Alucroas

A Bubbling Brew To Bash Boredom's Brains In

The Darkness of space, still as it always was, speckled with pin pricks of red, white, and yellow painted a stagnant image. One had to wait hundreds of millions of years for something new to happen, for a change to occur, trapped within the eternally slow passage of eons. Beyond space, however, in the gaps between reason and time, where once there was true nothingness, a network of gray roots, covered in azure moss, and teeming with vibrant, everlasting life, a gargantuan ran across the branching paths that were threaded between universes.

Its simian gait, carried on thick, furry knuckles, covered in a light-distorting slime brought the barrel-chested beast to an incline, prompting its middle-arms to reach down and drive its charcoal, ursine claws into bark. A lesser creature would have dislocated its arms at the elbow from such a sudden stop, but Barrusom’s burly, extraversal strength simply made him lurch forward, tugging the whole structure as he leaned on his forelegs and kept himself from falling over with his rear, his lupine tail flapping in the hot breeze.

His upper-face, in contrast to the rest of his brutish body appeared as though it were concealed under a heavy, iron mask bearing a lustrous sheen that hinted at a starless cosmos. Six holes spread across the forehead, where light was lacking everywhere else, Barrusom’s eyes held an entire galaxy’s worth of swallowed photons, divided into thousands of ravenous searchlights. His long maw hung and jutted at a downward angle, four lateral incisors at the anterior corners of his mouth caged a central row of slicers, molars becoming ever-more visible as his jaw lowered in salivating thirst at the undulating, translucent swamp-waters, churning a thirst-quenching mix of blood and milk.

Possessing zero impulse control, the beast yanked his claws free, kicked off his rear feet, and used his fore like a fulcrum to fling himself forward, tucking his wild form into a bouncing somersault. Every rolling impact pushed and bent the branches, all springing back into place, only to have their integrity tested again and again as Barrusom recklessly rolled down. The end of his descent was the protrusion of his mid-claws against the bark, forcing him into a sudden ascent, cannonballing through the air, mouth agape with an extended tongue compressed into the shape of a hollow tube.

Impacting the waters, devastation reigned supreme for several seconds as he drove a hole through the nutrient-rich surface, producing a veritable tunnel, rapidly collapsing as the water rushed to fill it in. A colossal ring tsunamied outward, assaulting the mangrovian lower half of the Amalgam’s rootsystem, the network’s bottom section becoming more and more exposed as Barrusom’s tongue sucked down trillions of gallons of mother’s creamy crimson carnage.

Several massive bubbles floated up to the surface, a sign of Barrusom’s belch from a belly filled with not nearly enough substance. He was no baby bear after all, and could not satisfy his appetite on something as banal as drinking from an ocean-sized bottle; thus, he bellowed in a manner that combined fury and belligerence, forelimbs raising and slashing as his impulsive urge to consume led him to brazenly tear several rifts in the Outerverse that he would use to bring himself to the biggest buffet of all.

–

A bulge in the boring star-spangled canvas appeared, the slashed-up blackness of space rose up, and burst as a horrifying cosmic blister as Barrusom – the Ravager Of Cosms blitzed and barreled across space on a thoroughly unrestrained rampage. His behemoth-clawed feet pounded, and punctured and stomped the cosmic carpet, apergetic energy building up in the footprints he left behind, generating mammoth aftershocks as they sprung back to normal; consequently the darkly dotted dotted blanket of the universe undulated up and down like ocean waves, disrupting nebulas, disturbing planetary atmospheres, and destroying every semblance of peace and tranquility left, as even the local stars felt their nuclear processes becoming discombobulated.

The calm, boring state of the universe had been viciously damned, and as the telescopic peepholes on the doors of a hundred thousand civilizations were broken down, not a one of them would be so lucky as to find a cute little teddy bear looking to borrow some honey.

Instead, they would see only Barrusom, ready, and unwaiting to raze and rip open their bowels.

A Bubbling Brew To Bash Boredom's Brains In

This is a high-powered open challenge with no limit on how many can join. Expect extreme levels of destruction and carnage. This is not the battle to be holding back in. Otherwise, this isn't meant to be a novella thread, but do bring decent grammar, and keep whatever narratives you do or don't bring consistent enough to be comprehensive.

Lastly, and to repeat myself, this fight is 100% guaranteed to escalate to obscene proportions if the intro didn't spell it out already. I will not hold back, and neither should you.

Neo Babylon

Squelch

Crunch

Bang Bang Bang

Thwackzzzzzzzt

A myriad of different sounds filled the darkness of his slowly waking mind, each note crying and screaming as an orchestra of mayhem. The croc man’s abdomen twitched, elbows sinking into the mud as he arduously slung himself forward, almost allowing himself to sit before the blurred sight of bloody flesh and fur crystallized in his cold, green eyes, ending the motion in a guarded crouch. Kant’s claws spread, tail curved at the perfect strike angle, body slowly rotating with hissing jaws agape.

