10/9 14:49 (Autumn, Night, Mysterious Island)
Sider continued on her travel, shattering the ground beneath her feet over and over again, following the flow of the Fake-Qi right to its origin, destroying a path right to it, scowling at the lack of any form of resistance once she passed the Kobolds.
Irritation that grew massively at the lack of any form of trap or ambush, her Earth-Attribute Druidry combined with her use of Terran Lightning to create a path for her, her other senses stretching to their limit in trying to find any traces of Monsters nearby and having a terrible feeling when she found none of them present despite all this time searching for any opponent.
Meanwhile a small but significant portion of her concentration was focused on the way that her latest opponent was taking advantage of its spatial distortions in battle, comparing it with her previous experiences with one of her Elders at the [Core Creation] Stage and quickly finding the differences.
Even ignoring the corruptive influences contained within the spatial distortion, the separation caused by the Fake-Qi and regular Qi itself was clear to her.
Maybe, even if it was unlikely in her opinion, it was only because of the Kobold's inexperience with it, but [Spatial Slash] launched using Fake-Qi was very similar to a large jagged blade, violently tearing away at the space itself, while instead one launched using Qi was a thin clean cut.
The Werewolf's mind additionally confirmed that a Fake-[Spatial Slash] was much more damaging to the enviroment, remembering the way that the Fake ones were slowly growing before into spatial distortions, thing that would never happen with a regular [Spatial Slash] without explicitly desiring to.
Sider continued on, scowling even harder once she judged how, thanks to the presence of Vital Energy, a [Spatial Slash] was relatively easy to deal with, being relegated mostly on shattering defenses or Magic Circles, her pride as a Cultivator being wounded by the fact that a knock-off surpassed the original in any possible way.
She shook her head once more, continuing on her way to deep beneath the layers and layers of the slowly hardening rock beneath her, leading her on towards the area the Fake-Qi originated from, a place in which she was more than certain that her last of the challenges within this island waited for her, her Qi Sense finding a brief trace of a Fake-Monster that vanished before she could track even their approximate location.
Challenge that she at last met as, with her last push against an especially tough layer of stone, she fell down and easily landing on her feet, her gaze already meeting her opponent's own orbs.
The one before her could only make her smile with a strange sense of amusement, a roar literally shaking the space within the makeshift arena, as demonstrated by the strain she was able to sense with her Qi Sense in the fabric of space-time around her.
Sider stepped forward, her gaze carefully examinating her opponent, four long limbs cracking the ground beneath its massive body, dull black scales accentuating its great yet thin body, twin wings opening wide, a long tail falling down on the ground with an immense weight, six bright purple eyes glowing in its face and illuminating a long pair of deer-like black horns erupting from the pale scales covering the upper half of its head, rib-like spurts of bones protecting weaker parts of its body and finally thick, short fur around its back.
The Werewolf's last obstacle roared again, space fraying slightly at the sound, leaning up on its very long frontal limbs and turning its full attention to her, the one that she easily understood to be a Drake, its own existence obvious thanks to the former presence of Kobolds in this island and judging from its elongated limbs, relatively thin shape and the bone-like armor covering its limbs and encircling its torso, she was almost certain it was a Monster that Evolved into a Drake, even if she was uncertain about its origin.
The battle started immediately, the Drake swinging once with one of its frontal paws, space immediately rupturing in the place Sider was just in, severing the wall of stone she rose in her place to more easily examine the result of its strike and the way it weaponized its spatial distortions, confirming that while it was at the [Core Creation] Stage, it was in the Fourth Step.
The Monster before her was without a doubt not an altered, or as she defined them Fake, one but instead a natural one that somehow learned how to Cultivate using the Fake-Qi all around them, the black-haired one mused to herself before jumping back, dodging a spatial distortion that suddently sheared the space she was just in.
Sider's black eyes quickly met with the purple ones of her opponent, immediately finding its mouth opening wide to release another spatial distortion together with its breath, the Werewolf moving left before sending forward a Terran Lightning bolt, closely following behind her own strike.
Her erratic attack quickly crossed the distance to the Drake only for the Monster to answer immediately by beating its clawed wings once, the fabric of space before it distorting to neutralize her attack before it roared, its second spatial disruption able to paradoxically repair most of the damage it brought into reality immediately, leaving behind just a temporary fraying of the space it just distorted.
The black-haired one stopped herself by stomping down hard, the ground rising up around her feet to ground her in place before she jumped, dodging the arm that tried to grab her while at the same time launching a spear of Terran Lightning to try and impale the scaled limb.
