Northern’s claws dug deeper, magma seeping from where his grip lted stone. The Soul Strings vibrated, straining. Through his connection, he felt the Bulwark’s soul—ancient, vast, patient. Six cores pulsing sowhere within that massive body.
The Crimson Leeches struck through the chaos. They launched themselves through the gravitational stream, surging faster than their bulk suggested. One latched onto Northern’s flank. Acidic mucus seared through his scales.
[Tar Blood Corruption detected]
[Thermal Regeneration active]
Northern’s flesh hissed and bubbled where the leech attached, but the Slag Wyrm’s regeneration surged. New scales ford even as old ones dissolved. The leech tried to burrow deeper.
[You’re using Absolute Zero]
Northern dropped his body temperature. Frost spread from the contact point, racing across the leech’s body. It spasd, trying to detach, but the ice spread faster. Within seconds, it was a frozen sculpture.
[You have slain 1 Devilish Maelstrom]
[You have gained 15 talent fragnts]
More leeches reached him. Northern couldn’t dodge—the Gravitational Maw still pulled relentlessly. He let them latch on.
[You’re using Ignis Dominus]
Fire erupted across his scales. The leeches burned, their acidic bodies boiling from within. They released him, writhing.
[You have slain 6 Devilish Maelstroms]
[You have gained 90 talent fragnts]
The Gravitational Maw finally ceased. Northern gasped—or rather, the wyrm form shuddered with spent essence.
The Bulwark’s head tilted, crimson plates catching the magma-light.
Then those sa plates along its skull began to glow.
[Blade Storm incoming]
The first plate detached with a sound like tearing tal. It spun through the air—three ters of razor-edged crimson death moving with impossible speed.
[You’re using Wind Manipulation]
Northern created a counter-current, deflecting the plate’s trajectory. It curved past him and embedded in the wall. But five more plates launched simultaneously, converging from all sides.
[You’re using Reversal]
The leftmost plate reversed mid-flight, slamming back into the Bulwark’s hide. But the others were too spread out—Reversal only worked on one at a ti. Northern coiled tighter, presenting his armored dorsal ridge.
Three plates struck. They carved deep furrows through his scales, black tar-blood seeping from the wounds. Pain lanced through Northern’s borrowed form.
[Tar Blood Corruption spreading]
Where his blood touched stone, it hissed and hardened into obsidian spikes. The acid began eating at his flesh from the inside out.
[Thermal Regeneration active - compromised by corruption]
Northern snarled—a sound that shook loose rocks from the ceiling. The remaining Stone Devourers closed in, sensing weakness.
No more defense.
[You’re using full essence manifestation: Terraforming]
Northern heated the ground beneath the advancing Stone Devourers. Stone liquified into magma. They shrieked as they sank, carapaces cracking from the heat. The lava spread, creating a moat between Northern and the smaller threats.
[You have slain 22 Catastrophic Hellions]
[You have gained 176 talent fragnts]
The Crimson Bulwark responded. The walls pulsed. The entire canyon contracted. Northern felt the pressure crushing inward, trying to force him into the magma he’d just created.
[You’re using Phase Strike]
Northern’s form beca semi-intangible. The crushing walls passed through him harmlessly. He solidified once the pressure wave passed.
The Bulwark’s head didn’t move. Its crimson plates glead, steady.
Then the sound hit.
Low-frequency. Sub-sonic. A physical blow that ruptured Northern’s inner ear—or whatever passed for it in wyrm form. His sense of balance vanished. Up beca down. His massive body swayed, disoriented.
The remaining Crimson Leeches struck. Four of them latched on simultaneously, spreading their corrosive mucus across his scales.
[Multiple Tar Blood Corruption stacks detected]
[Warning: Essence reserves depleting faster than normal]
Through the vertigo and pain, Northern forced himself to think. The Bulwark coordinated its abilities, wearing him down through attrition. The Pressure Presence alone drained his essence faster than combat normally did.
Ti to escalate.
[You’re using Heart of Winter]
The temperature plumted. Not just around Northern, but throughout the entire canyon level. Frost raced across the walls, across the magma moat, across the Bulwark’s exposed hide. The blizzard from earlier reford, swirling through the ruins with renewed fury.
The Crimson Leeches attached to Northern froze solid. He flexed his body, shattering them into crystalline fragnts.