Throughout his intense threat assessment of the area, he took a headcount of four strangers, and instantly regarded them as one would a band of reckless outsiders. Was it any wonder they were being attacked by the indigenous wildlife? Was it any wonder that the reptile felt an internal sense of pride at the fact that he was the only one not being treated as prey? Then again, such mindless beasts could easily try to pounce on him, and yet they did not, bringing a vague sense of duty, and obligation to his conscience that tempered his arrogance. He was alive for a reason, and life–irrespective of its origin–was not something to be taken for granted, thus he resolved himself to right his pride and seek out a solution to level the playing field.

Kant did not like taking sides. The bugs were hungry and required food to survive, and the others, whether he found them harmonious or hazardous to nature, possessed a higher chance of aiding him in his quest to resolve the strange feeling that beset them. Therefore, it fell upon him to ensure their survival, at least until he knew who among them were worthy of becoming his long-term allies.

The debonair man appeared to be in the most immediate need of aid, and the young lady with the magic lightning rod gave him an idea.

Water rose through the mud, spreading across the ground at one foot per three seconds. Soon the bugs would become less mobile, unable to pounce due to becoming boyant and having no solid earth with which to stand on, though nothing could be said in relation to their tree climbing skills. Spotting a sickly tree that appeared to be nearing the end of its life, Kant dove into the rapidly growing swamp and swam as fast as he could, splitting water with open jaws as his tail propelled him through the murk. Clamping his jaws around its stem, several long strenuous moments passed before he heard the bark crack and splinter, finishing the job with a swift tail swipe that sent the tree falling against another.

By this point the water level had reached twelve feet in depth, and the croc was busying himself scaling one of the healthier trees, whilst banking on the intelligence of the oddly dressed man, and thunder girl to take advantage of the opening he had given them.

Neo Babylon

Name: Kant
Aliases: The Grower and the Mover, The One Who Rots and Cleanses the Swamp, The One Who Feeds on Gluttons.
Height: 8ft
Sex: Male
Likes: A healthy diet of meat and berries, those who respect the swamp, and passing his knowledge down to future guardians.
Dislikes: Unhealthy creatures who would taint the swamp with their filth, people who cannot fathom the difference between a predator and a guardian, and the ones who say eating your enemies never solved anything. They clearly haven’t seen a person relieve themselves in a swamp.
Distinctive Features: His eye color changes based on how he perceives another's emotions.

Appearance: He is a tall, bipedal crocodilian with a bulky frame, and a leaning gait that is counterbalanced by a thick, sturdy, ten foot tail which serves as his primary means of propulsion, doubling as a powerful weapon capable of breaking bones. His skin is hard, bony, and appears to have integrated some features of the armors belonging to those he has slain for disregarding his warnings about respecting the swamp. His snout is sixteen inches long, claws six inches and curved. Consequently, the scales possess blunt, rectangular edges, particularly on his shoulders, elbows, wrists, and knees, whereas his torso is covered by what appears to be a more rigid second skin, functioning as pseudo plate mail.

Personality: Respect the swamp. It is his only rule. Do this, and Kant can be quite patient and accommodating to the needs of those who enter his domain. With this being said, he does not take kindly to any ecosystem being threatened and has an innate sense of when one is being endangered through willful recklessness. He understands that people need to eat, to build, and to ultimately maintain their civilizations, but he does not excuse those who carelessly disregard their capacity to think and act in harmony with nature. Those who willfully reject their own brains will find their skulls crushed between Kant's jaws.

The Third Lid: Everybody feels things. The spectrum of emotions is as vast as the marshlands, deep as the jungle, and at times can be as murky and oppressive as the humidity of the swamp. Not all feelings are dark, damp, and gloomy though, some shine bright like the sun, others are like a soft glow, and more still emit a pulse that traverses the line being hypnotic, mesmerizing allure, and terrifying brazeness that leads all down the path of rage.

Crocodiles use their third eyelid to filter out the water's obscurity, allowing them to see clearly through the depths. Kant's third lid not only allows the biological benefit of unobstructed underwater sight, but allows him to see the emotions of whoever stands before him, be it man, beast, monster, or devil. He can see their true, albeit momentary color, which is to say whichever feeling is presently strongest, he can see is literally presented to his mind as a spiritual wavelength reflecting a single spectrum of light.

Whoever so allows their true feelings to be witnessed by Kant shall also witness their color reflected in the eyes of the croc. Seeing red is, to put it lightly, more than just a metaphor when Kant is the one looking at you.

The Smell Of Magic, And The Taste Of Deep Water: Kant's nose can smell the supernatural, he can taste the ethereal flesh of spirits. He can sniff out a curse, detect faint enchantments, and he can likewise discern if something edible will have more than just the usual assortment of nutritional benefits merely by tasting it. He can likewise hold a ghost between his jaws, and crunch a cursed, or even blessed sword with his bite force, swallowing them back into the void.

