"The path of the Corespawn is one of transformation and power, where man and beast become one. Through the core, they draw upon the primal strengths of the monsters, becoming beings of immense capability and fearsome presence. In the harsh deserts and wastelands, these Corespawns are unmatched, their powers as wild and untamed as the lands they inhabit."
The first creature was a giant beetle, razor-sharp appendages that shot at Tunde with brute force, attempting to skewer him in two as he deflected the attack, driving down hard with his Ethra-imbued blade as it bit deep into the shell of the creature. It shrieked loudly, blood spilling everywhere as Tunde dropped Joran’s wrath on its already broken shell, the creature exploding.
He was through it, into the eye of the sandstorm and facing down three Corespawns all at the same time. They relied on the storm woven by their Highlord, hoping to obscure his vision even as he saw them coming. The first was a grotesque fusion of a lizard and human, bulky with dark brown scales that blended well with the storm itself, the second a half-female and half-serpentine hybrid holding a large bone blade that blazed with Ethra.
The third looked like a beetle given form, all carapace with two large rough-hewn hammers, pausing a few meters ahead of him, the serpent pointing at him as the beetle nodded. Apparently, they thought they were quiet, all tier 4 Corespawns. The green Ethra on the serpentine’s blade gave off the feeling of venom as she shot at him, weapon swinging.
Ethra's sight took apart her movements, revealing her next move as he parried the bone blade with his sword, cutting it in half and grabbing her by the neck. Tunde slammed her into the ground, using the momentum to dodge another strike from the beetle human that attempted to crush his head into a paste before parrying the last lizard who tried a sneak attack on him.
Flinging the serpent who spun through the air before recovering, relying on the winds as two leathery wings sprouted from her back with a sick wet noise. “He sees us!” the female serpent said, her voice hoarse, the lizard snarled, grey Ethra covering his arms, extending into clawed claws, its body growing larger.
“The Highlord would pay for your head,” the beetle spawn said, Tunde ignoring them without a reply. The moment the flying serpent forged a bow out of the same venom Ethra she wielded, Tunde shot forward, the beetle tunnelling into the very sandy earth as sand spikes shot out at him.
He wove through them with ease, sensing the build-up of Ethra as they came a second earlier, clashing with the outstretched clawed hand of the serpent as he deflected the imbuement technique, feeling the build-up of a dominion technique above him. The serpentine female gathered a pool of venom above Tunde, glowing with power as she rained it down on him.
Void realm manifested in a blink, Tunde feeling the drain on his core as he weathered it, watching his dominion absorb most of the venom spears that rained down on him in a hail of attack. Instincts screamed at him when he felt the sands below him push upwards, flipping backwards as the beetle spawn manifested, both hammers moving to crush him.
His blade clashed with the hammers, both weapons shattering in an explosion as Tunde seized the shards, driving them towards the beetle whose carapace took the brunt of it. He was on the ground, right in front of the lizard whose tail swept upwards with Ethra-shaped spikes at their ends, intending to skewer him. He saw it coming and he responded in kind, void forge manifesting in a spear that skewered the Corespawn before exploding, ripping it apart.
The flying serpent spawn shrieked in anger as the beetle rushed him with Ethra-infused blows. Jan’s wrath coated his arms, trading heavy blows that tore through the blows of the beetle, leaving its arms a mess before Tunde punched his head cleanly off his body, its bulky for crashing to the ground.
He felt his relic stir for the first time in a long while, extending from his arm like a spear and latching on to the body of the dead beetle as it sucked every bit of vitality and Ethra from the creature. Tunde found his core refilling at a steady rate, grateful to the relic but bothered all along at its absence.
He turned his gaze to the serpent whose eyes seemed wet with what he assumed were tears, watching as she gathered her Ethra into an arrow that glowed with power. Without a weapon, he prepared to counter with void forge when a jagged blade punched through the chest of the Corespawn, her eyes wide before the blade dragged upwards in a messy attack that tore her into two unequal halves.
