Solar Blood Masters

"Phew! I'm out."

Raphael made it out of Almeez Krishna's territory with his prize, the Buddhist Pill Gourd. Now he was eager to get back to the Golden Prism Citadel and begin refining his blood.

Raphael glanced around. "Which way was it again? I better get out of this gorge first."

He spread his wings, but as he was about to launch himself into the sky…

THUMP! THUMP!

He paused.

"What's that?!"

His sensitive ears picked up a sound from those murky depths. Dozens of creatures were racing through the swamp. And they weren't the slow, clumsy crawlers he'd become accustomed to, these were blurs. And they looked scared.

"This… What could have these creatures so frightened?"

Raphael's curiosity outweighing any common sense or lingering anxiety he held. He followed the sounds. As he ventured deeper, he noticed a faint red glow emanating from between the trees ahead.

"What the..."

The moment he stepped into the clearing, his blood ran cold. A jagged rift; a tear in the very fabric of reality, stood before him. And within that gaping wound, he saw pure, unadulterated red!

It was a sight he couldn't look away from. The power emanating from there was hellish.

His horns buzzed. It was warning him.

But curiosity got the better of him.

"Hmm, I've never seen anything like this before."

He approached cautiously. It was then he noticed he wasn't alone.

A couple of Calamity level beasts who were slightly trembling, watched the anomaly with fascination. They were too engrossed in their discussion about this strange events to notice him.

Hoping for an explanation, he walked closer and spoke aloud, "That tear, its red essence… so strange. Where did this come from?"

The beasts turned their heads towards him. Their initial surprise morphed into fear upon realizing a Golden Bull Thork had approached. Such a thing wasn't unheard of in Dark Swamp Gorge, but his sudden appearance was an omen.

One of them, a Basalt Back Jaguar with a single glowing eye, managed a response, "We… we don't know. It appeared suddenly, mere moments ago. A chilling phenomenon indeed!"

Raphael nodded, then just as those words were fading away…

The rift flared. Its potent red glow intensified a hundred-fold!

WHOOSH!

A powerful pulling force erupted and began pulling the creatures towards it.

"What the…?! ARGHH! Help! Help! MY LEG!"

They were caught off guard!

Those unlucky beasts who were unprepared for the rift's sudden reaction, screamed as they tried to resist its pull.

The Jaguar's lone eye widened in panic as it attempted to dig its claws into the muddy ground, but its strength paled in comparison. Even the trees around them were swaying and reaching out for anything to grip before being sucked into that crimson mouth!

"NOOOOOO! LET… GO!"

Unlike the others, Raphael instinctively reacted, "Shadow Teleportation!"

POOF!

He materialized several meters away and watched the terrifying spectacle unfold. He was about to congratulate himself when a dreadfully familiar, voice, infused with a chilling delight came roaring.

"I can SMELL your plump ass from a MILE away, BULL!"

Raphael's jaw dropped. He turned…

"NOOOOOOOO! Not HER, AGAIN!"

"DIE!"

Kwan Yuu came rushing at him at an unimaginable speed!

Her proboscis glinted with a menacing purple glow, it was dripping toxins she'd acquired over a millennium, as a blood curdling screech resounded.

Before he could react, or evade,

BOOM!

Her impact slammed him into the mud. Both of them rolled for a while before they were sucked into the tear!

Seconds later…

"What the…! Get OFF me!"

Raphael landed heavily on a crimson-tinged sand. A wave of nausea swept over him as he shoved Kwan Yuu away from his massive form, who was busy biting into his rump.

The air was dense with red gas. It reeked of sulfur, burnt flesh, and decay.

"Ughhh…! This place…"

It felt heavy!

His vision blurred, then as he tried to stand, he stumbled. He was used to his 'Gold Press' powers manipulating gravity, but this, this was different! He could barely even lift his hooves, what's going on?

"Where the hell… are we? What IS this place?!"

Looking around, he noticed the other creatures scattered across that crimson sands with his hooves stepping on a cracked turtle shell that was already oozing its guts in a horrifically smelly manner. Those unfortunate victims from the Dark Swamp Gorge, they weren't moving, they were…

"Dead?!"

BOOM!

Another sound, from high above, caught his attention.

Looking up, he saw a gigantic, crimson creature resembling a muscular being with a torn off lower torso engaged in a fierce battle against something even more immense, a being whose hooves alone could obliterate continents with a terrifying stamp!

Their silhouettes were monstrous!

They battled against a backdrop of permeating crimson gas, like titans dancing upon the heavens!

This…

This sight was both terrifying and magnificent. It was like illustrations he'd seen in ancient texts depicting those monstrous Gods of the Human realms before Gaia had been covered in ice and darkness!

"Is that a…Centaur? What in the heavens?!"

And then, it hit him. His throat began to itch! He gasped for air, he wanted to breath those sweet scents of that world filled with flowers and lilies, but could only taste that wretched aroma of red gas, it entered every orifice of his.

No, It was worse than he'd imagined!

"Cough, cough…"

He looked around in panic. He saw other creatures choking, their forms were shrinking as their entrails spilled out onto the sands in an horrifically colorful spectacle of death!

"What's happening?!" He desperately try to stop breathing, but that crimson gas seeped through his very being. This gas was a toxin that targeted even the strongest.

