Behemoth [Primordial Titan Cultivation/LitRPG]

Cyril's heart went cold at the sight. All of his eagerness to explore his newfound powers had vanished in an instant.

Of all the foul creatures populating the desert, sandwyrms were one of the most insidious. Many concerted efforts to hunt them into extinction had failed in the end. They could burrow deep enough into the earth to escape detection from all but the most powerful spiritual senses, and their hermaphroditic nature allowed them to continue reproducing at an alarming rate as long as a single one survived the purge.

Everyone in the tribe had friends and loved ones who had fallen victim to the sandwyrms. Incredibly stupid and vicious, they would even linger on the outskirts of tribes with inadequate defenses, picking off civilians who ventured a step too far.

Slippers planted firmly in the sand, Cyril rotated his hands around an imaginary orb in front of him, mimicking the rhythm designed for circulating Pressure. At the same time, he flooded the channels in his arms with qi, willing it to escape his palms and gather into the empty space his hands inscribed.

Then, he released the gathered force.

A huge pit appeared directly in the wyrm's path, expelling a wave of sand in all directions. The veil of fine particles obscured most of his vision, but he could vaguely make out the serpentine back-end of the sandwyrm thrashing above ground. The explosive burst of Pressure had pulverized the first three-quarters of its length. Its reflexive squirming had forced the remnant of his body to breach the surface.

Not even crushing the majority of its body was enough to fully incapacitate a sandwyrm.

The monsters had vestigial brains throughout their entire length, linked through a complex network of nerves. Another reason they continued to infest the desert despite being reviled outside of some fringe cults. As long as a significant enough chunk remained, they could regenerate their entire body.

Cyril resisted the urge to move closer. Its already limited intelligence would be drastically reduced from the loss of most of its mass. No doubt it had lost track of his position. Any motion would trigger the vibration-sensing organs all along its exterior, granting it a refreshed view of the surroundings.

Cyril refocused his attention on the thrashing tail. Despite being at least a dozen paces long when whole, it was still considered a young wyrmling, lacking the experience of a true hunter. Disgusting creature. If not for its flailing about, he would not have been able to pinpoint its location due to the dull tan camouflage of its scaled hide. The irony of turning its method of detecting motion against it was not lost on the prince.

Pressure.

A second pit appeared right behind the other, throwing up another geyser of sand. No more movement, now. A savage grin split Cyril's face as a trickle of death essence streamed into his soul. With a thought, he directed it toward the Dominion of Gravity, bringing the First Sphere up to 6/100.

The fight had been easy enough, and the two attacks had barely drained a quarter of his core's energy. Already, the Titan's lifeforce surged to fill in the gaps, like air collapsing back into a vacuum.

While it had been an easy enough fight, he needed to move on quickly. Sandwyrms often traveled in packs, and the ones that survived the crucible of the desert had a plethora of tricks that made them dangerous hunters. This one had not even bothered to mask its presence, confident in its ability to swallow a mere human whole.

Cyril glanced back up at the light of the setting sun. The wyrms would grow more inactive as night fell, burrowing deep into their subterranean nests. It would have been better to remain in place until they fell into hibernation--if his little display hadn't sent tremors a mile in every direction.

Maybe I should have thought this through.

Truthfully, he didn't mind the idea that he may have attracted the attention of a wyrmhorde. Perhaps it was the power coursing through his body, or maybe it was because his mind still half-believed he was a stone colossus, but he felt indestructible.

Let them break against him. He had the perfect Cantrip for that.

Circulating the pattern for Reinforcement was much simpler than Pressure.

Streams of unattuned qi pulsed out from his core, flooding out through the spiritual channels lining his body. With a thought, he transformed the basic energy into Mass qi. Around a quarter of efficiency was lost during the conversion, but he had plenty to spare.

Heaviness seeped into his muscles, his bones, his joints. His body thrummed with potential energy, like a bow drawn and held. The additional weight made his slippers sink into the sand. He braced himself, knees slightly bent, breathing slow and steady.

As he waited, he wondered what effect using Earth qi would have on the Reinforcement Cantrip. Such experimentation would require him to drop his current technique and build it back up. Blending two different forms of energy required a familiarity with them Cyril hadn't yet acquired.

Just as he considered making the switch, a faint tremor stirred the sand beneath his feet.

The next moment, an explosion shattered the ground in front of him. A black chasm of a maw appeared, ringed with yellowed fangs, wide enough to swallow him whole. Pale muscles quivered along its circular length, teeth flexing--ravenous for a hearty meal.

Heart racing, he flung out a quick Pressure, overloading it with energy. His improper circulation reduced the output slightly, but it was more than enough to thrust the sandwyrm's mouth aside. Mucus and sickly flesh sprayed out from the hole punched through the side of its head.

Unfortunately, this wyrm was twice the size of the previous one. It harnessed its own arrested momentum, flinging the rest of its prodigious body out like a whip. There was something unnatural about its lithe movements, as if it didn't quite obey the laws of physics.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Cyril's eyes widened as the sinuous body crashed into him. The sheer force behind its thrashing sent a shock through his bones. Warm blood flooded his mouth--he had bitten through the tip of his tongue. Despite the impact, he stood his ground. His Reinforcement held as the sandwyrm coiled its slick body around him.

Cursing, he wrapped his arms around it, only managing to reach halfway around its circumference. For a moment, they were locked in a stalemate, but the Dominion of Mass did little to increase his overall strength. The wyrm undulated, bursting free from his grasp. In a blur of movement, it dove back into the sand, leaving behind a series of ripples like a stone dropped in water.

Damn. An attuned monster. It must have had some affinity for Earth as well, allowing it to swim through it as easily as a sea serpent in the ocean. At least he had managed to injure it, though having part of its head blown off was a minor inconvenience at best.