Sera landed from behind the mess, flicking Dominion’s now jagged edge with disgust as she glanced at him, Tunde nodding to her. “Works well?” he asked, indicating to the weapon as she shrugged, “It kills well” she replied. A set of tier 3 Corespawns powered their way out of the storm towards them as Tunde was in their midst, casually slapping their upper parts away in a shower of gore and blood before glancing behind him, noticing Sera had vanished back into the melee.
All around him battle raged on both sides, techniques flying through the air as the occasional loud explosion came from the Highlords who battled above them. Moving through the battle carefully, taking out the creatures and Corespawns he could at a moment's notice, he found himself being drawn right into the middle of the battle.
The change in the air around him informed him he had fallen into a trap, Ethra sight revealing the five figures that surrounded him in the distance, all spread at almost impossible distances to even warrant him assuming that they were working together. And yet, their relaxed postures told him the opposite, Tunde found himself clenching his fists involuntarily, aching for a good weapon.
Alana’s fang was almost impossible to use here without drawing unwarranted attention, one slip-up and the Highlords if not the masters would become aware of it. elder Joran would joke about how he was the weapon and was being wasteful, but instincts warned him that these were no ordinary Corespawns. The projected lance that shot at him with air and sand Ethra had him flipping through the air even as dozens of Corespawns from various types of creatures rushed at him.
He landed, pushing his body to the maximum as his hand became coated aura blades that burned with harsh dark grey Ethra, Tunde moving within their midst. Limbs flew in the air as he hacked and slashed, keeping his mental faculties around him before he fell back into the blood lust of an asura.
He noticed something odd in their movements, the way they rushed blindly at him with crude weapons hoping to overwhelm him with raw numbers as he summoned his dominion again, crushing them under the weight of it. stepping over them as he cut through more of their numbers, Alana’s fang draining them discreetly, refuelling his Ethra lines and core to near bursting.
The true attack came a few seconds later, a line of blistering flame and wind Ethra that sought to cut through him. He saw it coming from the distance, throwing bodies at it to reduce the potency of the attack as Tunde fought to find a retreating space. It was a well thought out plan, holding him down under the force of multitudes and attempting to end him.
The weight of an Ethra heavy blade coming down on him had him forcing Alana into the shape of his old blade, slicing it in two and taking the arm of his would be attacker in one fell swoop. He caught the arm, retrieving the long blade in it as he threw it to the side. They revealed themselves, five Corespawns led by a true beast he recognized.
The hordes had been thinned, and what was left of them retreated from the six lord realm beings that surrounded him, five actually, since the sixth considered herself hidden behind the woven illusion that rippled around her frame. He glanced at the blade in his hand, a roughly hewn thing made from hastily beaten metal into the shape of a blade, but durable enough to run Ethra through without shattering.
The large hulking creature whose hand he had cut off to relieve it of the blade stared at him with hatred in his eyes and Tunde had to admit to himself he wasn’t sure what sort of creature he was.
“You are wanted, dead or alive by the second claw of the king,” the floating true beast said, her fiery wings burning in the air.
“you’re surrounded by the finest warriors of my army” she continued as Tunde said nothing, eyes going from one of the Corespawns to the other. These weren’t rank and file, simple yet misguided bandits that had become Corespawns, their aura and sharp Ethra said otherwise.
“Arak, lord of the sand wyrms, lord of the scorched” she started, the large reddish brown scaled male figure who exhaled smoke, eyes that glowed like molten lava. “Rathok, the behemoth of the wastelands” she continued, Tunde almost snorting in laughter as he glanced at the now one-armed beast whose hide looked so thick he doubted an imbued weapon could even scratch it.
“Zephara, fury of the sandstorms, and Ira of the sun-scorched” she completed, Tunde noticing she omitted the veiled one with a pincer akin to that of a scorpion. Zephara, the fury of the sandstorms as she was called, was a more exotic form of the winged serpent he had killed earlier, her lower half made of shimmering beautiful scales, improved by her dark yellow eyes that glowed softly and the bow in her hands. “You killed one of my maidens” she said softly, “I will enjoy flaying your skin” she added.
