Zeldritzon [Cycle 22] - Late Afternoon

  Current Location:

  ? [Pittusks Zone]

  ? [DreaGoth Barrens of the DreaGoth Realm]

  Suspended in the greatest whirlwind, the beast's dormancy comes to an end. With a single twitch, the barren landscape trembles, whipped by strong gusts and vortexes, as the whirling creature strides, tearing apart the sky, the field, and the very air itself.

  "Intruders. They disturb the wind; it shall be Gamuikaze who rids them."

  The mandibles of its subordinates clacked as the commander led them through the whispers of the hurricane's wake.

  ???

  "They say DreaGoth is a place where shadows breathe and memories are twisted by the wind."

  We breached the tree line at the border, and everything changed.

  The moment DreaGoth touched my senses, it wasn't sight that struck first, it was scent. Foul, cloying, metallic. Like rusted blood soaked into dead roots. It twisted in my nostrils, and I had to fight the urge to bare my fangs. Beneath me, Kyrawl's wings snapped shut as we descended into the clearing, dust curling up like something exhaled by the land itself.

  I dropped to the ground. My legs adjusted automatically, the pads of my feet sinking slightly into the loam, soft from decay. The wind shifted. My ears caught the distant creak of vines straining above and the crunch of Scarbol dismounting Amber behind me. My fur bristled with every sound. Every rustle. This place was wrong. Living, but not alive. And I knew this feeling. Not the place, but the sensation. Like hiding under concrete, sirens above, and your own heartbeat too loud in your ears. No one said it back then, but everyone knew: when the air turns still like this, run.

  Mina stepped beside me, her heavy form casting a shadow that shifted too quickly for the sun's position. "Here we are," she said, voice light, almost mocking. "Home sweet home." Her smile didn't touch her eyes.

  My voice rasped. "Sure. If decay's your thing."

  Mina laughed once—dry, short—and that told me more than her words. She'd lived here. She'd bled here. That laugh had been dragged out of her like splinters from under nail.

  "Everyone's accounted for," I glanced at the others. So far, my division consisted of Mina, Scarbol, Nex, Viz, Rox, Amber and Kyrawl. Each one was here, and that's how it would stay.

  Scarbol reined Amber in beside us, his posture stiff. "Do not let down your guard," he said. I didn't have the heart to tell him I couldn't remember the last time I'd put mine down.

  We moved forward. Kyrawl took to the skies again, wings beating the air into submission, while the others took formation around me. Viz, Rox, and Nex darted ahead—dark streaks flickering between vine-wrapped trees and crystalline thorns. Nex's [Echowhisper] brushed the edge of my thoughts.

  'Safe… for now. Now, left.'

  We banked left, Kyrawl diving through a narrow gap between two towering trunks as Viz and Rox shot ahead. The twin batkin flickered through the shadow-crowded canopy like wisps of smoke, their [Echowhispers] pulsing back to us in rhythmic bursts: clear… clear… pause… unknown presence to the west… clear again.

  The deeper we went, the thicker it grew. Not just the foliage, but the presence. As if the land itself breathed heavier the farther we stepped. Whispers bled from the trees. Some too rhythmic to be wind. And I hated how my claws kept flexing, like I needed to fight the ground itself.

  "Tell me more about Jalkra," I said, needing something human—monster—anything—to focus on. My voice came out tight.

  Mina hesitated. I felt her adjust her position before I saw it. "He's… smarter than most of us. And charming, when he wants to be. I used to follow him without thinking twice."

  "But not anymore."

  Her breath hissed out. "No. Not anymore."

  "And Tilz," I asked, not expecting the bitterness that crept into my own voice. "You worked with him, right?"

  Mina's lip curled like she’d bitten something sour. "Pain in the ass. But efficient, I'll give him that. When he says he'll get it done, he does. Even if it means burning everything else down along the way."

  I glanced over at her. Her claws flexed at her sides, barely brushing the hilt of her club. "Thought most kobolbo and kolkobalts were kept low in the ranks. What makes Tilz so special? How'd he get his own territory?"

  She didn't answer right away. Her silence stretched long enough that my ears started to twitch.

  That pulled a sharp turn from Scarbol. His shoulders tensed beneath his pauldrons, and I heard the faintest growl pass through his lips.

  "Scarbol?" I called down.

  He stiffened, but didn't stop walking. "It is nothing," he said too fast.

