Chapter 81: Blood of Tiamat

Name: Paradox

Species: Snake, Ouroboros

Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail]

Minor Titles: [Minor Mana Core] [Touched By Fire]

Innate Traits: [Venomous II]

Blooded Traits: [Paralyzing Venom IV] [Poisonous Blood III] [Illusion Spark IV] [Clinging Grasp III] [Sound Shaping VII]

Resistances: [Piercing Resistance - Basic IV] [Venom Resistance - Intermediate II]

Level: 27

Trait Points: 4

Core Skills: [The Endless Cycle] [Chrono Fire]

Lesser Core Skills: [Mana Manipulation XI] [Mana Venom X] [Mana Fire IV]

Level Rewards: [Traveler]

Description: A growing Ouroboros, symbol of the eternal.

My throat-flesh itched as tattered wounds began to knit themselves closed. All the while, I basked in the triumph of victory. In the confirmation of my worth.

Finally, I slithered from my place underneath the final bad-thing. Something grabbed me, holding me tight within its grip. For an exhausted, futile second, I wriggled and pulled against the grasp. It didn’t help. Escape was impossible.

I resigned myself to the coming pain, reaching towards my tail for comfort.

“Oh Skies, I was so worried about you! I know you’re our little seer and all, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t worry and oh my Skies, did they scratch your cute little scales?” the-female-who-was-not-Needle shouted, the overwhelming noise digging painfully into my ears. I hissed weakly, trying to provide yet another demonstration of proper communication, but held little hope.

Even with the Great Core’s many blessings, some battles could not be won - only endured. She shouted again, her fingers running alongside my side-scales and lifting up on the threads that tied the skin of ore-flesh to my top-scales.

“No cuts here, no scratches here...You’re doing okay!” Her enthusiastic praises for the Great Core all but pierced my ears, but I forced myself to endure, reminding myself that I was the Great Core’s Champion.

I could handle a few zealous praises. That didn’t stop me from hissing back in a show of annoyance, though. If she really wanted to give praise to the Great Core, she should have been more useful and done it where all of the other Coreless could hear her. I was already it’s Champion; I didn’t need to be convinced to follow the Great Core.

Her praises, mercifully enough, slowly began to lower in volume as she placed me across one of her shoulders and tried to turn back towards the many-nest. I hissed lightly, trying to get her attention, but she was too overwhelmed by the Great Core’s majesty to notice.

With a painful strain against my weary reservoirs, I pulled some of the light that spilled from our skins of ore-flesh, shaping it into an illusion and hissing meaningfully at the corpses of the flesh-twisted bad-things. My scale-flesh fought against the use of [Illusion Spark] so soon, but I didn’t want the bodies to go to waste. As revolting and wrong as they might have been, I was willing to admit that the abominations were some of the more powerful bad-things that I had come against. Not as strong as a flame-gaze bad-thing or the flame-serpent, but there were also far more of the flesh-twisted creatures.

More than enough to receive a Blooded Trait.

After an agonizing moment of holding the illusion, the Coreless that had become my main source of transportation finally understood. Unfortunately, she also started talking again, ruining any appreciation that I might have had.

“Rowan! Rowan! Hey, Rowan! Can you hear me?” she shouted again and again, baring her teeth and waving one of her hands at one of the warrior Coreless that we had saved from the flesh-twisted bad-things. This one was like her and the other Coreless that I had first recruited for the Great Core; covered in a second skin of glowing ore-flesh that set him apart from most of the others. Unlike her, he was armed with a single weapon: a long length of darkwood tipped with a fang of glowing ore-flesh at its end. Thick lines of mana-lit ore-flesh crawled down much of the darkwood’s length, bracing and reinforcing it.

While I had the chance, I did my best to find the differences between him and the other male Coreless that I had gathered for the Great Core. They all still mostly looked the same to me, and the focus that picking out the differences required was a welcome distraction from the uncomfortable sensations pulsing against my scale-flesh.

The newest Coreless’ glowing skin of ore-flesh seemed somehow lighter than the other male Coreless that I had gathered. From what I could tell, Will, The Unrepentant One, and The Staring One had covered themselves in thick plates of ore-flesh. On one fang, I had seen them take hits that would have sent Needle and not-Needle staggering, shrugging them off without much more than a scratch to show for it. On the other fang, I had noticed that they were much slower than the female Coreless, though I wasn’t sure if that was due to a difference in males and females of their species or just a result of differently-shaped ore-flesh.

Either way, the newest male’s skin of ore-flesh was shaped far more thinly than the other male Coreless that I had collected for the Great Core. Even with the exhausted set of his limbs, I could imagine the way that it would allow him to dash in quickly with a thrust of his long fang, pulling away again before the bad-things could attempt to strike back. In a way, that made me happy to see; it reminded me of my own method of fighting, of the tight coils before the strike, and of the retreat before retaliation.

There was something familiar there.

Other parts of the Coreless were harder to find differences in. He had hair on the top of his head, but most of the Coreless did. I found the same issue with most of the other parts of his features. All of the Coreless just looked so similar, if I ignored the ore-flesh that served as a second skin. Maybe that was why their ore-flesh didn’t all look the same? How else would they easily tell each other apart?

I put the questions aside for later, but it was something worth thinking about if I was going to pull all of the Coreless under the light of the Great Core.

Almost immediately, the male Coreless showed himself to be far less annoying than the female-who-was-not-Needle; if anything, I thought that I might have caught a flash of annoyance at her. Understandable.

The new Coreless twisted his fingers into a flurry of confusing shapes and motions, and not-Needle responded with more of the same. A few moments later, he began to shamble over on tired limbs, trembling slightly with the slight exertion.

They flashed a few more hand signs at one another just like before, and I quickly found my attention wandering. At least when they tried to hiss at one another I could try to guess what was going on.

Over by the edge of the black-water, I could see the rest of my Coreless helping to guide the weaker Coreless into the darkwood not-sinks that let them glide safely across it. I approved; if the Coreless that I had already claimed proved themselves to be more capable than the others, the weaker Coreless would be quick to join them in their dedication to the Great Core.

Needle, in particular, was doing a wonderful job - as I expected of her. She had already managed to gather a large number of the Coreless’ smaller spawn, allowing them to cling to her and fostering the next generation’s trust in the followers of the Great Core. It was clever, far more clever than The Unrepentant One’s actions. The far less useful male was helping a few of the elderly Coreless step into the not-sinks. The elders, weak as they seemed to be, held far less potential as converts compared to those of the younger generations, but I couldn’t expect the other disciples to match up to Needle.

Will was harder to find despite his size, kneeling over one of the fallen Coreless. As far away as I was, I couldn’t quite make out what he was doing.

Then I was moving, pulled along as the-female-who-was-not-Needle stepped up to the final bad-thing that I had defeated and knelt down. She made quick work of the corpse, slicing into its flesh with one of her ore-flesh fangs. Elsewhere, I could see the newest male Coreless doing the same with another of the bad-things, cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces.

I slipped back to the ground, snapping up any pieces of the bad-thing that were small enough to fit down my throat. It was revolting; absolutely disgusting. I did it anyway, forcing it down. Each time, the flesh shifted into a stream of mana when it reached my stomach, flowing towards the Great Core’s likeness on my head-scales. Until, finally, the thought-light flickered.

Level 42 Blood of Tiamat Consumed.

Transferred to Core.

Blooded Trait Acquisition Progress: 1/5.