Rex was hidden in the clouds, killometers above the forward moving horde of countless bodies. His gaze focused downward, on a specific tigermen individual of an extreme size, especially when compared with the rest of the horde. Thrice the size of a normal specimen, with snow white fur and black stripes all over, bulging mucles covered by the soft looking fur. Unlike the rest of its compatriots, the fur it adorned did look somewhat pleasant to the touch, if one could imply so, especially when seeing the specimen said fur was attached to. It simply exuded might from its being. Even from his position Rex could tell that the leader was at the very end of high SS class and given some time, might even step into peak SS class level.
Though that was not to be, the obvious obstacle gazing down on the leader of the horde from his place high above in the clouds. He opened a gate to Elysion, ordering the thunderhawk to go in.
"You did well. Now return and rest. The rest of this is for me to enjoy." With those words spoken, he jumped a bit, allowing the bird to abide by his order and fly through, closing the gate moments later as his fall began. He controlled his descent with a pair of mana wings, controling his glide towards the target. He would arrive with a bang, and quite close to the leader as well, ensuring that the horde should focus on the disturbance, stopping its advance and creating a crater that would become the focal point of the coming carnage.
With the understanding that he was eliminating autonomous constructs at worst, there were no moral reasons to not proceed with the plan at hand. And so, after a few minute glide and with quite the acceleration, he entered what would be considered the sensing zone of the mages that were walking alongside the horde. Though with the speed he had aquired, it took less than a couple of seconds, far too little time for the mages that noticed his existance to actually prepeare, untill his imminent impact with the earth. It created a rather loud explosion, courtesy of a mana charge detonated at the moment of said impact, causing chunks of earth and rocks to be tossed dozens of meters away, pelting the unlucky tigermen that were located close to the point of Rex's impact.
Thanks to the unreasonable mana enhancments he was running through his system during the impact, he was up and moving mere moments after the impact, once again creating a few dozen mana constructed razor chains and starting the carnage, all the while also using his sword to decapitate any unlucky and foolilsh monster that had managed to somehow remain standing near the zone of impact and was already charging at Rex, their berserker state triggered at the mere sight of a possible enemy.
Loud screams or rage, quite bestial in their nature reverberated throughout the field, like an unending wave cascading further and further to the hordes outer reaches.. More and more of said horde was made aware of a disturbance in the heart of the enourmous group. And the disturbance in was quite apparently hostile in nature. This, obviously, warranted a single possible response from each and every tigerman that was made aware of the situation, and with the loud bestial roars, it was quite hard, if not impossible, to be among the number of tigermen that failed to heed teh call.
Waves and waves of the enraged monsters changed their dirrection of advance, no longer moving towards their supposed mortal enemy, or quarry, but all to the last monster converged on the recently made crater, in the middle of which was an entity of great power, slicing and dismembering tigermen in speeds and quantities unlike anything ever witnessed in the history of the hordes. Not that any of the tigermen present had the knowledge to compare the sight before them to. Their true overlord, however, did, and it was already straining its mind and intelect to its very limits, trying to figure out an entity that could be used to not only stop the advance of said individual, for it seemed quite clear from the current situation, that it was only a matter of time before the horde was dealt with.
Then again, its arch- nemesis was still a being of flesh and blood, and from its observations, there was such a thing as stamina that each such being was affected by. There was only so much energy within those flsehy bodies to continiue such streneous exercises. No doubt the entity decimating its horde would eventually slow down, getting exausted from all the slaughterting and swinging that rather large blade of his.And so, while the entity still worked hard on figuring out a possible biologial mana construct solution to the problematic man culing the tigermen, it was waiting and hoping the dangerous individual would soon slow down and start to exibit signs of exaustion, finally giving the remaining horde the opportunities to end his life.
Five, then, then twenty and thirty minutes went by, the speed and precision of the dangerous entity not slowing down one bit, with piles upon piles of tigermen corpses and piles of dismembered limbs remaining behind, a veritable river of blood forming from it all. That was as expected, even the dragonkin creatures could last for hours when defending their homes from the previous hordes, so it was only natural that the entity before its horde, this new individual, making it feel particularily veary, would last no lesss than the greatests of dragonpeople. Surely, he would last even longer, if its instincts were to be believed.
Minutes turned into hours, the carnage left behind by the man would induce fear and terror even in the most stalwart of hearts, the stench of blood, guts and burnt flesh permeating the air. The mage squads had eventually joined the fight, no longer caring about the friendly fire their magic would no doubt result it. Unlike the feral linemen, the mages were quite intelegent, capable of rationalizing and acting according to the situation. Thus, each and every mage had come to the same cnclusion, they would strike the location of their enemy with numerous powerfull spells, friendly causalities be damned, the linemen were nothing more than meatshields and grunts to allow the mages to do their tasks.
