Chapter 2083: The Ambush (4) The core of Death lay open, and Nyxara was feasting upon it, a direct link to the depths of the Beast, and the other Ancient Primordials, especially Xylos, Primordial Demon, were holding back the Will of Death, which expressed itself in its tendrils from entering its core and pulling out Nyxara. To get to Nyxara, the Beast had exerted itself to the limits and incapacitated the rest of the Primordials for a moment, but Nyxara pressed the advantage that this gave her, and her hybrid wing transformed into a lance of corrupted dawn that stabbed deeper into the Beast’s core. In her endless hunger, Nyxara was not holding back her powers, and she poured everything into the corrupted lance that travelled deep into the core of the Beast. She drank its pain, its harvested Deaths flooding her veins like icy venom. The Beast bucked, its abyssal eyes widening in something like fear, tendrils flailing wildly. One sliced across Nyxara’s face, carving a gash that exposed bone and pulsing light beneath; the wound wept black ichor mixed with stolen radiance, burning like acid on her skin. A chilling, spine-tingling cackle that echoed through the void as Nyxara laughed and she twisted harder, forcing the Beast’s form to dissipate at the edges. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦 This action caused a powerful shockwave that rippled outwards into Limbo, and Regions of Death collapsed inward, the dead howling as they were crushed between the combatants. "A part of my power can never be complete when you steal my souls, you damned beast!" Nyxara shrieked and drank deep from the Beast. The other Ancient Primordials looked at Nyxara with hidden light in their eyes. The power she was displaying was shocking, but Xylos snapped them out of their daze as they joined the attack and the feasting. Like flies coming for decaying flesh, the Ancient Primordials fell on the Beast, and the fight devolved into unbounded brutality. A part of the Beast knew that it would not survive this fight, but it was Death, and all those that came for its wrath would earn it a thousandfold Xylos, face half-peeled, expanded into a colossal giant and leaped onto the Beast’s back, demonic claws rending chunks of nothingness that reformed only to be corrupted again. The flesh of the Beast was bubbling into demonic tumors that exploded in chains of abyssal fire. All of that fire was poured into the thousand maws of Xylos as he drew out his spine, revealing that it was the perfected Sin Weapon once wielded by Rowan, and he struck at the Beast, countless times, cutting out vast sums of flesh. Eldrithor, still impaled on tendrils of Death and bleeding lightning, was now a bit free to act, and he unraveled the Beast’s defenses through the tendrils that were still piercing his body. He forced its tendrils to knot and devour themselves in loops of self-inflicted agony, causing the Beast so much pain that it could only sever those portions of its Will, and Eldrithor gladly consumed them. Xyris stood back watching the battle, the feather on his purple wings shaking from the calamitous winds that were emerging from it. More than any of the Primordials, he had gained a lot from seeing the opened core of Death, and his hatred for Nyxara was growing because she had taken a valuable opportunity from him. However, he had still gained a lot, and he was going to get more. In his core, Xyris was igniting a storm of time, and when it reached its peak, he pointed at the Beast and released the storm with a roar that resounded across all dimensions. Under the bombardment of time, the surrounding dimensions aged to the brink of heat-death, and the Beast’s screams slowed to glacial moans. Even the Ancient Primordials were all caught inside this time storm, and Xyris, under this slim opportunity, tore off a part of the Beast’s core, and then time resumed with a sudden crack, and the backlash slammed him into the distance as his body tore through countless dimensions. Xyris had been pushed far from the battle, but in a single move, he had managed to take a large piece out of Death, and for the moment, he was directly behind Nyxara. Elgorath looked at the space where Xyris had been thrown, and for a moment, he thought of going after Xyris and taking a part in what he had claimed, but he turned around with a roar of rage and began bombarding the Beast with memories of its own potential defeat, extreme visions of dissipation that made its form flicker like a dying star. Every time the Beast acknowledged those memories, Elgorath directly seized them, as he gorged on the essence of death even though his body was screaming for relief. Vorthas, on the other hand, was calmer, as he seemed content to grow carnivorous vines that burrowed into the wounds of the Beast. He took advantage of every wound being made by his siblings and rooted his poison deep into the Beasts, and these wounds, the essence of Death leaked out in gouts of ethereal blood, and his vines swallowed it. It may seem as if Vorthas was not making much effort on the surface, but he soon directly surpassed Xyris, who had torn a chunk from Death, by calmly growing and expanding his vines all through the body of Death, causing the Beast to cry out again and again in pain and loss. However, the Beast was Death, and it fought back with chilling ferocity that cost the Ancient Primordials more than they could have imagined. If they had not made any progress before coming here, then the Beast would have killed them all with the power it was unleashing. It unleashed waves of retroactive erasure that unmade the bodies of the Primordials even before strikes landed, wounds appearing from futures not yet fought. The Cores of the Ancient Primordials were still intact, but they had to rapidly bleed their essence to keep their bodies in place; they even had to begin burning their Origin Force, thousands of them just to hold back the fury of the Beast. Still, the Beast fought as if its strength were unending. Tendrils impaled, crushed, and poisoned. The dimensions for untold distances were filled with the wet snaps of breaking bones, the sizzle of burning essence, the guttural howls of cosmic entities reduced to primal agony, as blood of all shades and color, demonic black, chaotic storm-red, temporal gray, mnemonic gold, vital green, mixed with the Beast’s inky dissolution, painting the void in streaks of horror.