“Which way do you think he went?” Valera asked. The darkness wrapped like a cloak around the world around her, an occluding barrier that blocked out what lay behind it. Only faint tendrils of light managed to pass through, and even those lasted barely a few steps before they faded away. Smothered by the far-stronger dark. “It’s been more than a week; even at his size, there’s no telling where he is now!”

Valera turned away from the darkness, her eyes falling upon the Guardian Statue that rested directly behind her. The sight of it soothed her worries, at least to a degree, even if its presence was more than a little mystifying. Their little snake hadn’t been able to make those before. It was a big change.

“I’m sure he’ll be-” Erik started to say, a series of clicks and skitters cutting him off mid sentence, a jumble of sounds that spilled forth from the darkness. Something coming fast. Valera whipped back around before the man even finished pulling his hammer free, her blades ripping their way from each sheathe with a metallic shing.

A single leg, reaching as high as Valera’s knees, stepped into the light. It appeared as if pulling forth from an illusion, suddenly springing into existence from nothing, the darkness of its flesh near-fully camouflaged by the black of the world outside the Guardian Statue’s light. Another leg followed, then another, and another, until the entire creature was fully bathed in the Statue’s radiant light. A massive spider, soon joined by two others.

Valera relaxed somewhat, battle-ready grip on her blades loosening.

“Puppets,” Elara said, having reached the same conclusion that Valera did. The lines of gold and blue, running between bristles of black fur and glimmering in the light, were a dead giveaway. Not something that - especially after the living Forest marked by that same gold and blue - any of them would forget.

Still, Valera kept one of her blades out just in case, even as she slowly approached the nearest of the gold-blue creatures. A single hand stretched out in front of its fangs, ready to pull backwards at any moment. It didn’t react, staring placidly at the meal she presented.

A moment later, it awkwardly shuffled its limbs, creating some weird approximation of a beckoning gesture, and the two of the spiders stepped back into the shadows. The third stopped at the light’s edge, shuffling its limbs again. Waiting.

A guide through the darkness.

The Seekers followed.

I flexed my tail, my form cutting through the mana-water like a fang through flesh. Liquid streamed across my side-scales with a teasing touch, [Streamlined Scales] letting me pass with hardly any resistance at all. Moving faster than I did on the ground, as if I had been born in the lake itself.

My prey loomed before me, all grasping tendrils and sharp teeth and roughened flesh. A leviathan of the depths, looking all the larger for my lack of [Size] in this life. [Illusion Spark] kept me hidden, kept me safe. Stopped those grasping tendrils from reaching out and pulling me into its maw.

And let me move ever-closer, light shifting across my scale-flesh to match the ever-moving waters.

The leviathan never noticed. Didn’t see as I slithered closer. Didn’t catch my slowly-opening mouth. Didn’t feel the danger it was in.

My blood hissed with power; I imagined that, if my flesh were invisible, my mana-filled blood would be a beacon of radiance even stronger than the surrounding mana-water, a fount of blinding light. With a rush of anticipation, I took nearly all of that light. Shattered it beneath my will, with only a thin coat of mana-filled blood left around it - carefully controlled with [Mana Manipulation] to make sure that it stayed that way. Like scales draped across skin, keeping what was inside from seeping out.

To protect me from myself.

It was cold; bitterly cold, frozen-over. Solid. Chilled beyond reason. In a few places, my efforts weren’t enough; the scales of mana too thin, bits of death seeping through. My flesh withered and died, breaking under its touch. I was forced to change some of the death essence back, converting it into mana again before shunting it out towards my self-inflicted wounds. Once there, drops of blue became drops of gold, and my flesh was restored again. [Life - Vitality XV] made it easy. Quick.

My blood surged through my body, as it always did, but in a way that I could now feel, my many manipulation abilities allowing me to track the flow of mana and essence that suffused it. When it neared my shattered mana core, that broken-walled shell where my mana still renewed, I began to pull them away. Bit by bit, drop by drop, mana-bound essence spilled its way through. Passed through one side and out the other, a torrent of power far beyond what I could have contained before.

