Chapter 228: Honing The Blade, Tearing The Flesh

Chapter 228: Honing The Blade, Tearing The Flesh

She tried shaking it harder, stepping backwards to give herself some extra space. A lone section of flesh hit the ground in a wet, meaty plop. Elaras heart soared - and then fell just as fast. It just hadnt been connected to the rest of it very well, an already-tattered piece that had remained when the corpse ripped itself apart.

Just in case, she shook it again. It didnt work.

She decided to give up on that; her head was still swimming, and the violent shaking wasnt helping at all. Elara moved on to something else.`

Erm...release, she said, a command dripping with uncertainty. Activate. Nothing. Deactivate. It was worth a try.

She tried willing it to work. That was essentially all that she had to do to get her shadow-enchanted armor to activate, so there was a chance - except that the armor was probably some complicated masterpiece that a nullsmith had designed, and her new sword was, well

Definitely not designed. Just an accident. It wouldnt make sense if it worked the way she wanted it to. The crystals werent even technically on her side. Which was a little horrifying to think about. She probably shouldnt let the blade make contact with her skin - or anyone else she cared about - until a nullsmith got a chance to look at it and adjust it, if that was even possible. The crystals as they were might do nothing to a still-living body, to be fair, but it might also do something that she would regret.

Eventually, it turned out that there was only one thing that would reliably work. Elara prepared herself, tensed her muscles, pushed back a brief bout of returning nausea, and then performed what must have been one of the weakest shadow-state shifts that her armor had made so far. The sword phased out of reality with her, and she immediately yanked it upwards, the now-ridiculously lightweight blade passing directly through the flesh that had recently encased it in the bare instant before the gem at her chest sputtered and failed.

She looked down at the gem, checking on the dull gray of its surface and noting a tiny drop of inky blackness beginning to reappear as it tried to renew itself. Not much; not enough for anything fancy.

Maybe enough to do that again, though. And though she didnt want her crystal-metal blade thing to become a crystal-metal-meat blade thing, messing up the timing and combining with a corpse wouldnt cause any injury to Elara herself. And that was what really mattered.

She was still bothered by how useless her left arm felt. And that her vision was still swimming. And that, for all of their efforts, for all of the crystals that they had shattered and forced to be reformed, the Core was still nowhere near small enough for victory to be in reach. She was bothered by a lot of things.

Something needed to change.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle quickly rushed in to join her, shining fangs slashing through the corpse-things scattered at The Grateful Ones feet. The Unrepentant One wasnt far behind. Even Will rushed in, breaking away from the stone-spike that he had kept at his back for much of the fight and throwing himself between The Grateful One and an incoming attack. Needle, unfortunately, had run out of needles for her needle-spitter. She attempted to gather a few of the nearest - and safest to reach - of them while the others were busy, radiating [worry] all the while.

I watched as well, just as worried - but equally hopeful for what might happen next. The Grateful One, despite the still ever-so-slightly off look that she had, was moving with purpose; I hoped that meant that she had a plan.

With one final heave, The Grateful One tore away the last layer of corpse-things that she needed. The purple-black light was brighter than ever, radiant enough to stab at my [Amushers Vision]-enhanced. Crystal upon crystal was gathered at the Guardians center, pulled away from its former limbs and kept safe from my Coreless within the center of its body, each working to hold the corpse-formed bad-thing together. They surrounded an even larger version of themselves, a giant crystal that had likely served as the bad-things heart - or at least the closest to something like that it could have.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle was quick to rush in, glowing fangs running against its surface, leaving gouges to trace their path. Unlike the others, the giant crystal at the Guardians heart was sturdy, less prone to shattering entirely upon being wounded; instead, wisps of purple and black started to move towards it from the Core, slipping past my Coreless and filling in the bites that their fangs left behind.

I looked towards the Core on its pedestal, hoping to see a change. It was there. Barely. Just like my mana. Barely there.

Except one was dropping far faster than the other; mine. My blood felt weak and lifeless, like a frozen slurry dribbling down my length, falling down the channels of my body in heavy plips and plops. I had been distracted from it in the excitement of possible victory, so used to battling against the effects of the Lesser Cores aura that each regenerated drop of mana almost instantly shifted into life essence and moved to where it needed to be. The habit was beginning to feel ingrained, nearly automatic. And yet, seeing the Lesser Cores mana slowly drain, the amount still far from enough even with my Coreless fangs biting into the greatest of its Guardians crystals, I worried that it wouldnt be enough.

I was running out of time; I could feel it in the way blackness was starting to creep in at the edges of my vision, persistent in its spread. The way that my tail felt numb, the feeling of my fangs pressed against it having long since disappeared. The way that a drop of life essence brushed up against my scale-flesh - and barely did enough.

As quickly as my sluggish body would allow, I pulled at the reservoir of light captured within my scale-flesh. Started to craft an illusion to warn the Coreless that I was running out of time. That something needed to be done.

I wasnt sure if I got my point across by the time I began to lose focus and the darkness drifted in further. [Illusion Spark] let me communicate with the Great Cores Coreless, but it didnt let me communicate easily. And something like hurry and finish this before I die was hard to get across with an illusion, though I certainly tried. Many times, and in many ways, flashing illusion after illusion in front of Needles open eyes. Just as I fell into the embrace of sleep, my mind and body falling into torpor, I felt another drop of mana form - and then shift itself into life essence and brush against my flesh, the now-habitual action occurring automatically. A spark of warmth in a world of ice, melting away its frozen edges.

I managed a final hiss of prayer to the Great Core as I fell asleep.

Hopefully, when I woke up, I would still be myself. It would be up to the Coreless now.