Draimon: Fracture: Erasend- Book 1: Deascension

Chapter 9: True Colours

The Devourer stood before us on stolen legs, heads roaring in unison."None come for limbs, flesh will never come, mass will join, then all join." The thing laughed many laughs, all different pitch, volume, and tone, sending a distorted wave of sound crashing upon us. "Devour, flesh come when. Consume, shatter sky, devour...." The voices ended when large bark lances ran through multiple of its heads.

"You think your words make us cower. No, they only angered us with the number of times you repeated yourselves. Just another reason to destroy you." Each pale head twisted into a wide s******c smile, it flapped back with all its different wings barely able to support its immense frame.

"EAT, DEVOUR, GORGE, CONSUME, ABSORB, CONVERT, KILL, DEATH, s*******r, m******e, ANNIHILATE, TEAR, RIP, FLESH!" One word for each head and all at the same time, each meaning the same. Our deaths. The repetition drove me insane with rage, and I blasted solar energy to try and stop the distorted layers of voices. As it ran, it hurled might from its hands, the ground became bark, and shields rose to block the blasts. No breath attacks the Monster using its mouths for that heresy of language. More bark lances were hurled by the others, each skewering the heads, destroying them and silencing them.

"Blind it," one of them said, "all the eyes it has are out," right after they spoke those words, the others sent a barrage of large bark spikes to ram through every head.

"Now to test my theory," Baragon said; trees rose from the ground running through its body with more bark lances fired towards it, I fired more solar rays at the body to assist.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEENNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGGGGH, FLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSH, NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRR, FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGHT, LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKKKE, THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFOOOOOOOOOOREEEEEEEEEE!"

The branches sunk into the trees and twisted around us, blocking out the great fire. I saw the Amalgamation sink into the ground; we were trapped in moments. I felt my energy weaken, and I could see those around me felt the same way. Baragon and all the others were on edge at once, watching for an attack.

I heard the screams of one of us. Turning, I saw it being pulled into the ground by tentacles. At first, fear was on its face, but that fear became determination, its skin cracked and shone with brown energy, its chest glowing far brighter. It closed its eyes, and its body and the surrounding area was destroyed in an explosion of brown energy, leaving a deep crater, the force brushing past me.

"Convert the ground," Baragon barked and all thrust their claws into the ground turning roots into flat bark ground. Some even throw their blood, the area quickly turning where the drops landed. I saw one who walked on four legs, with two arms get too close to the walls, the skin of the brown parted, revealing a fleshy patch. I saw tentacles burst out and entering the Dragon through its mouth, with the rest holding the jaw open and keeping the body still. Within seconds they tore out a brown core, strands connecting it to the body snapping when the last broke, the body slumped, and the tentacles pulled the gem into the wall. The brown rough bark skin grew light, becoming pale smooth flesh skin. Once the entire body became pale, the body rose and screamed, charging and overwhelming the Dragon closest to it.

The Mancer was ripped in two, revelling its core which was eaten in one bite by its stretched out jaw. The Core-torn then grew the mancer's limbs, growing two legs and arms, along with the mancer's head and tail randomly over its body.

"Stay away from the walls, I shall deal with the Dratuar, destroy the other," the split Core-torn was blasted into nothing by solar blasts.

I saw Baragon walk up to the Core-torn with a grin in his mouth; he slammed his fists together and punched the ground, impaling it with bark lances from the ground. Baragon assaulted the Monster with a fury of blows, shattering the lances in the process and knocking the Devourer back, it unleashing a might beam in retaliation. Baragon narrowly dodged the laser, but the swirling beam unravelled, destroying one of his arms and some of his body.

He fell to the side due to the imbalance; it fired another beam, and Baragon blocked it by sending a wall of bark, the wall broke apart quickly, and the fragments hurtling towards the Devourer and absorbed. Baragon regenerated his lost arm and began hurling bark at the Core-torn, the same thing happening. I swore I could see its movements become rough. It blasted might at Baragon, him strafing to dodge, the Monster ran at Baragon on all limbs, Baragon meeting it and laying into it with blow after blow breaking off his bark with each punch. 

The Beast was wild in its attacks, each limb attacking at once with no rhythm. I saw Baragon become overwhelmed, his body suffering major cuts, and he fell on his back, the Core-torn crawling on top and thrusting its claws into Baragon's chest. I could not predict what he did next. He forced his tail and an arm into the Monster, broke them off and gripped its head with his reaming hand. It squirmed its movements, becoming janky, frozen, then shattered into large pieces, which Baragon absorbed to regenerate. Baragon bounded to the centre of our prison.

"What by Eldragoon did you just do?" I asked.

