The Rebirth Of The Beast Tamer

The Necrobeast Alpha was not dying quietly.

Even with half its ribcage shattered and with Xerion's flames gnawing through its insides, the abomination rose again.

Its body convulsed. His bone scraped some other of bone, necrotic sinews pulled out, and its fused skull-faces split in a grotesque grin.

The sound was not merely a noise, it was a corruption incarnate. A wave of black resonance swept across the place with rattling roots from the soil and snapping branches above.

Kelvin felt it slam into his chest like a warhammer, crushing the air from his lungs. His bond with Xerion flickered and the connection warping as if it is something was prying at its edges.

He staggered, nearly falling to his knees. "Hold on!" Darius screamed, his gem blazed as he thrust sealing wards into the ground. The runes pulsed, trying to blunt the wave. But the sheer force of the roar cracked them like glass.

Rhoam, the armored panther, reeled as his plates splintered. He dropped to one knee, growling in pain. Salaris spiraled mid-air with her feathers scattering as the corrupted resonance nearly forced him from the sky.

Only Lyra stood her ground. Shadows bled from her palms, weaving into thick binding chains that lashed around the Alpha's limbs. Her eyes were shone with grief and fury, every glyph she drew was echoing the lost runes of her sister. The shadows screamed as they tried to hold the beast.

"Kelvin!" she cried. "Finish it before....." Her words were cut off as the Alpha slammed a clawed fist into the ground. The shockwave blew apart her bindings and hurled her into a tree. She hit hard, coughing blood, but even as she fell she traced another glyph, while refusing to stop.

Kelvin's vision narrowed. His sword, cracked and glowing faintly with fading runes and shook his grip. He could feel Xerion's pain across their bond with the serpent's scales being fractured, his coils was sluggish from exhaustion. Yet those golden eyes still burned.

"We end this," Kelvin whispered, with a raw voice. Xerion hissed in response, the sound was both a promise and determination and together they moved forward.

The Alpha lunged with massive jaws gaping and necrotic fire spilling from its chest. It moved with unnatural speed, as if the corruption itself drove it beyond death.

Kelvin ducked under a claw that shredded a tree trunk in half, then leapt onto the beast's arm, running up its stitched flesh like a ladder.

Every step seared his boots; the necrotic fumes burned his skin. But he pressed on, with sword raised high. "Xerion, move.....NOW!"

The serpent launched towards the sky, his battered wings were straining, and then dove like a falling star. His fangs were ignited with black-violet fire as he struck the Alpha's throat. The flame spread instantly, crawling across seams of necrotic stitching like a wildfire.

The beast convulsed, while shrieking. Its fused skulls were cracked with ichor pouring from its jaws. Yet it did not fall. Instead, it thrashed violently, slamming itself into the ground, trying to crush both the tamer and the beast.

Kelvin's grip faltered as the Alpha bucked beneath him. His cracked sword felt pitifully small against the abomination's vast frame. For a moment, a despair clawed at him.

Then the bond surged. Xerion's fury, with his fire and his will to protect, it all slammed into Kelvin with the force of a tidal wave. Their mana was fused, raw and unrestrained. Agony ripped through Kelvin's veins with every nerve burning, but he welcomed it. If it destroyed him, so be it.

We are one. Kelvin screamed, his voice was merging with Xerion's hiss in a chorus of rage. His runes flared, not with steady light but with explosive brilliance. He plunged his sword into the beast's spine, channeling the overloaded bond.

A torrent of violet-black fire surged from the blade, racing through the Alpha's body. Its necrotic core convulsed, with ribs snapping outward like broken gates. Flames burst from its mouth, its eyes, even the seams of its stitched flesh.

The abomination thrashed wildly, trying to shake them free, but Lyra's shadows surged once more, wrapping its legs. Darius threw his last seal, forcing the necrotic core to implode instead of burst.

Salaris rained shadowflashes across its skulls, blinding its final sight. And Rhoam, broken armor and all, leapt upon its other leg and bit deep, anchoring it for Kelvin's strike.

Kelvin roared, driving his sword deeper until his hands bled. The overloaded bond threatened to rip his soul apart, but he did not stop. Xerion's fire poured endlessly through the weapon, which was a storm of annihilation.

With a final, bone-splintering shriek, the Necrobeast Alpha collapsed. Its body convulsed once, twice, then shattered as the violet fire consumed it from within. Flesh sloughed away, bones cracked, necrotic flames shrieking as they died.

