The deathstalker barreling through the undead minions without so much as a pause. The difference in levels between Nenn and the minions meant that they posed little danger to him. On the night Nenn met the Denver group, the Helkis’ minions already were not a danger to him, as long as they didn’t attack all at once. But now, even a couple dozen zombies rushing at him all at once couldn’t even touch the deathstalker form before they were rendered inert, no matter what tactics they tried.
The living naga who attempted to help the zombies, shared their fate as they were cut down just as easily. Nenn hated that the Naga conscripts were being pushed into the battle, now that he knew most were there against their will. He would have loved to have given them a chance to redeem themselves like Velnoriss had, but the deathstalker in control was indiscriminate. It was already hard enough to dissuade it from chomping down on a tasty piece of wiggling meat. Especially when that meat was trying to poke it with inconsequential weapons. It was not in the deathstalker’s nature to back down.
The rampage continued until the fortress-turned-battleground grew still. The deathstalker sniffed the air looking for more combatants, but it could not find any. The zombies had all been eliminated from the second area. The naga had chosen at some point to stop trying to interfere with Nenn’s crusade. Or they were all dead. Or had chosen to run. There were lots of options but most of those options resulted in naga skeleton’s littering the ground.
The power of the siphons began to wind down now that the deathstalker had run out of targets to kill. Nenn felt the deathstalker gather final trickles of siphon resources within its chest. The energy exploded outwards as the deathstalker issued a final challenging guttural roar. It was as if the beast was marking this fortress as its territory while trying to goad anything left alive to come and challenge it. The force of the roar knocked over a good deal of the bone piles that had accumulated, pushing the skeletal matter up against the wooden walls, forming a snow drift of calcified matter.
With a sudden whooshing feeling, akin to the head rush one feels when they stand up too quickly, Nenn was back in control of his body. The strength of the siphon had decreased enough that it could no longer overpower the force of attraction that anchored his mind to his physical body. That was Nenn’s running theory, at least. It seemed to be an automatic process so it made sense to him at the moment.
Nenn stumbled as he shook the cobwebs out of his head. The scenery around him was unreal. The disturbed piles of deceased bones seemed to be even larger in person. It was a breathtaking scene for all of the wrong reasons. The siphon had made things a lot more palatable. The lack of flesh and gore made the battlefield feel a lot more sterile than it should have been. There were still giant puddles of blood and black rotten gunk staining the ground, but they did not seem that out of place.
Nenn felt something was wrong. With the siphon’s power winding down further, the repressed painful sensation of being engulfed in flame returned in force. Nenn panicked. He did what he had always been told to do if he caught on fire. It was a process that had been beaten into his head so many times throughout his earlier scholastic years that his body seemed to respond out of sheer instinct before he could even think of the saying. Stop. Drop. And roll.
He twisted and tumbled against the mushy blood-soaked ground, desperately trying to snuff out the fire burning his dry wooden body. But the flames were relentless. Then an idea hit him like a fiery torch hitting a puddle of gasoline. Nenn casted [Entangling Roots], willing the roots to break the ground and then bury him completely .
Finally, there was relief. Without access to air, the flames died down.The embers that had replaced his skin began to cool against the earth, spreading its heat out enough that the body temperature wood that reformed beneath it did not even smolder.
Nenn took the moment to calm himself down. A lot had happened in the last, well, Nenn didn’t exactly have a great gauge of how much time had passed. It was somewhere between five minutes and an hour, but Nenn couldn’t be any more sure than that.
So far his brilliant plan had been firmly derailed. He did not account for the undead minion’s effect on the siphon.
Why did the minions generate such an immense amount of power through the siphon this time? Nenn wondered. Maybe it has something to do with the naga priests imbuing them with mana? Could there be a startup mana cost to controlling the minions, and that's what the priests were putting in place. That way the Helkis could activate as many as he wants to without having to pay a large chunk of mana to do so?