[You have slain 8 Devilish Maelstroms]
[You have gained 120 talent fragnts]
The Bulwark’s head drew back. For the first ti, it seed... surprised. The cold was affecting its ability to sense through vibrations. The frozen stone transmitted movent differently.
Northern pressed the advantage.
[You’re using One Strike - modified through Slag Wyrm form]
All his remaining power condensed into his skull. Lightning, heat, kinetic force—everything compressed into a single point. His massive form coiled like a spring, then launched forward with explosive force.
He aid for the Bulwark’s throat, just below the crimson-plated skull.
The impact cratered stone. The sub-sonic Rumble cut off abruptly as the Bulwark’s throat compressed. Northern’s jaws clamped down, vestigial limbs gripping the larger monster’s hide for leverage.
Black tar-blood—not his, but the Bulwark’s—sprayed across the frozen canyon. Where it landed, it burned through ice, creating pockets of acidic steam.
The Bulwark thrashed. Its body—fused to the canyon walls—convulsed, causing localized earthquakes. Sections of the ceiling collapsed. The entire structure groaned.
Northern didn’t let go.
[You’re using Erasure Touch]
Where his claws gripped, black marks spread across the Bulwark’s hide. The marks crept toward the buried soul cores, seeking to weaken them, to make them vulnerable.
The Bulwark’s response was imdiate and devastating.
Every crimson plate on its body detached simultaneously. Dozens of three-ter blades spinning through the air, all converging on Northern’s position.
[Warning: Direct impact imminent]
[You’re using Full Impact - Return]
Northern released his grip and took the assault head-on. Blades carved into his wyrm body from all angles, each one a devastating wound. Tar-blood—both his and the Bulwark’s—mixed in the air.
But five seconds later, every wound Northern had suffered mirrored onto the Bulwark’s body. The larger monster convulsed as phantom blades carved into its flesh from within. Its roar shook the entire canyon.
[You’re using Lightning Chains]
Northern struck the Bulwark with a single lightning bolt. The electricity jumped, spreading through the tar-blood that now coated both their bodies. The lightning multiplied, fracturing into dozens of chains that paralyzed the Bulwark’s massive form.
And in that mont of paralysis, Northern saw them.
Through the combination of thermal vision, Thread Flow, and the spreading Erasure marks—the six soul cores glowing within the Bulwark’s chest cavity. Four clustered near the heart. Two flanking the spine.
[You’re using Phantom Strike - 7th Fragnt]
His fangs had struck six tis since the battle began. This would be the seventh.
He lunged forward, jaws opening impossibly wide, and plunged his entire head into the Bulwark’s chest cavity—phasing through the armored hide using Phase Strike.
His fangs closed around the cluster of four soul cores.
The seventh strike ignored all defenses. The cores shattered simultaneously.
The Bulwark’s roar beca a death scream. Its body spasd, the remaining two cores pulsing wildly as they tried to compensate for the catastrophic damage.
Northern withdrew, tar-blood dripping from his jaws. He circled around the dying behemoth’s flank, moving with predatory patience despite his own injuries.
The Bulwark tried to activate Gravitational Maw one final ti. But with four cores destroyed, the pull was weak. Northern resisted easily.
[You’re using Soul String]
He attached threads to the remaining two cores, tracking their desperate attempts to migrate deeper into the Bulwark’s body. Then he pulled.
The cores tore free, dragging chunks of flesh and essence with them. They pulsed once in Northern’s telekinetic grip, then went dark.
The Crimson Bulwark’s massive body went still. The canyon stopped breathing. The oppressive Pressure Presence dissipated like morning fog.
[You have slain an Abysmal Destroyer: Crimson Bulwark]
[You have gained 108 talent fragnts]
Northern’s wyrm form swayed, exhaustion finally catching up. His scales were shredded, tar-blood still burning through his flesh in places. But he’d won.
[Thermal Regeneration active]
[Estimated ti to full recovery: 47 minutes]
He looked at the Bulwark’s corpse—sixty ters of armored death that had ruled this territory for who knew how long. Then he looked deeper into the canyon, where the fifth layer awaited.
[Analyzing defeated entity...]
[Crimson Bulwark data complete]
[Echonization available]
[Form available for copying]
His molten eyes glead despite the exhaustion.
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