Years Since Creation: 3993

Location: Significance Plane, Space System, Furin

Before he could react further the beast destroyed the stone umbrella, sending waves of sharp shards flying at them. Activating his nanites, Darvon dodged around those he could while he ordered Clot to emerge and fly him upward. The leech slithered out of him, and wrapped around him to fly upward with a burst of speed that should have taken him out of range if not for a bar of black light tearing through the air and slamming into his armor sending him flying higher into the sky with a hiss of pain.

A cloud of black and red evaporated off of his body, as half of Clot disappeared in an attempt to block the blast, yet still some managed to get through and give Darvon massive bruises all over his body. It was that pain that managed to get him thinking enough to grab onto Clot’s body and preform evasive maneuvers before finally looking down at the beast.

It was a massive tortoise the size of a two-story building, with a void black shell covered in spikes housing the leathery body of a black skinned snapping turtle currently mid bite towards a flickering Saria. Every time it moved it would release some motes of black which would float towards her in a barrage which she mostly avoided, but for the few times where it would dissolve their supposedly indestructible armor within moments. At the same time as it fought Saria, a snake tail rose up to glare at Darvon and send another bar of black light which he barely avoided.

“Chest!” he screamed, as another dozen blasts followed the first, with Clot opening its armor to let Darvon shoot out two acid bolts to the snake who with a humph merely had the whole-body shift back a few steps letting the void shell devour the green liquid like it was nothing. It then had the turtle head stop snapping at a panting Saria to turn to Darvon and let out a roar which it accompanied.

Hiss! Roar!

A piercing wail filled the beach, echoing down so far that the faint sounds of battle between the two nests disappeared. Yet Darvon couldn’t focus on the implications of that, for his mind felt like it was being battered at by a dozen different hammers that tried to collapse it. The only thing keeping him together was the Grief Transformer in his neck, and the two ethereal elementals coiled around his mind taking the brunt of the attack.

Yet he did survive, and as he opened his eyes he saw that the two headed beast were staring at him incomprehensively as Saria managed teleport back a dozen times before collapsing in the floor while sending some hand signals that Darvon knew meant she needed a couple seconds of defense.

It was time to step up.

Not letting the snake react first, Darvon shot out two more bolts from his chest. A screaming cracker and a psychedelic. The cracker was easily blocked by the shell of the beast where instead of letting Darvon know its weakness it simply vanished. The psychedelic bolt did manage to explode on the floor near the beast into a cloud of pink smoke, staggering the main head but all that did was get the snake angry enough to restart its barrage of black light.

Dodging around by having his nanites calculate the trajectory let Darvon easily snake around the attacks, though that still left him open to the motes that had begun to escape the crazed turtle head. The moment they touched him they collapsed his armor, sending a spray of a regeneration potion from the tubes within spurting uselessly to the ground as it did so. It was only his ease of maneuverability that kept it from hitting his skin. Still he was holding its attention. For now.

Moments after that thought the main head had focused back in and twisted around in anger to scream at him with anger while building a wave of black light within its mouth. Seeing the danger Darvon did his best to escape their eyesight, but it wasn’t looking at him at all, it was instead staring straight up as a ball of black light became visible in its mouth.

Seeing it not react, Darvon knew that staying the air was dumb and so he started diving down to the ground as fast as he could, but not fast enough. The ball within the mouth exploded out in a blast of black light that inundated the area in a hiss of destruction that vanished the sand around it in a blast. Then it hit Darvon, or better said Clot.

The moment the light so much as grazed the elemental a full third of its mass vanished alongside a scream of pain from the elemental who instantly tried to retract into Darvon’s body with little success. It mentally yelled in desperation at him, which prompted Darvon to slam a cupped hand against his chest letting that tiny bit of the elemental dive into his body as the rest of it vanished. Yet Darvon himself wasn’t safe, for he could feel the void attack dig into the energy reserves of his armor, destroying the defense within and filling his body with pain which only grew worse as he was thrown to the ground.

Feeling the sandstone shatter beneath him Darvon stifled a scream and scrambled up as he felt the vibrations of the creature sprinting towards him. Looking up, he saw the beast’s depthless eyes staring down at him a mere fifty feet away and closing. There was nothing left for him to do but send out the last psychedelic bolts he had slotted in his chest hoping they did something.

The two crystal flasks flew forward with a whistle which was overwhelmed by the stomps of the beast. The first flask was aimed at the main head of the beast who simply let out a wave of void motes which ate the thing like it was nothing before running through it. The second flew towards the snake who opened its mouth to let out another blast only to be stopped as a knife flew flashed through the air and tore into its eyes, sending the blast to the side enough for the flask to shatter on the snake and fill its open mouth.