Rain of fire, gusts of razor sharp winds, spikes of earth and other elemental techniques were released in the dirrection of their enemy, creating exposions of opposing elements colliding in the place of the attacker. While somewhat hastily and with no coordination put together, it nonetheless created quite the exposion, opposing elements conflicting and competing with one another. With the vision blocked, the mages had to await the dissipation of the dust cloud before releasing yet another torrent of spells, though before their vision was restored, their enemy emmerged from the could of dust with speed that was barely percievable and visibly no damage not only to himself, but also also his outfit. Heavy mana discharge, like a tidal wave exploded from the enemy, knocking back the tigermen in his near vicinity like ragdolls, causing them to impact against rocks and other outgrowts of the earth with a sickening thud.
The extreme mana richness in the atmosphere meant that the earth, and nature itself was oversaturated with it as well, making it all much more resilient and tough. The hundred or so meter large and few dozed meter deep crater where the entity impacted, revealed the unreasonable power and energy the impact had. Similar power move outside of the dungeon might have leveled a rather large city in its entirety, the explosion taking care of the largest part, and teh debri resulting from said impact explosion would take care of the rest. Was it then any wonder that the entity in controll of tigermen had been so incredibly wary of the new threat presented? It also had to be noted that the explosion of the mage salvo had made a dent in the earth no larger than a few meter range, and that was an effort of dozens of mages offloading staggering amounts of mana.
And so, hour after hour of gruesome and gruelling battling, the size of the horde grew smaller and smaller, though finally, it seemed that the enemy was slowing down, if only barely. Still, there was still countless thousands of tigermen remaining to be tossed at the enemy, each and every one more eager than the last. And sure, the mages were mostly decimated, the enemy having decided to focus on them after one too many slalvos had apparently annoyed him enough, but their main job was done. They had clearly exausted a ratehr sizable amount on mana from the lone man fighting against the horde.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
It was then, that the man did something new. With move of his hand, dozens of magical circles bloomed into existance, from each cirlce emerged a bird like creature, a raven of pure magic, darker than a lightless night. They all flew away from the immediate battle location, clearly a different purpose in their minds, if said creatures had any. What was a cautios curiosity, regarding the technique on the part of the tigermens true ruler, quickly morphed into fear and terror, once it witnessed the true purpose of said spell. The corpses of the tigermen, touched by the ravens, dissipated into a small amount of mana dust, leaving behind nothing but the pool of blood that had bled out of the lifeless bodies after their death. But what was the trully terrifying part, was the result that came shortly after.
The man, the greatest threat to the entities thousand years of existance and true purpose, regained a lot of its vigor, churning out ever more mana constructed razor sharp chains that seemed to almost have a mind of their own, as well as picking up speed, no longer larely percievable by the tigermen, but now being nothing more than a blurr, a series of afterimages left behind by the unreasonable speed the enemy now operated with.
Whats more, the blade in hsi hand hummed with a menacing and extremely dangerous frequency, slicing through meat, bone, claw and metal alike, as though nothing it this world was its equal, nothing worthy of trully clashing against it. Only the leader of the horde, the general, the tigerman Prime, could just barely follow the enemies movements. What had seemed like the only hope for the entity to deal with this extreme danger, had just vanished into thin air, the enemy only deeming it neccesarry to reveal such an unreasonable ability so late. Only whan it seemed like the tides were turning, did the enemy once again moved to crush the blooming hope.
The entity had deemed the hordes a neccesity, lest the dragonkind reach the core of the dungeon and interfere with the entities holy purpose. Now though, while the dragonmen were a nuisance, it had almost finished with the next floor, more inhospitable and dangerous than ever before, making the neccesity for the hordes no longer true. However, this creature, this man, tearing through what was most likely the last tigermen horde in existance, was an entirely different sort.
What could the entity do to halt the mans progress, to dissuade him from pushing forward? The people, no matter their origin, always strived for more power, and the core, if absorbed, would do just that, even if it had yet to develop a true spark of a concept within it. Sure, the spark could be withdrawn without absorbing the core, allowing the dungeon to keep growing, that much the entity new, knowledge born from its existance, but there was no way the greed of the humanoids would allow them to pass up on the power, free for the taking, especially when they had the means to aquire it.