And then there was the eldritch tree and soul space. I wish I could have a proper conversation with the eldritch being. I want to know why it is trying to be so helpful. Is it that ‘investment’ it made in me? What does it gain from that? And what else does it know about my future as its acolyte? And how in the flying fuck did it manage to grow a whole-ass sapling in my soul space and leave it there.
Okay, deep breaths, I need to calm down. Now, where do I go from here? The outer and middle areas are, for all intents and purposes, dealt with. That leaves the inner area and the Helkis. I don’t think stealth is an option anymore, but it can’t hurt to try.
Nenn casted [Entangling Roots], and freed himself from his earthly grave.. The first thing he felt was a drop of rain hitting his nose. The drop was accompanied by a couple more before the heavens opened up and rain began to fall in earnest. The few embers that were still attached to Nenn’s body sizzled and popped as they were quenched in the rain. A quick shake released the last bits of charcoaled skin from Nenn’s body, restoring him to the matte gray finish of ancient eldritch wood. The blood, gore, rot, and soot washed away leaving a completely clean deathstalker, who was basking in the warm rain coming from the odd, singular cloud in the sky.
Nenn, feeling refreshed and refocused, made his way over to the wall separating the inner and middle area and engaged [Ambush Predator]. The fact that he could enter into the form was a relief within itself. Theoretically he should not be able to activate [Ambush Predator] if he was already detected, which in this case would mean a naga had eyes on him. But The System ultimately works in mysterious ways, so even that was an uncertainty.
Nenn took his chances and ducked through a gap between wall posts. Not much had changed since his last visit. In the center, just outside of the Obelisk’s paddock there was a cluster of naga priests who were holding hands in a circle. They were busy chanting to one another. If I had to take a guess, I would say that they are responsible for the cloud, Nenn thought.
Other than the group of casters, the central building with the balcony was now encircled by a dozen well armored knights. They apparently did not dare to join the battle earlier, which reconfirmed Nenn’s theory that the Helkis was inside.
Hmm, if he needs that many guards around him, maybe he is super vulnerable while controlling his minions. Maybe I should have left a couple of them standing… Although, now that I think about it, wouldn’t it make sense for the Helkis to have kept some of his most powerful minions stashed away for exactly a moment like this. I’m sure that building is actually a total haunted house horror show on the inside, Nenn thought.
It’s almost a shame that it’s raining, otherwise I would have considered trying to burn the building down and waited for the Helkis to flee it like the vermin he is. The real question right now is whether I want to face the priests or the knights first. If I can stay undetected long enough to engage the casters with a boost from [Ambush Predator] I think I can take down all of the casters with minimum retaliation. Or I could charge the knights and hope the casters continue their raindance ceremony.
“There it is!” one of the naga knights shouted, pointing straight at Nenn’s position. Immediately Nenn felt the stealthy state of [Ambush Predator] dissipate. His choice had been made for him.
Rather than retreat and try to re-engage the naga in a more tactical manner, Nenn decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to face the remaining forces of the Helkis head on.
Nenn emerged from behind his hiding spot and calmly walked towards the knights at a measured pace. The knights, for all of their resolve and experience, looked to be unnerved. The menacing sight of the deathstalker, which had slain nearly the Helkis’ entire gathered army single handedly, was a sight to be feared. And Nenn loved it, knowing he could feed that fear further.
A knight lost their nerve and charged forward. They brandished their trident high above their head, ready to bring the sharpened weapon down into Nenn’s spine.
[Rot]
The knight’s prized arms sagged and fell to the ground with a sickening squelch. Black liquid bubbled out of the naga’s exposed shoulders, as they screamed in pain. It wasn’t enough for Nenn to remove the knight's arms. No. He had spread little pockets of rot all throughout the proud soldier’s body, causing as much pain as possible. This was not about being merciful in his killing. This was about sending a message.