Earth and Water: He can push the water, and shove the earth. He can nourish the green leaves and rot the brown bark, raise the deep above the knees, or lower it to a puddle beneath one's feet. All these things are possible at his physical touch, with water rising or falling at a rate of 3 feet per 10 seconds, and plants growing or decaying at the same rate, with a radial range of 20 feet.

Might Of The Protector: Kant is strong enough to lift a man with one hand, his jaws can crush stone, his tail can break bones, and he can roll a boulder with his powerful arms, chest, and shoulders. His claws are sharp enough to slash and pierce flesh, durable enough to parry swords, speartips, and can flick arrowheads out of flight if struck right.

Last Memory: A sudden, ominous wind blew through the swamp, followed by a dark vortex crackling with lightning swallowing him into its depths.

Additional Plot Hooks: “This world suffers from a malady. I will discern its cause and crush it between my teeth.”

Icy Enmity: Battle in Oerelle's Halls - Alucroas vs Longinus

The battle was roaring into motion, and Zucroas’ defensive preparations rewarded his offensive charge well. His horns pierced the bloody mist first, followed by his claws, both covered in dust, the physical functions of which were nearly invisible to the naked eye. The dust performed a critical, life-saving maneuver as it leaped off the dragon’s body, passing through the film covering his skin, coating itself with the protection it granted. Bright, heat-emitting yellow light beamed off the dust, increasing its speed, as the bottom half stripped whole layers of concrete off the atrium floor, producing an expanding cloud that rushed forward in the shape of a growing wave, the whole mass radiating maroon light.

If there were eyes that could perceive nanoscopic forms, they would see a swarm of autonomous draconic machines, known in their progenitor's mind as the draco machines-- they were bipedal like Zucroas, and possessed all of his traits: scars of the dead secreting an ethereal, gel-based solvent that absorbed, purified, and expelled harmful energies–a fantastical control over lightning, as well as other aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum, and were primarily responsible for controlling the existential ley-lines, the source of the maroon lightshow. Lastly, and most immediately relevant to aiding the dragon’s charge, were their tails that had been modified in real time to feature a deadly number of tiny, protruding blades capable of adaptively calibrating their vibration frequency to be exceptionally proficient at cutting through targets. Semi-detaching themselves at the waist, the legs raised into a sitting position, inclined at the knees, tilted sideways, and rotated into a horizontal axis with feet bent at an inward angle, causing them to resemble the broken, taloned hands of a clock.

Plasma thrust blasted from their wings and foot soles, accelerating the lower-section into a violent, positively charged spin, followed by a revving that was neither seen, nor heard, yet boldly present in the execution of their objective; the revving of countless harmonic chainsaw’s growling activations. Function, fury, and a fine-tuned analysis of the blood mist's composition, relayed back through the maroon light, fed the machines all the data they needed to generate a counter-frequency that would disrupt the mist’s molecular stability. Multiple pass throughs would be needed to ensure every cell was sliced through and eviscerated, but the majority of the work was taken care of with unparalleled efficiency, partly due to the natural pull of protons and electrons attracting each other, resulting in the blood being forcibly sucked into the saw's lethal blades, and also because the draco-machines had feasted on the concrete floor, converting mundane rock into vicious, metal mayhem. Meanwhile, Zucroas’ tail swung hard to his left, throwing him into a turn that dragged his claws and talons against a surface that should not have been there, but nevertheless emitted sparks of maroon ether, his turn nearly finished.

Throughout the whole contest, using intuitive sight shared with him by the draco-machines, Zucroas tracked the mist’s displacement pattern that was caused by Kintar's evasive maneuver.

This chase was far from over.

–

A psychic specter swam through the ruins of her own psy-flame, but the apocalypse had only just begun. Kintar tried to bathe Zucroas’ world in fire, and now it was time for her to drown in the blood of his spirit, already whipped into a cleansing, oceanic surge via the flapping of his monstrous wings. Four colossal waves swelled up on all sides of the pyroclastic storm, towered briefly overhead the superheated cloud, and crashed down on top of it, leaving no room for escape, polluting a small portion of its vast mass in the process. In what felt like mere seconds, however, the ashen blemish was being crushed in the overwhelming tide, for even if its might were akin to a mountain that reached into Heaven, Zucroas’ determination was a thing that reached all the way down to Hell.

On Soran, he experienced the loss of his clan at the hands of aliens seeking to remedy a problem that was not theirs to solve–and still, he was able to find renewed innocence in a creature named Aludon. In the depths of Phlegethon, the two encountered a tormented cyborg without a purpose; his name was Tage, and though they were at first fearful of each other, eventually through the merging of body, mind, and soul, they became a single, unified being. Amidst the scorching winds of Kilamara's vast desert, the one became three, and together, primal love sowed the seeds of tragedy and trauma into a trinity of dragon, aptosite, and machine.

