothes on his body as chemical crystals exploded right next to his ears.
Flinching as acid burns began to find their way onto his skin alongside literal burns, he vaguely felt Eva trembling with pain in his grasp as she turned the hoverboard to his words.
"Final one!"
[T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-hank the aaaaaaaarch-!! ah129hd408h]
Hearing her voice morph as Aether dynamic pulses snuck into the holes melted by the acid swirling all around them Ester yelled out the final set of coordinates as the Hoverboard screamed at the rift now taking the form of an eye.
"0, 0!"
Screaming out loudly as they dived towards the brightly glowing star in the center of the eye, the rift blinked as chemicals swept away the place that they were previously in.
It was a flood that covered the earth...
And they just escaped it by the skin of their teeth.
---
Ester felt like he was floating.
Floating in a space where the concepts of up and down were vague enough to not matter.
The only thing that was constant in this space of unknown directions was a comfortable silence and a comforting warmth.
If he had memories of his time in the womb, Ester would've thought that this place was it.
Opening his eyes and feeling slightly relieved that he wasn't still stuck in that weird state of watching himself while still being able to see his surroundings through his own two eyes, Ester looked around.
Or at least he tried.
Eyes shaking as if an earthquake had just struck them, they nevertheless stayed locked onto a person's back.
Despite how much his mind told him it was impossible for this person to be in front of him again, his heart betrayed him as his mouth slowly opened and a voice that was much less gravely from the aftereffects of breathing in the planet's air entered his ears.
"...Old man?"
The familiar back with four additional arms of steel flexed through the custom made clothes only called as so when new holes had been ripped out of them to accommodate the steel limbs.
"...Not turning around when I call you old man huh..." Murmuring to himself as he held a small hope that the back in front of him didn't belong to the one that he hoped it did, he ignored the conflicting feelings in his heart as he coughed into the two palms of his hand.
"Old Man..." A sharp pain like an awl pressed painfully against his skull forcing his words to a stop as if warning him.
But Ester was familiar with pain.
Especially pain that he could ignore.
Ignoring the increasingly strong presence of the awl on his skull, he called out to the familiar back, half hoping half dreading the face of the person that would answer his question.
"Grandpa... Grandpa " Ester finally finished, his words indiscernible even to the ears of the person who just said it.
Shaking his head in confusion, the six arms flexed as its owner turned around to reveal...
An empty bowl face like that of the Corrupted he saw at C-Point.
Grandpa- No, the thing wearing a dead old man's skin revealed itself.
The six arms mashed into one squiggly mess as another arm formed from six others sprouted from within it's body.
The grey hair of an aging frame swiftly grew and shifted hues to an unsettling black as it hung low.
The dead old man's legs unraveled like paper, breaking apart into sections of crushed bone contained within bags of tensile meat.
From within its chest, cloth gave way to metal as the hair finally parted like living snakes, the fluid composing its torso melting and falling apart to reveal a collection of unfamiliar faces.
A laugh that sounded like the shrill shattering of glass entered his ears as it raised a finger arm at him.
The multitude of unfamiliar faces opened its dozens of mouths in unison.
"""'He' who fills 'her' hunger."""
The Corrupted let out a laugh like shattered glass.
"""'She' found you"""
---
The Corrupted of C-Point begins 'Her' hunt.
+++
Again, sorry for the late chapter, my mother destroyed my ten year long comrade (Hint: It had one and half sleeves, the collar was half gone and it had five additional holes added to the four holes it should only have.)
Also this tree is starving due to lots of mosquitoes desiring his life fluid and a health inspection draining the same thing.
Tree