Tunde pointed his blade at the floating true beast who stared down at him like some insect, irritating him. “And you?” he asked, “whose whelp are you?” he added. She stretched her hand out as one of her burning feathers detached itself from her back, blazing with harsh fire and wind Ethra.
“I will carve it into your corpse” she replied as Tunde shrugged. “You bring all of them for just me, and you introduce them, like some civilized bunch of abominations” he started, swinging the blade casually.
The female true beast frowned, rage in her eyes, “and yet, here I am, simply wondering what you’re all waiting for” he goaded with a feral smile on his face. Rathok moved first, the one-armed large beast taking a frontal approach, earth and strength Ethra suffusing the Corespawn as it let out a roar.
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Arak blazed with flames, the very sands below parting as he sunk into the ground, Tunde already understanding where that was going. Zephara’s green aura blazed to life next to the true beast as her bow burned with wind and venom Ethra, projectile arrows all carrying the power of a lord manifesting around her in their dozens.
Ira the sand scorched blazed to life with a peculiar mixture of light and fire Ethra, a beautiful yet deadly conflagration that stood out from the rest and yet came at him with two flame-forged whips that lashed at him. All these happened in the blink of a second, and as Tunde took it in, along with the veiled scorpion spawn that inched ever closer to him, he cleared his mind and channelled his Ethra, diving into battle.
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Jana Blazewing had cornered the human lord, a feat she was most proud of, and even though she was confident enough to bring him down on her own, she found herself hesitating at the very last moment. Something about the human cultivator rubbed off her wrongly, and she found herself struggling to put it into words.
Her beast instincts screamed at her to be cautious the moment he moved, watching as he dived headfirst at Rathok, a suicidal endeavour until she considered the fact that he had taken the arm of one of the most powerful defensive Corespawns she knew. The large brute blade that had once belonged to Rathok clashed against his imbuement, Jana following the exchange that happened in a blur of limbs and feints.
The human moved with renewed force, strength, and if Jana didn’t know better, she’d say he had grown stronger in the space of a few days they had cornered him last. As the venom arrows of Zephara shot at the human in their dozens, her mind couldn’t help but stray back to the last time they had cornered him, the savageness in his eyes as he had torn Corespawns limb from limb with that blade of his.
He was without the blade now, and even though she could sense it faintly in the distance, she took solace in the fact that it wasn’t coming closer. She frowned, turning her gaze to the location of the blade and realizing that it was in fact stationary, its wielder seemingly watching the battle without interfering, a sea of dead bodies surrounding her.
Again, her instincts told her something was wrong, and as Arak shot out of the sands in a geyser of fire and imbued sand claws, she signalled Liora to move into action with a subtle move of her hand. The dessert stinger as she was called was the closest they had to an assassin. Subtle, silent and deadly with a venom that rivalled if not surpassed that of Zephara and her winged serpents.
She watched the Corespawn move ever closer to the human, her veiled pincer raised high, the appendage powerful enough to shatter rocks and even push past the hardened skin of Rathok, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Arak’s fire breath attack was seemingly deflected by a slap of the human’s aura, a feat that impressed Jana but didn’t relieve the nerves she felt.
All it would take was one swing of her feather blade and she could leave him as a pile of ashes; if of course, she managed to time it right. Rathok landed a blow that pushed past the sword defence of the human, throwing him in the air as he fought to gain control of his limbs.
Ira struck, a projecting flaming claw that burned with the pure fury of the solar phoenix, whatever that was. She was an experiment of the king himself, bestowed the core of some faraway creature he had in his possession on a whim. As the attack clashed with the human, Jana expected to perceive the smell of cooked flesh. Instead, what she saw was a sight that had her gripping her blade even tighter, Zephara preparing to launch another attack.
