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Post by Stage on Jul 24, 2019 3:24:36 GMT
Xipil was horrified, his body instinctively drawing back as if withdrawing from a rank wave of air or a blinding flash of light.
He had known not what to fear, yet this was still somehow worse. This was not life formed from death, as he had thought.
This was death.
And it had to be stopped before it engulfed the fleeing Saurians, then all that lay beyond them.
Mival itself was at risk with this horror tainting the air with its breath.
So Xipil responded with his own breath, lunging forward and throwing forward his jaws, crimson flames spilling from within in them and sweeping over the dead, gray land, turning it black as it roared towards the fell worm...
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Post by Orcus on his Throne on Jul 24, 2019 3:54:01 GMT
The great worm recoiled in pain as the scalding hot fires of Xipil washed over its frame, scorching the earth before it. The exhalation of heat caused a massive cloud of mist to surround the monster's body, obscuring it from the almighty sky serpent's sight briefly.
With an angered hiss, the form of the great worm emerged from the cloud of fetid vapors, the creature's muddy form seeming to have dried, its "skin" cracking and flaking with each movement it made. As the creature slogged through its muddy, dying surroundings, Xipil noticed that the earth itself seemed to be sucked into the monster's form, replacing the parts that had become dried and cracked. What few pools of water remained nearby vanished and served to rehydrate the beast's serpentine form, and mud filled the patches formed by Xipil's flaming breath.
With a disdainful snarl, the great worm retorted with an attack of its own, exhaling a sickening black cloud of malodorous vapors, causing the air to become stale and the earth to seemingly melt away before it...
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Post by Stage on Jul 25, 2019 2:12:14 GMT
Rather than be idly engulfed by the dark miasma, Xipil brought his wings together, creating a shock wave of wind that repelled the grisly black fog. He could not escape its touch entirely however. Even as he pushed it back with the great clap, a small tendril of the evil vapor reached out and stung him. In but an instant, Xipil was wracked with pain, wings going stiff, coils drawing into each other, and falling to the ground: the serpentine version of one's legs buckling beneath one's self. The emerald wyrm's voice pierced the heavens once more, but now in suffering. The echoes of his agony rebound for many miles across the tropical landscape.
However, this was not the first time the sky serpent had suffered great pain, and hopefully it would not be the last. A warrior from the stars would not be felled so easily. The thrashing of Xipil's body shifted, ceasing to be aimless and launching him to the skies, his wings whipping out to catch his weight. Like a sinuous arrow, the winged serpent flew at the limbed worm. His aim was simple: bind its jaws and part it from the earth. Xipil did not wish to be scathed by its vile breath again, and his keen eyes had not missed how it drew muck and detritus into itself to heal. Jaws bound and its shambling carcass separated from the ground, it would be weakened, perhaps even wholly incapacitated.
Unfortunately for the serpent, that is not what happened.
Instead, the moment his jaws came into contact with its, trying to clamp them shut, another bolt of agony shot through him. Xipil cried out as he involuntarily drew back, crumpling to the ground in front of the worm, utterly open to counterattack...
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Post by Orcus on his Throne on Jul 25, 2019 2:57:20 GMT
The fiendish, malevolent gaze of the worm fell upon Xipil, its deathly visage contorting into what can only be described as an expression of hateful mockery. The terrific monstrosity raised one of its abominable, taloned feet, mud and water dripping off the bottom, before it stomped down onto the star serpent's chest, sending waves of wracking pain through the emerald wyrm's body and eliciting another cry of pain from him.
Globs of rotting plant and animal matter dripped from the abomination's serpent-like maw, splashing along the side of the head of Xipil. The creature lurched its head down to face Xipil, loosing a guttural snarl, like the rush of water through a small pipe. The creature's jaws widened, allowing Xipil to look deep into the worm's gaping maw, the rush and swirl of mud and liquid detritus serving to create a mockery of flesh. The worm's head lunged downwards, aimed to crush Xipil's head between its stony teeth...
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Post by Stage on Jul 25, 2019 6:53:02 GMT
Xipil did not know how long the horror had taunted over him. The pain warped and twisted his perception of time, some moments seeming endlessly long, others hardly seeming to exist at all.
But when he saw the jaws come down, he knew he had to act.
Without hesitation, without thought, the serpent unleashed his flames, now furious golden in color. He did not aim. He did not even look. He only raged, slashing the stale air- and the deathly worm- with fires as hot as the sun...!
