Even before seeing it happen directly, the being had noticed that the more mundane pressure of wriggling flesh was diminishing, the top of pile getting lower and lower. Right now, if it was careful with its choice of path, walking mostly on firm ground was possible once again.

  So many creatures had disappeared, that they were back to the density of a simple surge.

  The sub-currents had truly become a smaller version of the ones outside, whirling and twisting violently, annihilating anything they touched. And they were so many that sooner or later everything around found its end, swept away by them. Those that kept enduring - like the group ahead - often did so with a limb fewer, their bodies crippled.

  Even the being was having a hard time staying alive, and had to constantly watch its back for an attack. Too many times had been far too close for its liking.

  Worse, even if it could avoid the more obvious hazards, the strain, the compulsion to surrender and fade away, had become strenuous. Even with its indomitable will, even with its love of life... the temptation to give in was there.

  It knew it should cut its losses and run before even its indomitable resistance was overcome, forcing it to do something it couldn't take back. This had become way too dangerous, and would only be getting worse. But the same reasons as before remained: though it still missed something, this was were it was supposed be. The being had always known that, and was only more certain of that now that it was inside.

  So it endured, and kept following along, struggling to keep its attention on the group and witness their fate.

  Despite the far reduced number of bodies in the way and that the being was far closer to them than ever before, the essence had thickened so much that seeing anything past a certain distance was hard.

  It only knew their rough position, and that they'd lost a friend, unfortunately.

  ... Until even that knowledge disappeared from perception. And this time, one by one.

  The being wasn't particularly moved: something bizarre was bound to happen sooner or later.

  And it wasn't long before it found another barrier, similar to the border of the ball from outside, and yet entirely different. Far more worrying.

  There was nothing beyond.

  Not the void-promise-of-death sort of nothing, the one that lurked at the edges of the world, like the abyss deep under the ground, when the hummings broke it apart. Just... nothing. The being would have better luck seeing inside a rock than past this shell. As a matter of fact, it really had an easier time seeing inside rocks, as a quick check with a boulder close by demonstrated.

  Another bad sign was the behavior of the crowd: most were finally snapping out of it and trying to turn back the opposite way. In a peculiar twist, it was the weaker, simple things that were more quick to panic now, and that struggled harder: the closer they got to the barrier, the most eager they were to get away from it. But, except for the being, nothing that had reached this far was healthy enough to fight back the throng. Nothing was willful enough to resist the lure once they got this close. And yet, they were all trying in some way.

  There was only one possible explanation for all this. Luckily, it was something that shouldn't be immediately lethal and so there was a chance the group was still alive. Less luckily... it was going to be very, very, very unpleasant.

  But hopefully, it would be the last hurdle.

  Feeling drained in ways that had nothing to do with essence - which would be ironic when immersed in this - the being checked that it wasn't about to get shoved in - like back at the castle - and then slowly took a step-

  which landed on nothing, and it was only thanks to its wariness that the being managed to correct its course and grab onto a rock rather than plummet into... whatever was below.

  Relief was extremely short lived.

  The being was blind.

  Utterly.

  For first time, since its beginnings in a crack in the ground, there was nothing to see at all.

  Nothing!

  Despite having expected this, despite having known and prepared, it found its limbs locking, its will eroded, panic creeping in at the edges.

  There was nothing here!!!

  And that nothing was smothering it, trying to take its most precious essence away. Even with the being's now immensely strong hold, asserting control onto it, affirming its existence, that it mattered, took immense effort.

  The 'barrier' had of course been no barrier at all, but rather just the point where essence went from cloyingly abundant, to absolutely, despairingly absent.

  But not quite, on second glance.

  Somewhere ahead... at an unfathomable distance and yet incredibly close, reassuring and yet completely destroying its confidence was the destination, shining so bright it parted even the nothingness.

  The epicenter.

  From all around, titanic, churning currents swirled their way across the void, converging onto it. Dodging around clusters of... coagulated essence? floating as if they had no weight. And the principle... there was so much here. Orders of magnitude greater than anything else the being had ever felt. So much that it might even... And yet it didn't matter. Not even its desperate quest for the principle mattered, right now.

  The being needed to get to the middle, no matter what. Or something horrible would happen.

  But it... wasn't ready.

  And even if it were, how could it get past the unending pit of the abyss that stretched out ahead, enveloping this whole area from below?

