The Great Core's Paradox

I was a little confused by these Coreless. Not that Coreless weren’t always at least a little confusing, but I could generally make a guess at the reasons for the things they did. The ore-flesh that kept them attached to their sleep-surfaces, though, that was a different story.

Did they just want to make sure nothing could take the sleep-surfaces away without them noticing? They didn’t seem that comfortable. I’d seen far better sleep-surfaces in my time with the Coreless, and none of those had been so jealously guarded.

It was a little too much. They couldn’t even move!

I was even more confused by the noises that I was hearing - both from the Coreless, and from somewhere outside.

“What’s going on?” one of the already-awake Coreless tried to hiss at the others, having finally calmed down from his initial shouts of praise. “What the Skies is going on?”

The others never answered. It was drowned out by the noise outside; a loud, overwhelming whistling. I ignored both. Without the help of a [Little Guardian’s Totem], understanding the specifics of what the Coreless were trying to say wasn’t worth the effort, and - at the very least - the weird noise from outside wasn’t enough to scare the Coreless away from their sleep-surfaces. And non-disciple Coreless normally scared pretty easily. So it was probably fine.

What wasn’t fine was the last of the Coreless. I probably should have started with him; he was worse off than the rest. Though they were all injured when I arrived, none of the others had quite so many injuries.

He just looked…broken, limbs bending and almost flattened in multiple places, as if cracked again and again by falling stones. His breath was raspy, billowing past blue-tinged lips. I was pretty sure Coreless weren’t supposed to have blue lips.

I snuck a glance at the other Coreless. No blue lips.

A hush fell over the other Coreless as I slithered my way up the leg of his sleep-surface and towards his chest. The sound outside continued to whistle louder, anything but hushed; it just grew and grew and grew. A roaring joined it, the noise akin to the largest of bad-things. Growing loud enough that the two sounds drowned out nearly everything else.

Just as it reached a peak, I sunk my fangs into the final Coreless, letting a stream of gold fill his flesh. Despite his injuries, [Mana Blood] meant that I barely noticed the cost. It was almost nothing. Meaningless, just like the ones before him. A far cry from what it might have been in the past.

The Coreless’ body twitched. Twisted. Cracked, his many ruined bones beginning to violently force themselves back into place. His skin rippled, even as his lips began to lose their blue. He groaned, the sound barely audible under the whistles and cracks.

Satisfied, I turned my head around, surprised to note that more Coreless had entered the sleep-surface nest while I was distracted. Five covered themselves in shining ore-flesh, the bits and pieces shaped similarly to what my disciples chose to wear. But different. The mana that filled those pieces carried the scent-taste of air, the opposite of my disciples’ earth. Another Coreless stood in front, threads of ore-flesh hanging from his arms and an open mouth of darkwood in his hands.

I reared up and gave them a greeting hiss.

===

Bones cracked and shifted, the sound just barely audible above the ever-present wind. Limbs twisted unnaturally. A radiant monster hissed, laying atop its prey. And through it all, David stared in horror.

Oh, Skies. No, no, no, no.

David tensed, muscles flexing hard to keep him in place. The wind pushed at his back, fighting his efforts and urging him forward. His bucket came up in front of him, sloshing heavily, a shield that could hurt him just as easily as any other.

Kept between himself and the monster.

“A-a-ascended,” the overseer choked out, his voice carried on the wind. It was a frightened thing, weak and timid, very unlike the stout and powerful man. David shivered as his eyes caught the same thing that the other man’s had.

A Core set within the monster’s scales. The mark of an Ascended. The mark of death.

But oddly, David noted, nobody was dead - even if the man underneath the beast looked close to it, his limbs shifting unnaturally. None of the others were harmed. But they should have been - even if the monster hadn’t arrived.

Seth had a gash across his legs. It had festered, and left him bound to the infirmary. It wasn’t there anymore; the man was rubbing at healed skin, as if clearing out an uncomfortable itch.

Theo had broken his right hand, mangling it beneath a falling stone. It looked fine. Better than it had before he broke it.

On and on it went, the infirmary’s occupants not only living despite the Ascended’s presence, but better. Below the tiny snake, before his very eyes, David saw a wound knit itself together.

It’s…helping?

The thought, strange as it was, let David calm enough to notice other things - the fact that much of the little creature’s glow came from armor chief among them.

That wasn’t something a monster could make; even if it could, the thing didn’t have hands to get it on. Someone had made it for the little Ascended. Someone had put it on him.

He relaxed, just a little, letting the bucket hang at his side, the pail clinking softly against his still-hanging chains. David wasn’t sure that everything would be okay, but he was starting to think that he wasn’t going to die toda-

“Move, you damn idiot!” the overseer shouted from behind him, the sound carried forward by the wind. A spear impaled the air beside him, its glowing tip flaring with light - and then the air moved.

