The cracking tail slammed into the side of Cath’s torso, sending not only an eruption of blood to spew from her lungs but also for her entire body to be flung into the craggy dungeon wall.
Florian blinded from the blood curtain only heard an excruciatingly painful cough from Cath and felt the whole dungeon shake as her body impacted the wall.
Blinking the blood away, his eyes flickered around the arena.
Cath, her battered body now fallen by the dungeon wall as more blood joins the already shallow lake of the red substance below them.
Scraping at whatever blood kept her living she attempted to use it to recover and pull herself up.
But ultimately it was a losing battle.
Her lungs were punctured.
Her chance of survival—ridiculously low.
The head of the wyvern never moved and kept track of Florian who clutched onto his dual pistols.
Aiming them both at the beast, his life essence collected into the barrel of the guns before he pulled the trigger and a stream of e-bullets ripped from the guns towards the wyvern.
Great sweeping winds swung outwards from the now large flapping wings of the beast, however they quickly died out as the titanic red wings chains tightened around them.
Making the sizzling red only bloodier.
The blooded bullets being flung away by the wind, connecting with the dungeon walls instead of the wyvern’s skin.
Another disgruntled roar was thrown out of the voicebox of the savage brute, slightly shifting the footing of Flo.
The clanging metal noises of the chains as they scraped against the boundaries of the hole that let them into the boss arena echoed around the dungeon room.
Hearing this, Flo decided to take a chance.
Sprinting towards the nearest chain, he grabbed hold of the swerving almost-animalistic loops of drenched -in-blood metal.
Placing his pistol against the chain now burning in his hand as tried to keep it still but failed miserably, he pulled the trigger, exploding shots into the metal.
The black blood began to slowly dissolve a part of the chain but as soon as progress was made, the chain was pulled away by the thrashing wyvern as its wings attempted to flap again.
Now having a different part of the metal in front of him, he slotted his pistols back into the holsters resting on his hips and gathered black blood to form in his hand and materialise into the rough shape of a sharp knife.
Using the black blooded weapon, he started to see the ever-moving chain, but only milliseconds passed as a loop was forced in front of him.
Now bashing the life essence against the chain, he had to give up.
Realising this strategy was useless, the black blood in his hand dropped to the floor and began to spread into the shallow lake of crimson blood.
Stepping backwards from the chain his neck twisted as stared at the irritated wyvern, not caring if he harmed Cath or Flo and only wanted to leave as his body kept on thrashing against the chains.
His head looked back at the black blood he dropped into the substance below them and instead of naturally dissipating into the blood or evaporating the liquid.
The black blood converted the surrounding blood into black blood.
However it was a slow process.
But it was quick enough for Flo.
Collecting more essence and dropping it into the blood below them, gradually the lake started to be dominated by the black blood.
Dangerously low.
No longer using his life essence, he sprinted across the arena and to Catherine’s side.
Quickly checking that she’s still breathing, he grabbed her scythe and cut a slice of his skin around his wrist releasing the blood like a waterfall.
Carefully walking towards the wyvern, black blood kept on flooding into the crimson blood as it transformed into the acidic and poisonous black blood.
Flo’s blood expanded its territory as more red blood became traitors and abandoned their own species.
As Flo got closer to the wyvern he had to stop, as getting closer could spell more danger than he would like.
The black blood began to crowd around the monstrous beast on the side where Flo first leaked blood and the side he is on now is Cath’s side where she got battered into the wall.
Gradually the black blood eked closer and closer and closer to the bottom of the beast.
Its low-hanging belly rubbed against the shallow blood lake.
Many moments later of more whining and thrashing about from the monster, the first piece of black blood graced the skin of the horrible creature.
Sssssssszzzzzz
The blood began to dissolve the lowest point of his belly as it rapidly climbed up the wyvern’s body, the two hind legs also getting swarmed by the blood.
Suddenly a roar erupted from the wyvern in response to the attack, his insane twitching getting even crazier.
The skin began to disappear from the lower body of the beast and the white stained bones of the beast began to reveal themselves.
Eventually, the monster was forced to calm as its legs and entire body became useless and non-existent.
Fully dead, Florian ignored the corpse as he covered his dripping wound and crouched beside the barely living body of Catherine.
Smoothing her cold lips with his fingers he felt the impenetrable coldness radiating from her body.
Her lidded eyelids covered her pupils as she was ready for her final resting place.
Tears began to drop from the side of her face as she faintly acknowledged Florian overseeing her death.
A forceful hand pulled her mouth open, it was Florian.
He was forcing his life essence into her without letting it materialise.
The essence swirled around her body and targeted her fading life core—overwriting her meek essence that remained inside.
Gradually, the core’s faint blue colour began to change into a bright ruby red, returning back to life.
Her lips became warmer and a luscious red as her lidded eyes remained no longer, flashing brightly at Florian.
A beautiful smile blessed her face but tears continued to fall.
Unknown if the sadness stays or happiness has overtook it.
[Name – Catherine Tepes
Age – 19
Currency – 483 Shards 15 Sols 0 Eclipse Shards
Life Core Element – Blood
Weapon Body – Polearm
Innate Body – Scythe
Current Level – Proficient
Realm – 3rd Stage of Bronze Core Gathering Realm
Realm Stabilisation – None]
However as her eyes gazed at the next line, her smile faulted and her eyes became filled with blood essence that’s not hers:
[Subsidiary Companion of Flo…]
She didn’t feel like reading any longer as the beautiful smile was repainted on her face.
Pulling backwards, she visualised all the minor details of his face and imprinted them into her mind but the larger details like his hair, lips, eyes and nose weren’t under the gaze of her pupils.
“I guess I should thank you now… so thank you,” she said, her voice breathy and faint.
“We are forever linked my companion,” he said smiling at her and then asking, “can you walk?”
“What if I say no?” Not giving a verbal answer and instead giving a physical answer he picked her up in a princess carry and walked towards the corpse of the wyvern.
A bright ruby red core was the only evidence of its remains, “well we can’t take this beast as our companion now can we?” He asked cheekily
“You wouldn’t have if none of this happened anyway,” she replied as the words were faintly heard by him while she spoke into his chest.
“Ok, can you put the core into your storage artifact Cath?” He requested of her and she did as told.
The core blinking away from existence.
Just in front of them as they splattered through the black blooded lake sitting on top of the dungeon vault, a purple crack in space opened up waiting for their exit.
“Cath, remember about the rumble from earlier, lets go see what it was,” he said, readying himself by inhaling a big gulp of air.
“Mmmhmm,” she replied, her head cuddled into his chest.
Stepping into the port, the world seems to disappear and then appear in the matter of moments, as they are now at the bottom of the steps that led them in.
Walking up the steps and making it out onto the regular grey grass of Greywood forest another loud rumbling sound erupted but not from aboveground but belowground as the dungeon sensed their exit.
No longer with a boss core, the dungeon can’t operate and needs another monster to become a boss before the passage can be reopened, which is a process that can happen in minutes or a few seasons.
As the sliding grass closed behind the duo, concealing it for an unknown amount of time, possibly until someone with as good a nose as Cath appears, Florian and Cath, who is still in a princess-carry, began to investigate the surroundings.
Attempting to find the source of the rumble that happened aboveground.