Beastforged Bond

Gliding through the air was as blissful as I remembered. The air high up in the sky was cold and unforgiving, made worse by our traveling speed, but thick layers of ether covering my skin repelled the worst of it. Nothing, not even a Spawn rampaging across the land below, could tarnish that experience.

Sitting atop the Earthheart’s wide back, it was hard to see what was unfolding down below. Hence, I stood up, leaning into my bond with Aureus to shift around whenever he moved, and walked over to peek over his neck.

As Dracos unfolded in its full glory, I couldn’t help but smile. The city-state was enormous, and even that felt like too weak a word. It was easily as wide and long as the Bastions combined.

The Grand Hall rose high into the sky, piercing the clouds up ahead, reminding me of all the portals. Surely, one of them led to the outskirts, closer to the Spawns’ whereabouts.

Don’t replace me with a portal.

Aureus joked, lowering the gravity weighing on us once more, his dragonfly wings flapping with tremendous power.

The Earthheart accelerated, ether surging through his body. He was happy to be free and back in the sky, yet something about him was different. It didn’t strike me as a problem, however. There was an odd feeling about Aureus, almost like a need to fly faster and faster and reach the Spawn as quickly as possible.

“Are you fine?” I shouted against the wind, but my words never reached my Soulkin. Fortunately, words weren’t needed between us as the bond conveyed everything I needed to know.

Our soulshare burned vibrantly, and I accessed it curiously.

You feel like you have to eliminate the Spawn as quickly as possible because… you owe it to the earth? My eyes narrowed as I reasoned through the myriad of emotions and images moving erratically through the bond.

The Spawns have to be removed. As quickly as possible.

Aureus rumbled in agreement.

I agreed with that. Of course I did. However, there was an urgency rooted deep inside the Earthheart that I hadn’t sensed before.

I think so as well! We have to get rid of the Spawns quickly! Hurry, hurry!

Sapsie squealed with similar urgency. Then again, her reasoning was similar, but not quite the same. She merely wanted us to hasten up and kill as many Spawns as possible to grow strong enough to free her mother from the fragmented dimension her siblings had sealed her in.

Pushing their urgency aside, I focused on Sapsie’s Soulfusion. Lifesight was still active, showing the absence of life and ether in the distance. It didn’t appear all that worrisome from far away, but past experiences with the Spawns made it clear just how dangerous they could become if left unattended.

Flying across Dracos at the top speed of the Guardian-ranked Earthheart, we left the city-state within minutes. We crossed several districts that appeared quite interesting, but my attention shifted from Dracos toward the expansive plains and farmland stretching as far as I could see.

A myriad of plants grew across the massive patches of farmland. There was a blue field the size of the Bastions’ main sector to my left, while a crimson patch of flowers overflowing with life stretched to my right. Ahead were countless trees growing fruits I’d only seen in the market before, yet it was the cruiser-sized Ox pulling a plough thrice its size across a field beyond the fruit trees that made my hair stand up on end. A stretch of nothingness tore straight through the overturned land, heading toward the Ox and the elderly man seated atop it.

Neither beast nor man seemed to notice anything as the life and ether between them and the nothingness were consumed.

A tear in the distance caught my attention. Whether that was because of Cosmo’s spatial affinity or not, I couldn’t quite tell, but Sapsie shuddered and dissolved the Soulfusion. She retreated violently shaking into the World, while Aureus let out a deep growl.

Nothingness seemed to ripple out of the tear in space, yet it was the creature creating the straight stretch of void that posed a far greater danger than whatever threat the tear itself carried.

The creature was still a few hundred meters away from its target, and I was still several kilometers away from either, but my mind churned as I realized I wouldn’t make it in time.

The Spawn was bipedal and had two bladed arms not unlike those of the Ferronox Mantis. Its body, as wide as it was tall, rumbled across the overturned soil, a pair of minotaur-like legs bulging with heavy muscles carrying it swiftly toward its target. Its hooves disappeared deep into the soil beneath its immense weight, yet that didn’t hinder the display of speed and agility.

This story has been stolen from NovelPhoenix. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Pumping ether into my eyes and activating Predator rather than maintaining Lifesight, time around me slowed. It was merely my perception accelerating, analyzing everything down to the finest detail, but that was all I needed. In a moment, the situation unfolding before me was as clear as day. So was the Spawn’s power.

It had a dense body, firm muscles covering it entirely. No matter how I looked at it, the Spawn was a machine of destruction. Not that I expected anything else, but the weight of that realization pressed down on me.

Nullblade. Predator. Fusion!

Nox hissed, his bloodlust leaking through the bond. It was so potent it almost seemed to ooze from the World itself. I didn’t know that was possible, but I felt it all the same.