It was then he saw the Vampsquitoe Queen coughing too. Even her massive frame shuddered as her eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets while her legs, those needle-like legs, they were shrinking and dripping green blood. It was a horrifying sight!

But unlike the others whose Solar Essences had already dissipated, she still had some fight left, which proved her ancient lineage and those thousands of years spent sucking the essence from even the weakest creatures.

"This… gas! Even an Emperor Calamity can't withstand it… It's POISON! I have to… GET OUT of here!"

His gaze landed upon the rift. It was still open. But it was shrinking. Fast.

He tried running. But the oppressive pressure, it was immense. The gravity was too overwhelming.

He staggered!

His limbs felt heavier than ever before, and his breathing became shallow. This red gas… it was taking a toll.

He could taste it!

"I can't… move…! What to… do? Shadow…!"

He focused, gathered every ounce of strength, and…

"SHADOW TELEPORTATION!"

He materialized inches away from the rift!

"So close… I have to push through it."

Just as he was about to step through…

"YOU'RE not escaping… Not without me!"

He felt a clawing, crushing weight around his back legs as a chilling sound shattered his hopes.

It was Kwan Yuu! Her proboscis stabbed deep into his flesh and held him back with the grip of one who'd tasted death a thousand times, and whose greed exceeded any fear he could imagine!

"NO! Let go! I… Dammit!"

Her monstrous form was falling apart. Her abdomen leaking green pus as her wings fell off in a gruesome shedding that revealed an ancient hatred that words couldn't express. She wouldn't allow his escape, for if death were upon her this day… then they would both embrace its end together!

"If I… I am… going down… you… You're COMING with ME!" She was like a desperate tick upon his leg! A parasite, and yet…

Her claws were relentless. They were digging deeper as her essence morphed, as if attempting to burrow into his flesh and escape through his very veins.

This defiance before a Queen's death. He felt it. And in that desperation, he noticed her eyes oozing purple and green as they dropped from their sockets. He understood. She would consume him in death.

Such madness.

"Get… OFF!" He tried desperately to shake her off. "I'm losing ground!"

The rift before him was shrinking, as if eager to trap him in that hellish realm.

And then he felt it. A gust of cold, heavy wind slam against his back!

"Huh…?"

Something knocked them both forward, and while he passed through the dimming threshold, his final thought was:

"What pushed us?"

…

BOOM!

He was back!

Back in the Dark Swamp Gorge!

"I…I made it… back…"

He was coughing heavily, and behind him the rift closed up and vanished like it had never existed, but not everything was normal.

From that place where realities touched. A strange fog emanated. It spread like a virus. A crimson death that he could smell, taste and was choking him already. As the gas permeated, it was killing everything it encounters; the grass was withering, the stones were turning into dust and even the very dust was vaporizing.

Raphael was shocked at how he was even still alive. He then drifted his gave below and gasped. It was Kwan Yuu. Or rather… It was her corpse, its grip was still firm around his leg, but unlike him. She'd not made it back in one piece.

Her life had vanished before the rift could fully seal.

A macabre and fitting reward for her earlier schemes. He'd truly won this fight, or so it seems, for something else, something even more potent and unforgiving was about to consume their reality.

He coughed and a burning sensation gripped him as his lungs rejected every inhale. It wasn't simply that putrid scent that had those nearby Bubble Fly Lumen erupting in chaotic light bursts of demise.

"This gas… it's everywhere! And it's killing…" he saw the grass withering around him; a few beasts vaporizing.

His heart skipped more than just a beat, as a dreadful realization came. It wasn't simply the air he had to worry about. No, this time, he didn't simply smell that dreaded red aura, he tasted it in his blood!

"This is… worse than poison!" Then his mouth began releasing something he'd never spit before, his liver. He saw that vital organ falling on the grass and melting into nothingness in front of his horror-filled gaze as he stumbled, "I'M DYING!"

He didn't have time. He had to prevent that gas from incinerating the gorge.

"BLACK POOL!"

His dark magic was now in overdrive. It grew with an unimaginable intensity. He directed the black potent energies towards that red fog and began absorbing it. He felt his life force draining. But it worked. The crimson gas began to dissipate.

It was being devoured by a might far greater. Using his shadow power, he'd saved this part of the world. However, something within his heart was still buzzing with death's melody. He coughed and spat another lung.

This would be his final act of creation, his sacrifice for something he couldn't articulate or make sense of. But surely he'd figure it out! Right?

In his desperation, Raphael brought out the Buddhist Pill Gourd.

"This… might be able to help me."

Trembling obsessively, he utilized his spirit energy to open the Gourd. It had been his reward for a truthful answer, a lesson indeed. Within that moment of despair and clarity, he remembered that he didn't know how to utilized its potential.

However, there was no time now to panic, and without any deliberation he began channeling his tainted blood essence and Solar Energy, pushing, forcing it all into the gourd with a single whisper as darkness began claiming him.

"Purify…"

The Gourd began to glow. It swelled as those ruby-crimson veins that housed his corrupted essences flowed. Within, an unseen battle between his blood and the potent toxins was being waged, but none were there to watch nor to adjudicate.

His fate was a gamble once more. But this time his wager was… EVERYTHING!