Lost and found.

Reclamation and reformation.

Damnation and salvation.

A personal violation against Zucroas’ mind was committed, and his solution was to counter-attack Kintar with her own reverse-engineered malice. An exploitation of his motivations was futilely attempted in order to pervert his emotions, and ascribe pathology in the place of basic, visceral psychology. Indeed, he was a beast prone to bouts of rage in the midst of that which threatened his soul–but such feelings were natural. More important than that though, and more precious than the preservation of his soul, was the preservation of his brothers. Keeping each other alive, preserving their bond...that's what mattered–that is what brought Zucroas to this palace of madness.

The woman's short-sighted understanding of Zucroas’ wrath had led her to naively denote–supplant the presence of sin in the place of an eternal instinct that existed in the hearts of all noble beasts. For that, she would pay.

Now the qualities inherent to her desires, to those which allowed her to plant such insidious seeds, and light such soul-blackening fires would come under attack. It began with a simple abstraction, translated to a pseudo-physical reality via the simple fact that fire was virtually impossible to light while underwater. This basic axiom malignantly multiplied itself, weaving its truth throughout the twilight yellow sky, quickly darkening into a star-dotted canvas that did not last long, as the cosmic darkness of space was aesthetically refashioned to the composition of a black ocean, with the zone betwixt that which dwelt above, and that which dwelt below being the only place not swallowed by the astral anomaly.

In mere moments the stars sank beneath the waves, thickening into mud, and smothered the stellar mass with its oppressive weight. Soon after, the mud hardened into a riverbed, whose cracks belched plumes of maroon smoke, symbolic of the plague. Soon, it would coming for Kintar too, and Zucroas had no intention of letting her out of the trap he secured through her hubris, evidenced by a hard glaze forming over the freezing surface of the ocean he created. In its depths, more of the elemental serpent drakes freely swam, taking full advantage of the woman who tried to feast on Zucroas’ anger, but instead found herself locked in an empty buffet. Now she was caught, the submerged storm nearly faded as more drakes manifested themselves through its remnants, maroon glow pulsing through their crackling forms on a wild intercept path, brazenly taking advantage of Kintar’s hollow feast in favor of their malice that fully aligned with the storm.

Even so, such an advantage could not be maintained for too long. It wasn't normal for forms to exist within a gelatinous ocean that reduced all things to empty potential. The fiend was no less susceptible here, as the ocean stickily clung to her exposed spirit, eating away at her ego with its digestive properties. Something was coming, a revelation was on its way, the sky hearkened as such with the billowing of more smoke through that dried riverbed.

Chaos will rise again.

–

Cellular carnage formed an organic smog of crumbling, ionizing matter, whirling around fast flowing eddies of crimson and maroon. Light from the latter bathed the room in its color, followed by a burst of purple from the scars of the dead's combined colors producing an inhibitor field constructed with the everpresent ley-lines, restricting the shadow's growth using a barrier that was two parts ethereal and spatial. This was far from the only effect though, for where the shadow faltered, a muddier darkness took its place, flowing in from the spirit world and merging with the space surrounding the reflections and Kintar's reorienting form.

Zucroas ground to near stop on the newly revealed floor, now composed of a maroon, hard light surface, the psychic tether connecting their minds having transcended the astral world to appear as something startlingly physical. It was dark like maroon, and coated in a thick, cosmic essence that sparkled with stellar radiance, stretching elastically as the dragon leaned into the last bit of momentum he had gained, pulling in all the electrons released by the harmonic chainsaw’s cutting action. His lightning filled eyes fully focused on her every disturbing move, which for him did naught but elicit a hostile grin, and a brief glint of cold, reptilian excitement steaming off his burning teeth and hissing tongue.

Then she fired those strange blades. The draco-machines broke the dam separating the abstract sky from the physical plane in several key spots, spewing artificial space-time that seethed with a primed electromagnetic pull, its properties amplified, compounded, and intensified by the ley-lines. A full-blown intercept occurred, sucking the blades down a smooth vector, accelerating their speed like bullets racing down the barrel of a railgun. Their first destination led them through the army of the damned, where the blade’s geometry distorting properties were given a conniving boost in power by another unit of draco-machines, whose initial directive had been to merely aid the serpent-drakes in combating the disgusting corpses. Now their directive had changed to environmental destruction. This was accomplished by drinking in the power those parallel universes they were connected to held, and through such nourishment, turned what was originally meant to be a precise attack designed to warp Zucroas’ body, into a weapon used to implode the shadow realm, and everything inside it–not through hijacking control though, rather through boosting the radial effects of the phenomenon to be globally devastating as opposed to locally decimating.