He poured more qi into the Reinforcement, and his body greedily absorbed it. Before he could improve his defenses much, the ground beneath him trembled once more. The wyrm surfaced right beneath him. To his surprise it was able to overcome his enhanced weight, flinging him upward into the air.

It had managed to fling him about ten paces into the air. It waited patiently below, maw stretched wide to swallow him whole. Then, a second serpentine form burst out from the ground at an angle, clearly intending to snatch the prey from the air. It was even larger than its companion, though not quite as nimble.

Unamused at being treated like a prize morsel, Cyril flipped and twisted through the air. As fast as he could, he flooded Mass qi into one of his legs. The limb turned into an anchor, too heavy to control, but it was already on the right trajectory; all he had to do was guide it.

His heel crashed into the incoming wyrm.

The monster simply ruptured from the impact. Its mouth dissolved into a mist of gore, and the rest of its body was flung aside. Excess Mass qi from Cyril's leg expelled outward in a sphere, blowing away the wyrm's blood before it could land on him.

That was one out of the way. Still, the attuned monster was lying in wait. The force of his kick had thrown him off course, but not enough to evade his enemy.

In the few moments he had before impact, he poured more Mass qi into his Reinforcement. His sheer weight would leave a small crater in the ground and shatter the monster below.

Instead, the wyrm retreated backward. Cyril collided with the ground. No solid land resisted him; to his surprise, it was like plunging into water. The sands rippled, and, unable to resist, he sank into the depths of the desert, surrounded by darkness.

A moment later, the wyrm coiled around him.

The weight of the world crushed him from all sides. His lungs burned as he resisted the urge to take a breath. He considered adding Earth to his Reinforcement Cantrip despite his misgivings, but that might just make things worse. Perhaps he would fuse with the ground and be stuck a hundred feet below the surface, only to suffocate.

Helpless, he held onto the monster, gritting his teeth as its many small teeth gnawed on his body. At least his Pressure attack had taken a decent-sized chunk of the side of its mouth, limiting its ability to tear into him.

Still, without his enchanted clothing and the Mass Reinforcement, it would've no doubt chewed straight through him in seconds. The tips of its teeth managed to pierce through his skin; rivulets of blood flowed down his side.

After about ten seconds of movement, they burst through the earth into a subterranean cavern. Cyril rolled as they plummeted through the ceiling, managed to force the sandwyrm beneath him a moment before they landed.

The walls shook from the force of their impact.

After a moment of unconsciousness, Cyril's eyelids flickered back open.

Groaning, he found himself in a pit of wyrm viscera. The lower half of the monster spasmed and coiled some distance away.

Outside of a few aches and scrapes, Cyril felt surprisingly unaffected from the fall. While the body of a cultivator far exceeded the natural limits of a mundane human, this level of resilience was unprecedented. Bonding with Behemoth had elevated his earthly form into an object on par with a natural treasure. The Mass Reinforcement may have helped, but the added weight also had worsened force of the impact.

Though admittedly quite pleased with himself, Cyril shook his head and forced himself to focus on his surroundings. No matter how impressive he'd become, he had still managed to end up trapped underground, deep in enemy territory.

Pale flames blossomed into existence overhead as he poured qi into the Flicker Cantrip. The feeble light spread until he could make out his immediate surroundings.

The walls of the cavern were unnaturally smooth, and the entire clearing had an unerring symmetry to it. While it may have been created by some forgotten civilization long ago, something made him suspect it had been formed from the passage of a colossal sandwyrm. He could only hope that the monster had been taken care of long ago.

The air in the cavern was stale, but otherwise breathable. Fortunately, the flames conjured from Flicker were mystical in nature. They would neither deplete the available oxygen nor ignite any pockets of flammable gas. Other forms of Sun qi were off-limits until he better investigated the area. More than a few of his more adventurous tribesmen had already paid the price to teach him that particular lesson..

Cyril returned his attention to the wyrm. Fortunately, this one hadn't the smartest, dragging him down into its lair only to end up crushed beneath him. It still hadn't been properly dealt with, and would recover soon enough.

He hauled himself to his feet and directed his attention toward the Flicker above. The pale fire drifted over and slipped through into the wyrm's exposed insides. Flesh sizzled. Sickly radiance seeped through the gaps in its bronze scales, growing fainter as the all-consuming heat traveled down its length. A disturbingly appetizing aroma filled the cavern as he cooked the monster from the inside.

By the time Flicker reached the end of its tail, the sandwyrm had stopped moving. Still, it had not yet expelled any of its death essence for him to absorb.

He remedied that with a judicious application of Pressure, crushing it in the middle. As an attuned monster, it would have a vestigial core in that general location. His guess was rewarded with a surge of essence.

The main question was, where to direct the energy? Keep working towards the Second Sphere of Gravity?

The Dominion was rare, though not unheard of. It was often more associated with the Dominion of Force or Space instead of Earth. His particular understanding of the affinity was lacking, but the basics weren't too complicated. It was fundamentally based on attraction between objects, usually either pushing or pulling along a vector.

The improvements gained from reaching the Second Sphere may be his best bet to reach the surface again, though Earth could also prove useful.

Deciding he may as well complete what he had started, he directed all of the death essence into the Dominion of Gravity, bringing it up to 20/100. The investment would deepen his affinity with the concept, increasing the force he could exert with each Pressure. Without further testing, it was impossible to say how much stronger each point made him.

He had a feeling he would have the opportunity to see soon enough. The sandwyrm must have dragged him underground for a reason.

Sighing, he poured qi into the Flicker and directed it higher. Its pallid glow spread, illuminating more of the area.

Ah, he thought. That's why.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of wyrmlings squirmed and tunneled throughout the cavern.