Instantly the beast stumbled, its back legs flailing at hallucinatory targets which the snake was blasting in a panic. The front two kept moving though, only stalling for a few seconds before dragging the body forward, but that was enough.

Hopping up from the ground, Darvon shot out a greaser bolt into the hardened sand below it before sprinting diagonally for all he could without looking back. Behind him he heard a collapse and a skidding, letting him know the bolt had worked, but he ignored it in favor of sprinting towards Saria who was desperately waving at him from the tree line a hundred meters away.

Putting his head down while counting Darvon sprinted forward as fast as he could, tearing through the distance like it was nothing. After one second he closed twenty meters, after two he closed fifty, after three he closed seventy, and jumped to the side dodging the majority of a bolt except for one sliver that tore through his side, destroying the already tattered armor there and vanishing the side of his body.

A scream of pain escaped him as he was sent stumbling to the side, luckily letting him avoid a second bar in time for Saria to teleport next to him, bodily pick him up and sprint ahead while bobbing and weaving while talking to him.

Words filled his ears, but none were processed as Darvon was filled with overwhelming discomfort and pain. He could feel the air touching his organs, the blood escaping his guts, with the stench of his own stomach acid filling the air making him want to puke but nothing escaped his mouth for it was all leaving his side. He felt a wave of paralyzing panic fill him as flashes of him dying filled his mind.

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He didn’t want to die. He had so much to live for. He needed to conquer a plane. He needed to avenge his parents. He needed to become someone. He needed to be in control of his destiny! But he wasn’t.

It was that final thought that finally angered Kaiser into prodding at his master’s mind with a slashing whip which slammed into his mind and forced his hand to reach down into the left side of his chest, where the fluids of a potion floated and pulled out a flask to pour onto his side. It then went to reach for the bag of crystals, only to stop as Darvon finally got himself under control enough to stop the elemental from grabbing a snack mid battle.

“What the fuck was that?! That guy was way stronger than the sovereign Maroc fought!” Saria was yelling into his ear as she sprinted through the forest, hopping over any bugs who were also running from the stomping behind them. “My third eye said peak paragon, but that’s got to be wrong!”

Opening his mouth to speak, all that came out was a ball of blood which he spat out while glancing down at his side to see that the side of his body was luckily refilling with flesh at record speed. “It’s accurate, Maroc is just that strong.”

Saria with wide white filled eyes looked down at his face, at his wound which had stopped healing after merely reforming his organs, at her own various injuries filling her body, and with a shudder promptly dropped him to the ground and collapsed to the floor.

A new wave of pain filled him as his organs touching the ground rent out a scream from him. “What the fuck Saria!”

“Sorry, sorry! I panicked!” She yelled out, as her shaking hands scratched at her torn armor to pull out a regeneration potion from her own pocket. “Here let me fully heal you.”

“Wait!” He said putting out a hand to stop her as he staggered up while clutching at his side as he reached into his bag to pull out a blue crystal which he sacrificed into water which he used clean his wound with a hiss. “Now pour it in.”

“Right. Infection. I should have thought of that.” she said, as she poured the potion over his now shiny organs, who upon absorbing them formed a new layer of skin over them.

“Should have thought of a lot of things.” Darvon mumbled under his breath while letting out a sigh.

“What was that?” Saria said, glaring at him. “I distinctly remember being the one to save your ass back there.”

Going to snap back, Darvon froze as a roar echoed out a few hundred meters back followed by a wave of black light which extended into the skies towards some insect screeches. Seemed the beast had found one of the nests. That was good news.

“What do we do? Should we head back?” Saria asked, as she too stared in the direction of the roar. “I don’t think we can kill a beast of that caliber.”

“We should head back; we’ve lost too many resources to continue the culling.” Darvon said, letting out the small fist sized Clot into a tree which it began immediately corrupting to grow.

“We should trek through the petrified forest diagonally than.” Saria said, pointing off to the left and side of the beach. “That way we dodge the beast and get out of reasonable line of sight from the open shore.”

“Sounds good. We’ll just have to keep an eye out for any bug waves.” Darvon said. “Now just give me a few minutes to figure out what exactly I lost and then we can go.”

An acknowledging hum came from Saria, as she sat down on the floor to peer at her own gear while Darvon did the same with his.

He had lost a lot.