A spear of deadly wind shot towards the tiny Ascended.

Resistance: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate II] Increased.

[Piercing Resistance - Intermediate III] Acquired.

I reeled backwards as the thought-light disappeared, blood spilling from my scale-flesh. I could feel the mana kept inside disappear with it, falling out of my body. One of the weaknesses of [Mana Blood]’s storage of mana within blood. I quickly shifted it into life essence, and my scale-flesh healed itself closed as the liquid rushed on by.

Resistance: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate III] Increased.

[Piercing Resistance - Intermediate IV] Acquired.

I reeled again, feeling my scale-flesh tear itself in half, an invisible force cutting through my underscale’s defenses and scraping against the ore-flesh at my back. Something whistled as I fell, and my ore-flesh let out a harsh shriek. The Coreless below me let out a harsh shriek of his own, blood spurting from his flesh, just before a heavy force sent me flying from the Coreless’ sleep-surface. I tumbled to the ground in a heap of bloodied scale-flesh.

Wrenching myself upwards, I looked towards the source of the attacks. The stabbing wind.

The Coreless blasphemers.

I could see it now; the other Coreless weren’t wearing threads of ore-flesh, they were bound by them. Held tight, like they were caught within the sticky threads of a many-legged bad-thing.

These Coreless must have admired the bad-things of many legs. Enough to create threads of their own to catch and enslave their own kind. I fought back the urge to vomit at the thought.

Was this why there were so many Coreless that hadn’t accepted the Great Core’s light? Because they weren’t able to? Because the blasphemers bound them in unbreakable threads?

It was horrifying. Terrible. Unacceptable.

My blood turned to ice in an instant as I stopped desperately healing myself, nearly every bit of mana and life essence within my body forcefully shifting towards death, with only just enough mana left to wrap around the essence and keep myself safe from its touch. Time felt as if it froze; my body froze with it, the horrible chill of death rushing through my entire length. Death in quantities that had defeated leviathans. Far more than I would possibly need.

I lunged forward. The air split with the force of my dive, still-shedding blood pitter-pattering silently underneath and behind me, the sound drowned out by the roars and whistles that the Coreless had brought with them.

My mouth opened wide - and then the air itself threw me back, catching me mid-flight and flinging me violently in the opposite direction. I hit the nearest wall with a painful thud, only to bounce off again and land on my most recently healed Coreless’ chest.

Back where I had started.

The five blasphemous Coreless, still standing at the entrance to the cavern, raised their rods of darkwood and ore-flesh, pointing them towards me. Their tips glowed brightly. Pulled back as one.

A hand reached out in front of me, blocking my view.

“Wait! Stop! The snake healed us!” I heard the Coreless behind me shout, the sound barely audible above the roaring and whistling wind. Without a [Little Guardian’s Totem] to help me better understand, I could only make a guess at what it meant.

It seemed desperate. I knew what that sounded like; I had heard it enough. He, at least, knew the glory of the Great Core. Was desperate to stop his blasphemous kin.

I lifted slightly, peeking over the Coreless’ hand, rivers of death essence still running through my body. Filling my venom. Preparing for my next move.

The moment that I caught sight of the blasphemous Coreless again. Still at the cavern’s entrance. Their rods of darkwood and ore-flesh thrust forward. Their tips burst into light.

The wind whistled. Shrieked.

Attacked.

The Coreless’ hand blew apart, five giant holes splitting it into tiny pieces. My ore-flesh shrieked, and the Coreless below me shrieked with it; a wet, gurgling thing that quickly stopped.

The thought-light flickered.

Resistance: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate IV] Increased.

[Piercing Resistance - Intermediate V] Acquired.

And then I fell apart, the bursts of wind that missed my ore-flesh finding more vulnerable scale-flesh instead. The world darkened. Chilled.

Death slithered closer. I slid helplessly into its open maw, growing colder all the while. So I did the only thing that I could. What was necessary. What my newest instincts demanded.

I stripped away the little bits of mana that protected me from myself, and let free-flowing death essence press itself against the inner walls of my scale-flesh. My flesh rotted. Death’s maw closed.

I let it swallow me without a fight.

Condition Met.

Core Skill - [Transient Reanimation] Activated.

Applying Reanimation.

Reanimation Complete.

It was surprisingly comfortable.

My body slid down the now-dead Coreless’ side, riding a river of blood that sent me plummeting from his sleep-surface with a ring of ore-flesh and a wet squelch. The shredded pieces of my scale-flesh started to stitch themselves together, dark wisps rising from their edges.

[Illusion Spark] quickly hid them away, and I set myself to wait, looking for all the world like the corpse that I was.

For now.