With spatial mass compounded, and the ley-lines circuitry so tightly interwoven into the freshly collapsed dimension, its existence became akin to that of a cosmic cannon ball. Reflection after reflection felt its kinetic punch, and in the event they were able to evade like the original Kintar had done, the space in which they resided would still suffer the effects of such a brutal collision, namely because when the draco-machines became apart of the mass, so too did the aspect of harmonic armageddon resonate through the absorbed power of the harmonic chainsaws.

The end of this extremely cunning attack was the atrium’s demise as the draco-machines tore it to pieces, the mirrors exploding, and Zucroas slingshotting himself at Kintar jaws first, all using the cord that connected them mentally, physically, and in all likelihood, fatally.

Icy Enmity: Battle in Oerelle's Halls - Alucroas vs Longinus

An umbral abyss opened its lightless maw, its hungry, swirling shadow pulling the elemental serpents into its dark gullet. Strangely, and quite unexpectedly, the drakes did not resist, for along the sides of their crackling, undulating forms, rifts in the forms of jagged scars traced an opening to a much deeper layer of the astral world. Within that layer, chaos reigned as the dominant spiritual force, and it was from such a disorderly place that a surge of shimmering red and blue substances poured out. It had a thick, gelatinous texture that was highly viscous, sticking to whatever it touched, and functioned as a digestive sponge to foreign energies by overwhelming them with the essence of its origin, reducing them to pure potential that was void of form and purpose. This ethereal plasmic membrane rapidly enveloped and conformed to the serpent's bodies, providing a pre-emptive defensive shield that would safeguard them against being destroyed within the vortex, and consequently gave them an uncannily invasive quality, as seen by many bloodshot eyes, whose realm they drained into.

Fully armed with the familial gift of protection, a vicious assault began as the serpents dove straight at the staring orbs, horn-tips spewing crimson clouds of nanoscopic dust in their wake, which itself emitted the very same maroon light used in sewing the many reflections together. In no time at all, they would make short, vicious work of their sight, just as they had done to the many throats of the women foolish enough to just let themselves be maimed.

The eyes…windows to the mind– the ones leading to Zucroas’ had been filled with scorching lightning, blinding in its luminance and hazardous to any entities attempting to pass through the electric inferno. If setting fire to his psyche is what she wanted to do, then she’d find her own burnt to a crisp as the same maroon energy used to bind and make clones of her reflections manifested as counter-offensive outlines around the drake’s eyes, strengthening the psychic connection to the point of it feeling like there was a giant, clawed hand wrapped around her throat, the sturdiness of strong, thick bones, and powerful muscle forming the bridge that forced stable passage. Here she would bear witness, and experience first-hand the wrath of the dragon, whose sacred space she sought burn down:

A purple ocean rose and fell beneath a fresh yellow sky, its waves whipped into a violent storm. Above it, a crackling cloud of smoke and ash rolled forward, dead remnants of the psy-flame blown into motion by tremendously flapping wings of the purest white, their length reaching both ends of the horizon. Behind the cloud, long, muscular arms hung, each bearing the jagged red and blue marks that symbolized the scars of the dead, both pouring waterfalls of red and blue gel into the astral ocean, giving it its unique color. Mounted atop the wings was a draconic face roaring endless, unrestrained fury, horns aflame and eyes seething static electricity, for the full brunt of its rage had been wrought forth by the woman's maleficent threat against his mind. Absent the restrictions of time and space, the apocalyptic stormcloud bloomed larger, vicious maws swelling, stretching, and collapsing in on themselves, only to lunge out with terrifying instantaneity, followed by an internal explosion that expanded the supercell outward, sending a wave of suffocating psychic energy that would choke her spirit’s voice like volcanic ash filling airways, raze her thoughts like pyroclastic flows shredding the land beneath a blotted out sun, and engulf her soul under the immense weight of a monster who vindictively wanted to crush, immolate, and bury her like lava smothering a person.

Back on the physical plane, Zucroas saw the vomit of unnatural blood and instinctively leaped, flapping hard and throwing himself into a backflip, his still firing beam gouging the upper wall and ceiling. The maroon lines siphoned a surplus of energy from the extra-versal gates, swelling with power as they gorged on extraversal nourishment, channeling it all into the beast as he hit the floor on all fours. Riding the momentum of his maneuver, Zucroas swung his head up, lightning beam thickening, widening, blossoming with intensified might and resilience as it made contact with the sanguine flood, vaporizing a trail through to the woman.

Before the path he made could seal itself shut, Zucroas turned off the beam and broke into a mad charge, the film that had initially coated only his claws now covering his whole body, much the same way the serpents had protected themselves. Bowing his head, the dragon’s horns aimed ahead of him, tips covered in a sandy crimson dust, as were his claws, talons, and tail, sparing no precaution as he aimed to skewer her upon his three foot weapons of war.

