Vraxious—Dragon’s Maw Arena

  Vrax let [Adapt Life] flow from him. The wicked smile growing wider, he knew what he was trying to do was weird; hell, it probably wouldn’t even be very dangerous, but it would be deeply unsettling, and the goal here wasn’t to kill all the warriors in the field; he could do that easily enough already. The goal was to make them run away from a fucking chicken with their tails tucked between their legs in front of an audience.

  And what are chickens famous for...well, other than being delicious, eggs, of course… Now what if those eggs came out a little...lively...

  Vrax let mana flow as he imagined the eggs that would fall from this horrific mockery of a chicken. Instead of normal eggs, he wanted helpers for the adapted bird. Small spiderlike beings that would not so much hatch as be the eggs themselves. Vrax felt a click as [Adapt Life] made his will reality, and the chicken gained its first talent.

  [Adapted Chicken Tier-1] (lvl 6)

  Talent

  [Birth The Flock]

  This entity may lay small, short-lived creatures that aid it in capturing prey.

  Mana [130/300]

  Oh, I am not done yet; it needs more arms… and that special Vraxious flair to it. I'm going to make this something that even the gods themselves will weep to behold.

  Vrax pulled back to the chicken; it was nearly vibrating in excitement at this point. It was like it could understand the violence it was capable of, and after a lifetime of helplessness, it wanted to be the bully for once.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Gobbles. I’m calling you Gobbles, by the way. Congrats, you have a name now. You will probably be a higher level than those warriors by the end of today.” Vrax’s voice held an amused malevolence to it as he comforted Gobbles.

  Vrax added two more pairs of arms along its sides, bringing the total to six on the torso and four inside its beak. Then he started in on the really nasty change. He focused in on the creature's gizzard. Chickens had a strange digestive system that let them eat all kinds of nonsense, and he intended to use that to his advantage.

  First Vrax expanded and strengthened it before making it so it could all climb its way up the creature's throat and out of the beak. Disgorging a truly awful hunting mechanism. Vrax started in on the real end goal; he crafted a humanoid torso with too many arms and a horrifying featureless face that could be regurgitated out and then grab prey that simply grew from inside the gizzard's walls. the chicken’s gizzard could now sink back down the throat with its prey held in its arms.

  Gobbles curiously clucked a few times before pecking at Vrax tentatively as if to ask if it could go now. Vrax stepped back and took a good look at the chicken. He nodded approvingly. If this didn’t make them run, nothing would.

  This is fucked up even by my standards. Go have fun! He shooed Gobbles towards the fray in the distance. Gobbles made a couple horrifying clucks before turning back hungrily towards his old coop. A few hands excitedly creeping out of its beak.

  “No! Later! Go! Paladins first.” Vrax ended up chasing Gobbles into the field in the general direction of the enemies. It kept trying to duck past him and get at its former tormentors. Finally, he physically tugged it into the corn and pushed it towards the commotion in the distance. Gobbles' dull eyes locked onto a flash of fire, and its featherless body disappeared into the cornfield in search of prey.

  Elron Yule, Paladin Of Rembrand- Dragon's Maw Arena

  Elron threw another short wave of fire into the air, and the demonic ball of quivering intestines once known as a devourer simply flew straight through the flames and wrapped around another warrior of Rembrand with its deadly bladed tentacles.

  The man’s feet left the ground briefly before Elron rushed forward, severing the tentacles with a wide sweeping blow. He cursed quietly as the abomination simply hovered away, already pulling more flesh from inside itself to replace what he had cut off. A hunk of meat dropped wetly next to him, flattening a corn stalk.

  “What kind of deranged mind would dream up these things!” Elron shouted in frustration. They had hacked, stabbed, and burned the wretched things over and over, and they just kept literally piecing themselves back together. There was seemingly no end to replacement eyes, tendrils even lungs had been stuffed into place.

  Elron raised a vambrace to block a dagger that had sailed from somewhere within the corn again. These assassins hadn’t even engaged directly yet, just harassing unseen from the dense foliage, letting the horrors dive down to pick them off. He squinted, seeing a shift of movement in the corn ahead.

  The devourers had pulled back for a moment, so it was the perfect time to capitalize on finally knowing where one of the assassins was. With a sharp hand gesture, he motioned for the warriors to fan out ahead of him.

  Everyone pressed deeper into the cornfield, barely staying within eyesight of each other. Everything had gone eerily quiet. The Devourers' damned Coos had stopped for the time being; even the whooping and hollering of the audience had died down to a stunned silence.

  Elron didn’t like it; the paladin was planning something. They hadn’t even seen him since they entered the corn. Finally, the silence ahead was broken by something large rustling through the cornfield.

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  Then a man cried out in surprise, “What the fuck! What the fuck! No! I have a mark, see! I'm a friend! Bugger off… Holy shit, what the fuck was that?”

  “He didn’t tell us about that, but I think it’s on our side…probably?” Another voice answered farther in the cornfield.

  “I wanna shoot it; should I shoot it?” The other voice called back.

  “Just let it do It’s thing..are we really on this guy’s side now?” An unsure voice answered.

  “Ughhh fuck, it touched me...oh gods, is that an egg?” A strangled yelp came from the corn ahead, followed by curses and then silence.

  Elron looked around; that hadn’t been his men… That had been the assassins. Which meant. Elron looked in realization toward the men in front of him and hissed a hushed warning, “One of the abominations is coming through the corn circle up!” His men nodded and took practiced stances around him.

  Whatever it was ahead was making an almost mocking call as it stalked at them. It sounded like a bird call but then would trail off into this awful smacking sound like steaks being slapped against one another. His men shifted nervously as a new sound rushed towards them. Small, fast footsteps.