Dark grey Ethra covered the human in a sphere, seemingly absorbing the technique as he came out fine, watching Rathok’s fist crash down on him again with strength Ethra. Arak’s dominion, a realm of swirling fire manifested, drowning out the power of the human. “Zephara, now” Jana commanded, the winged serpent nodding even as she gathered her Ethra into one arrow, the attack glowing more and more.
The moment she released it, Jana felt that feeling of foreboding again, wondering where it was coming from. Arak’s dominion still stood strong, Rathok’s roar came from within the dominion, and Ira’s attacks flashed as she sent claw after claw of projected flame and light techniques into the dominion, her whips lashing consistently.
Jana genuinely wondered if the human was even still alive amidst all these attacks, there would be nothing left for Liora to poison. She froze, realization dawning on her as she searched carefully and then frantically for the dessert stinger. Arak released the dominion technique as he sagged a little, the strain of the technique heavy on his core, smoke filling the air as well as the smell of cooked flesh.
“he’s dead,” Zephara said with pride as Jana shook her head roughly, eyes wide. With a beat of her wings, the smoke cleared, revealing a sight that chilled them all to the bone. Liora’s stinger held in Tunde’s hands, torn cleanly from the body of a burning Liora that lay at his feet.
It was buried deep into Rathok’s chest, punching out of the other side as the huge behemoth crashed to his knees, eyes wide before crashing to the ground dead. The cultivator whose robes were torn, body bloodied but healing rapidly removed the stinger, shouldering it as Ira screamed in rage.
He turned his bloody hand to her, a wide grin on his face as Jana felt the chill become boiling anger, “Rip him to shreds!” she commanded, pushing against every beast instinct that warned her that this was not prey and attacking.
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Tunde had seen the scorpion lady sneaking up on him as he exchanged blows with Rathok, the strength affinity of the Corespawn seeking to overwhelm him with the rate of punches being thrown his way, the blade in his hand nearly reaching its limits even as Tunde reinforced it with aura.
Ira, the light and flame Ethra Corespawn lashed those whips at him as Ethra sight managed to help him deflect it, Tunde pushing backwards. He was overwhelmed, and yet, even in that moment, he pushed himself to the limit. Tunde was here to grow stronger, to overcome impossible odds, something this battle was fast approaching.
As he felt the temperature around him begin to grow hotter, reaching near blistering height, he allowed himself to take a blow from Rathok as Ira released a wave of burning fire and light that sought to consume him. His aura and Ethra coated him in a sphere akin to his dominion technique, Tunde giving the fang leeway and watching with satisfaction as it absorbed the entire technique, vanishing just as easily as he had summoned it.
The punch of the behemoth had cracked one of his arms as he landed, the blade finally shattering as the punch pushed through it to hit his arm directly. Ethra sight showed him the dominion technique of the sand Wyrm that swirled around him, cooking him from within it as Rathok and the scorpion lady jumped into the fray. Imbued fists clashed with Rathok’s, Tunde unleashing blow after blow of Joran’s wrath, crashing into the rock and strength imbued Ethra arms of the behemoth.
Fast and brutal, Tunde took attacks just as he dished them out, looking to be on the losing side as his skin split from the heavy blows, struggling to keep up. In actuality, he was simply buying time for the scorpion lady to make her move, aware she was waiting for the right moment to take advantage of his distraction.
When the powerful venom arrow crashed into him and Tunde finally summoned the relic blade to parry it, she struck. With the speed and force of a lord realm Corespawn, the stinger came down on him like a bolt of lightning. He had expected it, and sacrificing one arm to the blow of Rathok, he sliced the pincer off her back, the once veiled Corespawn shrieking in agony, the dominion of Arak drowning out her voice.
He grabbed the stinger as he skewered her with the fang, unleashing his essence flame that burnt her from within before punching the stinger through the chest of Rathok with his full might, its point tearing out of the behemoth’s back. The dominion fell, Tunde staggering as his core struggled to refill itself, the relic draining what was left from the scorched body of Liora, topping him off.
