The third beast tried to flank her. Zeyra didn’t even turn her head. The massive green snake coiled around her torso simply snapped its jaws outward, sinking its massive fangs directly into the Spider-Fiend’s multitude of eyes. The beast convulsed violently, its nervous system completely shutting down as the lethal neurotoxin flooded its brain, dropping it dead on the spot.
The nearby Veynar archers and wounded spearn, who had been bracing for a brutal lee, lowered their weapons in absolute shock. They stared at the young girl radiating an aura of such intense, toxic lethality that the very air seed to sizzle.
Zeyra stood amidst the lting, twitching corpses of the Layer 2 beasts. She was panting heavily, her new Layer 1 core burning with the unfamiliar strain of maintaining a fully manifested spirit, but the feeling of absolute power was intoxicating.
Just then the extra boost provided by her breakthrough was exhausted and the erald snake slowly turned transparent before fully vanishing back into her core.
She didn’t care about that, as she knew that she couldn’t manifest it fully yet, it was already a miracle that she had been able to maintain it till now.
She turned her head, looking through the torrential rain, the swirling smoke, and the chaos of the remaining horde, directly toward the center of the battlefield.
She saw the flash of sapphire lightning. She saw the silver-clad juggernaut continuing his relentless, laughing slaughter.
The gap between them was still astronomically vast. He was killing Layer 3 behemoths while she had just managed to lt a few Layer 2 insects.
But as Zeyra gripped her venom-dripping spear, her dark eyes burned with an unyielding, terrifying resolve. She had crossed the threshold. She was no longer a spectator hiding behind the lines. She was in the ga.
Look at , Zeyra thought, her obsession burning hotter than any fla. I am coming for you. And nothing in this rotting jungle will stand in my way.
...
Hundreds of yards away, deep in the absolute center of the at grinder, Sol felt the sudden, unnatural spike in toxic spiritual pressure.
Even amidst the chaotic elental detonations of thousands of beasts, the sheer intensity of that erald-green flare stood out. Sol casually ducked under the sweeping, stone tail of an on blood beast, letting the beast’s montum carry it past him, and glanced toward the damaged eastern wall.
Through the gloom and dust, he saw the blinding jade light and the unmistakable silhouette of Zeyra. A massive, iridescent green snake was coiled tightly around her torso, and she was standing proudly amidst the hissing, lting remains of armored beasts.
Layer 1, Sol realized, his transmigrator mind instantly cataloging the power spike. She actually forced a breakthrough and fully manifested her spirit in the middle of a siege. Impressive.
He knew exactly how the chanics of this place worked. Not everyone was a cheat like him, to force a breakthrough in the middle of a chaotic siege ant she hadn’t just ditated... she had violently gorged her spirit on raw, unfiltered battlefield essence. It was an agonizing, borderline suicidal gamble that would have lted the veins of anyone with an ounce of hesitation.
It took a terrifying, ruthless level of ambition to pull sothing like that off. She wasn’t just a talented girl playing tribal politics anymore, she had willingly thrown herself into the fire and forged herself into a genuine, lethal predator.
It was a brief, montary flicker of genuine respect. But now was not the ti for lingering thoughts.
The beast whose tail he had dodged... a massive, heavily armored Stone-Scale Ape... recovered its balance and let out an ear-splitting roar. It beat its massive, stone-clad fists against its chest before lunging forward, aiming to crush the distracted human into the mud.
Sol didn’t even blink. He t the multi-ton charge with raw, nonchalant brutality.
As the colossal ape brought its massive fists down in a crushing hamr-blow, Sol simply engaged the Dreadwing’s agility to casually sidestep the strike by re inches. The ape’s fists slamd into the earth, burying deep into the mud and leaving its guard completely wide open.
Sol didn’t miss a beat. Without breaking his stride, he stepped forward, utilizing the sheer tectonic mass of the Great Badger, and drove his boot directly into the ape’s knee joint.
The sound of thick bone and iron-like cartilage snapping echoed sharply. The beast shrieked, its massive body violently buckling forward as its leg gave out.
As the ape’s head dropped to his level, Sol casually flicked his wrist. Dreadwing blade swept upward in a smooth, effortless arc of iridescent sapphire light. The sharp balde sliced through the thick neck muscles and dense vertebrae without a single ounce of resistance.
The ape’s massive head launched into the air, a thick geyser of dark blood erupting from the stump of its neck.
Sol didn’t even watch the body hit the floor. He stepped past the collapsing carcass, shaking the gore from his blade with a lazy flick of his wrist. He lunged forward, blurring into a gray streak.
The iridescent sapphire edge of the Dreadwing Blade continuously humd a lethal, high-frequency note. He ducked under a torrent of corrosive acid from a Spitter-Toad, his blade cleanly separating the beast’s bloated head from its body. He spun on his heel, intercepting the leaping strike of a Shadow-Wolf, and bisected the creature mid-air.
He was a hurricane of absolute, unfiltered violence.
And he wasn’t doing it alone.
Every ti a beast with stealth capabilities or hyper-agility attempted to exploit an opening in his furious assault, a heavy, obsidian-tipped arrow would descend from the heavens with a supersonic
CRACK.
A Razor-Tail Macaque dropped from the high branches of a surviving petrified tree, its bladed tail whipping toward Sol’s neck. Before Sol even had to raise his guard, an arrow pierced the monkey’s eye socket, pinning it violently to the trunk of the tree.
Sol didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. He knew Kira was standing on the highest, most precarious rampart of the settlent, her fingers bleeding from the relentless tension of her war-bow, her stormy feline eyes scanning the battlefield with absolute, lethal devotion.
Their synergy was flawless. She was his anchor, clearing his blind spots, allowing him to push deeper and deeper into the horde without a single ounce of hesitation.
...
But the true battle for the survival of the Veynar wasn’t happening in the mud with these Essence Born and On Blood.
It was happening a quarter-mile away, near the scorched epicenter of the High Shaman’s storm.
User Comments
0 comments from readers