Chương 83: 145- The Birth Of A Colossus

145 Slev Richter- Hope's End Slev backed away from the apex predator pulled from an age long past as fast as he could. He was doing his damndest to pull Cedric along with him by his one remaining arm, but the big bastard was heavy, especially in his armor, and Slev was only getting half a stride of progress per heave. Abernathy was still slowly tracing his unnaturally smooth moving head side to side, noting the individual location of every unfortunate soul that had laid eyes on him.

Gaius raised his blade in front of his face, preparing to charge. Multiple silhouettes of himself formed behind him, matching his stance, weapons held at different angles. He froze as Abernathy's visage snapped back to him. It was disconcertingly calm, except for a palpable excitement in his eyes. Like he finally had reason to let loose a part of him that was hiding beneath the veneer of civility for too long. His voice crept out suddenly along with a pulse of power that made everyone's eyes snap to him.

"Where are my missing neighbors?" Gaius answered without even realizing it.

"North, God's Respite, held with the others…wait…you foul undead abomination! Stay out of my mind!" Gaius crashed forward, leaping into a colossal strike. The ground cratered in fire and a spray of molten stone as he cast a smite, his echoes following in his shadow, each crashing down after him with explosions of their own. Gaius whipped himself around, looking for his foe. Abernathy's voice crept out from behind him completely unharmed.

"See… there it is again. You think you know what I am…" Abernathy locked his eyes onto a warrior of Rembrandt on a distant rooftop aiming a bow towards him. He slowly extended his hand with a fond smile in the man's direction. The man froze, unable to move, eyes going wild in fear, then Abernathy twisted his hand slowly. The distant archer crumpled inwards like a piece of parchment bunched up in a fist.

The breaking of bones and wet pop of organs was audible even over the other sounds of battle and the distant violin. The man's crumpled body hovered a stride in the air, his lifeblood languidly swimming around him in rivers. Abernathy let out a sigh and closed his eyes contentedly as the essence washed into him.

"Vampires… as you know them are the failed experiments of wizards and alchemists from an age long past using curses and foul concoctions to try and recreate just a fraction of what I am." Abernathy twisted his head like an owl to look at Gaius, and then his hand pulsed with mana. The man's remains in the distance twisted into a roiling ball of bone and flesh, bits of arrow and cloth dancing across its surface before falling to the rooftop.

Then it broke apart into eight thick, intricately carved spears of blood, each shifting and undulating as it warred with itself to turn liquid again. Gaius's eyes went wide as Abernathy continued.

"First there were the dragons, beasts of elemental power and supremacy. Things of such unfathomable might that their very presence was a cataclysm to the lesser races made to keep them in their place groveling in the dirt." Gaius found himself locked into place by Abernathy's eyes; he strained and pulled, but his body wouldn't obey him. The bloody spears in the distance arced upward into the night sky. Disappearing briefly from sight.

"Then as the lesser races grew too numerous, too bold, too… civilized… One god decided to make something dark, something that could end civilizations, something that would force them to adapt or die. He made us..." The last word hissed from Abernathy's lips. A screaming sound came from high above building to a whistling howl as streaks of red descended all across the battlefield. Each struck through the top of one of the warriors of Rembrand in sight.

Piercing fully through their bodies and mooring them like pigs on a spit, instantly ending a half dozen scattered conflicts. Abernathy's voice grew more feral, more inhuman, with every word he spoke as he fully turned his attention to Gaius.

"I have drunk villages, towns, countries…and yet none of it ever quenched me. You have come to my home, the first place I have found an iota of peace in nearly four centuries. You thought you could win?!" His voice had become a completely inhuman roar at this point.

"You thought in your hubris and pride you would take this from me!? None of you will even leave this place!" Abernathy flashed forward in an unnerving display of unnatural fluidity. He brought his foot crashing down on top of Gaius's, pinning it in place with the sound of bending metal and breaking bones. Both his hands lunged forward around Gaius's throat, and he heaved backwards. Gaius's head and spine ripped free from the rest of him in an unholy shower of blood.

Abernathy stood there, heaving desperate, ragged breaths, trying to control himself. The paladin commander's head was still hanging from his claws, trailing across the ground as he turned towards Cedric and Slev. Slev was trying his best to not pass out; he was so far beyond scared he wasn't sure how he hadn't pissed himself. He knew he was signing up with monsters being on Vrax's side… but not like this. Cedric was mumbling curses to himself. Something about praying Abernathy can keep his shit together.