Tunde’s broken arm began to reknit itself as he took stock of those that were left around him, shouldering the pincer, the relic subtly vanishing. He grinned at the true beast as she raged, ordering the rest to tear him to pieces. Arak, Ira, Zephara and the true beast left, Tunde was about to let loose when a whip blade tore out of nowhere, wrapping itself around the scaled burning lizard Corespawn before tearing into him.
Miria appeared from the middle of nowhere, weapon retracting even as Arak screamed in rage, features disfigured but burning bright with Ethra. Ira was close to him, her whips lashing to burn him when a hammer flew out of nowhere, smashing into her and sending her careening out of the way.
Giselle was next to him in a blink, hammer back in her hand along with Miria, “am I glad to see you both” he said. Blood aura swirled with an affinity that had his skin rippling, Ira screaming as her skin seemed to swell. Whatever that attack was, tune knew its source and watched Sera who had been observing him for a while but had refused to step in, made herself known.
Midnight shouldered, one hand outstretched at Ira, a projection technique Tunde could only follow due to Ethra sight revealing the wastelander woman attempting to take control of the flesh of the sun scorched. Ira broke through it with a deft use of aura, charging Sera who swung midnight with an almost feral grin, blood aura suffusing the air.
Tunde’s attention though was drawn to the true beast who had been busy gathering her Ethra in the air, a swirling vortex of flame and wind Ethra already building up. She swung her feather blade and Tunde pushed Giselle aside, void forge manifesting along with his void ring spilling out the shield he had in his possession.
As he activated it, Tunde felt a significant drain on his aura, enough to cause him to stagger, but worth it as the shield rippled the moment it clashed with the technique, weathering it. He recovered quick enough, relic drawn as he flashed towards her, void forge manifesting orbs of raw power that rippled with barely contained power, clashing with the hail of feathers that rained on him.
Every counter Ethra sight revealed to him about the true beast was countered also in turn by her, the both of them trading blows just as quickly as they could give them out. Tunde’s entire focus was now on the true beast with the hitting force of a peak lord rank, shrieking as the sonic attack caused his aura to tremble, distracting him enough for her to slice into his skin.
Tunde shouted, crashing into the ground and rolling away from her, watching as she spread her wings, a flaming image of a bird taking shape. She swung the feather again, the very air around him exploding violently, Tunde dodging and running. She matched up to his speed, the both of them still trading blows as he bled profusely, trying to stem the cut that refused to heal.
Panic set in, something in her attack was refusing to allow his skin to heal, the wound stinging terribly as well. He led a barrage of void-forged orbs, layering it on her and forcing her to defend as he queried Ifa in those precious few moments.
[I’m not healing!] he snarled at it.
[the authority of a master infused within the attack; breakdown will take time] it replied.
Authority?; Tunde had no understanding of what that meant, but he took solace in the fact that it was in fact healing albeit too slow for him to notice. With the last of his void orbs gone, the true beast spread her wings again, her feather blade blazing to life. “You wanted to know my name human” she started as her dominion of fire and wind trapped the both of them, Tunde forcing his aura to defend himself.
“I am Jana of the Blazewing, daughter of Kugan, the second claw of the king, and I will present your head to my father” she finished.
[authority is being broken down and converted to essence flame] Ifa wrote to him.
All at once, Tunde felt his skin beginning to reknit itself quickly, the breakdown of whatever that ‘authority’ of the king was hastening. Miria was tied down by Zephara, Giselle with Arak and Sera dancing a deadly game with Ira, he allowed his mind settle, taking a stance against Jana as he spoke.
“I thank you for giving me this opportunity to test this out,” he said.
“Test what out?” Jana asked with scorn in her voice. Tunde let it go, gathering up his power as he let it stoke the flames of battle in his heart, the organ pounding loudly. His gaze sharpened, and time seemed to slow as he spoke, exhaling a puff of smoke ominously.
“The path of the boundless asura” he replied before he flashed at her, the both of them clashing.