Through the eyes of a fearful ape

  Crack! The world shatters. Nothing shatters. Bang! The world crashes. Nothing crashes. Crunch! Sharp teeth devour the world. Nothing devours nothing. Gol Dhee tenses his fingers, pulling at the air and igniting an intense deluge of flame behind him. The flames roar loudly, their bright flicker a challenge to the darkness, one which is consumed all the same. His essence is devoured, flames snuffed before they can extend beyond arm's reach. Air whistles, the signature tune of a heavy object ploughing towards him. He raises his arms in defence, an ice cold prickle yanking at every hair as instinct screams its harsh warning. Was he facing the wrong direction? Is there a wrong direction? Does either matter when the darkness itself is your foe? Irrelevant.

  Gol Dhee grips the air around him, spinning it into a frenzy and slamming his fists into the soft wall of nothing, coated in a shield of fangs. His hands are torn at and shredded, but the pressure is enough to repel the attack, pushing away the wall before his grasped winds peter out. My essence vanishes beyond my proximity. Range is not my ally here, I must regroup. Gol Dhee closes his eyes even as his instincts scream not to, the organs proving a useless distraction in a place the very light is consumed. Even sound seems to muffle, but the vibrations are enough to pry at the world, to add shape to its formlessness.

  A loud snap in the distance, softened to a gentle thump. The fiery one. A sequence of heavy bangs, each followed by a softer crack, all tamed into mere taps. Warrior of green. I trust he is safe with his own strength. An unholy torrent of ripping flesh and crumbling bone, tuned into an unsettling buzz. I... don't recognise this sound. Is it the emissary's foe? I expect the bright one will still be with her. An approaching whistle of compressing wind, barely touched by the filter of distance. Gol Dhee defends again, this time pressing a hard ram of wind towards the fiery one and breaching the incoming attack to charge. Blood-soaked knuckles slam into the ground as he bounds in the direction of the distant snaps. The fiery one is a being of light, I should see how she fares first.

  "Another one?!" The fiery one protests, a snap of wind breaking against a hard surface. "It is I!" Gol Dhee responds. "Gol Dhee?! Where are you?" "I am here!" "Where is here!" "Here!" Their voices ring clear, yet neither can discern a direction, the vibrations of sound reaching both of Gol Dhee's ears in equal measure no matter where he looks. "I can't hear sound remember! And you can't actually see my light from where you are! Translation picks up our intent to communicate, but can't interpret information we don't have!" "Hoh..."

  Through the eyes of a nervous elf

  When did we get separated? This place might just be even harder as a group, I can't just run. But fighting is a pointless and dangerous endeavour... A loud crack of wind splits the nothingness, nothing revealed in its place and barrelling onward to clamp its jaws around the elf. One sharper fang cleaves through, biting back at the unseen enemy. These things are tough... No sense of presence either, or rather no Aether. And if I'm not careful I'll trip on something I can't see. Can Teacher see in this? Maybe I should try ae'othas again.

  Aether bulbs outward, pressing into a thin layer within the shadows. Upon exiting his form, a harsh energy rapidly chews at the Aether, ravenously eating away until nothing of the thin film remains. So this energy even corrupts Aether? No use wasting any more then. Heavy force slams into his back, blade severing the assaulting object in return as he spins and fumbles to regain his footing. Such a pain...

  Through the eyes of a frantic dragon

  I let my guard down, this is bad! Aleph clings to an unseeable object, claws sunk into the fleshy surface while fangs scrape back at her scales. Numerous entities fling themselves at the dragon, only for their defenceless tissue to be cut and torn apart by a dense shield of Aether. Her footing writhes and contorts, desperately throwing her against anything that could dislodge her grip. This is the one that ate Lyly, I'm sure of it. Normally she'd be fine, but this demonic energy... The moment I arrived my ae'othas was ripped away, even light and sound is being affected. If dense enough I can resist just fine, but Mana isn't as obstinate as Aether, so I need to hurry!

  Through the eyes of an excited demon

  "Wow, I feel great!" Diala announces, her arm whipping an arc through the air at vibrating wind originating from the clinking of bone. "I feel... unwell." Gol Dhee responds from below, the demon's legs hooked around his shoulders as he redirects invisible strikes with thick clusters of wind, flinging rocks into the nothing to clatter and make noise against their surroundings. "I guess that makes sense... All of this demonic energy is infused with the desire to eat. Doesn't really affect me all that much, but it must be eating away at your Mana and body." "Indeed. We should make haste and find the others. I may collapse if this persists."

  A burst of wind slams into the pair, clashing against Gol Dhee's torrents and chipping Diala's shell in a line. "Was that Fluffy?" "It must be so. Hold tight." Inertia pulls her back as the monkey charges towards the source of the blow, muffled cracks of wind growing sharper as they approach. "Fluffy!" "Tiny? Where are you?" "Over here!" "Where is here?" "Oh, not this again!"

  Through the eyes of an exasperated spider

  How many times have I been eaten in this body alone...? It's kinda starting to hurt my pride when it's the first damn thing that happens on a new layer! Lyla lays immobile within a squelching mass of pulsating flesh, her body chained by the crushing pressure enveloping her. Each pulse squeezes her deeper through the uncomfortably wet tunnel, leaving her barely able to breathe. If I'm not moving or anything I can hold my breath and stave off hunger for days, or at least a few hours with the Mana I have left, but hopefully the others will pull me out by then. I'm gracious enough to wait until that happens. It only stings a little after all. Wait...