Abernathy slowly straightened himself, wiping down his now ruined robes with one hand and adopting an almost apologetic expression.

"Ahh, well, I'm terribly sorry I lost myself for a moment there. I'll leave the rest of this to you before anyone else sees me and this escalates further." Without another word, he set the skull down on the lawn and made his way calmly back to his house, making sure to shut and bolt the door behind him. Cedric let out a long sigh.

"Whoa, okay, that was almost really bad…" Slev sputtered, dropping Cedric and waving his arms frantically.

"Almost?! How was that almost bad?! He…he pulled a guy apart then used his corpse to kill everyone in sight. Then did that!!" Slev pointed at a warrior of Rembrandt hanging loosely on a spear nearby and then at the savaged remains of Gaius.

"Yeah, he could have kept going…" Credric said flatly, "There are more than a few orders dedicated to exterminating his kind, that's not something we need to deal with." Slev looked skyward, briefly questioning all his life choices from class selection until now, and then just shook his head. Cedric looked at him appraisingly.

"Go help Gregory; I'll live, and William will be able to hobble his ass over soon with another potion."

"I heard that!" Echoed from slightly up the street, where William was slowly starting to shuffle a bit faster as the potion did its job.

"How can I? I'm not a warrior! That would be suicide, there are still second-tier paladins running around!" Slev protested. Cedric's face took on a serious tinge, and he lashed out with his one arm, pulling Slev close even with his serious injuries.

"You're a sanctuary breaker, right?"

"Yes," Slev answered meekly.

"Great, pick the most problematic fucker you can find and go scramble his soul." Cedric roughly shoved Slev toward the sounds of battle and worked on rolling his way to his knees now that his own potion was starting to knit him back together. Slev dragged one foot. In front of the other, trying to think of the easiest way to get out of his new allies' sight while looking like he is rushing to join the battle. He needed to find a new hiding spot, but none were available.

He cursed colorfully and shuffled down the main street to where Gregory and a handful of battered townsfolk were still engaged in a grueling battle with holy warriors. Gregory was dancing around a lithe-looking paladin wielding an abnormally thin greatsword. Gregory was leaking from a half dozen stab wounds. His sword was shattered, so he just had its metal fragments whirring in the air over his shoulder.

He kept the skillful paladin at bay by flinging shields or blades from the street at him with devastating force every time the paladin screeched forward with a brutal-looking lunging skill. Slev took a deep breath and shuffled forward a bit more. A warrior of Rembrandt saw him and charged straight towards him.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Slev looked for somewhere nearby to hide. The cobblestones behind the charging warrior rippled with grass peeking through them. Then they erupted outwards as a vile creature burst from the ground. It glowed fiercely with Vrax's distinctive green. Bladed claws punched through the warrior's back, and the beast wormed its way back underground, dragging the flailing warrior with it. Slev stared blankly for a moment at the blood-smeared spot of exposed dirt in the center of the street.

"I'm going to fucking die here…" Vraxious- Hope's End Vrax's eyes shimmered with the piercing emerald light reflecting off them from his ritual. His hands were extended above himself as if he were reaching for his creation. Lightning-like cracks of mana shot from his fingertips with each change he enacted with [Adapt Life]. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Grafting the Devourer and the Razor Retriever hive had gone off seamlessly; he had started with a glorious fluffy abomination and ende up with an even more glorious fluffy abomination. It, of course, took most of its physical cues from the adapted form of the devourer. It had worked far better than he had hoped; the hive had taken advantage of the dimensional pocket within the devourer not being limited by normal things like physical mass or space.

The devourer had dozens of holes now marring its fluffy exterior, each leading straight to a pocket dimension. The retrievers that came from these holes had ended up looking more like miniature devourers with tentacles strewn randomly across their bottom half than the strange, fleshy, octopus-like creatures they were before. But that was just Vrax's starting point.

From there he had enlarged The Devourer further and further until the mighty creature bobbed in the air just above him, its orb-shaped body nearly filling the market square and its top cresting above the second-story roofs. We are just getting started... I can feel the power in the ritual... I haven't even used half of it. Vrax delved into the beast with Adapt Life, strengthening the talent that warped space, making the inside pocket dimension even larger.

Then he added a series of man sized pulsing organs withing the dimensional space, each with a simple purpose. To create more devourers. This monster would birth more the more it consumed. Then he shifted his focus to its feeding methods. The feeding tubes tipped with needlelike ends and filled with whirring filaments were now the thickness of a man's torso with tips that rivaled ballistae. It had ten of them hidden under its folded-closed face, but that wasn't nearly enough.