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Post by Orcus on his Throne on Jul 25, 2019 7:11:26 GMT
The jet of golden flame, burning like the divine heat of the sun high above, splashed across the visage of the great worm! The scalding heat of the star serpent created a massive cloud of stream that encompassed the monstrosity's visage, followed by a piercing, harrowing wail to escape the jaws of the hellish creature. The beast staggered backwards in pain, using the cloud generated from the fire to attempt to escape. Visibly, the monster's face was cracked and dried, flakes of wood and crumbling dirt falling down to the swampy earth below.
Agitated, the beast stomped a foot down in the surrounding mud and twisted its body around, chunks of mud and dirt scattering into the air. With a second twist of its body, the worm swung its massive tail toward the recovering form of Xipil, the tip of the whip-like appendage whistling through the air with the force of thunder!
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Post by Stage on Jul 25, 2019 20:14:00 GMT
Growing somewhat accustomed to the pain, Xipil was able to react more consciously now, jerking his coils out of the way of the slashing tail tip, which split the damp ground like a lightning bolt. His body clenched on instinct, trying to ensnare the tail of the grim worm, but his thinking half interfered, recalling even its touch brought agony.
This was not a foe he could handle at close quarters, Xipil decided. He needed to create some distance between them without coming into physical contact with the dark serpent.
After a second of thought, the emerald wyrm twisted his jaws towards the ground and spewed flames with all his might. Crashing against the ground, the golden flames began to spread out in a fiery disc, forming a bed of fire below both giants...!
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Post by Orcus on his Throne on Jul 26, 2019 0:54:13 GMT
The monstrous beast lurched backwards as the flames began to consume its surroundings. Though it maneuvered its body in such a way to avoid the flames, the great worm's gaze never left Xipil. With a fearsome howl, the serpentine abomination coiled its body up before launching itself over the scalding flames!
With a thundering crash, the dreaded worm of saurian legend slammed into the earth beside Xipil, causing some of the golden flames to scatter and leave small, burning patches along the earthen monster's "flesh". The creature hissed, more detritus and fluid dripping down from its maw, before its "claws" sunk into the now drying mud near Xipil, sending waves of dark energy through the ground in the shape of gnarled, blackened roots. As the creature channeled whatever fell magic sufficed its body into the earth, the monster attempted to twist its tail around Xipil's body, allowing some of the golden flames to wash over its body in an attempt to incapacitate its enemy...
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Post by Stage on Jul 26, 2019 3:34:37 GMT
Xipil did not know why the worm was pumping its fell magic into the earth, but he did not wish to find out. This was a dangerous foe. He could not afford to be kept on the back heel.
He had to act, and now.
Making a dire decision, the celestial serpent entangled the dread wyrm's tail with his own!
Electric pain shot through all of his body, crackling from tail tip to wing tips, but the sky serpent persisted. Raising up trembling wings, the emerald wyrm battered the air, filling his sails with air. His great scales bristled, rattling together as his body shivered. Heat roared out from beneath the metallic feathers, warming the air, then heating it, then superheating it! The air under his wings grew hot and buoyant, so it was easier to push off of it, thus it was easier to create lift.
Slowly, laboriously, Xipil pounded his wings against the hot, rising air that wreathed him, trying to carry the wyrm off the ground and into the air! Into his element!
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Post by Orcus on his Throne on Jul 26, 2019 3:56:26 GMT
The great worm of legend roared as he was lifted from the ground, tendrils of black magic slithering up into its body as the fell beast is extracted from the earth. The fell roots of its malice, however, seem to have already begun to take hold; in the nearby swampland, Xipil could see hulking corpses, fused with blackened mud and blighted vines, rising up from beneath the earth, and began to mindlessly shamble through the corpse of Sliinthynmrtiin. Where the monstrosities traveled, the blight wrought by the great worm followed; it was like a plague had been awoken in what was once a sacred land.
Turning its attention back to Xipil in full, the dreadful creature snarled angrily as its muddy flesh hardened and cracked with the rising beast, a light mist beginning the surround the two serpents. The creature, in its disdain, lashed out with reaping talons, scraping a path of bloody vengeance across the solar snake's chest. Face smoldering, the beast lurched upwards and struck towards the shoulderblade of its nemesis, intent on crippling its rival so it could finish its job...
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Post by Stage on Jul 26, 2019 5:22:05 GMT
Xipil, already strained by the deep laceration on his breast, nearly fell from the sky as the worm raked his back. His wings screamed, wanting desperately to buckle, but he was able to endure. His ability to flap was now stripped away though. He could only hold his wings aloft, relying on the rising air to keep airborne.
Things looked no better on the ground. The sky serpent's sharp eyes could see each and every one of the risen corpses, track them as they shambled west. Towards the fleeing Saurians. Towards Mival.
This was a check.