Icy Enmity: Battle in Oerelle's Halls - Alucroas vs Longinus

A permeable curtain of darkness appeared before him, and as something wholly unexpected walked through its veil, his hissing sharpened, aggression tempering into a cold stare of savage malice. Her deceitful appearance did nothing to calm his nerves, and in fact worsened his agitation, eyes filling with crackling blue light as the atmosphere shifted from palpable tension, and evolved into blatant, snarling hostility. By time she was thirty feet away, the scars on his arms had become aglow with primal spirit-energy, claws surging with a thickening film of blue and red light as he readied himself for the impending calamity that was about to befall this temple.

In the moments between her final steps toward the looming dragon, in the depths of crystalline mirrors, something besides the woman's many vile reflections slithered and flew as horned serpents made of lightning so often do. Matter-vibrations from the infinity of neighboring universes connected to this palace flowed along a network of maroon lines, synthesizing a ghostly membrane with which to grant significance and substantiality, and ultimately authenticity of form to the alluring visages. If the provocative woman was as perceptive as she was dangerous, she would see the colored lines fading into transparency, whilst feeling their existential threads sewing her skein to the ones in the mirrors.

Alas, when she arrived at her position before Zucroas, and the fiend raised her hand to what the beast read as a facade of benevolence, electricity accumulated at the back of his throat, chest filling as his hissing was replaced with loud buzzing. Within his mind’s eye, and possibly the woman’s own, he saw the serpent’s converge on the parallel entities, maws wide, and bodies moving in a murderous lunge that sunk fangs into throats. Whether she’d live through their massacre was anyone’s guess – not that she had time to make a prediction, for a densely packed beam of lightning the size of her own body was being streamed from the dragon’s mouth with an intent that was all too real.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

He was on a journey. A personal quest to rediscover a long lost sibling who had been stolen from him by a mad demon. The same demon responsible for driving him into an equally insane trinity of myth, flesh, and steel – of primordial beast, artificial monster, and an accident born from the clash between a noble patriarch and a gluttonous experiment. A distinct lack of meaning for the third’s existence permeated every aspect of his soul, rendering his mind stagnant, and actions worthless. Consequently, the third piece of the abominable amalgam comprising Taluge had his nihilism resolved through the hellish merging of bodies, minds, and souls.

Through him, the way to reclamation of familial unity would be realized, just as the one who was sought had led Tage through the frozen labyrinth of purpose, melting the sealed exit and allowing him to emerge into the stellar warmth of spiritual companionship.

Presently, the consolidated form of the Raging Singularity soared on shadow-tinted platinum wings, propelled by yellow plasma emissions streaming from the tips as well as the soles of his feet, knuckles dragging and skipping across the astral sea whilst the burning propellant vaporized the surreal waters in their wake. Within the rising steam trail, a surge of animated scenes floated up; creatures warring, sadists torturing, inhuman youths frollicking through a combination of differing lands, spun and woven into each other in a manner too abstract for the mind to comprehend. An uncountable number, both simple and complex sprouted, blossomed, and withered into ocean mist, blown away and scattered unto nothingness – reflected in the twin hexagonal shape of a scarlet left, and sapphire right pair of eyes, pupils still and motionless on a draconic face whose serrated lids did not blink. None of it meant anything to him – a raspy, metallic exhale passed through barely opened jaws, everything appearing as mundane as blowing leafs in a damp forest.

A twitch of impatience made him snort, the scent of mundanity leaving him directionless, agitated, and irritable. His frustration amplified his desire, made his mind snuff out all irrelevant details like a blizzard blowing out all the smaller insignificant flames, letting only the brightest infernos survive the storm of longing.

Then it appeared like a bloodstained hurricane.

Nine and a half foot horns released a maroon plume from their tips, billowing everywhere and nowhere, drifting toward the cyclone and being vacuously sucked into the swirling clouds, blending into a liquid mix of decadence and impending doom. It reeked of foulness, triggered thoughts of his damnation, and attracted his wrath like a tower attracting lightning; he would strike out at it until the place was either fried to a crisp, or the difference was so insubstantial as to be non-existent.

Traveling into the storm, his emotions came to a boil, and no amount of magic would be able to hold him together, and thus…

–
A three-sided star rose over a lavender horizon. Its rays illuminated a frozen ocean, the cracks of which hid an infinity of nanoscopic organisms, compacted together into clumps of sleeping maroon. The first face of the stellar mass shone sapphire, assaulting the ice with repeated thunderbolts, gradually penetrating deeper and deeper through the stillness, several of them colliding and repulsing each other, which lead to seismic tremors and a full scale collapse of the glacier.

The crimson face rotated into position, blowing noxious coronal mass onto the broken land, melting away the glaze, causing the ice to fragment more and more until the cracking became splashing and sloshing. More fire was coughed out, hitting the water like globs of molten snot, hissing its surface, evaporating the whole of the ocean into a cloud of scalding steam that only incensed the swelling fury.