Vrax began muttering to himself gleefully as he gave the devourer more ways to snatch its prey. He put more feeding tendrils inside its dimensional space; it had dozens of little portals thanks to the graft, there was no reason not to. The retrievers and the tentacles could just fight over who was using what exit. Then he started in on making a new kind of weapon to fit inside the dimensional space; there was no reason to limit it to just retrievers and feeders with all the room he had now.

Hmm, we have fluffy retrievers that go from kind of adorable to horrible when they unfold like Papa. Plenty of tendrils to writhe all around and stab at things nearby. And of course it still has enough spare parts to keep on fighting if someone somehow manages to actually tear it up. What it needs… Hmm, what does it need… ranged options and that… special factor? Vrax paused for a moment, thinking about how he could efficiently add a ranged weapon to the colossal devourer.

Naturally it wasn't inclined towards any elements, so giving it the power to shoot fireballs or spires of ice was probably inefficient. What It did have was a disturbingly intrinsic connection with blood. So much so that all its behaviors altered when in the presence of it. Blood magic would be just a bit too… I don't want to say boring… but I think I would say boring... wait… Oh, that's awful. Let's try that…

Vrax started first at the very beast's blood, thickening it and strengthening the heart and vascular system to support it. It would have the side effect of making the abomination even harder to kill. Then he added a little surprise to the Devourer's blood. He made it so that on contact with air it would clot much faster than normal, acting almost as a glue to trap foes coated in it. But that wasn't the surprise he was looking forward to; no, that was the delivery mechanism.

He already had retrievers naturally within the beast attached by razor-sharp umbilicals, so he just miniaturized them back down to the size of a man's thumb and changed the umbilicals so they could subsist straight on the beast's blood no need for quite such a tethered existence. A few hundred small spawning pods within the beast's heart later, each and every pulse sent hundreds, then thousands, of the blood retrievers coursing through its veins.

Vrax made sure to adapt them to work much better as individual swarming attackers. He gave them small round bodies, each with a tiny glowing mark of Vurune branded into the flesh of their foreheads, set above innumerable malevolent little eyes. Below the eyes a leechlike mouth with inward curving teeth was set. He set the devourer's normal feeding tendrils inside the mouth so once it clamped on, it could still suck its victims dry of blood and pierce defenses with the filaments.

The last touch to the blood retriever was simple impossibly sharp hooked barbs on the bottom of six long spindly legs, giving it brutal climbing abilities when it skittered across the prey. It looked like an insane, deranged mix between a nightmare spider, a leech, and an adapted devourer. That… ho boy… I'm definitely going to give people nightmares with those... Alright, now I need a way for it to spray its blood at folks other than just getting stabbed. Well, I mean…

Vrax looked at the dozens of holes across its body leading to the dimensional storage. He quickly added simple organs that would lead straight from the endless storage inside and attached them to its vast spare parts reserves. Then he added one to each of the creatures' eyes like a tear duct. Except instead of tears, it shot semisolid blood that would stick to people like tar and carried thousands of teeming horrors. Well…

no one is going to try and occupy Hope's End after this if they have half a brain and a working survival instinct. Vrax looked up at the behemoth above him; it still looked cute on the outside, fluffy tufts of piercingly green fur waved gently in the wind, and the beast let out light, curious coos that rumbled his bones. It could feel itself becoming more and want to stretch its face and try out its new capacity. Vrax could feel the ritual winding down; he had enough time and mana for one final change.

It needs to be something special… Something that would make even warriors with the potential to kill my colossus just decide it's not worth dealing with. Vrax got the kind of smile that made anyone who knew him tremble in concern and looked back up towards his newest creation.

"Hey buddy, let's make sure you always have some friends around! Even more than just the normal devourers you spit out." He adapted a single massive glowing mark of Vurune across its forehead between its cute outside eyes and then another even brighter one inside above the real collection of spiderlike eyes so it sort of matched the retrievers in its blood. Then he used the last whipping winds of power around himself to grant the Colossus a new talent. A way to make it so that even if you won fighting it.

You didn't really win. The ritual swept upwards, the last traces pouring into the colossus. The market suddenly went silent, even Edwards' song trailed off as the Colossus began to experiment with its new form. [Talent Granted] [Curse Of The Hunted] Any entity that has blood drawn by the colossus in the service of its duties receives the curse of the Hunted. All adapted entities and creatures aligned with Vurune are vastly more hostile towards you and can sense your location if you are within twenty leagues.