If he continued focusing his attention on the worm, he risked losing the arisen dead to the forest, where they could move covertly. If he released the worm to eliminate the dead, he would be completely open to attack. Not to mention his strength was simply failing. Even now, he was beginning to sink, the hot air not quite enough to uphold both his and the worm's weight. There was no guarantee he could defeat the fiend even if he gave it his full attention.
This was not checkmate however.
It was no longer a game he could win, but maybe he could force a draw.
Xipil closed his eyes. He allowed the walking dead to leave his sight, his thoughts. He cut his mind away from the pain. From the worm, even as it continued to claw at him dragging him ever so lower. He cut off everything outside of himself, and dove within. The hand of his mind found his heart: a star, for all intents and purposes, burning forever in his chest.And it seized it.
Just as the emerald wyrm's tail began to scrap the ground, his eyes snapped open, glowing like the sin. His scales rose, each like a flattened railroad spike jutting from his body, and the heat of his heart, the fury of a star, began to escape. An orb of superheated air formed around the serpent, engulfing the worm and many of the walking dead too. Then it started to grow, like the pressure in a balloon before it pops.
If he could not afford to divide his attention, he would destroy both in one massive ball of fire!
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Post by Orcus on his Throne on Jul 26, 2019 7:31:16 GMT
It all happened in an instant. Like a blazing invocation of heaven above, the infernal heat of Xipil's eruption engulfed much of the marshlands. In a flash of divine light, the dreadful mockeries of life that had arisen in the name of their fell god were reduced to little more than ashes. The heat of the solar flare consumed earth, wood, stone, and water, vaporizing much of the area surrounding the heavenly serpent, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake. The air hissed and sizzled around the emerald wyrm, creating powerful gusts of wind that rippled across the now barren wasteland, kicking up clouds of ash and soot in a terrible whirlwind.
At ground zero, the abominable form of Zahhak was burned. Its moist form rapidly dehydrated, the moist texture of its body vanishing in an instant, leaving nothing but hard dirt and stone behind. The detritus that covered much of its form vanished, mulched into little more than dust in the infernal winds that howled around the swamp. The vines and blighted plant life that hung from its skull, forming a twisted mockery of a natural form, were scorched away, returning to the dust that formed them.
The monstrous creature let out a low hiss, its form becoming little more than broken earth and bits of bone and rock. The creature lurched up one last time, before its form crumbled before Xipil. The creature's form splashed down into the jungle below, struggling to coagulate itself once more around some sort of strange, blackened stone. The infernal heat, however, had done massive harm to the creature; in a final bid to protect itself, the creature's broken, mangled form curled into what can only be described as a mountain of ash and soot, allowing the flames to fossilize its exterior.
After a few moments, little evidence of the great worm remained, save for a strange, curved stone of massive proportions below. Much of what remained of the sacred wetlands had been decimated in the heat wave, but what was left would be spared of the demon's wrath...
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Post by Stage on Jul 26, 2019 16:52:52 GMT
Xipil, sprawled across the ground like a mere earthly serpent, weakly raised his head. Jaw slack and thin, orangish blood flowing fast from it like a spigot, the wounded wyrm scanned the scorched remains of Sliinthynmrtiin, ensuring he had destroyed all of the risen dead. Once he was satisfied he had, he let his beaked head fall limp with a slash of hot ichor. It had taken great sacrifice, but his job was done.
The reflective red of the sky serpent slowly slid closed.
Now, it was time to heal once more.
...
... ...
chrrp
Rubellite eyes opened.
Xipil did not know how much time had passed after he laid down is head. He had not been asleep, because sleep was not a thing he knew, but the world had fallen away, leaving him with only his own thought. With old memories, spanning eons. There was no sleep for the visitor, but perhaps he could dream, just as the humans did.
chrrp?
The resting wyrm rolled his head to the side, casting his large, mirror-like eyes onto a gigantic, bipedal creature that, in many ways, resembled a larger version of the Saurians, though much more limber and somewhat more dinosaurian. Its jaws were blunted and conical instead of long and flattened and instead of a paddled tail, it had a crest on the back of its head. It perched besides Xipil anxiously, sitting on folded, spring-like legs that exuded power even when idle, gargantuan tail curled around it like a cat's. Huge, golden eyes stared back at him. It flicked its head, chirping again.
Pless, the wyrm greeted, a smile in his voice that could not show on his armored face. The lizard squawked excitedly, as she always did when he addressed her. He did not know whose voice she heard as his own, but he suspected it was Alex's.
Chrrp! Pless greeted back, dropping onto all fours to nuzzle his maned neck. Xipil merely closed his eyes once more and accepted the affection. Moments later, he felt the warm, scaly body of the lizard press into his own.
He was earthbound once more, and knew not for how long, but at least he had company this time.
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