Behemoth [Primordial Titan Cultivation/LitRPG]

Slaughter was surprisingly versatile, often best suited to a support role despite people's natural tendency to consider it a purely offensive Dominion. Not that it was incapable of unleashing devastation on its own; the silver-and-crimson bite was likely a base technique or Cantrip from one of its lesser Spheres.

Far more concerning was the pure obliteration contained within the black suns, an esoteric quality he doubted came from the Dominion of Darkness itself. There lay the true strength of Slaughter--weaving it into other techniques to amplify their destructive potential. It could corrupt even a concept like Knowledge into an expression of violence.

Panting, Cyril summoned a new bronze spear. Hunger-Made-Alive pointed a claw in his direction, and a ring of black orbs materialized around its outstretched hand. Now that he knew what to look for, he spotted the faintest threads of crimson swirling within their depths.

Disrupt the bastard. Keep it on the backfoot.

He poured Gravity qi into the channels in his forehead. Wide-spread pressure descended upon the chamber, increasing until he was forced to use the spear for support despite his minor resistance to gravity.

The cluster of black orbs wobbled. Hunger-Made-Alive's chin tilted slightly downward. A subtle sign, but proof that it felt the drastic increase in Gravity. The problem was that Cyril wasn't sure how to take advantage. Trading ranged techniques wouldn't end up in his favor at this rate.

He took a deep breath. Had to change his thinking. Hunger-Made-Alive outclassed him in qi manipulation, so he needed a more physical approach. He had eventually managed to make himself into an equal with the Half-Ascended Wyrm. While his current opponent had undergone an additional baptism to its constitution after forming its core, the gap between them would be lowest when it came to their physicality.

Cyril cast a Pressure centered around Hunger-Made-Alive's outstretched hand. Its claws were knocked aside, and the cluster of black orbs vanished. As long as he kept the Ascended off-balance, he still liked his chances.

With a frustrated hiss, Hunger-Made-Alive surged straight at him, moving so fast he could just barely keep up.

He transformed the head of the spear into a long, bladed edge, like that of a glaive, and brought it down with all his might. Hunger-Made-Alive intercepted the weapon with a cross-swipe of its claws, shredding through the E-grade bronze without slowing.

The Ascended continued forward, intending on knocking Cyril backward. He braced himself for the collision. His teeth rattled in his skull and the corners of his vision went dark, but he managed to hold his ground without taking a step back. The black shroud clung to his skin for a moment before they separated from one another, cool and strangely refreshing to the touch, like the waters of a dark oasis.

Cyril recovered from the impact first. He whipped the glaive's broken shaft about, aiming for Hunger-Made-Alive's knees. At the last moment, a bronze edge sprouted along the side and chopped a finger's-width deep through shroud and flesh.

Hissing, the Ascended darted backwards, wrenching the weapon from Cyril's hands. Crimson pinpricks bloomed within the recesses of its eyes. It swiped the air with one claw, leaving behind an after-image of vibrant qi.

Pain blossomed across Cyril's chest. He stumbled backwards, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Without wasting time to judge the extent of his injuries, he shot a string of Earth qi from his finger and attached it to the bronze weapon embedded in Hunger-Made-Alive's leg. He poured energy into the construct, warping its form so that it wrapped around the Ascended's lower limbs like shackles.

With a roar, Hunger-Made-Alive flexed and shattered the feeble bronze rings around its knees. The distraction only lasted a couple of seconds, but it was all Cyril needed. He flooded himself with Mass qi, circulating it in the reverse of the pattern he had used to Reinforce his body. Lightness suffused his being--a strange sensation, as if he was made of cloudstuff, or floating atop a calm surface of water. Tingling numbness spread across his skin.

Gravity slipped over his body as he charged forward. He felt disconnected from the world around him, moving through the void unimpeded. His punch was as light as a feather, but when it crashed into Hunger-Made-Alive's throat, it still contained all of the Mass he had Reinforced into himself.

