Dried husk poison

Mortal tier recipe. No cultivation requirements

Disregard the figurative name. This poison is another battlefield weapon, designed to directly counter the Berserker’s sundering. Like the prior it exists to spill more blood.

Created by a rather vengeful alchemist, and not a weak one at that, he desperately sought revenge against the empire that sent his brother into battle. The unknowing youth plagued by an intoxicating scent of his enemy’s blood, a sad effect of the berserker’s sundering, he inevitably died after sustaining several fatal wounds. All that followed was a vow to crush this empire’s trump card and personally scoop out the emperor’s eyes.

Which he did nearly five years after creating this poison.

Ingredients and recipe Three-eyed corset venom, 1 ml – non magical poisonous fluid Blood egg centipede venom, 3 ml – non magical poisonous fluid Avian scuttler venom, 3 ml – non magical poisonous fluid Any death element blood, 30-50 ml – natural gathering stage fluid Any oil, 250 ml – non magical fluid

Three-eyed corset is a snake on the cusp of evolving to natural gathering. It’s third eye is intrinsically magical and can see through a variety of regular obscurities. It holds a massive advantage in the dark, and natural habitat by default.

Blood egg centipedes are a thing of nightmares. They only lay eggs in the arteries of larger creatures, humans included. I’ve heard of at least a few cases where they’ve burrowed into a sleeping human and left hundreds of eggs lining their arteries. Please try to execute every last one.

Avian scuttler is a spider… A spider that holds incredulous jumping height. Try to avoid their natural habitat as they often jump from bushes onto your face, although some experimentation reveals that they aim for the back of your neck. Like all the creatures listed they will rapidly kill you if allowed to bite you.

The blood is necessary for a necrosis effect, however rarer elements are virtually impossible to find in non-magical beings. It’s a fool's errand to find anything lower than a natural gathering stage one.

Begin by dropping the centipede venom into an oil of your choice. It can be a plant based oil, so don’t worry about using some odd industrial concoction. Stir idly and begin heating the mixture. Simply get the oil to a point where dripping water in causes massive sputters. If the water explodes on touch then you’ve heated it way too much.

With the oil heated to this point you’ve dealt with the biggest issue in the centipede venom. From here you can add the spider venom and snake venom. Whether or not the oil is still hot will play no impact on the poison’s end state, although it’s far easier to handle the cooled oil.

With the tiny volume of venom mixed into a massive amount of oil you can add half of the death element blood. Depending on the type of blood used the quantity needed will range between 30 ml and 50 ml. Starting with the initial 25 ml, add the blood a drop at a time. Also making sure your skin never comes into direct contact with the decaying fluid.

Gloves and skin protecting sap mean nothing here. DO NOT RISK IT! Only those with Qi barriers can temporarily interact with the blood as it quickly decries Qi to the crypts of time.

With the prose over, continue adding it drop by drop. You’ll know the amount is exactly correct as the oil transforms into a black sludge, but will quickly revert back if too much more is added. You will soon find this black sludge is only such in appearance, and still holds all the physical properties of the main oil.

Since you will be coating blades in this stuff it is often recommended to use an oil which sufficiently sticks to metal.

Usage

The oil’s effect is simple, once it enters the bloodstream the victim will be incapable of forming blood clots. This is further reinforced by the death element specifically targeting the wound to make it incapable of healing without further treatment. At the very least you must cut off all the necrotic flesh and then seal the wound until all the venom leaves their system.

In a duel this stuff is useless, maybe a battle of attrition could argue it but mortals lack the stamina to do such a thing. Instead it was prepared to beat the simple minded enhanced soldiers of the empire, beating back the berserker’s sundering.

The best thought tactic of the nations combating this tyrannical regime to use incredibly defensive tactics. By turtling themselves with shields, their coated spears jut out to slowly stab into random opponents. Slowly whittling down the opposing army through pure attrition.