Finally, the last face – a mass of platinum, wrapped in shadowy coronal loops turned to view the destruction, but unlike the others, it did not seek to add to the carnage. Instead, a spread of electrical bass thrummed through the sky and plume, followed by high-pitched bytes like fingers racing over a control board. From the depths, a pile of maroon, nanoscopic beings stacked atop each other, constructing a spire that assembled itself in an ascending path toward the star, puncturing it at the point of high noon, and emitted an explosive revving sound, like a chainsaw cord that had been pulled by the hands of a giant.

A nuclear pulse shot pain, agony, and despair into the star, inducing a critical fission reaction that led to structural failure, and ultimately a break in the psyche. The three faces split, the spire's peaks branching out in equivalent directions, their tips expanding into hooks which secreted an amber substance, crystallizing along the arms and snagging the three stars in place. Originally, the crystalline material had been used to produce gaps in genome sequences, wherein new coding could be inserted to act as adhesive to bond foreign strands together – in this soulscape it held a metaphoric function, an abstraction of physical reality reverse engineered into spiritual glue. The strange matter branched upwards, surrounding the stars, and holding them in place, roots feeding on their mass, drinking an infinitesimal, but nonetheless sufficient to ensure their continued stability.

In the aftermath of this controlled mayhem, three draconic drones emerged from the clouds, each bearing a tricloptic set of enlarged eyes, all projecting bright spotlights of colors corresponding to the division of once singular radiant mass, whose ghost was a small, transparent sphere. An indefinite surveillance period was enacted, manifesting as constant orbiting rotations, made all the more necessary by the jagged rifts in the east and west of this domain, through which stellar mass was slowly sucked through…

–

Gray clouds, as dark as the perpetual midnight enshrouding Aeternus swirled into a descending vortex, its tail grazing the edges of a six-story red and white pagoda. Its pull tore half the floor off, and with it several prospective targets of jikininki, their victims falling to the streets in heaps of broken bones and shattered skulls. Ordering the oni guards to investigate the commotion, several units of red and blue-skinned demons brandished iron kanabo clubs and leaped into the tornado to bludgeon the intruder into submission.

On ground level, flanked by rows of gargoyles leaping from their perches, the tornado fizzled out just as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the massive metal dragon hovering in place, the jagged crimson and sapphire scars running from tricep to the mid-section of his forearms flashing a silent blare of spiritual alarm. A few of the stone demons charged Taluge, only for the beast to suddenly spin himself, accompanied by a loud revving sound shaking the glass of gambling window as thousands of micro-blades along his tail harmonized a counter-frequency to their brimstone flesh, producing a sharp embering ring as they were bisected and fell to the streets in shattered chunks of scattered rock. A mad growl quickly turned into a shouting screech as a permeable field of maroon enveloped his form, the deafening cry echoing for miles, its shockwave thoroughly disrupting traffic as it made tires pop, lights flicker on and off, and made the heads of lesser demons burst like blood-filled balloons.

His metallic scales peeled off, hundreds of thousands of wires retracting out of a secondary black layer, eliciting a pained shriek as several gallons of acidic green blood were tossed in random directions. Streetlamps melted, the faces of gamblers and their dealers alike dissolved, doorways collapsing as a strange combination of havoc and excitement ensued as many assumed this to be the start of a demonic parade festival, though others were not so stupid as they fled the scene. By the time the onis hit the ground, a cloud of acidic mist had risen to greet them, their corroding bodies shredded apart as shards of cybernetic steel cut them apart in a whirlwind of ascending shrapnel.

The rising shrapnel menace was quick to reassemble itself, tearing chunks out of minkas, converting wood and paper into a platinum skeleton, that was layered with off-white flesh, and finished with a shadowy rendition of synthetic umbral metal, forming the scaled armor of a distinctly bipedal form that was twenty-four feet tall, and quite broad. Yellow plasma emissions kept Tage aloft, scarlett optical units situated between serrated eyelids darting to and fro and search of a safe place to take perch as the second stage of the demerging process initiated itself.

Settling atop a smoke stack puffing the cremated remains of souls used to restore Aeternus’ power, the Offspring observed the revealed form of Alucroas, his biomass dramatically reduced, excess biomass used to sustain his previous form dissolving a crater into the street. A seam spread along his back, jaws split open horizontally, revealing a second mouth connected to a blackened skull, its lengthy neck functioning as the musculature of a gruesome tongue that hissed a deep, meaty, brazen hiss as it threatened everyone and everything that could hear it. The muscles on his rear and fore inflated, flexing with violent determination as it appeared the one was in fact made of multiple fused pairs, tearing and stripping apart, ending as one rib-cage literally slid free from another, connected only by loosely hanging ligaments and sparking ligaments magnetizing themselves to their original bodies.