For once, with mana wrapped around it to keep me safe, the death essence didn’t hurt. Didn’t rend my flesh or make it rot. Not until the end, when it found its way to my venom sacs. When death-venom became [Death - Venom] and started to spill from my fangs.

When my mouth finally closed, and the leviathan finally noticed me - though it was already too late for it to do anything else. The massive bad-thing, its coarse flesh already lined with an ominous black, started to sink. Weak. Cold. Dying.

Dead.

Lesser Core Skill: [Death - Venom VII] Increased.

[Death - Venom X] Acquired.

Experience Gained!

Level up!

1 Trait Point Gained.

I slipped past strips of already-decaying flesh, mana-water rushing past my scales. Healed my self-inflicted wounds with mana-turned-gold. Brought myself back to the safety of the shore. Found my tail, and started to prepare for the next.

Within my shattered mana core, a drop of blue began to form.

The air was filled with rot. It pushed into Valera’s nostrils, hooking into her flesh with invisible barbs. Something that, once noticed, couldn’t be unnoticed. A fetid, putrid aroma, powerful enough to feel sharp even above the cleansing aroma of the mana-water itself.

And there was a lot of that; their three eight-legged guides had first brought them to a river, a shining stream that cut through the darkness of the cavern through which they walked. By the time they reached the river’s end, arriving at a cliffside where the river crashed into a lake below in a sudden waterfall, the light had only grown more brilliant; even from above, before Valera had truly looked over the cliff’s edge, it was impossible to miss the radiant glow of the lake that rested at its base, one that brought the features of the otherwise-dark cavern into stark relief. More of the blue-gold flecked creatures stood near the waterfall’s edge, standing guard over a series of spider silk nets that stretched across the rushing water. More than one fishlike monster was caught within that web, trapped and tangled.

It was interesting, but it wasn’t the most interesting thing.

No, that would have been what was happening down below. Or what had happened.

The lake was a mess, brilliant and horrid at once. Strips of rotting flesh floated on its surface and washed out to its shores. Ones large enough that, even from up above, Valera didn’t need to have Kala’s mana-honed eyesight to make out the details.

Something huge had died there - many huge things.

Only the uncaring nature of the blue-gold spiders’ vigil kept Valera from worrying. Whatever had happened, their Little Guardian was probably okay. Somehow.

Their guides moved again, legs lumbering towards the cliff’s edge. A series of silken strands were already waiting there, bundles of black fibers that stretched all the way to the bottom.

Valera gave her fellow Seekers a silent look, and they began to descend.

I let out a satisfied hiss and immediately regretted the decision. The scent-taste of the leviathans sat heavy on my tongue, noxious and unsettling. Between death essence and the passing of time, the giant bad-things’ ruined flesh had become something hard to bear; if I hadn’t been waiting for my Coreless to arrive, I wouldn’t have tried to bear it.

A quick tug at the links to my Coreless’ [Little Guardian’s Totem]s pulled my perspective away, filling my vision with images of a sheer cliffside and my ears with the sounds of Coreless mouth-sounds. The Grateful One’s black ore-flesh held itself in front of our shared eyes, making it easy to tell which Coreless I had chosen. Her fingers wrapped around an equally-black bundle of thread as she slid downward, moving faster than I thought was entirely safe. Still, I let my mind coil itself within the perspective transferred by her [Little Guardian’s Totem], enjoying the brief loss of my own senses.

Unlike me, The Grateful One didn’t seem to detect the scent-taste of rotting corpse-flesh at all. Not even a little bit; it was like they didn’t exist. And, my mind caught within her senses, I no longer did either. The change was relief enough that I let myself stay that way even as The Grateful One’s body shifted into shadow as she hit the ground, ore-flesh-covered limbs dipping through the stone like a Blueswift diving through mana-water. Effortless and with hardly any resistance.