The Ascended was blasted off its feet, skipped once against the ground before twisting in the air and landing in a crouching position. It remained in that pose, observing him with its head tilted to the side. Wheezes escaped its throat until its deformed windpipe snapped back into place.

Cyril was more than pleased with the new effect from the Second Sphere of Mass. It synergized with his Gravity domain in a somewhat unintuitive way. He moved as if he weighed nothing, while everything around him was suppressed beneath multiple atmospheres of pressure. His physical strikes retained their force as well. The conflicting interaction of forces strained to pull his body apart, but he was sturdy enough to shrug them off. For a while, at least.

"Pleasure," growled Hunger-Made-Alive.

Cyril grunted. He had to admit, he was developing a begrudging respect for the Ascended. More like the bitter acknowledgement of a rival. They were testing themselves against one another, honing their abilities through adversity, and the survivor would emerge from the other side forged anew.

Blood dribbled down the shredded ruins of his chest. His chestpiece and enchanted tunic hung in tatters. Yet despite his wretched appearance, the wounds he had sustained bothered him less and less with each passing moment. A bit of tightness across his chest, some stiffness in his shoulder. He was more than ready to continue.

Cyril beckoned.

The Ascended was happy to oblige. They met in a flurry of blows, matched in speed within the gravity domain.

Though Cyril had hardly been a master in hand-to-hand combat among his people, Hunger-Made-Alive had no true experience at all. He quickly gained the upper hand, landing a series of open-palmed blows against its solar plexus and throat. A spinning elbow cracked into its chin.

Ripples spread through the shroud at the points of impact, but the Ascended appeared otherwise unaffected. Now that it was aware of his strength, it absorbed the force of his blows with its shroud. Each strike seemed to hurt Cyril more than his opponent, further pulling open the claw wounds across his chest.

He managed to land a final blow against the Ascended's abdomen, directly atop its core. Right before the strike landed, he cast a Pressure through the hand. Hunger-Made-Alive slid backward, the stone ground screeching as its clawed feet left gouges in their wake.

Cyril flung a dragon's breath of Sun qi after the Ascended. The energy vanished, absorbed into the shroud of Darkness, but it served its true purpose as a distraction. He followed close behind, surging forward, keeping low. As he closed in, he feinted to the right.

Hunger-Made-Alive fell for the obvious trap, swiping where he was meant to be. Cyril instead dropped down and swept the Ascended's legs out from under it.

As a follow-up, he twisted along his supporting hand, flinging his body up into a spinning one-armed handstand, rotating along his own axis. A moment before Hunger-Made-Alive hit the ground, Cyril scythed down with his leg, infusing as much Mass as possible into the limb. Right as it made contact with the falling Ascended's abdomen, he exhaled sharply and channeled Pressure behind the blow.

A shockwave of dust and lavender qi blasted outward in all directions from the force of the impact.

Hunger-Made-Alive lay in a cracked pit, stunned. Cyril found himself flung backward through the air, the muscles in his right leg seizing, cramping. No doubt his tibia had fractured in multiple places, but the pain was distant, muted.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

After a moment of disorientation, he managed to control his tumble, turning it into a series of back handsprings until his momentum was spent. His leg supported his weight, but he could feel the cracks in his bone widening. Much more stress and the whole lower leg would snap.

Gritting his teeth, Cyril reinforced the greave along his right shin with Earth qi, sealing the fractures running through it and tightening it until it served as a makeshift splint. It would have to hold for now.

Shaking its head, Hunger-Made-Alive forced itself to its feet. Stumbled sideways. The shroud of Darkness had been blasted away, exposing its scaled form. Even uglier in full view. Bilious saliva trickled down its chin, leaving tiny, smoking pits as it dribbled onto the floor. Shadows coalesced back around the Ascended, once more shrouding its figure.

Cyril settled back into a martial stance, pleased to find that his leg could handle the movement.

His heart thumped, an incessant drum, and with each beat, warmth coursed through his body. Sun qi flowed through his channels, spreading energizing fire that seemed to somehow invigorate his blood, his muscles, his bones. A distant part of his mind noted the phenomenon--a precursor to a coveted physical enhancement among his people.

