Trial by Terras ; Self-Identification

[13:12:32] The Sarab Desert would be the new hunting grounds, midst a canyon of the earthern element-- Primary setting for aforementioned creature, was it not? He couldn’t risk looking for the other back in the Trystle caverns, for risk of running back into the Kaor Bakuyu and wasting all of his endeavor entirely.

He needed a new one… And he was determined to find it here…
The nameless yokai was determined, brazen enough to hunt what was also beyond its own rank on the power scale… But with good reason.
”COME OUT!” He demanded amidst an opening, ”COME ON OUT AND FACE ME!” He taunted, ”I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE!” He scanned the area, darting his vision offwards to his right for a crevice, to the left for a pillar… To a rock!
To a cave!
Behind a nearby mesa!

One could’ve been anywhere…
”COME FORTH WITH YOUR TYPICAL BLOODLUST, AND REALIZE A NEW COMING OF POWER!”
There was a pause, as though waiting for obligated response…
(Vile Yokai)
[13:12:32] From the earth, a hand shattered the surface: Fist-bound, only to grasp at the insectoid’s feet, attempting to restrain, despite its miniscule size. He pulled his foot up for liberation, prying itself up inadvertantly to reveal itself to a grotesque cross betwixt man and mole, fallen to the stomp of one’s foot back upon its vessel: Squeezing it into a sanguineous messing beneath their person.
Immediately, two others took their leap from the depths, launching themselves into his body to latch onto his back.
A flinching response earned one’s ensnarement via a back-reached arm, ripping it off to hurdle it into the earth, splattering it on impact.

What remained on his person, was soon incinerated by the very ethereal pyre he manipulated to his leisure, charred on the spiritual level and sapped of vitality outright, leaving naught but a hollowed shell, plopping off for the earth below. Though, as predicted they wouldn’t stop…
They’d only come in greater quantity… In waves….
From a cavernous entrance within a mesa?

”I found your hiding place!” The vile yokai defiantely charged outright into the horde of lesser kindred, eyes locked for the caves beyond them.
(Vile Yokai)
[13:12:32] Their frail bodies were launched offwards, those unfortunate enough not to be spared by his off-throwing fell victim to his weight-bearing feet: Their forms, reduced to sanguineous paste across the stone flooring. All-throughout one’s endeavor, he failed to slow-- Soon, to descend down the perilous depths of night-enriched caverns. The walls around him implied Stinnox burrowing, but considering the swarm of yokai beastlings, he could easily doubt the likelihood of any stinnox life present.

”You can’t hide from me…” He proclaimed, charging only in the direction of the fending underlings, ”Your position, is forfeit!”
Alas, he’d come to the end of this everlasting corridor, for a spherical room:
Pods of an unnamed substance lined the walls, illuminating the scene with a dim saffron.
Amidst this room, it’d idle…
Another Giga-class, the only other beast of admirable power for miles… But, this wasn’t any ordinary encounter.

For once, he was able to see it…
(Vile Yokai)
[13:13:23] First Handedly, he oversaw the display of evolution taking to a progressional leap: The Gigai had its back turned towards the nameless, curled over to contain its murmuring abdomen. Skin twisted in and of itself, body… Shrinking to contain what only amplified. Particles of the earthen element were suspended abroad, blended by its feet to provide sheet to its body. In a matter of moments it’d transcend for a muddied hue, matching that of a newfound element.
Before one’s very eyes: A transformation had taken place…

This, was how he was suspected to ascend closer to Perfection.
This, was how he was going to defeat his adversaries…
This… Was it.
(Vile Yokai)
[13:13:23] The newly evolved Terras stood upright, spanning feet greater than himself… But even in this superior form, had it any chance?
” You were a fool to venture for me.” answered the Terras to his calls, ” You should know the difference in power between our forms.” It pivoted around to surprise one with a fist… Only to hear the sound-off of its knuckles, clapping to the solid hide of one’s palm: Caught.
”If only you knew what power you’re dealing with.” The nameless giga retorted with a twisted facade of sadistic pleasure in the matter. This, was the last of the many he had to consume…

--And his progress thus far, had left him well-built beyond, even his superseding form. ”I am naught like the commoner of our ilk.” He reared up his opposing arm to hurdle a fist into the Terras’ face, forcing them to stammer backwards. ”Since the beginning, I’ve proven superior to all, for what can irrefutably be deemed prophecy” The Umbral-spawn took to an advance, sweeping his right arm up to catch one’s lowered posture by their neck-- Digits laced it promptly, holding it above its figure with explicit ease.
”I am The Anamoly that breaches into the realm of non-fiction, and the article that denies scribed fact up until this age.”

Immediately, its digging nails took to their familiar gleam, siphoning one’s vitality from their very vessel. ”I am… A harbinger unlike any other, destined to rid myself of quarrels such as the foolish having ascended over me….”
He tightened his grasp, prepared to make the finisher with the climax of his rhetorical introduction.

”I. Am. The Omen. Of Oblivion.”
(Vile Yokai)
[13:13:23] In a last ditch effort, one kicked at the Giga-class’ face to little success, relying on a telepathic call to its lesser kindred: Serpents based on the terrain had emerged from the flooring of this Augur of Shadows, tying at its legs to lock themselves into constriction, and take bite-hold to guarantee such.
Their own siphoning endeavors were distracting enough to force the nameless beast to relinquish the partially-exhausted Terras.
Opportunity had taken its cost on self-proclaimed ‘Omen’, now sending him sprawling to a kick at his assailed figure-- The Terras, was pay back the favor… No… Ascend in its own right.

”You’re naught but a fool yourself, damned for nothing more than death of your own making. You were a joke from the start, and the moment you entered my territory, you were destined to die.”