The knight keeled over as it spasmed and rolled against the ground as they tried to find relief in their last moments. It was a comfort that would remain out of their grasp. The remaining knights looked on, the determination and cocky pride that once showed on their faces had been replaced by dread and fear. For a moment anyways. They soon remembered their duty, managing to steel their nerves.
The two next contenders charged at Nenn, both wielding tridents. In fact, all of the knights present wielded tridents. It was probably a status thing for naga, but at the moment that was irrelevant.
[Entangling Roots]
Root lances shot through the ground catching the younger of the two naga unaware. The lances punctured through the knight’s abdomen and emerged from the back of the naga’s neck, killing them shortly thereafter.
The older knight managed to get their [Mana Shield] up in time. The blue semi-sphere had flared into existence around where the naga’s tail touched the ground. The blue color transitioned from a very translucent periwinkle blue, to a nearly opaque blue, to a fully opaque ultramarine colour, and finally shattered with the sound of broken glass.
The older naga had managed to hold out for a grand total of half a second longer than their younger counterpart. In the end they still managed to out pace their partner to the grave as Nenn felt three streams of siphon hit him all at once.
The remaining naga knights had seen enough. The remaining nine charged all at once, evidently having decided to risk it all in an attempt to stop Nenn from advancing. He had yet to break his stride towards the Helkis’ building. The naga managed to slither a couple of yards towards Nenn before they fell over like a bunch of puppets having their strings cut.
Nenn stopped. He didn’t cause their death. The inner area was silent. The priest’s chanting had come to an abrupt stop. Nenn looked over, and they too were slumped over on the ground.
A sinister feeling spread through the air as the corpses began to fluctuate. The flesh and bones of the fallen naga began to unravel and, as if pulled on strings, began to travel through the air towards the Helkis’ building.
The accumulating biomass was unimpeded by the solid wooden walls of the structure as it sailed straight through the wall as if it was never there. The building groaned, and then shifted. A board fell away, then another as the structure began to come apart at the seams. The sounds of floors breaking and walls tumbling over within the building could be heard. A couple more ribbons of flesh and bone flew in from over the walls and into the building right before the wooden structure exploded, sending several-ton wooden timbers flying through the air.
What stood in the building's place was unfathomable. A mass of pulsating, bubbling flesh and pearl-white bone was growing erratically, having surpassed the size of the building. The process reminded Nenn of his [Rot] ability, but in reverse. The bubbling black liquid was turning back into flesh, solidifying around the skeletal structures, which in turn formed a hulking abomination of meat.
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The fiend’s form began to finalize, starting with the long muscular tail of a naga which stretched for quite a distance behind the mass of undulating flesh. The skin itself was a rippling pattern of scales, and scar tissue, matching the patterning of a normal living naga.
The mass of flesh was lifted into the air as the tail took on weight and began to support the forming torso above it. The flesh broadened and formed two long arms that were more akin to tentacles in function. A head formed into existence supported atop of a thick neck. The face looked generic for a naga, it was missing a lot of definition that would make it look like a proper face. The scales that covered the face’s skin did not get finer and lighter in color. That was a trait Nenn had seen in Velnoriss and Elkorin’s faces. The skin instead carried on with the same general skin patterning as the rest of the behemoth’s body.
Before Nenn stood a naga that rivaled the Obelisk in height. The spinal crests began to pop out of the beast’s skin, covering its head in rows of sharpened crests that transitioned down its back before terminating between the bottom of the torso and the start of the tail. The tentacle-arm appendages also took on some sharpened rows of crests.
Besides all of those terrifying details, the feature that had captivated Nenn’s attention was the horizontal slit that had formed on the beast’s chest. The slit opened, and a giant golden eye with a coppery iris was revealed
What the fuck is that? Nenn wondered. There’s no way that that's-
The ground beside Nenn shuttered for a moment as it split open beside him, which tended to happen occasionally now, revealing the eldritch being’s eye. The eye swiveled to look at the monstrosity before returning its attention to Nenn.