  The farthest warrior whipped around as something the size of a melon skittered from the corn on shell-white spiderlike legs. Then another and another roughly dashing through the corn; all of them stopped and turned towards him in horrifying unison.

  They were bizarre, malformed things, like an egg had been broken open; uneven rounded bodies leaking yellow fluid were held aloft by the legs, and horrific floppy chick-like heads protruded through a break in the top of the shell. Each had a mass of wormy, deep red tentacles protruding through every single crack in the shell body.

  The man screamed as they swarmed on him. Wrapping around his foot and shins, they started heaving and pulling with the spidery limbs, trying to pull him off his feet.

  “Fuck, fuck!” the panicked warrior shouted, bringing his foot down with a skill-empowered strike that spattered one of the things across the corn around him. He went to whip his blade around at another attached to his foot. Before he could, three more of the creatures scuttled from the corn.

  Elron rushed to help, but it was too late; the moment the man lost his footing, the swarming things dragged his flailing, shouting body from sight deeper into the corn.

  A satisfied, uncomfortable “Bwakkk…Bwakkkkk…” clucked across the field, followed by more terrified screams and wet pecking noises.

  Elron pushed his way to the center of his group. “Stay close! Whatever this thing is, it’s hunting us! Don’t let anyone else get…” His words stuck in his throat as a pair of dull, vicious eyes looked straight at a warrior near the edge of the formation from just a handsbreadth away from the man.

  His heart sank as the abomination pushed the corn apart with pairs of malformed, too-long arms, edging even closer to the petrified man. Then the beak split wide and a horrible retching noise coughed out. And the abomination spilled out of its own mouth. There was a moment of shock and confusion as everyone looked at its entrails and the disfigured, featureless, half-digested remains of some poor soul.

  “Did... It Just fuckin die? It’s still twitching…” A warrior of Rembrand whispered in confusion, lowering his weapon slightly.

  The featureless torso reached up with one pair then another of arms, its melted face imitating the parody of a smile, and it embraced the closest warrior tightly. His screams were muffled by its hands and then its body as it climbed back down the abomination's throat, the warrior of Rembrand still held firmly in its arms.

  Elron looked at the adapted chicken with wide eyes as the warrior's feet disappeared whole into its gullet before shouting an order, "Retreat!!!" Retreat!!”

  They rushed back through the corn as fast as they could. running for their lives from whatever demon the forsaken paladin had summoned.

  Vraxious—Dragon’s Maw Arena

  Vrax was doubled over in the cornfield; the pain ripping across his abdomen was almost unbearable. He hadn’t laughed this hard since he first sicked a man-eater, Daisy, on Torvald. Oh, oh gods, I'm keeping you even if it's just for pranks, gobbles. That was fucking amazing and sure as shit will leave everyone talking about how you sent them running. Thankfully, I doubt many people had a really clear view of that.

  Because honestly, eaten by a chicken just sounds too far-fetched. I bet he summoned a bird demon mid-fight, and it scared them away. That would be much more believable to the masses.

  Vrax slapped a hand on the chicken, sending it into the menagerie. Then he summoned his mount. Hopping on it dramatically, spear held high into the air. Think I'm going to call you something like Malice. Every king needs a cool mount name. Bah, not time for that. I need to get the fuck out of the city before one of the actually high-tier clergy members gets a crack at me. Everyone else should be at the meeting point by now.

  With a few parting words to his teammates, Vrax made his exit out of the arena door that normally led from the adventurers' side of the arena. It was a bit cramped in the halls on malice, but everyone stayed far, far out of his way to avoid the thresher. He felt a wave of essence hit him and ignored it. He needed to get out of town, and he needed to see what his trial was.

  Vrax escaped out the side entrance he had come in from many months ago and proceeded to “gallop” through the streets and had Malice clamber straight over one of the walls. It wasn’t even remotely subtle, but no one even had the chance to try and stop him.

  Well, I probably won’t be coming back here unless it’s in disguise until this whole Rembrand business is settled; otherwise, I’m absolutely getting smote while I sleep. Hah, welp, I wanted to stir up the hornets' nest. I sure hope Jonathan got what I was hoping for.

  Vrax slowed to a more casual trot once he had broken off of the kings road and headed back towards the Godsbane Teleport anchor near town. Malaketh still owed him some free teleports, and he intended to cash in on one today. It brought Vrax no small measure of amusement imagining the self-righteous pricks running in circles trying to figure out how he had disappeared.

  Mages that could teleport or normal teleport anchors were both in high demand and tracked very closely by the realm. There was only one anchor in all of Hopes Path that Vrax knew of, and that was in the merchants' quarter of the city under constant guard. You could find a mage, but it wouldn’t be a quick or quiet affair, even with fat bribes.

  As Vrax approached the field that held the anchor they had exited at from Gosdbane, he focused on his system notifications finally. He had quite a few kill notifications, and more importantly, his second trial details were finally available to him.

  With a deep breath, Vrax opened the notification.

  [Second Trial Available]

  [Predator’s Recognition]

  Slay a worthy Apex Predator of the Forsaken Lands. By the might of your hand and with the aid of your adapted entities. Your kill must be presented to one of the last of Vurune’s original holy beasts still stalking the lands. The Serpent of Bloom, The Everchanging Spider, The Dragon of Decay, or the Mycelium of Death. If it judges your prey as worthy, you will pass the trial; if not. Your trial will change to defeat [Serpent Of Bloom Tier-2](Lvl88) least of Vurune’s Holy Beasts.

  Wait…wait…holy shit, what?