  I didn't press. Whatever was cracking behind those tusked jaws wasn't ready to be let loose.

  Mina's gaze roamed the valley. "This way leads to Tilz's canyons. We move fast, or Jalkra's scouts will close in before sunset."

  I nodded, chest tight with the weight of it all. One careless breath, one misstep, and Willow (Mezmeic) and the Dorvus could be lost forever.

  We continued, the wind brewed harsher. Something skittered up ahead. Scarbol flinched. My hackles rose.

  Then a squeaky voice chirped: "It's stuffy in here!" My hand darted to my satchel's strap.

  A tiny head poked out. Mellow wormed her way out of my bag. All of her fuzzy limbs flailed in protest. The Mezmeic's pale eyes blinked up at me, brimming with hope. "Can I come? I want to help."

  I nearly lost it. "You should've stayed with the others!"

  A breath of laughter slipped out from Mina. I glared at her—she just shrugged, shoulders trembling, smirk half-hidden behind one clawed hand.

  The Mezmeic blinked, big eyes shimmering, stubbornness already building in her tiny frame. "But I can help! I'm a [Healer]!"

  My stomach clenched. She was just a child—a healer, yes, but so fragile. Still, I found my hand drifting to her fine antennae. "All right," I said, with a voice softer than I meant. "Stick close, promise me you won't wander off."

  She nodded, radiant as dawn, and scrambled back inside the satchel. The relief warmed my chest—fear and hope tangled in the same breath. I felt like the worst leader in the world.

  "Intruders…"

  The hell? Where did that voice come from? It came from nowhere and everywhere, like it had seeped up from under our feet. I peered ahead, barely able to perceive anything in the murky skies ahead.

  "It is time for you all to be lost in the wind..."

  Where? Where was it coming from?

  The sky darkened above. My eyes snapped up. A shape formed in the clouds—a curve of motion so fast it tore the light in ribbons.

  My ears flattened as something old stirred. In the pit of my chest, a memory I didn't ask for. Concrete hallways, coated in soot. Children huddled in shelters. Me, too weak to scream anymore. My teacher wouldn't look at me. I remembered the wind outside, rising. Nex spoke next, but I was already moving.

  "Tornadoes!" His warning cut through the rumble.

  To the west, a tower of wind curled downward from the heavens, its base scraping the valley with spiraling debris. And within that monstrous funnel, I saw something move—stride—as if the storm itself had grown limbs.

  "Wind magic," Mina said. "And not natural. Damn. It's Gamuikaze!"

  The world shifted in an instant. A funnel of black-green wind clawed its way through the barrens, uprooting dead grasses and whipping sand into stinging swirls. I staggered as the first blast hit—dust stung my eyes and a howl like metal on metal rattled my bones. The world tilts.

  Out of the blur floats a figure: wind in flesh. Blades for arms that gleam like sickles in moonlight. A lower body of pure vortex, spinning up death itself. The Zeldritch: Gamuikaze.

  ???

  Creature: Gamuitachi

  Faux Nym: [Gamuikaze] the Gamuitachi

  Titles: "Commander" "Ten Pillars"

  APeX: [56112 Units]

  Attributes: [Wind] [Cryptic]

  Evolution Stage: [Emergent]

  Current Variant Grade: [Rare]

  Brief description: wind-slicing weasel monster.

  ???

  Gamuikaze's Parameters:

  STR Parameter: [15000]

  DEF Parameter: [100]

  PWR Parameter: [19000]

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  WIL Parameter: [1000]

  RES Parameter: [4500]

  SPD Parameter: [15000]

  ??. .????. .????. .??

  Scarbol grunts, grasping Amber's reins. "By all that's dead, it's him!"

  My heart ratchets tight. Back on Earth I'd learned to read storms—sand devils that swallowed whole camps. This feels the same, only alive.

  "Form up!" I shout, planting my feet in the rotting soil. My spear feels light until the wind snatches at it like a rag. "Scarbol and Amber, maneuver away from its path. Nex, Viz, flank left. Mina, you and Kyrawl circle right."

  The wind sharpened. Behind Gamuikaze, eight forms glided across the storm wall—like mantises born from glass and gale, their bladed arms catching glints of fractured light. His soldiers. And they weren't too far behind him.

  ???

  Creatures: Praiyeblasis

  Faux Nyms: [None]

  Brief description: praying mantis monsters.