ANGELIC. YOU ARE CORRECT, THOUGH I AGREE IT IS ODD TO SEE THIS COMBINATION. AN ANGELIC INFUSED NECROMANCER. HOW CURIOUS.
You’re curious about that fucking thing? Nenn thought.
YES. THIS IS A RARE OCCURRENCE. THE ANGELS MUST BE DESPERATE TO ALLOW SUCH A TAINTED SPECIMEN TO EXIST, LET ALONE INVEST THEIR POWERS INTO.
So, wait a second, that thing. The Helkis. Is-
YES, THEY MIGHT SHARE A BOND JUST LIKE YOU AND I. NOW GO, MY ACOLYTE, AND SLAY THIS ABOMINATION AND ASSERT YOUR DOMINANCE. HOLD NOTHING BACK IN YOUR RAMPAGE, FOR YOU WILL NEED TO BRING ALL OF YOUR MIGHT TO BEAR IF YOU WISH TO LIVE.
Nenn was thoughtless for a moment at the eldritch’s proclamation. The siphons feeding into Nenn tapered off, and the eldritch eye blinked, returning the ground back to its unbroken state.
There was an oppressive feeling in the air as Nenn felt the mana in the air become heavy, like a weighted blanket. Tuning into [Nature’s Regrowth] revealed that mana was gathering in the being’s body, especially around its chest. The giant reanimated mass of naga flesh reared its head back and let out a deafening roar. The air pressure generated by the sound threatened to push Nenn back, but he held his ground, even if it was just barely so. The sound itself had infused the mana in the air, increasing its pressure on Nenn’s body.
The mana felt like a twisted combination of both light and dark mana, swirled and interwoven, much like how Nenn’s base form felt with its balanced form of life and death mana. It was two opposites that shouldn’t be able to coexist, but here stood two sources of proof that they could.
The behemoth’s head turned to look at Nenn, and a split second later, it had managed to raise its tentacle arm, slamming it into the ground where Nenn stood. The instincts in Nenn’s deathstalker form had overridden Nenn’s conscious mind, causing him to leap out of the way just in time. His reward was not being turned into a pancake, and a complimentary shower of displaced dirt.
Fuck. If I’m going to fight this thing I’m going to-
The tentacle swept across the ground, slapping through any obstacle that tried to stand it its way. The multi-ton timbers, that had been partially embedded in the ground after the structure had exploded, managed to splinter and crack as the tentacle slashed its way through them.. Nenn tried to dodge, but got clipped by the nigh unstoppable force of flesh, causing him to fly tangentially into the fortress wall, with a large cracking sound.
The section of wall fell over with Nenn half embedded into it. His body hurt. Everything hurt. His eldritch wooden body had cracked in numerous places. The pain was unreal. Nenn pushed it down, blocking it out, as he had become accustomed to doing with the siphon. He drew on the bone mana he had stored in his body from yesterday, and used [Osteomancer’s Control] to command his body to reknit itself into a whole once more. An application of [Entangling Roots] realigned his body and sped up the healing process.
In the meanwhile the behemoth had taken to staring down the black Obelisk which still surpassed it in height. The monster sized it up, then swang with a tentacle arm. A booming sound rippled through the area and the ground shook in response, but the Obelisk stood resolute, not even having moved at all, at least from Nenn’s point of view.
The tentacle arm, on the other hand, was slightly damaged, as its momentum had crushed part of its flesh. Bright white lights shone through where the skin was cut, and then dimmed, and vanished as the tentacle was made whole once more.
Interesting. Nenn thought. It can heal itself. And with light mana. That must be the angel’s doing. Now, here’s my chance.
Nenn entered into [Ambush Predator] as he quickly padded his way towards his adversary. The Obelisk’s distraction and the monster's hubris had given Nenn the opportunity to get a chance to properly open the fight up.