This effect lasts until the cursed, or Vurune, is slain. Hah! Even if my ass were a smouldering pile of guts after getting smited. If you have that fucking curse on you, you are absolutely buggered anywhere near the forsaken lands. And the only way to lift it is to casually kill a god… Man I love the kingdom effects. I can't wait to see what I can do with a few years' worth of kingdom essence. The single colossus was a boon beyond measure…

Vrax raised his arms up and shouted out to the townsfolk and invaders, "Hey everyone, I want you to meet Fluffy!" A voice filled with incredulous frustration echoed from a rooftop a street over.

"Are you fucking kidding me, you monster-hugging lunatic? Fluffy, really? If I get killed by something named Fluffy, I'm haunting your ass!" Feldwin complained. Martha's beleaguered voice came out in short gasps from up the alley where she was still trying to solo fight three paladins and their minions.

"Fuck it! Come here, fluffy! Spspspppsppspsp, Auntie Martha needs a hand!" Vrax rocked back on his heels as Fluffy slowly started floating towards the bloodshed in Martha's street. It let out a bellowing coo that quickly turned into a rumbling gurgle as its face folded open. It was as horrifying as it was impressive; the sheer wind put off by the simple act buffeted Vrax again. Retrievers began floating out of the myriad of holes around Fluffy.

They were wretched things devourers with thick-bladed umbilicals trailing behind them and octopus-like tentacles jutting unevenly across their undersides. They peeled open in synch with fluffy. Suddenly dozens of gurgles and coos echoed unnaturally through the streets as Fluffy and his hive began their charge. An archer of Rembrandt hiding on a rooftop quickly raised his bow towards the beast as it passed. A geyser of blood shot from one of the dimensional holes, knocking the bow from his hands.

He looked on in horror as the blood began to solidify and hundreds of vile shapes skittered across him, latching on and beginning to feed. His screams were short-lived. He tried to leap from the rooftop, but the tacky blood solidified just enough to leave him dangling by a single foot, being eaten alive bite by bite. His suffering was ended definitively as a retriever careened into him, its tendril already whirring. And following close behind it was one of Fluffy's feeding tendrils.

It hit the archer with such force and violence that the top floor of the building he was on caved in as he was simply bisected. Vrax looked on in both pride and concern. As Feldwin cursed up a storm in the distance.

"That was my goddamn attic, you fuzzy asshole! Goddammit Vrax!" Vrax ignored Feldwin for the moment; he wanted to see how this played out. Fluffy was barreling towards the largest concentration of enemies still in hope's end. Cormag- The Forsaken Lands Cormag painfully scrabbled his way up the last stride of the half-crumbled tower he and Arthur were climbing for a vantage point; they had been wandering in a damn circle for a full day now as far as either of them could tell.

In the last hour, though, the sounds of battle had rung from far away, at least letting them know the general direction of people. Cormag looked at Arthur, who was rubbing his brow in disbelief at the top of the rickety tower.

"Still nothing? It is night; we could wait for the morning." Cormag tried as he clambered next to Arthur and looked out over the tops of the trees. Arthur didn't respond, still staring into the distance. Cormag followed his gaze in confusion and then saw it. A beast of evil and malice rising above a distant town's walls, its bellowing suddenly buffeting him. By all the divines, someone summoned an ancient evil to fight the paladin with. Cormag looked at Arthur gravely.

"Will the paladin be able to handle that? I truly need his guidance, but I am not sure if we would arrive in time to aid him." Arthur let out a long sigh.

"You know how I said it would be easier for you to meet the paladin than for me to try and explain him to you…well, based on the glowing green and the fact I'm certain I heard someone shouting 'Fluffy,' that's probably his newest pet…" Hmmm…. I may want to rethink my approach to this man…someone like this could be vying against Chronos in a way similar to how I did.. its bold…to claim one of his cities like this. Arthur mistook his silence for disbelief.

"Yes, I know it seems ridiculous, but there is something deeply wrong with the man… He was granted the powers to mold life itself by a dark god, and this…this is what he does with it. If I had anyone else I could trust with this information, I would go to them." Cormag gathered himself.

"Uhh, no, no, it's fine… I was just stunned by what I'm seeing... Let's be off, the information you have is dire." Arthur nodded at him thankfully, and they began to set off for the distant hopes' end, at least knowing what way they needed to head now.