Flexing his arms inwards, the seam along Alucroas’ back split wider, like he was tearing a shirt, when in reality it was Zucroas – the first half of the abomination flinging both sides of his back and wings to either side like a torn blanket. Excess vertebrae, neck muscle situated within the split jaws deteriorated and fell, bone pairs separating as the body of the second bipedal component of the monstrous amalgam stood up for a moment and dropped back to all fours. His black skin gradually whitened, scales shrinking down to a size unnoticeable without the aid of microscopic instruments. The fast detachment of separating spines emitted a disturbing sound, vertebrae unzipping, muscle and all wetly stripped and peeled away from each other, with the bottom tail slapping the pavement like so many fools who had used suicide as a futile means of escape from their deals.

The creature that was now more or less standing atop Zucroas pathetically tried to leap as his muscles and bones pulled themselves together, giving the drake enough time for his back to seal itself shut. Somehow it was enough, the physiological and anatomical structures of the two solidifying neatly into place, with Zucroas already raising back up into a full-standing position, the slender, almost feline form of Aludon with his sharply pointed snout, blood-red eyes, and lengthy tail that ended in a sharply curved bone leaping off. Acting on pure whim, Aludon immediately sprinted off, carelessly, and quite recklessly crashing through the window of a lounge where a demoness was just relaxing for a drink. Neither malice, nor aggression characterized his statuesque stop in movement, genuine curiosity born from an inexperience in interacting with beings outside of his trio, and it was very apparent in his wide-eyed stare.

As Tage watched on, his only concern being the safety of his companions, he watched Zucroas with caution as already, the drake was tapping into their shared existential ley-lines, the scarlet aura coated in a thick energy solvent. He felt the flow of souls rushing through the dragon’s nearly pure-white body, the blue and red scars of the dead snapping and crackling in an emission of wrathful sound that almost sounded like knocking on wood, and breaking of bark. His jaw opened wide, tiny human hands compressing into a blue, plasmic light, screaming and wailing pouring from his mouth as he unleashed a beam of pure anguish in the form of a super-condensed stream of souls flowing out as lightning, and aimed at what little remained of the pagoda.

Icy Enmity: Battle in Oerelle's Halls - Alucroas vs Longinus

A faint blue light crackled and streaked across the frozen sky, appearing to shine ever brighter as its draconic source flew closer and closer to the strange architecture. Sensing his destination was near, lightning built at the back of his folding wings, and was compressed into a tight space that was infused with a soft, red underglow as the beast tilted into a vicious nosedive, all of the accumulated energy blasting out behind him in a purplish explosion of heat.

Moving at close to sub-sonic speeds, Zucroas blazed a burning trail through the forest, melting the snow off branches, vaporizing the ice along the ground, and leaving a linear steam plume behind as he zipped toward the thing that had aroused his spirit. The cold air was no hindrance to his sharply pointed snout – as a creature that was not of the natural world, as a dragon whose breath was made of the second strongest force in the universe, he could smell spiritual foulness like a hound sniffing the bloodtrail of a corpse that had been dragged into the woods, and the critters flowing through his blood ensured he felt the threat pulse through every cell in his body.

Such was the gift his new brother had given him.

Round eyes as deep as the ocean dilated wide to take in the palace, big, black pupils a stark contrast to his nearly pure white skin, with scales too smooth and flat to be seen without raising them. Twenty-foot wings folded downward like an umbrella to catch the wind, and a flexible tail, the latter swinging forward and the former opening up to slow him down just enough so that his momentum would land him on the vines. His long muscular arms reached out, the jagged crimson scar on his left, and the sapphire one on his right showing briefly as he used his claws to slice through the thorns in a violent, fast-paced ascent to the entrance, nostrils still flaring as the scent of danger intensified with each pull.

Growing ever more anxious, Zucroas wings flapped furiously, turning his scaling into aggressive leaps, viciously gouging plant flesh as he eagerly, violently rushed up to a massive horizontal split in the cliff-face. The ceiling was spaced a generous fifty feet from the floor, though narrowing considerably at the staircase leading up to the entrance. Zucroas threw himself over the edge, claws raking, and heels cracking the brittle ledge, his attention focused solely on the entrance that he instantly ran toward and up, even going so far as to grab the steps with his claws, and bounding his way into the atrium.

Upon finally making it in, the drake felt his spine tingle, muscles tense, like there was an entity trying its absolute best to fill him with dread and despair for having had the gall to step right into its jaws. What was Zucroas’ reaction to this? His claws on hands and feet alike clenched, neck craned and head swung, tail raised, and altogether at once, made all his joints crack, slammed his tail back down hard enough to break the ground he stood on. As his head finished its swing, Zucroas lurched forward, opened his mouth to a deadly width, and hissed a deep, nasty, meaty hiss, fangs and molars glistening with spilling drool, greeting the supernatural threat with vicious, primal savagery.

Icy Enmity: Battle in Oerelle's Halls - Alucroas vs Longinus

Whoops, wrong part to throw my post in