With an explosion of movement, Nenn released the state, investing the required 10% of his resources into the ability and leaped at the naga’s tail. He hooked into its flesh, changing the shape of his claws to be slightly more hooked using [Osteomancer’s Control] then proceeded to lacerate his way up the naga, climbing towards its torso.
The monster noticed Nenn’s ascent the moment he had released [Ambush Predator], but it was unable to react in time as the smaller, and faster deathstalker made its ascent up the it’s side. With each step, Nenn’s claws dug into the monster's flesh, tearing out strips as he pushed himself upwards as fast as he could go. Bright white light sprayed out of the wounds below him The radiance of light hurt Nenn, in the same way that stepping outside on the hottest day of the year after enjoying an air conditioning hurt. The closer the light got, the more it burned. But, for the moment, Nenn was outpacing it.
The hulking mass of flesh shuddered and began twisting its body to try and shake Nenn loose, its tentacle arms evidently did not have enough flexibility to reach the intruder on its side. The forces hampered Nenn’s assent, but he held firm. The burning light mana was getting closer, putting a literal fire under his ass now. He felt his eldritch wooden body begin to heat up and steam as it got closer and closer.
Weighing his options, Nenn leapt from the fleshy side of giant naga, and managed to grab ahold of one of the spinal crests. Light spilled out from the spot Nenn was previously, as it radiated over his body. The intensity of light died down fairly quickly, and with its absence, Nenn felt relief as his body began to cool down.
[Entangling Roots]. Using the roots of his body, Nenn climbed up the naga’s spine towards its shoulder blades. The poor monster had lost track of Nenn, as it searched the ground for him. The monster twisted around, lowering its head towards the ground to get a better look.
It can’t feel me if I’m not hurting it, and it still relies on eyesight to see, Nenn thought as he processed his options. I can’t pull off another alligator impalement, the light mana that’s used to fuel the healing process would fry me alive before I manage to do anything effective. [Entangling Roots] are too weak to hold back this monster, and I’d have to be on the ground to get any effect.. [Rot] is likely just as ineffective against the angelic light mana. That leaves me with… [Osteomancer’s Control].
Fuck, that’s not good. That’s the one ability I don’t have a good handle on yet. Rushing this attack came at the cost of not practicing with it. But… If I… yes. I think that’ll work.
Nenn began to focus as he drew on the remaining bone mana. He willed the mana to form along his often forgotten tail, that he lengthened using [Entangling Roots] to infuse it with mana. The bone formed in sections over top of his tail, each section secured by a bone nail piercing through the eldritch wood. Each section resembled a vertebrae-like bone, with two sharp fins that Nenn willed to sharpen to an impossible edge. The bone tail added several dozen meters of length to Nenn’s tail, turning it into a bone-ified razor bladed saw.
Using a combination of [Entangling Roots] and [Osteomancer’s Control] Nenn wrapped his tail saw around the monster at an angle so that his tail swept up, around the shoulder, then down, towards its ribs, then back to Nenn. The tail latched back into itself, creating a loop.
Nenn leapt from the spinal crest of safety, landing on the behemoth’s flesh once more. The loop pulled taut as it began to cut through the monster’s body. Pulling with all of his might Nenn pushed off against the monster’s flesh, pulling his self-made garrote through the Helkis. The light that streamed out of the wound was an order of magnitude more intense than it had been before.
The bone covering managed to keep the death-aspected eldritch wood of Nenn’s tail mostly safe from the toxic angelic light. It still hurt, but it was a pain Nenn was willing to bear for the moment.
Nenn reached the bottom of the monster’s torso and felt his tail pull through the monster’s side as the resistance it faced disappeared. The behemoth’s body spasmed, and then the top of bottom sections of the torso twisted in opposite ways, causing it to lose balance.
Nenn managed to jump away just in time as the behemoth smashed into the ground, decimating a good portion of the interior fortress wall in the process. Light streamed out of the undead naga’s many wounds, healing the damage that had been done. The torso was still in one piece, but just barely so. The monster’s back was a mess as it had managed to land on the upright tree trunks that had once formed the inner wall.
