The dozen or so that had initially risen from the sea of blood now numbered close to a hundred, surrounding him completely. There wasn't much time to think of what the workaround to the "hydra"-like multiplication of the skeletons was, if there even was a weakness to it to begin with.
Trying to bide time as he thought, the miasmic skeletons drew close—reaching towards him with smoke that rose from their deathly bones like a plague.
"Back!"
With a stomp of his feet, the swamp of blood rippled and a shock wave emitted, blasting the numerous skeletons back. Even though he was merely trying to create space and not break them again, they shattered and rebuilt into higher numbers once more.
A brief sigh left his lips as he found himself totally surrounded by the blackened bones, engulfed in the stench of charcoal that swept through the bloody, white void.
'It's endless,' he thought.
Though they didn't seem dangerous individually, or even in the dozens, as he cut them down the closer they got, their numbers became simply overwhelming. After minutes of slicing away while trying to maneuver through them, he found an unequivocal swarm of bones coming at him from all sides.
"--" He looked up.
Beyond the veil of the reverse rain all he could see was a tidal wave of skeletons; intertwined by their bones and looming over as they came from all angles. The doubt of being able to permanently erase the multiplying skeletons led him to indecisiveness as he stood there, having mere moments before the sea of bones would undoubtedly crush him.
'If I let loose and destroy this horde…It'll just grow exponentially–then even if I can wipe the next one out, I'll be worn down and eventually crushed beneath an endless weight. Assuming these are infinite…which, it might be safe to assume so,' he thought.
There was only one idea he had left in regards to dealing with the endless skeletons, sticking his hands out as he began to generate the rising temperatures within his body.
'I might be able to vaporize the bones–it's possible they can come back even from that, but…it's my best shot,' he decided.
–Though just before he could unleash the flames, the tsunamis of bones came at him from all sides faster than he thought, befalling him with a ravenous, crushing force that slammed against him from every angle.
The weight was instant in its tremendous power, slamming and pushing against him as he felt the synapses in his brain firing off at the fear of death before–
He was transported, again.
Seamlessly, yet jarringly as he stumbled, he found himself standing in an environment that was frighteningly familiar; it was like that of a forgotten fever dream, reignited in his memories through sight.
A bleached landscape; a startling lack of life, the nose-stinging smell of pine, and flakes of ash that swayed in the wind like the snow of winter.
'This scenery…again?' He thought.
As he lifted his foot, taking a single step, the scenery changed again–he watched as a sideways forest collided like a folded diorama; again it changed; desecrated battlefields of fallen soldiers, filled with the all-too-real stench of death; again it changed; the sight of a nostalgic kingdom in ruins; again it changed; the home he grew up in, shattered and dreary by loss; again it changed; a plagued swamp filled with nebulous treehouses, filled with an ambience of the croaking of frogs and buzzing of locusts; again it changed; he found himself falling through the sky, passing by clouds occupied by chunks of land and unknown civilizations; again it changed; from his grand descent, he found himself sinking into the bottom of a deep, dark sea, finding it to be occupied by unheard of life as well–castles that existed within bubbles in the ocean; again it changed; a boundless sea he walked upon, finding a single figure that sat upon its vastness like a throne; again it changed; a valley swallowed by a tornado large enough to swallow a kingdom; a land of fire and ash, burned to its roots and devoid of life; again it changed; a mountain that transcends the clouds, occupied by that which should be kept away from humanity; again it changed; an enigmatic chamber, occupied by faceless statues and filled with figures that had their own faces blurred by the haziness of his vision.
'What…is this?'
It was too much to process all at once; not merely visions, but experiences truly felt; the wind at his skin, the smell of each environment, and sights baked into his mind.
Again it changed.
Darkness.
A void deprived of senses; there was no smell, nothing to be seen through the endless abyss, not a sound that resonated against his eardrums, and not even a cold or warm air to brush against his skin. He couldn't tell if he was floating or standing, feeling as though he was perpetually stumbling as his brain couldn't perceive the nothingness around him.
It was in this void that he perceived one thing–the entity he faced off against, or rather, felt like he was merely fighting to survive against.
'I can tell now. It's not just "stronger" than the other Aspects I've encountered. No…strength doesn't begin to describe it. It's transcendent. This one is…it's closer to a true Primordial than the others,' he realized.
Through a will that was certainly not his own, he found himself freed from the sensory-depriving void, returning to the domain of the seal at last after what felt like a rollercoaster of unknown. Glancing over, he saw Excelsior sitting on her knees in the near distance, breathing heavily and dressed in wounds, though not fallen yet. It seemed the battle had continued in his absence, though not to a favorable outcome.
Falling to his knees, he breathed heavily as he sat on the shallow water, hearing slow, quiet footsteps approaching him. He could see the figure approaching as he looked down, witnessing the subtle ripples in water.
As he looked up, he found himself face-to-face with "it" at last; the true appearance of the entity he had been fighting.
It wore a cloak of total darkness around its body, though possessed a head that was alien in appearance; its skull had the shape of a cow, though covered in light-gray, clammy skin with lips made of intertwined fingers.
There were horns that protruded from its head, made of hands that interlaced, twisted and contorted.
No eyes existed in its sockets, only a boundless abyss that stared back at him, leaning down from its colossal height as its nose almost touched his. Being so close to such an ominous existence caused thoughts to cease in that moment; not a sound could leave his lips as his mind didn't even consider inhaling or exhaling.
Face-to-face with the abyssal horror, a sudden twitch of his right index finger caused him to snap into focus briefly–that small, minuscule return of his thoughts allowed him to act.
Fight-or-flight; for the Dragonheart, the instinctive instinct was always the same–fight. In that split-second, he picked himself up, sitting on one knee as sable scales grew swiftly into an armor across his body, cracking and configuring to his shape as a draconic tail sprouted from behind him.
It was an incomplete form, leaving half of his face uncovered along with most of his chest, yet all he did was focus on building up the heat into one point on his palm.
[Current Stage: 4/10 | Dragon Elite]
"Emilio…don't!" Excelsior tried to warn him.
The warning fell upon deaf ears as Emilio could only focus on the sole goal in his mind, condensing the abundance of flames into that singular point, focusing it and continuing to concentrate it into the size of a marble.
'Keep it to one point…Control it! Condense it! Gather it! Put all of it–into this one attack!' He told himself.
Fortunately, the nebulous entity only stood there, looming over him as it stood like a beacon of darkness, only combated in its overwhelming abyssal nature by the azure glow of the Dragonheart.
Inside of his turmoiled heart, flickers of the pent-up emotions he carried manifested through sparks of a greater heat, adding into the singularity of fire he held in his hand. The gravitational force of the unequaled sphere resembled that of a black hole; imbued with such an abundance of flames, expanded and compressed with ungodly heat, the water around him evaporated and the ground was sucked into the sphere, melting away as it made contact with the chromatic sphere.
It was an attack that required the absurdly high reservoir of energy that his Dragonheart System could tap into, transferring that heat into a singular spot and rotating it, compressing it, and constantly raising the temperature. A truly volatile development that he was reluctant to use in normal situations, due to the unstable nature of it.
"Raaaaagh–!" Emilio yelled out, thrusting the high-temperature black hole directly against the malignant entity.
He pushed it against the abyssal cloak it wore that seemed to be one and the same with its very own body now. As he clenched both his teeth and his fist, he released the compression on the unstable sphere, allowing it to explode within direct contact with the Primordial aspect.
'...Go!' He thought.
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