—----POV: Lunara Arcanis—----
Gasp
'How long was I out?'
My mind struggled to focus as a headache ripped through my skull. Fragments of memory began to come back to me as the haze faded. Looking to my left, I saw my maid staring back at me with a smile.
"Lira! It is good you are alright. We need to escape — that beast is not something we can hope to fight against."
A sense of relief washed over me seeing her. As I tried to reach out to her, I noticed something wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
"Lira? Why aren't you saying anything? What's… wrong… huh?"
Sitting up and fully turning to observe her, I began to notice what was wrong. It was her eyes. The eyes that were once filled with such mischief, such joy — were empty. Lifeless. My heart seized as my gaze drew to her lower body. And the sight made my heart stop.
"Y-Your legs… where a-are your legs?"
From her torso down, there was nothing. Nothing but her entrails and a pool of blood. My mind froze, confusion and terror squeezing any thoughts to nothingness. I couldn't understand… couldn't comprehend the sight before me.
The girl who had grown up beside me — who had become a sister to me, one of the guiding lights in my life, filling it with her laughter and joy — was… gone.
'She's dead..?'
'Huh? How could that be?'
'I lost her? I failed her?'
'But that's impossible… every step I take is calculated. I never make such blunders.'
"She must just be asleep… yes. Yes, I am sure that is it. She will jump up and surprise me like always if I just shake her awake!"
As the thoughts in my head began to spill from my lips, I slowly reached for her hand. Surely this is a joke — a minor disjointed reality due to my head injury. Just before I could reach her, her body disappeared. In its place, completely eviscerated earth opened up to a chasm I could not see the bottom of.
All that was left was her hand — soft and delicate, without a single blemish save for a small scar between her thumb and pointer finger, from a mistake I made when younger. The first miscalculation I had ever consciously made in my life.
It seemed to stare back at me mockingly. The last reminder of the first mistake I ever made — and the last mistake I made in choosing to stay and fight this beast. As I slowly turned my head to the carnage around me,
I saw the corpses of our group. Bodies of all the assembled cultivators strewn about. Severed heads and limbs dotted the landscape like some sort of sick art piece. And at the center of it all, the beast… no, the abomination that took my precious friend from me — was currently laying waste to what remained of our shoddy coalition.
As I stared blankly at the beast feasting on a pitiful man unfortunate enough to be caught, my mind blanked and my vision turned red.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
—-----POV: Vairon Aetherion—----
I have to admit, I miscalculated. This serpent was not like the normal beasts I knew. But for it to be so… perverse — that was something I was not prepared for at all.
'This insufferable rat refuses to die!'
There it is again, that wretched internal voice. Whenever I activate my Incarnate, it tends to have the nasty side effect of blowing my ego to unnecessary proportions the more power I use. It can be quite the hindrance in battle, but I have no choice.
"All this carnage, and not even a scratch to show for it…"
As I observed the field below me — or at least what was left of it — I noticed the unscathed black scales of the annoyance that plagued me.
Lifting my hands once again, the euphoria of the seemingly limitless power in my body hit my senses like a drug.
"Fall."
At my word, the nine rifts behind me once again summoned weapons of pure destruction. Weapons of all varieties catapulted from the rifts toward their target, blasting craters into the earth as they streamed toward their prey.
Dust and dirt rocketed through the air, obscuring my vision for a moment before jets of toxic poison sailed through the air at me. My armor glowed with a pulsing light as the airflow around me shifted and my body flashed away.
Compacting the wind around my legs, I launched myself through the cloud of dust as a sword formed in a newly formed rift beside me. Grabbing it, I twisted my body as a jet-black tail attempted to skewer me through the torso. With another burst of wind, I propelled myself even faster toward the serpent's body and brought my sword down with all my might.
CLANG!
The disorienting sound of metal clashing rang through the air. With a click of my tongue, I dodged another swipe and once again flashed into the air, summoning a hail of destruction.
As swords, glaives, and spears rained down like a hurricane of malice, the snake once again began to slither and slide out of their trajectory.
While I have some control over the weapons I create, I do not have enough mastery over my Incarnate to match its speed of movement. Turning to observe Kaelira, I saw no changes to the environment around her.
But expanding my senses in her direction left me momentarily shocked. As my spiritual sense approached the vicinity around her, I felt a sharp pain in my skull followed swiftly by a bone-deep chill. This momentary lapse in focus was enough to give my slippery opponent a deadly opening.
As my senses screamed at me once again, I quickly shifted my head to the side as a jet of high-pressure liquid poison ripped past my face.
"Idiot! Focus on keeping that bastard away from me — but don't go getting yourself killed in the process of doing it!"
"I know, I know! How much time do you need?"
"More than you would like to hear! I need to focus — you making stupid mistakes is not helping!"
I felt my eyes twitch once again hearing that crazy woman's words. The truth does, in fact, sting.
'Jeez woman, can't save me any face…'
"NO! NOW FOCUS!"
Stunned by her words, I couldn't help but mutter internally, 'Does this woman read minds?'
Shaking the stray thoughts away, I once again refocused my attention on the bastard trying to kill me. As my mind raced with different strategies to pulverize this annoying worm, I once again noticed the mocking gleam in its eyes.
'That… worm… DARES?! TEAR IT TO PIECES! EVISCERATE IT! FEED IT ITS OWN ENTRAILS!!'
As the arrogant voice in my head went on a murderous tirade, I struggled to maintain control of my emotions and took a deep breath — a battle I could tell I was quickly losing. Since I couldn't control my ego in this state, let's just go for broke!
"Kaelira!"
Though there was no response, I could tell she was listening.
"You've got five minutes! If you can't finish what you're doing in that time, we both die. I won't have the strength to protect you. Make every second count."
As if sensing something, the serpent went rigid before furiously dashing toward me in an attempt to stop what I was about to do. As a barbed tail shot toward me, I closed my eyes and reached deep within my soul to my Incarnate source. Time seemed to slow as my mind went dark.
Opening my eyes, I was greeted with the sight of a world of discarded weapons. The air reeked of blood, rust, and sorrow. I always hated this place. I could never understand how this could be my inner self — the desire for war and violence, to seek out more conflict. This could not be what I truly wished for.
Ignoring my wandering thoughts, I stepped forward through the field that carried the memory of the ghosts of war, before stopping in front of the figure standing at the center of the battlefield, floating atop a pool of viscous red blood. Turning around, an exact twin of myself stood tall. His white robes looked pristine, without the slightest stain or mark despite the pool of blood he stood above. His lustrous golden eyes carried an ancient arrogance and stared at me with bottomless disdain.
"So you've finally come… as always, you disgust me."
Offering no words in response, we stared at each other in silence for what felt like hours. Until I finally spoke.
"Well? Get on with it, arrogant prick."
A predatory smirk appeared on my doppelganger's face.
"All that fight over the years, what did it bring you? AHAHAHAHAHA!"
"REJOICE!"
"WEEP!"
"LET THE WORLD SING THE PRAISES OF I, ARDAMESH!!"