Nenn skidded to a stop, managing to halt his momentum just a few feet from the Obelisk. His balance was all over the place with his elongated and heavier tail. He did not want to fail here. He had already come so far in The Trial, and he had no plan on ending his story here.
Nenn entered into [Nature’s Regrowth] and reached out across the entire fortress using [Nature’s Absorption] to pull at the unbound death mana that still resided in spades from the previous battles. Mana entered his body at an alarming rate. It felt akin to the siphon’s effect, but there was no System-based protection to safeguard it.
Using [Entangling Roots] Nenn pushed his body’s roots deep into the ground, securing him in place, and enhancing the effects of [Nature’s Absorption]. The idea was to use his roots like a satellite dish to capture the mana from an area, rather than a singular point. The flow of mana increased dramatically to the point at which Nenn started to feel his own body begin to strain and pop under the load.
Using as much mana as Nenn could he used [Entangling Roots] infusing an ungodly amount of mana into it, willing all of the roots in the area to come to his aid. The ground trembled and warped as the roots danced to his command, breaking free of their earthly graves.
The naga was stuck in place, and its body, the parts that could move, had started to thrash about. Falling on the fortress wall had proven to be a bad decision as the fleshy golem, with no direction in its healing prowess, had managed to heal around the remains of the wall, effectively impaling it in place.
The roots surged across the ground as they began to spread across the naga’s body. The trashing did not help, but thankfully the roots, under Nenn’s infusion, were malleable enough to bend, rather than break with every blow. They slowly managed to ensnare the behemoth, managing to limit its movement even further.
The roots tightened and tightened until they finally broke through the beings skin. Angelic light mana poured out of the wounds, which turned out to be a very bad thing for the monster. The roots, primarily composed of life mana, readily drank the abundant source of light mana, causing them to grow, much to Nenn’s delight.
The roots grew thicker, then they shot out offshoots which burrowed further into the monster's body causing further damage. The spell continued on. Nenn ended [Nature’s Regrowth] and [Nature’s Absorption] now that the roots were thriving from the beast's own mana. Using another instance of [Entangling Roots] Nenn pulled his own roots out of the ground, reshaping his body, and returning his tail to its proper length.
Before him, was a very clear instance of a runaway spell getting out of control. The roots grew and multiplied. The roots started to funnel the excess mana to a point central on the naga’s body, right above the angelic eye, that was now looking around in frantic panic.
The roots pierced through the eye, holding it in place. With a sudden surge in mana, a sapling grew rapidly overtop of the eye. It pushed skyward at an unbelievable speed as it’s trunk thickened and began to split into an impressive system of branches. Leaves began to sprout on the tree by the thousands, further siphoning the monster’s mana. At this point the warped flesh of the behemoth had stilled, and the light that once blindly radiated out of its wounds was gone. The only source of light was the angelic eye, which refused to give in as it’s mana was stolen.
Nenn’s body began to crackle with mana. He was confused for a moment, but then realized that the undead naga’s corpse had begun to wither and deteriorate, it’s death mana feeding into Nenn through his siphon. It started as a small trickle, but soon grew into a mighty torrent as the process sped up.
The siphon pushed on Nenn’s mind, threatening to undo its binding to his body once more. He pushed back against it, holding it at bay, if only just so.
IT'S TIME TO FINISH THIS. GET ONTO THAT TREE AND INFUSE YOUR BODY’S ROOTS INTO IT AT ONCE. WE WILL SEE TO THIS FIGHT’S CONCLUSION.
Nenn, not wanting to lose out against the siphon at such a critical time, sprang forward. He leapt onto the thick root system, and ran along it until he reached the main trunk of the tree. He sat down, putting his back to the tree trunk, and casted [Entangling Roots], integrating himself with the tree as his world faded to black.