  APeX Range: [19000] → [22000 Units]

  Attributes: [Xensect] [Metal]

  Evolution Stage: [Emergent]

  Current Variant Grade: [Uncommon]

  ???

  Viz and Rox blinked into position beside Nex, faces pale beneath the mask of control. The triplets were the fastest I had, but even their confidence was stretched thin across this battlefield.

  Mellow whimpered softly in the satchel.

  I dropped to one knee, the wind trying to rip my ears backward. I touched the satchel's flap. "Stay down. No matter what happens, you don't peek again. Understand?"

  A tiny nod felt against my palm. "Rox, take her."

  She appeared from my shadow and snagged the satchel before vanishing.

  Then Scarbol placed one heavy hand on my shoulder. "We stand with you."

  His words should've comforted me. But I just thought of the past… of bunkers I couldn't hold, of people I couldn't save, of a girl who once stood against storms with nothing but a kitchen knife and a failing flashlight. I tasted bile. Memories left nothing but blinking rubble. I had been that rubble once, scraping by on hope and will. Not again.

  "Hello, intruders," the whirlwind boomed, voice echoing in my bones. "You disturb the balance. I am Gamuikaze. Lord Jalkra's Ten—"

  "Now!" I screamed, hurling my spear into the gale. The blade blazed, turning the wind around it into a crackling current of frost and fire. It sliced through the tornado's lip—just a warm-up.

  "Keep them occupied!"

  Kyrawl screeched and dove between two mantis warriors, talons raking their arms. Scarbol leapt off Amber's back with a war cry, axe flashing. Mina slammed her club against one's waist.

  I turned to face the growing cyclone, towering above the twisted trunks like a living column of death. I could almost make out a weasel-shaped silhouette at its eye—long sickles for claws, ragged fur shimmering with dark, gaseous locks. My heart stuttered, but I charged it nonetheless.

  "Cover the strike!" I yelled, sprinting toward the storm's edge. Each step kicked up sand that felt like pinpricks on my paws. The funnel's roar closed in around me, tempting me to drop and let the wind claim me.

  I focused my concentration on the Chimera's Mark. It glowed, and my fur followed suit. With an instant pulse, I [Evolution Slide] into my Pluffcritt form. The extra weight anchored me to the ground despite the gales' furious tug. Then with the activation of [Brunt Bound], I launched myself towards the cyclone, and in one breath, I plunged into its heart.

  ??. .??

  [KiAera's Slide-Evolution!]

  Creature Form: Pluffcritt

  Species: [Mearcritt — Defensive Slide Variant]

  Evolution Stage: [Emergent]

  Attributes: [Beast] [Fire]

  APeX: [31,430 Units]

  Subtype: [Bulwark-Class]

  Passive Traits:

  — [Furfortress Hide]: Physical resistance multiplied by 3x.

  — [Boulder Waddle]: Reduces knockback, improves grounded stances.

  — [Pluffquake]: Area-of-effect slam activated upon landing from a leap.

  Innate Skills:

  — [Brunt Bounce]: Convert damage taken into kinetic rebound.

  — [Spectral Slam]: Converts momentum into a seismic charge.

  ??. .??

  The storm grabbed me, spinning me like a toy until every thought scattered. But my mark burned hotter than the tempest. I became a blade of spectral fire, carving a tunnel straight to the weasel shape at the core. There was a flash, and the tornado shuddered—but it didn't dissipate.

  The blades of the wind carved into my fur. But my defenses thick enough to endure the punishment. However, there in the midst, a mocking chuckle echoed as I was thrown back, sandblasted and dizzy. Through my tears, I saw it clearly now: Gamuikaze's eyes, obsidian gems set in a wind-whipped grin. He beckoned with one sickle claw, and the storm rebuilt itself around him. "Your defiance is but a breeze against a hurricane. Let me show you the silence of true wind."

  Gamuikaze's storm raged higher, sickles arcing like moons. He smiled through the gale. "Come, show me your strength!" he roared, lashing out with tornadoes in every direction. I staggered within them, but I was not lifted off the ground, thanks to my [Boulder Waddle], nor was I torn apart, as my [Furfortress Hide] provided resilience. I reinforced my position by blocking the whirling winds with an icy wall of [Spectral Flame].

  But one funnel swirled dangerously close, slamming into the earth before Scarbol, tearing him free and flinging him back. I barely managed to leap clear, with burning embers falling like rain around me. I had to protect him as the whirlwind swept him into the sky.

  So I did.