The ground steamed, scorched black where the monster had fallen. The air was reeked out of rot and ash. Kelvin remained kneeling over the corpse, his sword buried to the hilt, chest heaving as blood dripped from his lips.

Xerion slumped beside him, his scales was glowing faintly, with smoke rising from his fangs. It was over, but victory felt hollow.

Lyra crawled back to her feet, her face was pale, while her lips was trembling as she clutched her side. Darius dropped to one knee, his gem was dimmed to a faint ember.

Salaris dove down while shaking with his once-proud feathers that was dulled. Rhoam limped heavily, his armor cracked beyond repair.

Kelvin wrenched his sword free, the cracked blade was glowing faintly, and it is stared down at the smoldering ruin of the Alpha, which was amid the ashes, something pulsed with faint necrotic light.

A fang—jagged, blackened and humming with the same corruption that had nearly killed them all. Kelvin's hand trembled as he reached for it.

The clearing stank of burnt marrow and rotting sinew. The Necrotic Forest, for once, was silent, as if the trees themselves held their breath after the Alpha's death.

Kelvin knelt with the cracked blade that was heavy in his hand. His chest was heaved, every breath was sharp with pain. His veins was still throbbed with the echo of Xerion's bond that was overload, each pulse like molten iron.

Sweat mingled with blood along his jaw, but his eyes never left the relic glimmering in the ashes. It is jutted from the smoldering ruin of the Alpha's chest was still pulsing faintly with necrotic light.

Its surface was jagged, serrated, as though it was designed to tear flesh even after death. Runes faintly shimmered along its length—not natural runes, but carved and forced ones.

Xerion slithered beside him with it's scales cracked and smoldering, yet his eyes was still gleamed. The serpent lowered his head, while nudging the relic once with the tip of his fang, then hissing low with a warning.

Kelvin's fingers hovered over it. "Don't touch it yet," Darius rasped. He was limping, while blood was trickling down his temple, his gem was dimmed nearly to ash. His gaze, though, was sharp and unyielding. "That thing is not just a loot. It is a key."

Lyra staggered forward, supported by Salaris's wing. Her face was pale, lips bloodied, but her eyes never left the fang. Shadows were stirred faintly around her fingertips, as if drawn toward it against her will.

"I can feel it," she whispered. "A tether… like chains. Whatever that bounds the Alpha is not broken, at least not fully."

Kelvin withdrew his hand. His pulse was quickened, but he trusted their instincts. Together, they had survived this far because none of them was rushed blind.

"Then we move carefully," he said, with his voice cracked with exhaustion, but command still clung to it. "Search the lair. There will be more.

The cavern yawned just beyond the corpse, its entrance half-hidden by roots that were twisted into grotesque shapes. The deeper they went, the colder the air grew, not the damp chill of earth, but the lifeless cold of grave soil.

Their boots crunched over scattered bones, piles of cracked skulls stacked along the walls. At first, Kelvin thought they were random spoils of the Alpha's hunger. Then he saw the carvings.

Every bone had been etched and notched with lines, jagged spirals, crude runes that were cut deep into the marrow. Some glowed faintly, pulsing in time with a rhythm that was not their own pattern.

Salaris screamed uneasily. The sound echoed off the cavern walls, thin and lonely. "Gods are above…" Lyra's whisper was loud.

She reached out, tracing the nearest skull with her fingertips. "These are not trophies. They are… offerings."

As they pushed deeper, the cavern widened into a chamber. And there it was: the shrine. A tower of skulls, rising higher than a man and bones cemented with dried marrow and stitched sinew.

Runes crawled across its surface like living scars, some were flaring faintly as the Crest entered. At its peak, a crude idol loomed, which was constructed from ribs arranged into the shape of a gaping maw.

Darius drew upon the last sparks of his gem, inscribing counter-seals across the shrine. Lyra flooded it with shadow until its own runes screamed, the glyphs buckled under the weight of her grief-forged fury.

Salaris added his feathers, bursts of shadowflash that was setting bone alight. Xerion hissed, releasing a stream of violet fire that consumed the structure whole.

The shrine screamed as it burned. The sound was not air, nor stone, nor wood but something deeper. Souls were bound unwillingly, freed in flame. Their cries echoed until the tower of skulls collapsed into ashes.