This fight would serve as his fuel. A catalyst for his constitution. All traces of fear, of concern, had evaporated. Victory was inevitable. Now, he simply wanted to harvest as many benefits from the abomination's death as possible.

Slowly, Hunger-Made-Alive drew itself up to its full height. For a moment, it observed him, wearing its emotions openly. As alien as its mind must be, there were some commonalities in all sapient beings. In its stance there was a measure of respect, of curiosity, but also absolute hatred. It wanted to tear him apart with its claws. It knew it should be faster, stronger, but Cyril had gotten the better of their hand-to-hand exchanges.

In a way, the Ascended was a prince of its accursed species. Better than anyone, Cyril knew that princes had their pride.

And so it charged again, growling.

Cyril materialized basic sand into his cupped palm and flung it in front of him--old desert brawler trick. Hunger-Made-Alive stopped short of the cloud of drifting particles, suspecting an attack. With his opponent off balance, it was simple enough to cast a Pressure into its legs. Hunger-Made-Alive lurched forward, toppling, in time to catch a devastating, Mass-infused uppercut right on its chin.

Cyril's bronze gauntlet shattered. Knuckles broke. The pain was distant, useless, compared to the pleasure of seeing the Ascended's rag-doll figure launch through the ceiling of the atrium. He was tempted to leap up after it but caution won out in the end. So he waited for a few moments, his mind blank, ready. Sand materialized into both of his hands.

"Is that all?" he taunted, pounding his unbroken fist to his chest.

In response, crimson-and-silver slashes rained down from above, trailed by spheres of pure annihilation. Cyril flung both handfuls of sand to meet them, then leapt backwards. The mystical slashes gouged into the floor, churning it into rubble, while the spheres curved to track him down.

Hunger-Made-Alive followed behind a moment later, falling through the floating sand without a worry. Except this time, Cyril snapped his fingers. Sun qi ignited within each grain of sand, vitrifying them into specks of glass. Countless particles embedded themselves within the Ascended's shroud.

With another flex of willpower, Cyril poured Sun qi into the glass, focusing on luminosity over intensity. Galaxies of coruscating stars lit up against the backdrop of Hunger-Made-Alive's Darkness. The tiny prisms reflected upon one another, shredding through the shroud.

The Ascended howled in outrage as it landed. Its concentration broken, the annihilating spheres collapsed before Cyril had to deal with them. Tatters of shadow clung to Hunger-Made-Alive, the remnants of its armor struggling to maintain a semblance of cohesion.

Cyril grinned. "There you are."

This last indignity was too much for it to bear. All of the ambient qi stirred. Shadows lengthened, coalesced. The gravity domain pulled away from Hunger-Made-Alive, as if fearing its presence.

Cyril had an idea of what was coming.

An ultimate technique--a finisher. Judging from the amount of Darkness gathering around the Ascended, it would drain most of its qi reserves. As long as he survived, he would have the upper hand. At least it probably hadn't had many opportunities to practice the technique.

Cursing, he fired off a Pressure with as much Gravity qi as he could summon at a moment's notice, hoping to knock Hunger-Made-Alive off balance. The dense aura from the gathering technique served as a barrier, absorbing enough of the force to leave the Ascended undisturbed.

Before Cyril could follow up, Hunger-Made-Alive's hands formed into independent mudras, its claws contorting into unnatural shapes.

"Dark World."

Cyril's physical senses completely vanished, submerging him in a void of endless night. Bright spots of agony reminded him of his injuries, but he was otherwise a disembodied mind, attached to Behemoth's presence like a barnacle on the underside of a whale.

The technique did, however, leave behind his spiritual senses. The Ascended had never learned how to mask its energy signature--it wouldn't have been necessary until now. Though the majority of its Darkness qi blended with the environment, he could track its presence in the void as a man-shaped network of silver-and-crimson flecks, with dense swirls around the abdomen. The amplified Gravity domain also presented a sonar-like vantage of his surroundings in a twenty pace radius, confirming Hunger-Made-Alive's location.

