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High above, the colossal construct of compressed shards grew into a solid disc of energy, a blade conjured to cleave through mountains.
Somewhere within Yves, a frail flicker of hope clung desperately, the maddening anticipation that the unfolding struggle must be more than mere consumption — a clash of titanic forces rather than the one-sided devouring of the cliff behemoth. The world harboured entities endowed with unimaginable capabilities, and Yves yearned for the unforeseen, for an unexpected twist to wrench the course of this ominous encounter.
Yet, what manifested was a relentless black terror, ever-growing as it engulfed the cliff monstrosity. The struggle skewed towards a horrifying one-sidedness, witnessed in the creature’s transition from chaotic frenzy to steered, enforced movements. The wildly thrashing tendrils now moved with purpose, weaving a deliberate path toward Yves. Once concealed in the depths, the colossal malevolence dragged itself across the terrain, tearing the earth as it advanced and ever more emerged, leaving a wake of destruction. Giant rock masses, entire ledges of the cliff, collapsed as the creature pulled itself inland, rending and smashing all that had once been coastline. Water surged in, torrents carrying waves that flooded the broken formations and threw themselves against the creature’s massive, misshapen bulges.
Yves knew that if the Vicha reached the sea, it would devour any ocean beast it touched, perpetuating its insatiable growth. Creatures had fled in the behemoth's wake, even those dwelling at a considerable distance, in the various craters surrounding Yves. Yet, the pull of the flood could force sea creatures right into the giant maws of the behemoth or simply cast them against the monstrous body, where the Vicha would consume them upon touch.
Yves could not see past the dense energy structures that were earth and water beyond a few meters. Only now, with the behemoth almost fully surfaced, could he fathom its true enormity, which was crucial for a strategic assault. The intertwined energies of the behemoth and the Vicha revealed themselves through his second sight — a distortion of immense proportions disrupted by the Vicha's dark veins, a complex web of pulsating, growing extensions that undulated around and within the mass that was the cliff creature.
As his shard disc expanded, Yves strained to discern the grotesque mass of entangled energies through the storm's distortion and the impenetrable ground. While he could not distinguish the part of the behemoth that was still concealed underground, the Vicha stood out disturbingly clearly. He traced its veins as they extended further below the surface. At a discernible depth, these extensions curled back up instead of reaching deeper, indicating the full shape and borders of the creature’s body. With a clearer understanding, Yves traced the exposed mass of the behemoth from inland to sea, discerning how far the veins had penetrated into the appendages that reached into the flooded remnants of the cliff.
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The creature’s anatomy remained an enigma. Yves could not define vital centres or organs akin to a brain or heart. The inner physical structures were beyond his perception. Yet, one certainty cut through the chaos — the Vicha consumed both from the outside and within, growing while devouring its victim. However, it thrived only on what was alive, and its expansion demanded direct contact. This would be a strike of containment.
The enormous shard disc ascended, slicing through the storm as it bore down on the behemoth. It burrowed into the creature, breached the outer layers of the monstrous form above and below ground, carved through hundreds of metres of dense mass but failed to create a sufficiently deep cleft. Fluids erupted, maws roared, and tendrils thrashed wildly, all while the Vicha at the center persisted in its advance. Yves, following the trajectory of the initial assault, channelled extraordinary firepower into subsequent smaller discs. He attacked and attacked the severed body until he cleaved the appendage submerged in water from the mountainous mass claimed by the Vicha.
Vigilant, he monitored the veins, ensuring they would not extend towards the severed appendage which now displayed autonomous activity, its mouths and tendrils thrashing with undiminished fury. Simultaneously, the remnants still being devoured by the Vicha retained their energy signature, suggesting both parts harboured an uncanny semblance of life. Failing to recognise acts of higher intelligence, Yves speculated on a self-sustained existence driven by base instincts. To prevent any reconnection between the severed parts, he conjured vast shard projectiles infused with compressed light from the Lightgiver Wand. Precisely aimed between the split sections, successive explosions obliterated the ground beneath the trashing appendage. Water rushed in, engulfed and tore it beyond the Vicha's reach.
The Vicha remained an indifferent force of annihilation. It persisted to consume and move the behemoth along its unswerving path, while Yves bore the brunt of the explosions. He was hit by searing heat blasts that reverberated into the crater, a sharp contrast to the biting cold of the ice rain. Gasping for breath, he steadied his footing, feeling the unsettling consequences of rapidly depleting and replenishing his energy reserves.
In a matter of seconds, he rushed to draw in all available energy from his surroundings, exhausted the first of his two crystal rings, and conjured the next disc. Relentlessly, Yves attacked to reduce the behemoth further, hurling disc after disc and countless explosive projectiles to sever every unearthed appendage not yet ensnared by the Vicha’s encroaching web of veins.
What remained was a looming mountain of foul, viscous mass, spilling onto the world like rotten ink, its veins stretching out, spreading, seeking, gaining control over its new form, dragging itself towards Yves, accelerating, a curse tarnishing the stars and poisoning the air with a malevolence so dense that it paralysed and suffocated —
Breathe.
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