  Not even if it could glide like the owl could it hope to get remotely that far. Not with the swirling currents in the air. Not with the absence squeezing everything dry, twisting and pulling and dragging out so hard, it was only the awe and reverence for the epicenter that kept the being from panicking. Every moment here was an incomparable risk, a chance it would stop resisting.

  Entirely by happenstance, a noise from below caught its attention... and the being peered down to glimpse the only remaining member of that group of friends that had been so formidable, clinging desperately to the rocky wall. So close that its essence could be seen even in this horrible place, but also too far gone to save, too frail. And with the currents that kept lashing at it with their proximity, it wasn't long before the creature couldn't resist anymore.

  The being watched as the last of its strength left the miserable thing, and it finally let go. Just as any other in here - no exclusion - it didn't even last enough for the deathly void below to claim it. It faded away, eroded by the pressure, before leaving even the being's extremely poor sight.

  But the being could still feel the creature's desperation as it fell to its death.

  The being landed against the rocky wall, and hurriedly climbed the rest of the way.

  Once it got to the top, it rolled with its face up, towards the even cape of dust that covered everything in this world - interspersed with those swirling whirls that had once been so welcome a sight.

  ...

  In the end, it had been that last one's death that had shaken it out of its daze. Like watching the cuttlefish getting stomped to nothing: pain, and the shameful relief that something else had encountered that fate. The awareness that it could've been the frog down there. Or the being.

  ...

  Up here, even so close to the final destination, its strength was again enough to scare the swarm off. A small void had already formed, where nothing dared to come close, knowing the gap that separated them. The being struggled to feel good about it, this time.

  It needed to get to the epicenter. But it was impossible. There was just no way to get over that chasm.

  There had been strange, crystalline ledges around, stretching over the abyss - so bright that they could be seen even through the void. And other floating things, ones not made of essence, floating. Things that it only knew where there because they had abruptly deviated currents, or been shattered by them.

  But the crystalline bridges came far, far short of the objective, and the floating things were too few and far between. And how could it even find them, reliably? How could it jump between platforms it couldn't even see?

  And even if it could, the currents would scour it to nothing along the way. The absence would squeeze it dry.

  This wasn't like the castle - of which the being was starting to doubt there even was one, here. There would be no fighting.

  Only death.

  It was impossible.

  But the being needed to get there.

  ... and whenever had it allowed the impossible to stop it from trying? Not like it had anything else to do, either way. This wasn't like the collateral, where getting in was mostly a passing fancy. This was what it needed to do.

  And if it couldn't enter from here, then it would find another, secret way in.

  From up here, it could sort of see the edge of the chasm - where the 'ball' of compressed essence gave way to the absence of it - now that it knew what it was looking at. Maybe there was a place where the chasm was less daunting? Somewhere the edge of the pit reached closer to the middle?

  It walked. And walked. And walked.

  And walked.

  But no matter how far it went, there never seemed to be a change, and not just in the edge of the chasm, but in the landscape as a whole.

  Its perspective must have been entirely wrong: this ball was impossibly large. Much larger than a mountain.

  Perhaps it wasn't done traveling, after all.

  The being marched for an unknowable amount of time, and would have probably kept going until it'd gone all around the place entirely and ended up at the start, without even noticing.

  If not for that sound.

  Stuck in its head as it was, wondering how it would resist the drain on its essence, once inside; how it would get past the chasm in the increasingly likely circumstance that there wasn't a convenient ledge of rock reaching all the way to destination; and how it could fight the knight and the guards that might be hiding over there. On top of the worry that it might have picked the wrong direction...

  All these things had made for another very boring travel, but with an added mix of anxiety and manic energy. The being didn't even stop to feed anymore, most of the time, nor bother to search for the principle. What use was there in keeping that up, when the greatest source of inspiration, the perfect environment, was inside there?

  When it suddenly started finding mutilated piles of bodies, it didn't care much. There were still many fights breaking out between lesser creatures here. They must have bothered something stronger and with little patience or restraint. Nothing absurd.

  But when when dead creatures started outnumbering the living ones by far, and rapidly, until there was only a swathe of bodies and little else... that caught the being's attention a lot more.

  Enough to finally focus on the shrieks that easily penetrated this far from silent, but still much quieter area. Though softer, and less all-encompassing, than in its memory...

  a sound that the being knew all too well.