Raime continued to burn. The poison had not yet faded from his system, but he was no longer hindered by it either. Arrow after arrow flew towards the raging centipede woman, some hitting their mark, others scattering against the dense carapace. Life continued to ebb out of his wounded body, [b]another 17 HP lost[/b] as his organs rioted against his continued physical exertion. But he would continue on, bowstring bloodied by his skinless fingers.

Ari continued as well, quick thinking surpassing the quick movements of her overwhelming quarry. Her strength wasn’t enough to send her skywards, possessing only the might of a single adult human, but the lunging head of the centipede provided a stepping stone that the catgirl kicked off of to get her up to the bare canopies of the grove. Her foot ached, that exchange having cost her [b]4 HP[/b], but Ari still lived, and shrouded as she was in the mist, perhaps she was even hidden from the monster now?

The pertinent thing to do would be to stay where she was, wait until the monster was slain by the others.

Ari was insane though.

Links of chain rattled around her as she plummeted again, centrifugal force building up as the weighted end of her weapon gained more and more speed. Fragile as she was, weak as she was, even [i]slow[/i] as she was, the centipede woman’s long torso could only follow in the same direction as her head, and Ari landed a blow with such force that the carapace caved inwards, the weighted end stuck inside the shell. Moments later, she hit the body as well, shoulder striking the writhing mass before Ari bounced off. It wasn’t a killing blow, and it may not have even been a significant one, but she had made her mark on the monster.

That made all the difference for Amulak.

A mage’s movements were insufficient for dodging a monster of this size and speed, especially with no frontliners to stall such a creature, but Ari’s blow had caused a twitch in the centipede woman’s body, a twitch that echoed up all the way into her face. Half her face smashed into Amulak’s body, overgrown teeth scraping against bone plating, and the mage ricocheted off two different trees from the impact, but he had avoided the worst case scenario: joining Lugh inside her mouth. Combined with his armor’s effect, the cloaked mage came away from it with [b]only 72 HP[/b] lost, and plenty of time to cast his spell. Once again, his veins filled with an electrical impulse. Once again, the spear drove itself into flesh, cracking into bone. But this time, from scorch mark of the magical spear, a sword sprouted.

Lugh was still alive and kicking.

Teeth continued to grind into his flesh, tearing chunks off as they sheared meat off his bones. Even with reduced pain on, it was agonizing, like having some jackass with long nails continuously scratching at him from every direction. The only benefit of this was that the mouth of the monster was dark; Lugh couldn’t see enough to gross him the hell out, and the adrenaline was kicking in now. He was a warrior, he was a tank, and even the loss of [b]another 88 HP[/b] from the centipede woman’s mastication couldn’t stop him! His borrowed kodachi found plenty of targets within, and soon, hot fumes spilled out from the inside of her mouth, joining the dizzying aroma of her saliva. It was a carnal festival of violence and hunger, both beasts seeking to tear the other apart, but a sudden shaft of light lit up the darkness, and Lugh thrust through, piercing flesh and puncturing bone to break out of the centipede woman’s face.

An ear-splitting screech echoed out, and she raised her body twenty meters skywards in fury, intent on burying Lugh head-first into the dirt, the inertia making a mess out of his ability to think.

But outside, Raime, Amulak, and Ari could all see it.

The crackling of electricity, the condensing of dark clouds, the glint of steel that poked out from the monster’s face.

Lightning fell, and the thunder that followed silenced the monster’s death throes as she struck the ground, her carbonized body already reforming into loot. From the vespers of her demise, Lugh stood. Chewed up, but alive, with something new on him.

A bracelet of crystallized lightning, and the thunderhead that followed it.

[hider=Mythmaking Progenitor, Zeus]
[u][b]Type Arms, First Stage[/b][/u]
[sub]+5% HP, +5% MP, +5% SP, +5% STR, +5% END, +5% AGI, +5% DEX, +5% LCK[/sub]
[i]A silver-blue bracelet on the left wrist, from which a crackling thunderhead exudes out from. The thunderhead is affected, but not dispersed, by the wind.[/i]