Recovering as best he could, the Umbral-spawn took his attention to the leeches locked along his legs, only to be surprised by rock hurled at his side; He stammered offwards, only to be caught by a fist, encrusted with more of the hardened stone encircling this improvised battleground. Strings of blood sprayed from the impact-- He was clearly losing, suffering a spiralling descent for defeat, thanks to his overly-cocky attitude. It was all because, he was getting too strong for his own good. He had almost forgotten, that even with this newly accumulated power, he was still mortal…

He was still facing those of higher stages of power, technically more powerful than he-- And still, a legitimate threat, no matter how potent he could prove.
(Vile Yokai)
[13:13:23] He needed to get some distance, to rethink an approach for an easier means of victory… He needed a means of advantage. He landed against a stone wall, still working at one of the serpents: A pry at their ringed mouths, and its teeth severed from the flesh, leaving a meaty ring where their acuminate maws sliced through his bio-armor. Both hands were tasked with pulling its constricting form from his leg, squeezing hard at its muscular stature to attempt reducing the organs within into a bloody concoction of juices.

Yet, even in such attempt, he knew fair and well that the Terras was charging in. What was once an enemy, being juiced betwixt his fingertips, turned into an organic bat swung into his aggressor, forcing them to stammer out some ways into the way, on the side. The impact alone was enough to kill the poor lesser, which left only one more to be removed from his other leg. The nameless took to an improvised limp, desperately yanking at the last one, prying it free as it came to the exit.

There had to be an escape… A hiding place… Somewhere he could enforce his advantage. It was how he functioned, how he thought-- Why would he fight something head-on, when ti was easier to take them on by surprise? Especially, if they gave him so much of a hassle. Besides, the situation was taking a more pivot for the more dire. Though, even as he ripped off the last lesser… Even as he started his venture down the last corridor, it’d prove no use.

The walls contorted to the will of their new wielder: The Terras, a beautifully crafted environment for one such as it… Which lead to realization: There was nowhere to run. He had to fight this one out.
(Vile Yokai)
[13:14:14] ”Nowhere to run…” The Terras assured, ”Nowhere to hide…”
As if the utterance of such was not redundant enough. ”It’s just you… and me…”
There was a stern silence betwixt the two that’d follow, before a retort would follow-up.
”No… Yokai.” The aforementioned ‘Omen’ replied, ”There’s only me.” He finished with a grin, taunting the Elemental to take to a charge.

The two made their sprint for one another to clash midst the make-shift arena: The Might of one, against the Might of many. As the two pushed off, the ‘Omen’ took towards an advantage, already chortling to the thought of such premature victory, only to find its own weight overbearing. The Terras fell to its back, but not against its own will-- Instead, it’d catch the Giga with its feet and heave it over yonder, before rolling back up to its feet.
The result, an upside-down Umbral-spawn slide down the stone wall in a mild moment of pain. He had to regain his footing, but the Terras wouldn’t allow it, swiftly planting a foot upon his face and bearing down pressure.

Slowly, his head sunk into the earth, crackling stone and threatening to shatter bone.
”So much vigor…. So much strife… And to think it was all worth absolutely nothing.” It sounded off to enforce a feeling of despair.
”You’re going to die right here, right now… And there isn’t a single thing you could hope to do about it.”

The vision would still beared of the world was growing dim, stone slowly encrusting itself above his face, consuming his head to leave the rest of him exposed, where he would’ve been gored and consumed through one’s abdomen, alive… Consumed like fodder-- Left incapacitated and executed, in a comedic fashion: A joke
… All whilst using the very same words, used by Bakuyu…
(Vile Yokai)
[13:14:14] ‘... No….’
The ground at their feet had spontaneously combusted into a cascading upheaval of the tenebrae-- Powers of the Occult had projected cannonade in every direction without prejudice, soon transcending into a steady stream of maleficent energy; Malevolence empowered every fibre of his being, now awakened in such stature of fury that his power corroded at earth itself.
This, was the mastery of the shadows alone, having omitted the path of ascension to either other natural arcane via consumption of a superior of said element.

Last, but not least-- He dabbled with the Earth arcane, taking to the omission it from its selection of evolutionary ascension.
Sheer discharge of such stygian prowess ebbed away at matter, reducing such to obscurity, suspending the two within a chasm of pseudo-light.
(Vile Yokai)
[13:15:05] Through its mind, spoke the conjoined vocalizations of each elemental he had come to assimilate within its stature at cacophonous harmony:

”I am the one, of Night, to oppose the many of Day.”
”I am the Harbinger of all, that many would wish to claim.”
”I am the Monster, mankind had learned to fear.”
”I am the legend, that all have come to hear.”

One’s body transmogrified into a school of serpentry akin to the external vascular system his cocoon had forged prior to his awakening, all tying abroad the Terras in an assimulating fashion, all whilst the exertion of the transmundane occupied every crevices of their enclosed battleground.

”I am the one, ascended beyond the rest.”
”I am the one, having passed all of my race’s tests.”
”I am the one, to rule above them all…”
”I am Aeron… And I, shall never… Fall…”

Together, their bodies would meld and mesh, contorting one’s weakened stature to the other’s volition. It was a new absorption tactic, abandoning his own body to reforge it around that of his weakened foe, fusing them together with himself as the dominating conscious…
The spell in-place had come to an end, leaving the new product to fall to a hand and knee; The closed entrance crumbled, revealed means of an escape…
And alas… One’s dream, could be realized…

No longer was a nameless…
No longer, was he without conviction…

He was, Aeron…
An Augur of Darkness…
A future Overlord to his ilk…
(Vile Yokai)