Chapter 4396: Ultimate Predator (Part 2)
Chapter 4396: Ultimate Predator (Part 2)
Acala no longer had arms, and a large portion of his chest was gone, but the white crystal was intact.
"Fool!" Orulm laughed as he recalled Fellbane to his hand and lunged for the finishing blow. "Tower or not, with or without Dawn, you’re nothing compared to me!"
The Eldritch’s Break ability could do so much more than destroy spells. Everything it touched would be erased from existence as if it had never been there in the first place.
Any part of any body hit by Break would become impossible to regenerate, and only a transplant with Body Sculpting could replace what had been forever lost. Plant folk, white cores, and even Guardians were no exception.
It was the reason Orulm was so infamous and feared across Mogar. He had killed enough white cores during his existence that very few dared stand their ground and face him, even those stronger than him.
Nobody wanted to risk losing their eternal life to a lucky shot, or a trick that the Breaker might have prepared to fight them.
The Awakened spectators pitied Acala upon recognizing Orulm’s signature move, whereas dread twisted Night’s guts into a knot.
"That foolish bitch!" She snarled. "How could she be so stupid that she took whoever that other Eldritch was away and left that idiot to fight against the Breaker alone? Mother always warned us to avoid him!"
There was no sisterly affection in her words nor in Orpal’s grimace. Only the fear of losing the opportunity to absorb Dawn’s crystal and check if the steeds of the Horsemen could be fused as well.
Great was everyone’s surprise when red crystals sprouted from Acala’s grievous wounds and rebuilt his body at a speed visible to the naked eye. The Twilight Blade reappeared inside the Ranger’s crimson hand, deflecting Fellbane’s tip and leaving Orulm open to a counter.
A crystal fist the size of a barrel hit the Breaker square in the face and stopped his advance. Acala then shifted his grip on the Twilight Blade and performed a horizontal slash that cut deep into the Shadowscale armor.
The Ranger followed with a tier five Battle Mage spell, Cruel Sun, and a flurry of blade strikes. The darkness-infused tongues of fire seeped inside the wound in Orulm’s abdomen before the Davross could seal itself and burned him from within.
Acala’s face twisted into a feral snarl as his body swelled, becoming bigger, faster, and stronger than he had ever been.
"Curse you, Mother!" Night’s eyes misted with tears of rage. "You always claimed that we were supposed to grow on our own. That you had given your Horsemen different powers instead of creating three identical all-powerful creatures for a reason.
"Yet you gave Dusks’ powers to that Dawn bitch. What have I done to deserve this kind of spite? Why have you done for Dawn what you have always denied to me?"
Her question sparked many whispers as the Upyrs wondered whether she was joking or just wanted to know which of her many crimes had been Baba Yaga’s last straw.
"Wait a second, that’s nothing Dusk could do." Orpal said. "His mastery over life forces would make a transplant easy to perform for him, but Acala didn’t have the materials for-"
Contrary to what everyone believed, Baba Yaga had not gifted Dawn any new power, and her crystals were pristine white. They were simply coated in a crimson liquid that made them resemble her lost brother’s crystal spawns.
Reality became evident when Acala completed his transformation. The 1,78 meters (5’10") man was gone, replaced by a Chiropteran over 3,5 meters (11’6") tall, with membranous wings connecting his arms up to his little fingers to his hips.
The monstrous creature had a hide tougher than stone and twenty centimetres (8") long claws on his hands and feet. The Chiropteran Acala now towered over the Breaker like an adult over a child, hitting with the fury of a storm.
"That’s how that bastard could hold his ground against an Eldritch-hybrid for so long!" Night snarled, unaware that Acala was also connected to Sunrise via the tendril of light. "He has turned himself into a Vampire!
"He must have used Dawn’s endless supply of light element to get close to the full-red core and surpass the limits of the bright violet. Acala is now the closest thing to a white core and possesses even better regenerative abilities!"
As every living being, a white core’s body needed life force to know how to recover from wounds and how to regenerate an amputated limb. Once Orulm’s Break destroyed something, however, the information it contained was lost as well.
A white core who had their head or a vital destroyed by Break would die like a mortal, but the undead were different. Their bodies were just shells for their blood cores and contained no information.
Everything that an undead was, no matter their species, was stored inside their blood cores, which in turn was fused with what the other races knew as an undead’s weak spot.
Acala had recovered so quickly from the effects of Void Hunger because he had lost nothing. His blood core had provided the information and mass necessary for the healing process, and Dawn’s crystal had used them to rebuild the missing parts.
The Acala Chiropteran was now shrouded in darkness and light as his powers as an undead combined with Dawn’s, giving life to the ultimate undead predator.
***
"Die!" Abthot and her six copies yelled as they each unleashed a Chaos Annihilation at the Bright Day.
Each one of the seven black pillars was wider than Dawn was tall, and they came at her from every direction at the same time.
The Horseman Blinked away, but the Skull of Bytra spotted the exit point, and Abthot had the Annihilations restore the encirclement before the Horseman reappeared from the dimensional opening.
Dawn Blinked again and again, but Chaos Annihilation covered the distance between them so quickly that she didn’t have the time to try anything before she was forced to escape.
"Nice try, kid." Dawn laughed in between Blinks. "You forgot one small detail, though. I’m called a Horseman because I have a steed!"
Dawn pointed in the distance, where Sunrise had just appeared. The Horseman was connected to the mage tower through Acala, who had shared its power with her through their bond.
Yet it wasn’t enough to survive Abthot’s attack. Dawn was confident, not conceited, and didn’t hesitate to expose her tower’s presence as soon as she realized she couldn’t win alone.
Sunrise collected the endless light energy released by the sun and amplified it within its crystal body before passing it to the Horseman in the form of hypercompressed beams of light.
In turn, the Firstlight armor absorbed the elemental beams and multiplied their power before injecting them inside Dawn’s body. The seven Chaos Annihilations struck her immediately after the elemental beams, and crashed against Dawn’s anti-Eldritch spell, Bastion of Light.
A glowing sphere with defensive capabilities on par with Silverwing’s Bastion and imbued with the radiance of a small sun formed around her. The hepta-elemental barrier couldn’t have resisted the combined attack of so many anti-Guardian spells if not for the massive amount of light element surrounding it.