The entity had little choice, as it could no longer just watch, asuming dirrect controll over the berserking infantry and ordering the lord of the horde to engage the man, currently recovering energy through his spell, countless bodies of the deceased tigermen dissipating into mana dust one after another. The entity controlled said fighters to attack the ravens, draining the fallen bodies, all the while a resounding roar, alongside a booming thuds, was heard, nearing the man with every passing moment.
With a deafening roar, the lord of the tigermen leaped at the man, like a tiger from its prowl, leaping to pierce its prey with its monstrous claws and to sink its teeth in the poor preys flesh. And yet, the man did not panic, nor did he scramble out of the monsters way. He smirked. SMIRKED! The entity was enraged. never had it been so thoroughly humiliated. To smirk at the greatest hunter it had ever created? To SMIRK, at a being, the likes of which had decimated hundreds of the dragonkins strongest heroes. With a speed that defied the entities reason, the man sheathed his blade, using it to block the two paws of entities champion, using strenght that bellied its small body. Small when compared to the champion at the very least. Once blocked, he swung the sheated blade, almost swatting the champion like some nuisance, using his free left hand to deliver a booming strike to the now exposed flank of the enourmous creature. A strike that landed with a deafening thud, followed by a ratehr loud sound of crunching. Clearly more than a single bone had just broken as a result of the strike, and judging by the expression and the howl of pain that escaped the champions muzzle, it was quite clear who had suffered the injury.
The strike itself also carried enough force to propell the champion multiple meters further away, creating a small distance between the two combatants.
"Sadly, while a bit smarter and stronger than the rest of the tigermen, you are still just a beast, Your might nothing more than a difference in the power one can exert. As a result, when in the same situation, but from the other side, there is nothing you can hope to do to reverse the situation." The man spoke, as if musing to himself, all the while conjusring even more construct razor chains to shred any and all tigermen chargin at him as well as attempting to destroy his ravens.
"Though I did not expect the core would be sentient. That is either something unique, or not mentioned in any of the books I have read. How trully peculiar." he added, an inquisitive look appearing on his face.
"Nevertheless, I belive it is time to finish this. It has gone on long enough."
With those words spoken, a horrifiying amount of mana exploded from his body, in mre moments creating a magical circle that extended killometers around him.
"Coming of Vlad." a cold and ethereal line escaped the mans throat, sending shivers donw the spine of the entity, were it to have one. Then, spikes emerged from the ground, impaling each and every remaining tigermen, rising them into the air, causing them excruciating pain, one that would have destroyed the minds of normal creatures. Though since tigermen were no normal creatures, they simply died in a matter of minutes, not a single wail escaping teh creatures, only roars of bloodlust and some last helpless struggle as their bodies grew stiff.
The champion was the only entity that was still alive, impaled just like the rest, when the spells second part came into effect.
"Tribute to Vlad." with thsoe words escaping the man's mouth, the spikes, along with the bodies of the tigermen dissipated, clearly drained for all they were worth. Yet another shudder passed th entities metaphorical body. No amount of hordes could ever hope to stop the man, only slightly slow him down. And judging by the ease with which he dispatched its champion, there was no creature of quality the entity could create to contend with the man either.
What else then to do, but to await its inevitable end. The entity released its sight from the champions eyes, no other servant of it being alive in the vicinity of the battlefield. Sure, ther ewere still a few thousands of the tigermen out and about, but they were nothin but distraction at this point. Even the dragonkin could deal with those numbers with relative ease, let alone the monster that had stepped its foot in the entities lands. With no other choice, it returned to purpose it had, deciding to spend what little time it had to carve just a smidgen more, to grow just a tiny bit more towards a worthy vessel of a concept. Sure, it would never existe long enough to house one, but that did not matter. Everything was done with that purpose in mind.
-----------------------------------------------
Silence. Deadly silence enveloped the deeper and most fortified room in each of the four dragonkin city council halls. Every group was gathered around a rather large orb, fueled by a dozen mages each. What they had just witnessed happening had chilled frozen them all in place, with only one of the four councils sweating with releaf. They would, no doubt be grinning like absolute madmen, were they still not shocked by absolute insanity they had just whitnessed. A single man had taken on the lord of the tigermen with such ease that they could not trully comprehend the raw might Rex possesed. Though that was not nearly the true reason for their minds short circuting. A single spell, cast by a single individual, wiping out the entirety of the tigermen horde. What was even more unreasonable, the man had not sacrificed himself in the process. He was still perfectly fine, though they did not know what was happening there now, even the mages responsible for the scrying were in the same absolute blank mind state as the rest of the people around them, resulting in the scrying spells stopping to function.
The only question that would linger in their minds once they came out of their stupor would be the biggest mystery of their lives "If he could do that, what was the purpose of the half day he spent fighting the horde with the other means?"