The Spawn accelerated, its hooves pressing deep into the ground as it rocketed forward. The Ox, sensing the danger, let out a sound that traveled across the farmland. It lowered its head, ready to protect its Blessed, who leaped up with his face drained of blood. I couldn’t see the man from behind, but I sensed his fear.

There was no time to waste, no thoughts to think. Channeling ether into my body, I kicked off Aureus’ back and leaped away. While still far from the beast and the Spawn, it was either now or both beast and man would die.

Reaching for my traits, I triggered Blink several times in quick succession. Using the trait thrice in a row to cross as much distance as possible drastically closed the gap between me and the man and beast, yet it also churned through my core’s reserves far too quickly. Be that as it may, more ether poured out of the core as Tessa’s Inflict Fear billowed out from deep within me.

Yet the Spawn didn’t stop moving. It closed the gap to its targets, ignoring the Horror Tessar’s effect completely.

Too far still. I cursed, readying my other traits. At the same time, the heads of goats, serpents, and creatures—possibly even Outsiders—I had never seen before protruded from the Spawn’s wide chest. Their lifeless eyes swiveled in my direction, staring straight at me in glee… as if they knew.

I channeled another Blink alongside Illusion while also preparing to overclock Paralyze once the Spawn was no longer too far away, but it was to no avail.

Blink carried me through the air, the distortion in space rippling around me, screaming at me. I wanted to reach the beast and man, but it was not fated to be. I was too slow and could only watch as the Spawn’s bladed arm carved through the Ox. Several heads were still aimed at me, their lips curling into victorious smiles as a glob of acid whistled through the air. It wasn’t aimed at me, but at the unfortunate man. The Blessed raised his arms, but the acid melted through them in several heartbeats. A moment later, the next glob came flying, melting the Blessed’s face and silencing his pained scream.

The man died quickly, yet he watched and certainly felt the death of his Soulkin first. It was dead in an instant.

My heart broke at the sight unfolding before me, and it only grew worse when the Spawn expanded. It erupted, its chest splitting wide open and revealing a mess of black, crooked teeth. The Spawn was… a massive maw? That made me freeze for a moment, which was all the Spawn needed to crunch down on the Ox and swallow it whole.

Its body expanded further for a moment before shrinking back down, its chest and abdomen knitting themselves back together—though only after a black tongue whipped out of the maw and pulled the Blessed’s melting corpse inside as well.

“Oh shit.” Goosebumps spread down my spine and arms, and I nearly lost control of my ether for a moment.

Fight!

Nox hissed, the mixture of bloodlust and killing intent he emitted burning away the disgust and guilt tearing at me.

Doubling down, I fused with the Ferronox Mantis. Excitement reverberated throughout me, only to be toppled by sheer battlelust.

One moment, I stood there, and the next, I teleported to the Spawn’s side, a set of appendages jutting from my lower back. The arms resembled the armor of a slender knight, covered in overlapping plates of black metal. Connected to them were a pair of familiar scythes that lunged at the Spawn that very instant.

A coat carrying the grayish sheen of Nullblade mantled the scythes as they carved across the Spawn’s arm and neck, severing the former and nearly doing the same to the latter with little resistance.

But as the Nullblade-enhanced blades carved through the opponent, green blood gushed forth. A familiar sizzling sound echoed in my ears, and I glanced down to see Nullblade’s sheen fading away. The scythes beneath it had already begun to melt. Removing the acidic blood with a burst of ether, I cursed, only to look back and see the Spawn knitting its severed arm back together.

As young as the Spawn likely was—it didn’t have as many faces as the other Spawns—it was far from weak. It was troublesome, so I called upon the white flames of my Insignia to burn it to cinders before the fight could further devolve. Or… I tried to.

The flames didn’t manifest, but that was only natural. I no longer wielded flames. As for the Insignia’s mark on my chest, it was no longer a flame either. I hadn’t paid much attention to its changes, but it had turned and twisted, transforming into a chaotic mass that vaguely resembled a white sphere.

The mark on my chest had changed into a sphere, and I knew that. Or rather, I should have known.

How did I forget about that? I cursed myself before reaching toward the Insignia’s source etched within the core.

While the Insignia was still weakened and nowhere near as powerful as it had been when wielded alongside Volix’s phoenix fire, it still heeded my command. It remained within me and, upon calling it forth, manifested as a shapeless white glow between my palms.

Power unlike anything Essence or ether could produce radiated from the glow, no matter how subdued and weak it appeared.

The Spawn’s heads flicked toward the shapeless glow simultaneously, the victorious and ridiculing smiles wiped clean off their grotesque faces.

They didn’t even notice Aureus until his roar echoed through the vicinity. A moment later, a shadow spread across the upturned field, and an Earthheart the size of a dragon crash-landed on top of the Spawn, Gravity Aspect unleashed to the maximum.