She pulled herself free again, looking up towards the other Coreless. They were descending more slowly than she had, and it took quite a bit longer for them to reach the ground. I caught a mix of [amusement] and light [exasperation] from the others as they finally touched down.

“Showoff,” Will said, mouth flapping about with a little more [exasperation] than the others, though I could tell that he wasn’t actually upset. “You and your fancy gear.”

The Grateful One laughed, more [amusement] filling the connection between us. Meanwhile, the-female-who-was-not-Needle shifted over towards Will, reaching past the giant chunk of ore-flesh that clung to his back and lifting up onto her toes to pat his head.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just jealous. Erik’s gotten a little afraid of heights ever since the Little Guardian showed him an image of himself falling into a giant colony of Flame Formicans a while back,” she crooned, the sound soft and comforting - even if I didn’t understand its meaning - followed by a pang of guilt as I remembered the sensation of slicing through her throat in my last life, and the strange message of the thought-light that had appeared when she finally died.. Just another evil the Lesser Core had to answer for, even if it ultimately led to my rebirth.

Even if I was sure that the Coreless would gladly give their lives for the Great Core’s glory, that didn’t mean that I took that sacrifice lightly. Especially when it was forced.

“Not afraid,” Will replied as the-female-who-was-not-Needle moved her hand away again. “Just…appropriately wary.”

The Coreless continued to jabber on as I thrust myself back into my own body, reveling in the sensation of power that my mana-filled blood gave me - and cringing at the return of the scent-taste of rot that filled the air.

Ignoring it as best I could, I started to slither in my Coreless’ direction. My preparations in this life were about as complete as they would ever be, and it was past time to begin the Lesser Core’s punishment.

As long as I made sure to keep making a new [Little Guardian’s Focus] every so often to keep them from dying, my Coreless would likely be a great help with that. Hopefully that would be enough even as we drew closer to the Death Core; the strength of its aura grew stronger the closer I had come to it in my false-life, so I couldn’t be sure.

Either way, it should be enough for them to make it most of the way before they were forced to stop. And, given that I didn’t have unending mana to work with, having the Coreless along to speed my travel toward the Lesser Core could only help; they moved far faster than I did, with how small my slithers were in this life.

And, I had to admit as my Coreless finally came into view, it was just nice to not be alone again.

Just a little.

Name: Paradox

Species: Snake, Ouroboros

Major Title: [The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail] [Little Guardian]

Minor Titles: [Minor Mana Core] [Venomous Retribution] [Touched By Fire] [Ascended Seeker]

Innate Traits: [Venomous II]

Blooded Traits: [Paralyzing Venom IV] [Poisonous Blood III] [Illusion Spark IV] [Clinging Grasp III] [Sound Shaping VII] [Chains Of The Creator I] [Anticoagulant IV] [Constriction I] [Spore Puppeteer IX] [Ascended Sense I] [Ambusher’s Vision III] [Streamlined Scales V] [Sting IV] [Enhanced Lungs III]

Resistances: [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate I] [Venom Resistance - Intermediate II]

Level: 67

Trait Points: 12

Core Skills: [The Endless Cycle] [Chrono Fire] [Verdure Parasite] [The Golem’s Fading Heart]

Lesser Core Skills: [Mana Manipulation XI] [Mana Venom XI] [Mana Fire VII] [Little Guardian’s Totem MAX] [Life Essence Manipulation IX] [Life - Invigorating Bite XIV] [Life - Vitality XV] [Life - Vigor X] [Life - Vigorous Spores IV] [Little Guardian’s Focus XI] [Death Essence Manipulation IX] [Death - Venom X] [Death - Enervating Bite XII] [Death - Wither XII] [Death - Weakness X]

Level Rewards: [Traveler] [Mana-Life Conversion] [Mana-Death Conversion] [Mana Restoration] [Mana Blood]

Description: A growing Ouroboros, symbol of the eternal.