Kharzan laughed again, the sound resonating off the walls of the hall. His amber eyes glead with predatory amusent as he surveyed the room.
"With today's poor response, you've shown that I truly have my territory better organized," he declared with arrogance. The golden patterns beneath his skin pulsed with smug satisfaction. "Nurical advantage from the beginning. One hundred elite warriors against... how many? Three dozens?"
"Don't confuse numbers with power," Selphira responded, her voice cool and steady despite the tension. "Your troops don't surpass ours in quality... In a prolonged conflict, in the end, we also have more numbers. Our three united families exceed your faction 2 to 1."
"It is you who is confused, dear Selphira," Kharzan answered, leaning forward. "Don't believe you're speaking against just the third part of all Yano."
His voice took on a darker tone.
"It's not 2 to 1 against , but against you. It's 2 against 4 the mont you dare to touch ." His eyes swept over each person present, lingering with nace. "And the way things are going, soon it will be two against eight."
Julius tensed, comprehending the true threat behind the words.
"Are you suggesting that you've already filled your body with that disgusting unnatural energy?" he asked, attempting to maintain a neutral tone.
Kharzan simply smiled, the implicit answer more disturbing than any verbal confirmation.
"You have two options," he continued, turning slowly to address each of them. "Release my sons imdiately, forget this incident, and maintain the fragile peace we've enjoyed for a while longer... or start a civil war that will make the conflict with the sporadic abyssals of our neighbors seem like a simple first-year training exercise."
Victor jumped to his feet, instinctively manifesting his Qilin. The mythical beast's energy coursed over him in waves of pearlescent light, its antlers forming a crown above his head.
"How dare you threaten us!" he exclaid, his voice rising with indignation. "Right here we could..."
"Victor!" Selphira's voice cut through the air like a whip. "Sit down."
Reluctantly, Victor listened, but his eyes remained fixed on Kharzan with contained hatred. His Qilin receded, though its light continued to pulse beneath his skin, reflecting his agitation.
"Your threats don't impress us," she declared, also rising to her feet. "But for the sake of stability against our neighbors, we are willing to discuss the terms of a peaceful resolution."
"There are no terms to discuss," Kharzan responded with unsettling tranquility. "My sons will be released today, or my hundred warriors will be just the first move in a ga that none of you is prepared to play."
"Responses like this," Julius intervened, his diplomatic mask slipping to reveal genuine disappointnt, "are precisely why father never allowed you access to the knowledge of the higher rings, Kharzan. You were always too impulsive, too hungry for imdiate power to understand the damage you do to the world balance."
For the first ti, a glimpse of genuine anger crossed the Goldcrest patriarch's face.
"The ti of the 'guardians of knowledge' has ended," he spat, looking at Selphira. "The world is changing, and those who cling to the past will be dragged away by the current of progress."
"You call abyssal corruption progress?" asked Sirius, finally breaking his silence. "Interesting choice of words."
Kharzan arched an eyebrow, his smile transforming into a predatory sneer. The temperature in the room seed to drop several degrees as he leaned forward.
"Do you want to see why I call it progress?" His voice acquired a tallic quality, as if sothing inhuman spoke through his throat. "Allow to show you."
The air in the hall instantly thickened. The mana pressure increased so abruptly that the light crystals flickered, so bursting into fragnts that fell like rain to the floor.
Kharzan's body began to change. His golden lion manifested first, covering his skin with brilliant fur that resembled tal. But it didn't stop there. A dark aura, almost viscous, emanated from his back, materializing into enormous feathered wings that didn't belong to his lion.
"His Simurgh," murmured Julius, recognizing the Goldcrest's second beast. The mythical bird of legend, known for its wisdom, now twisted into sothing unrecognizable.
Sothing was terribly wrong. The feathers, which should shine with iridescent colors, pulsed with a sickly purple tone. Black veins ran through each one, as if they were infected by sothing consuming them from within. A Corrupted Simurgh.
The transformation continued, the abyssal energy detaching from his body in visible waves that seed to make the very foundations of the hall tremble.
In instant response, the five leaders activated their own manifestations.
Sirius was the first, his body enveloped in white light as his Celestial White Tiger erged, covering his skin with luminous markings. His human features sharpened, acquiring feline characteristics while the irises of his eyes turned white.
Selphira wasn't far behind. Her Black Turtle erged like armor covering her body. Her skin acquired a dark tone with bright geotric patterns, while her eyes transford into completely black orbs with tiny stars within them.
Ignatius invoked his Phoenix to resist the pressure, golden and scarlet flas enveloping his figure while igneous feathers replaced parts of his skin.
The three Dravenholm brothers simultaneously activated their Qilins, surrounding themselves with purifying light that pushed back against the darkness emanating from Kharzan.
The secondary beasts of all, except Ignatius who did not possess one, remained in a latent state, ready to be invoked if the situation required it.
But there was no danger. Even with the corrupt double transformation, they had a strong nurical advantage...
Kharzan observed the transformations with disdain. A guttural laugh, distorted by his less anthropocentric change, reverberated off the walls of the hall. The sound seed to co from everywhere at once, as if the room itself had beco part of his manifestation.
"Is this all you can offer?" he asked with a voice that no longer sounded entirely human. "I can feel your mana levels. My combined transformation emits at least twice as much as any of you."
The winged lion transformation had already turned Kharzan into sothing barely recognizable as human, but the horror didn't end there. From his lower back erged a scorpion's tail, long and segnted, ending in a stinger that dripped a black liquid. His mouth stretched, teeth transforming into irregular fangs, while more eyes appeared on the sides of his forehead.
"This is true evolution," he declared, his voice now completely distorted, as if several throats spoke simultaneously. "Each Gold rank beast I possess provides the ability to integrate two Silver rank abyssals."
More appendages began to erge from his body: chitinous legs, muscular tentacles, even what appeared to be small secondary mouths. All these strange elents integrated, transforming into a biochanical armor that covered every inch of Kharzan.
The mana pressure from Kharzan was now much stronger.
"My power is now four tis greater than any of yours," declared the creature that Kharzan had beco. The voice seed to co from multiple mouths, overlapping into a chorus of nace. "Do you still want to argue about how bad 'corruption' is?"
Genuine alarm crossed the faces of the three brothers, temporary leaders. Even Ignatius, normally imperturbable, took a step back before the monstrous manifestation. His phoenix fire dimd slightly, as if even its eternal flas were threatened by this perversion of nature.
But Sirius and Selphira exchanged a look and, without words, advanced together. Their beasts' energies seed to harmonize, the white tiger's purifying light and the black turtle's cosmic stability creating a resonance that pushed back against the corrupted mana filling the room.
User Comments
0 comments from readers