Then, the corrosive crimson of Slaughter tinged the world around him. The outer layer of his armor began to dissolve. Mind racing, Cyril attempted to summon a Flicker to dispel the Dark World, flooding Sun qi into the technique as fast as possible. He dropped the Gravity domain to devote all of his focus to his goal. The barest sputter of flame managed to form, only for it all to be consumed by the superior technique in a moment.

Cyril cursed at his own helplessness. His heart pounded in his chest. Unacceptable. This is godsdamned unacceptable. He could sense the tides of the battle turning against him.

The channels in Hunger-Made-Alive's hands turned to pure black. Another Darkness technique.

The Ascended vanished.

It appeared a moment later, emerging from Cyril's shadow. He sensed its presence too late, only managing to extend his right hand in its direction. Before he could fire off a Pressure, Hunger-Made-Alive's disgusting mouth unfurled and wrapped around his lower arm like the petals of a carnivorous plant.

Cyril screamed as the rings of small teeth pulsed, tearing into his flesh. Layers of E-grade bronze materialized, one layer of elbow-high gauntlet after another, only to dissolve away from Hunger-Made-Alive's saliva and the obliterating pit of Darkness contained within its gullet.

Skin and flesh unfurled from bone, the process agonizingly slow. The Ascended was truly savoring him. Its claws tore into his thighs, shredding deep into muscle, but he barely noticed through the torture of having his arm devoured.

The ember of rage in his mind exploded into a bonfire. His heart thumped, thumped, thumped, the only sound left to him besides pain.

Strategies didn't matter. Ingenuity didn't matter. His own life didn't matter. He didn't think about his family, escape, even victory. There could be only annihilation.

Less than a third of his core remained. He squeezed every drop of energy he could into his right arm, a mixture of Sun and Earth qi his desperate will attempted to fuse together. If Hunger-Made-Alive could infuse its techniques with multiple aspects, he could too.

For the first time, Behemoth seemed to pay attention to his plight, its god-like scrutiny descending upon him. Beneath its stone facade, it, too, knew the all-encompassing truth that was hatred and spite.

Cyril attempted to circulate the pure agony of the Sun/Earth qi into a Pressure Cantrip. From his shoulder down, every channel burst open, unraveled, shattered. The energy flowed outward in ephemeral streams, the glow penetrating even through the unnatural gloom of Dark World. A near-endless flow of qi poured into the Ascended.

More and more continued to flow from Cyril's core. Cracks formed in his central channels from the strain. His output had increased greatly, beyond what should be possible, aided by Behemoth's active attention. Cyril knew his spiritual partner was paying a price for the assistance, as well as the sacrifice of his own body, but none of that mattered.

Finally, excruciatingly, the Sun and Earth qi began to merge into a river of lava. The pain was exquisite, erasing all thoughts. Only his hatred and rage remained. His silent screams died off as his voice broke, throat torn.

The Ascended attempted to unlatch its mouth from the skeletal remnants of his forearm. Laba coursed down the endless pit of its gullet.

Cyril seized its head with his free hand and formed a spike of rusted iron from the river of qi flowing through him. It punched into the Ascended's skull, drilling through the shroud of darkness effortlessly, then spread out into two flanges to secure its hold and scramble the bastard's brains.

Hunger-Made-Alive spasmed. The Dark World dropped. A moment later, a pillar of lava qi filled the Ascended. Cyril's sloppy attempt at forming a Pressure managed to direct the energy somewhat, forcing it downward.

The Ascended melted from the inside, glowing seams breaking through its shroud of darkness until that, too, collapsed. A gaping hole appeared in the floor, stone tiles burbling.

An ocean of death energy exploded into being around him, thick enough to cause distortions in the air.

Cyril swayed, collapsed to his knees. All the rage, all the hatred, dissipated into the darkness. Behemoth turned away, returning to its unfathomable meditations. All that was left was the ruin of his body.

A bloody grin broke across Cyril's face. Then darkness descended, and he knew no more.