[b]Sanctity of Fulmination[/b]
[indent]Passive. Zeus can absorb a certain amount of Equipment, Accessories, and Consummables. Consummables absorbed by Zeus can stack infinitely, so long as they are the same type. After doing so, Zeus is able to transform into any of the Equipment that it has absorbed, possessing these traits, regardless of the form taken:[indent]
- Traits that fulfill special conditions that absorbed equipment would fulfill, such as spellcasting implements.
- Stat increases taken from the highest bonuses offered by the absorbed items, per individual stat.
- All effects possessed by the absorbed equipments and accessories.
- The ability to verbally invoke the effects of any absorbed consummables.
[/indent]Transformation is instantaneous, but can be slowed intentionally for dramatic purpose, in which case it occurs initially as an object being drawn out from the thundercloud, and with every instance afterwards as a bolt of lightning bursting before reforming. [b]At First Stage, Zeus can absorb 3 Items.[/b]
[/indent]
[/hider]
[sub][@Psyker Landshark][@Cu Chulainn][@Searat][@GreenGoat][/sub][hr]
Catching up with the oni, the two Immortals continued their journey through the Thunderstruck Grove, the relative silence broken by chatter in a foreign language, the screams of players and monsters alike, the echoing thunder, and the occasional snapping of a twig underfoot. It was hard to figure out in what direction the oni were actually heading; many of the turns they took looked pointless or redundant, simply erasing the progress they made before, but the blue oni looked confident in his trail-blazing, and the strange group hadn’t been attacked yet by any others. Was this a safe trail? Or did monsters in the Thunderstruck Grove have an unspoken understanding to not fight against each other? Certainly, Ames and Magpie couldn’t recall before any instances of other monsters in the Pearl Bloom River or Goldspun Fields attacking each other, but then again, maybe they just hadn’t observed monsters in their natural environment for all that long?

After what seemed like an hour, or perhaps just a couple of minutes, they found themselves in front of a large tree, gnarled roots bulging out of the barren earth. The blue oni crouched down, his voice low as he whispered an incantation. Moments later, the roots pushed upwards, raising the tree five meters into the air and unveiling a tunnel that lead into the earth. An otherworldly blue light pulsated at the bottom of the tunnel, and the onis walked in, ducking their heads slightly at the entrance of the subterranean system. Magpie and Ames followed after, and were hit immediately by the strong smell of roasting meats, pungent sweat, aromatic smoke, and bitter alcohol. Behind them, the tree settled down once more, groaning as its roots rearranged itself.

Now, there was no escape.

They continued down the tunnel, feet padding against a moss-woven carpet, until it opened up into a large cavern from which smaller tunnels could be seen. Braziers of blue flame lit up the interior, while countless hides, tanned, cured, then dyed, coated the walls and the ceiling. Dof onis ranging from red to blue to purple were laying about, some attending to tasks, others just content to relax. Three pudgy oni children, their horns still just nubs, wrestled each other in a ring of sand, making dramatic noises that sounded like facsimiles of kappa-speech. An absolute unit of an oni, spherical in shape and girth, singlehandedly managed a wok that looked to be twenty meters in diameter. A thick, bloody soup bubbled merrily, bones occasionally resurfacing as it boiled. Neither Immortal could tell if any of them were human though. Off to one side, a pair of female oni, both purple and pregnant, leaned against one of the alcoves, whispering to each other and shooting glances at the strange intruders. When a toddler oni started waddling in the Immortals’ direction, they pulled him back, ushering the young lad back into the smaller room. Their presence certainly drew attention, and some more negative than others; that scar-faced oni with a broken horn gave them a hell of a stink-eye when they first emerged.

The trio didn’t mind the attention though. They practically hurled the chunks of bear at the chef-oni, the blue leader turning to encourage the Immortals to follow again, this time to the back of the room, where, upon a throne of bones, a sinewy purple oni sat, smoking from an ornate pipe. It was difficult, at a glance to tell the age of the monster, but his hair was jet black, streaked with silver dust and pinned back with various colorful beads, while spiderweb tattoos ordained his body almost completely. The loincloth he wore was a startling white, at odds with the dirt-smeared, soot-covered décor of the rest of the cavern, and he gazed thoughtfully at the two immortals while the blue oni explained in that curious, emphatic speech of their’s.

Finally, the purple oni breathed out, and in a rasping voice, spoke, [b]“So. You dance.”[/b]
[sub][@Yankee][@OwO][/sub][hr]
Bone shattered with consecutive blows, the brutal cleaver chipping away at the stump that remained. Klein continued his grim, single-minded task, removing more and more of the stump, desecrating more and more of the skeleton within. Surely, it would be over soon? The tree itself had been uprooted, while the stump was being torn to bits.

But it wasn’t over. His SP continued to fall with every exertion of his body, and he continued to pull out chunks of wood. His vision darkened, the density of the woven cage blotting out what sparse light broke out from the all-encompassing mist. In moments, Klein was in total darkness, even the distant sound of thunder now muted within this cage.

And with the cage complete, the roots closed in, dirt shifting as they twisted together, unseen tendrils of wood grappling onto the mountain man’s body. Only a few at first, but growing at a rapid pace as the damp wood slipped around his sweat-slick form.
All the while, his body grew more and more sluggish, the juxtaposition between what he willed and what he did growing greater and greater, his eyes struggling to stay open within the smothering darkness.

Klein was being swallowed whole.

Klein was to be the next man inside this tree.
[sub][@Shovel][/sub]