  My ears elongated into blades of light, slicing through the swirling debris. A mantis-warden appeared, snapping its sickle at me. I deflected the attack with a high-pitched [Ear Slash], sending the creature crashing into its companion.

  ???

  {KiAera's Status}

  APeX: [31430] → [33430 Units]

  ???

  I didn't stop until I saw him again, frustration churning as I heard his cry.

  Trapped in a wind prison, Scarbol's hide and armor was relentlessly torn. I activated my Skyrawsoarian wings to fly, only for the tornado that Gamuikaze inhabited to whip into my path. From its center, a crescent curve of wind blasted against my raised, enlarged ears.

  I faltered under the sheer force of the screaming slash, feeling my fur tear and a deep gash open along where it struck.

  "[Spectral Surge]. [MereSwiftness]," I managed to activate both skills simultaneously, allowing me to fly faster than the subsequent attacks Gamuikaze hurled at me. I flung myself through Gamuikaze's personal vortex with a [Pluffquake]. However, the attack missed him entirely. Instead, all my focus was on reaching Scarbol, who had been thrown out of the vortex just as Kyrawl crashed into him.

  Both of them spiraled down toward the gaping chasm, their forms heavily lacerated, with Scarbol barely conscious. I dove, while Kyrawl continued to swoop. Not fast… not fast enough.

  Kyrawl and I were not going to make it. The mark burned on my skin. Could it work? Would it work? Only for me? I wouldn't know unless I tried.

  "You two. Merge!"

  ???

  [Chimera Synchronization]

  {Kyrawl + Scarbol}

  Name : Skyrawlbol

  Race: [Skyrawsoar] + [Kolkobalt]

  Composition : [Wyvern] + [Kobold]

  Evolution Stage : [Hybrid] [Emergent]

  Variant Grade : [Hybrid] [Uncommon]

  Attribute Influence : [Wind] [Deino] [Cryptic]

  APeX : [44315 Units]

  [18383 Units + 11160 Units] * {Bond Bonus: C} = Multiplier {1.5}

  ???

  The fusion ignited midair like a flare catching a storm. Scarbol's limp form shimmered and bled into Kyrawl's frame—bone, hide, and wings bending around each other in a dance of desperation. They spun once, twice, and then a blinding spiral of wind cracked the air.

  Where two bodies once fell, now one soared.

  Skyrawlbol erupted from the descent, wings far broader than Kyrawl's. Scarbol's scales had embedded into the creature's forelimbs, turned into jagged scale-plating across the chest and shoulders. A long tail, spiked like a clawed mace, snapped like a whip behind them.

  Gamuikaze's hurricanes swept toward the hybrid. "Ah… So, it's true. You bend the laws of monsterkind. How quaint. Good. Worthy prey."

  He raised both sickles and spun like a sawblade, unleashing a wall of wind like a guillotine.

  But Skyrawlbol didn't await the winds. His wings snapped wide, and with a burst of pressured air, he vanished, only to reappear with a burst of wind behind Gamuikaze, with claws of wind poised.

  The storm-weasel barely had time to react as Skyrawlbol's tail lashed out, forcing him to flicker away in a last-second escape, a streak of slicing gale dodging the hybrid's strike by mere hairs.

  They chased after each other, weaving through the tempestuous sky, and every impact sent shockwaves through the atmosphere, making the wind howl louder as they clashed.

  I used the distraction. My [Spectral Surge] pulsed again, and I dashed. I met Gamuikaze in midair, his sickles crossing mine—my ears blazing like brands, freezing fire in their flickers. In that instant, fire met wind in a thunderous clash, scorching the eye of the storm, and the world felt suspended in time.

  "You fight like a broken planet clings to atmosphere," he said and pushed me back.

  "Then let's both fall."

  I activated [Spectral Might] to triple strength and power, and [Specter Slam] for a decisive strike.

  I twisted and hurled my full body weight into him, crackling with icefire. His eyes widened as I collided into his gut with the full swing of a burning-ember arc. It wasn't enough to kill him. But enough to send him.

  We crashed into the ground like a comet strike, churning up a crater of scree and wind-churned ash. The impact sent Praiyeblasis tumbling. One screeched, its wings shredded by Nex and Rox's synchronized sonic burst. It succumbed to the damage.

  And from the crater's edge, Gamuikaze rose slowly. His lower tornado-body sputtered, then restabilized, whirling faster than before. His fur bristled like electrified reeds. "So… the storm must consume you after all."