His armor was little more than rags at this point, with all of the internal engravings destroyed and the entire left side of his stomach plating destroyed. That meant that he had lost all of the regeneration potions within, alongside three of his plague potions which he was glad were center blast enough to simply disappear rather than open. He didn’t even want to think about how they would have infected his open wounds otherwise.

The other consumables he had lost were around half of his bolts due to them spilling out of his armor. Luckily he kept the other two thirds within his chest which had been mostly spared, though he was still out of psychedelics due to burning through them.

In terms of elementals Clot had been half dead but was rapidly recuperating, having already devoured enough trees to grow to a small dog size. Kaiser and Vigil were both fine, if whining about needing more food and to be let out for battle, which he shut down immediately. If he had let them out they would have vanished in a second under that wave attack.

As for injuries he was fine to do battle aside from a few bruises and cuts which were already healing due to his scout body. Looking down at Saria he told her his situation, prompting her to stand up and saying she’ll take point due to having lost next to nothing. Which was a relief because he was dog tired, more mentally the physically but still.

And so they started trekking. Slowly at first, doing their best to avoid any bug they saw instead of fighting them, but as Clot recovered and whined about wasted food they started going faster, relying on their elementals to fight while they kept an eye out.

It worked well. Indigo and Kaiser would jump forward and freeze any one creature, while Clot would dash forward to devour it. If there was a group Vigil would extend itself to cover as many as he could, leaving them collapsed in grief while Clot went through and devoured them as he could.

Most of the bugs were wandering groups of various types of monstrous ants, or beetles which had been kicked out of their nest due to limited resources, but occasionally there would be the powerful creature which had been deposited by a portal. They encountered a fist sized dog made of ice, an insanely fast translucent rabbit, a floating dolphin, and even a wood elemental which Clot had been particularly happy to devour.

It was going so smoothly that Darvon felt comfortable just leaving the direction to Saria as he started patching up his armor with what few metal essences they had. He mostly focused on creating a scaled plate over the vanished side of his body but did spend what he could on fixing up the helmet.

It wasn’t his best work but looking down at the flesh gleam of polished iron contrasting the dark metal of his previous armor, he had to say he looked good. Glancing up at Saria to ask what she thought, he froze at the sight before him.

A zhra sized clot was midway through devouring a meter high grey mantis after having eaten what seemed like a dozen more from the mess around him. The other elementals were just floating around playing with each other, while Saria was peacefully munching on some travel snacks. Perhaps sensing his gaze she looked up to see his frozen expression.

“What? Did you sense the turtle nearby? Is it floating near us?” she said, crouching down into a combat stance with a knife out as she did so. “Should we start running?”

Darvon shook his head, trailing a hand through his now gone hair as he did so. “Nothing so bad, just that we will have to fight our way out of here now.” He pointed to the bits of shell leftover around a bobbing clot. “Those were warriors from the nearby nest, they will be chasing us now.”

“Really? Damn, is there any way we can just fly over?” She asked only to answer her own question a second later. “Right the beast.”

He nodded, having already seen plenty of fliers be shot down by bars of black energy as they ran. “It won’t be a big problem unless we are near the nest, in which case we will have to kill the queen before leaving to not get inundated. Regardless of the case we should start running now before she can fully react.”

She nodded seriously at that, pulling Indigo in as Darvon did the same for his creatures. She than started setting a brutal pace through the forest, which Darvon was barely able to keep up by having Clot boost him when he could.

They managed to get a couple hundred meters away from the battle site that way, but then ran into a wave of mantises which they destroyed in seconds to keep running into another a mere fifty meters away. This trend continued for a good five hundred meters, as more and more mantises attacked them until they weren’t so much running as wading through crowds of them.

“I think we’re too close to the nest!” Saria yelled, hopping over to smash her bat into mantis with an explosion that sent it crashing into the one in front of Darvon.

Whipping Clot around int a twenty-pronged whip form, Darvon destroyed the entire front line while running forward. “Yeah, you’re right. We’re going to have to kill the Queen!”

“Well where is she?” Saria yelled, vanishing to appear next to him for a breather as the emotion elementals crushed down on the willpower of the bugs nearby.

Stopping for a second from the battle, Darvon sunk into the Significance Realm where a mass of formless blobs floated around in front of him, most too weak in impact to even form an Image but all connected via a stream of blood red honey stretching towards the north, away from the ocean.

“She’s north! Follow me!” Darvon yelled, ordering Clot to turn into a metal shredder which disintegrated any and all creatures in front of them.

They had a queen to kill.