Tentative that failed as its body was enveloped in a thin, membrane-like barrier generated by its scales, reducing what would have been an impalament to merely an hole within part of its frontal left limb, far from enough to debilitate it or even slow it down and more than enough as a reason for the Monster to open its mouth and roar out, a translucent, purple wave forming an enormous circle around its body, a False Domain that covered the room completely, including the Cultivator's own body.
Sider widened her eyes, her stamina slowly starting to be drained and in so doing allowing her to guess with an high probability of accuracy by this move alone that it was a Wendigo that became the Drake before her, a fact that caused her to frown even harder in disgust, well aware that Wendigos are Monsters that do not appear in Dungeons nor can they reproduce at all, being completely sterile.
Instead even only being complicit in the creation of such Monsters was considered a crime worthy of immediate execution and whose accusation alone requiring the immediate viewing of all the memories of the accused to make certain it was false by at least ten different individuals unrelated to both the accuser and accused.
That was only natural as a Wendigo is born from the twisting of a Person into a living curse of starvation against all other living Beings, a mindless agent of destruction that she found before her own eyes now Evolved into a Drake.
The Cultivator growled in displeasure, noticing how while looking at her wih the Wendigo's common hatred towards all living beings, it was behaving way too calmly for something that should have been in a constant state of starvation, leading her to understand how either its Evolution or its status as a Cultivator was the reason behind it.
This thought then led her to her, in her opinion perfectly justifed, reaction to the Monster's own very existence, especially considering how it was trying to feed off of her, impaling her hands in the ground and causing it to erupt violently, spikes rising up intent on skewering the former Wendigo.
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10/9 15:04 (Autumn, Night, Unknown Dungeon)
The one that had created and altered numerous Dungeons across the last year watched carefully multiple screems floating screens showing images from very different Dungeons, one of them showing a very strong Party quickly and efficiently dispatching one of their Dungeon, one of their favorite Parties to observe, a second showing a recording of that Vampire-like one, a third monitoring the Cultivator that was their subordinate and the giant golden cocoon that would be their Gu, and various smaller screens floating around their temporary body and showing a number of other Dungeons, whether they were currently being explored or not.
Still, most of their attention was actually concentrated on their more central screen, showing the battle between the Cultivator and their Drake, reminiscing of their luck in finding and then leading it while it was still but a newborn Wendigo down towards the island they experimented with reproducing Qi in and feeding enough of their experiments down its gullet that it started to sate itself little by little by using the Qi around it.
Another screen briefly appeared, showing the data that they were able to understand by studying its biology, satisfied by the information gained on the Wendigo, Qi and Cultivation as a process before finally turning their attention to the three presences they led to their physical form, their gaze calmly passing over the three Dragonoids kneeling to them before concentrating on a pair of arms currently being offered, a pair of strong, bronze arms, previously belonging to a certain Werewolf currently on their screen.
"Excellent job." A thousand voices congratulated at once from all over the room except for the body in question, a couple of drone-like Monsters appearing to take the limbs in question. "It's a shame losing the island but if the Leviathan sent someone like that, it seems obvious that whether the Drake wins or loses, it intend on destroying it itself and I cannot remove the Malice Core from it. I already prepared a different habitat for your Master if it survives." They calmly reassured, already starting to study the limbs they just recieved.
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10/10 13:04 (Autumn, Night, Midrar, Base)
Luna left their gym satisfied, currently wearing only a simple black sleeveless shirt that left her abdomen bare and short black pants that ended above her knees, their color contrasting immensely with the Lunarian's incredibly pale skintone and showing off her muscles for all to see, in this case the privilege being reserved to her Mates alone.
"Where did your friends go, little sparkle?" She calmly asked her Human, her eyes closed as she yawned, stretching slightly before opening her eyes again once she heard no response, wondering about the silence after her answer.
Her lips twisted upwards, her gaze holding a mix of amusement and sadistic glee at seeing the identical reactions of her two Mates, their eyes wide open, their faces burning bright red and mouths opened.
"I could just eat you two up. You react so adorably even with having already seen me wearing nothing at all." She commented calmly, enjoying immensely both their attention and emotions now that she was activally paying attention to them throught their Mark, moving towards them and taking advantage of their stunned state, pulling them in a brief but searing kiss before sitting down again, returning to analyze the information they already knew about the location of their next battle, waiting for Sabel and Amber to return to full awareness, Mafel following behind shortly and, while enjoying the spectacle before her, still remaining fully functional and proud of herself for it.
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