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  A flicker of uncertainty, the early twinge of onset panic nestles within her core. Why am I feeling pain. Not nausea or vertigo, not discomfort or confusion, but pain. Actual pain. A burning sensation gnaws at the surface of her carapace, the feeling of nerves slowly being eaten away by acid and something else, something dangerous yet unfamiliar. This body is invincible! I'm not running out of Mana or anything so why... I'm running low on Mana... How? I'm doing the same stuff I always do, it should just... Her senses focus on the energy coating her body, its endless push outward to reinforce only to be plucked away piece by piece as soon as it leaves her body. This is bad... This is bad!

  Lyla struggles, legs pushing against the malleable walls confining her. They resist. Her fangs scrape at the flesh, her claws gripping any part of the slick surface they can. They slip. She yells. She curses. She grows enraged. The dark ignores her. She calls to her other bodies. They are too slow to respond. She stops. Her panic all the same, but her body too sore to struggle, too low on Mana to properly defend. Am I going to die again? This body was supposed to be unkillable... I was so close... Yet again, it seems nobody cares when it's just another me... I'm sick of this...

  The pressure lifts a minute fraction, enough to give slight leeway to her movements. Her environment writhes, jerking and shaking as something sharp clinks against her back. Chance! As if by instinct, her body twists and her legs snap into place around the sharp object, refusing to free her grip from the smooth and slippery surface as it tugs and yanks her through a hole in the wall. Suffocation breaks away, claustrophobic darkness giving way to a deeper yet more freeing world of shadows. "Yes! Freedom! Dragon?! Is that you?! You are my favourite person ever! I am immediately updating my tier list!" Me on the surface! Update my tier list! Dragon is now SS tier!

  "Tier list? Anyway, I'm glad you're okay. I think. I still can't see, so if you're hurt you'll have to tell me." Inertia whips and bends the duo until it abruptly stops, nothing left but the unnerving torrent of squelching flesh and crumbling bone resounding within arms reach. Lyla clambers to her perch, resting her nerves as the world returns to a state of peace and sense. The dragon says nothing about the small river of uncomfortably thick fluid oozing over her face from the lightly trembling arachnid. "Wait... You can't see either? How did you find me?" "Your Mana. It's way harder, but I don't need Aether to see the pure energies, and you release a lot." "You saying I smell? I might bump you down to S for that." "What?"

  The dragon steps onward with an uncanny calm, an unwavering confidence in the safety of the situation. Tier list has been updated! Oh, that felt quick! Wait... My Mana gets consumed before it can leave my body, how did I communicate with the surface? Well, the dragon did once say something along the lines of 'Mana always finds a way', so it's probably something like that. Squelching of torn flesh is met by the crack of pressurised wind, both mounting heavy destruction upon the emptiness. "Found Fluffy." "Oh, Teach? Is Lil' Blue with you?" "What? You miss me or some shit?" "Ah, good. That makes all of us."

  Through the eyes of a relieved dragon

  Following each other's voices, the group manage to reunite. Everyone stumbles upon Aleph's back, struggling to fumble their way through the dark and onto the dragon. "We need to leave immediately. This layer is crawling with life, none any less aggressive." "Which way?" "I don't know. Wherever the corruptive energy is least dense, preferably." "Corruptive?" Aleph darts off, shield of Aether tearing apart enemy and terrain without discrimination. "I think he's referring to the demonic energy." "Demonic energy doesn't corrupt though. Maybe if you try to attune to it, but I would just say that kills you." "Well that's how my master described it. Why is there so little obstruction? I was expecting to be assaulted from all sides." "We are." "What?"

  The sounds of death and dismantling surround the group, yet not a single speck of dust or debris reaches them. "I'm tearing apart anything that gets close." "How?" "Aether." "That's... You can do that? Even to living things?" "Not if they have a lot of pure energy like you guys, but these things have none. No Mana, no Aether, nothing. They seem to have adapted to this environment by abandoning all pure energies, which would just be consumed anyway, and developing tough bodies instead. But that makes them vulnerable to basic attacks like this." Rushing towards an unknown destination Aleph pushes her senses to their limits, arcing her charge to follow the slight decrease in demonic energy.

  Terrain shifts and undulates beneath her sound shattering footsteps, each point of contact burrowing in and releasing unheard shock-waves behind them. Attacks grow sparse, her movement too fast for anything to possibly keep up, and yet... something wraps around her foot, undeterred by her wall of Aether. The charge which went undisturbed for minutes, if not hours, torn to a screeching halt, inertia slamming the group against themselves as they are dragged down, down, down, down, down... The world grows darker and darker, more and more silent, filled with a nothing beyond perception. Only inertia and touch remain, the silence threatening to numb even those as inertia expresses its departure.

  Nothing surrounds them.

  Record 1

  Hypothesis: Summoning of an entity with an awakened soul from between dimensions can be done forcefully with sufficient information on the subject.

  Method: Data from angels known from prior to the deprecation is to be compiled and used i

  Record 2 - Post Mortem

  This experiment has been cancelled following the advent of our peace treaty with the angels.

  - Extract from the Progenitor's notes