"Our bodies are purely elemental, and as such are weak to physical attacks with the Core-torn being purely physical, so in reverse, the Core-torn are weak to elemental attacks. As a Devourer absorbs the elemental matter, it will take on its traits. But overwhelm the body with substance elements to replace the flesh, or just use energy-based. Do not worry; I will not turn that thing is destroyed. Now when I say grip the bark ground with your elemental energy, that should let you control bark," Baragon said; I looked up and saw a head looking down at us, doing nothing.

"Why is it not doing anything?"

"Do not try to understand it," he said. "LISTEN, MY IDEA WORKS," the Dragons around us nodded and began hurling bark at the walls, the pieces sicking and then entering the wall.

"Foooooooood rrrrrrrrr nooooooooooooo ssssssssssssssstaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat," I heard a voice of mismatched roars say. I saw the bark-like walls mutate into flesh walls, with long tentacles emerging and shooting towards us. I drove my claws into the ground and pulled them up, pulling the bark up with it into a wall that blocked a swarm of tentacles. I punched the wall sending it flying to the flesh wall.

"Excellent, Drydra, now do more of that." Mouthed tendrils burst from the wall aimed at our cores but were either disintegrated with solar lasers or cut and then destroyed. Even when severed, they still "lived" one slivered toward me when the others were distracted. Frantically I drove my claws into the ground and to a crevasse, but the snake-thing slivered over it. I gripped it with a hand, its stretched jaw snapping and blank eyes glaring at me. I saw the tail creep towards me, so I grabbed it with my other hand and held it away as far as I could, elongating my arms. 

The rest of the body angled towards me, and I felt my hands being pulled apart by the thing's flesh, so I drove my hands into the crevasse and drove the rest down with my wing-tendrils then closed it cutting off my hands and tentacle tips in the process. I quickly regenerated and then got to shooting bark at the walls, but the walls were coming closer. It was going to crush us.

"HOLD IT BACK WITH WALLS!" Baragon said, and thick bark walls rose. I rose my own but not where the others rose theirs, mine rose in front of me, so I picked it up with my wing tendrills and threw it at the advancing wall. The flesh climbed over the wall; the others spawned and engulfed it. The plan was working after being forced to absorb so much bark the pale became light then dark brown.

"RRRRRRRRRR!" it growled, its "voice" stiff and rigid, long spikes came from the walls came closer, aiming to pierce us through. Baragon smiled.

"It is almost too easy; those spikes are pure bark," simultaneously, the countless spikes were forced back into the wall by their will. Baragon and the others then slammed their hands upon the wall, and I saw it light up with a brown glow. I joined, driving my claws into the cage and poured my elemental energy into it. I felt connected to the wall and felt the bark grow and become absorbed by the Wyrm-torn's flesh. "SHATTER!" Baragon roared, and at the same time, every Dragon lifted, then drove their hands into the wall, then twisted, and our dome prison shattered into large shards of bark. The shards fell, falling on our heads, the others did not mind, but I did as I was trapped under one of the shards. My annoyance dissipated when I felt the ground shake. I swore I heard a roar; Baragon lifted the shard of me with one hand.

"By Eldragoon, where is it?" I asked.

"It came from below," Baragon paused for a moment, his jaw stiffening "if those trees were the Wyrm-torn, then that means this entire forset is the Wyrm-torn. All signalled?"

"Of course," they all replied in their rough voices.

"Send them again and send our location, make it urgent. We need every Dragon if we even want to stand a chance." The land rumbled, the titanic trees' branches shifted, becoming pale bladed appendages, I gazed up, and the dense foliage on top was absorbed, letting the light of the great fire-ball shine through. Where life once stood was replaced by death in the eight massive jagged claws on each tree. "Run," Baragon said, and we all charged out, me on Baragon's back. The earth rose, the trees becoming disgusting pale flesh, heads rose, saw us, and blasted might beams. We kept running, shielding ourselves in a dome of floating bark plates that held the rays but for a few precious moments. The path rose up, blocking our path.

"Drill through," one ordered, and our shield became a brown tornado shredding through the flesh that blocked our path. After too long, we burst through and run to where the start of the forest would have been. We stopped looking at where the great forest once stood. The trees were now flesh and swaying with bladed limbs slashing, I saw a mass emerge from the ground, and nine heads rose from the entrance and rose up connected to a thick long serpentine body.As the body rose, the trees fell, and I saw the trees were the arms as they raised with the body, the bark falling to the ground with pale flesh beneath. The thing kept rising towering over the forest, its bladed tentacles long outstretched: I saw its body was split into segments, each having eight from what I could tell with a distance between each; in those betweens were more heads. I could see four groups of tentacles, but looking into the distance, I could tell its body was larger still.

"NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLL FLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Its roar shook the air, and even I could hear it from its distance. Its flesh shifted around, the arms getting to the same length and its body swaying and curling as if waking from a long sleep. Looking back, I saw an army of Dragons charge. A barrage of might lasers roared through the air towards the Wyrm-Devourer. Seeing this threat up close I could not help but let fear creep into my core.