  "Not today." My body hurt, limbs heavy, ears slick with my own particles, but I stayed up.

  He twirled, the tornado splitting into four slicing gusts that spun toward us. The cyclone didn't end with a crash, but with a fraying. A trembling in the storm's wall, like a cord pulled too tight finally giving way. Gamuikaze staggered back through the winds, claw tips digging into the air like it had substance.

  Skyrawlbol appeared, gritting through the blow, before retaliating with a blast of [Razor Cyclone] from his maw.

  The cyclones clashed midair. The impact blasted the clouds apart, shaking the heavens. Below, the wind momentarily calmed—enough for the rest of us to catch breath.

  One mantis clattered to my left. Another a few meters beyond it. The last two were slumped near Mina, battered and scorched. Then I realized: his soldiers were gone. All eight of the Praiyeblasis… dead or broken. Mina had crushed one with the ground itself, burying its twitching limbs in stone. Viz had lured another into a false retreat, only for Amber to turn and gut it with a supersonic feint. Rox had decapitated hers with a well-timed [Shadow Lunge]. And Nex, of course, made his kill as flashy as it was brutal—he'd turned its own blade against it mid-spin and tossed the shredded pieces into the whirlwind with a smirk.

  They were all down. Only Gamuikaze remained. And he didn't like those odds. His gaze lingered on me.

  I didn't speak. Just stared him down.

  The wind whispered something too quiet for my ears, but my Nex seemed to have caught it: a thought flickered through the current like a ripple in deep water.

  "This is not my storm to die in."

  Then Gamuikaze's shape shivered. His lower body condensed, spiraled inward. The whole of him folded like origami wind. And in the blink of an eye, he was no longer a monster—

  —but a streak of pressure.

  A sonic boom cracked across the barrens, hurling dust and grit into the air. The cyclone collapsed inward like a dying star. My ears popped. The pressure dropped. And Gamuikaze was gone.

  I stared into the shredded clouds for a heartbeat longer, just to be sure.

  "GONE?" Nex's voice cracked like thunder. "He ran?!"

  "He did," Mina answered, breathing hard, club resting over one shoulder. "Didn't expect to get backed into a corner."

  "He'll be back." That was Scarbol's voice, or maybe it was Kyrawl's—no, it was both, harmonized in the Skyrawlbol form. The fusion creature hovered beside me, wings kicking up slow gusts of wind as its claws flexed restlessly.

  I hovered close, exhaling hard. "You two all right in there?"

  Skyrawlbol let out a rumbling cough. "Never better," came Scarbol's drawl. "Though this body's got too much plume and not enough dignity."

  I smiled, barely. My lungs burned, and blood still trickled down my shoulder from Gamuikaze's sickle slash. My Pluffcritt form's fuzz armor had held just long enough—but I didn't want to know how close that had really been.

  Skyrawlbol spoke again. "We should track him."

  "We will," I said, steadying myself with my spear. "But not like this. He ran for a reason. Let's not waste the win."

  I felt the mark cool against my forehead, no longer pulsing. Kyrawl and Scarbol had defused. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mellow squirming in the satchel on Rox's back; she finally lifted her head, her eyes wide with curiosity.

  "Did we win?" she asked.

  "For now," I replied, turning toward the others, "we need to regroup and patch our wounds. We still have to catch up with Berlygem and bring your sister back." My gaze settled on Mellow, who nodded in agreement.

  "Nex, Viz, Rox, scout ahead. Be careful out there."

  "LEE-LEE!?"

  Amber's voice, shrill and warbling, echoed across the DreaGoth Barrens. I turned so fast my ears whipped behind me.

  There she stood, near the edge of the broken stone rise where she guarded the Liorex egg. Her feathers twitched, and her legs trembled, as if the ground itself could no longer decide whether to support her.

  She was glowing—no, not just glowing; she was radiating. And my Chimera's Mark ignited in response. The wind caught the long plumes of her tail as she threw her head back.

  "I can feel it, LeeLee… I'm changing, and LeeLee's here to see it!" she said, lifting the egg.

  It was here? But how? The world narrowed down to that single, miraculous heartbeat.

  I was glad for her, but, "Liozel?"

  〔〔"I don't know how. Only that I needed to be where you were."〕〕

  〔〔"You're still just an egg. How did you…?"〕〕

  〔〔"I teleported."〕〕 The egg cracked.