Clouds of ash sprang from the ground, kicked up into a chaotic flurry as feet stamped and slid. I watched, transfixed, as my Coreless worked together to bring down another of Tiamat’s creations. They were wonderful; relentless and far more intelligent than the bad-things, and more than willing to bring the force that supplied them to bear.

Needle-fangs found homes in twisted flesh at just the right moments, causing the enemies to flinch back in moments of danger. Dangerous blows, ones that could have skewered me despite the protection of my own ore-flesh, were deflected to the side by Will’s great wall of ore-flesh, forced to skitter off of its edges at angles that pulled Tiamat’s creations into even more dangerous positions. The-female-who-was-not-Needle seemed to weave in and out of the chaos, stepping into the gaps and lopping off exposed limbs at every opportunity, while the newest member of our group struck at the bad-things from outside of their range, his long fang-tipped weapon allowing him to stab and rend at their flesh with impunity.

Even The Unrepentant One, one of my least favorite Coreless, impressed me. He didn’t have the finesse or intelligence of the others, but I would have been surprised if he did. He had always seemed to be lacking to me, unable to fully comprehend the light of the Great Core.

Still, in moments like this he could be useful - because what he lacked in faith, he almost made up for in utter strength and ferocity.

As Will deflected another attack to the side, the-female-who-was-not-Needle ducked in again, filling the gap that was created, ready to lop off another exposed limb with her fangs of ore-flesh.

Suddenly, the bad-thing regained its balance, piercing one of its limbs into the stone below it to steady itself. It thrust outward with another, directly towards not-Needle’s exposed throat. She ducked underneath, bending herself backwards in a commendably snakelike fashion, and pivoted.

The next thing I knew, she had thrown up a leg, kicking impressively high and sending a cloud of ash into the bad-thing’s eyes.

She shouted, springing backwards as she did so, and The Unrepentant One stepped in. If I could feel his emotions, I was sure that I would have tasted [RAGE].

The bad-thing fell to the ground, split from end to end by a single, brutal strike. I was impressed. They may not have had the protection of scales or ore-flesh, but Tiamat’s creations were - I hesitated to admit this - fairly strong. My own fangs would never be able to decimate an enemy like that so completely.

He was still my least favorite Coreless, though.

After that, my Coreless made short work of the remaining enemies. Needles and fangs of ore-flesh riddled the disgusting things with wounds that bled a satisfying crimson, creating warm pools of liquid that slicked my Coreless’ steps and turned the ash below into gray-red muck.

Outnumbered by my Coreless, the lingering remnants of our attackers were defeated one by one. One fell to a crippling blow from The Unrepentant One, its head removed in one exertion-filled strike. The next took a needle to the eye, its body going limp a moment later, as if it had taken a moment to realize that it was dead. The final bad-thing swung about itself in a rage, all six of its bone-tipped limbs furiously stabbing outwards. Will hid himself behind his giant piece of ore-flesh, rushing forward and deflecting any desperate strikes that came his way. He smashed into it with a resounding impact, sending the bad-thing flying.

It tumbled through the air for a few slithers, landing on the ground to the chorus of snapping limbs, awkwardly-placed arms shattered by its own weight from the fall. It died a few moments later, trembling and helpless.

The hive-host remained, but it was still wriggling on the ground, unable to move without the many flying bad-things that had provided support to its otherwise-weak flesh. Too much had been sacrificed to give space for the bad-things that it hosted; despite its rather large size, it was more or less an empty sac of convulsing flesh without them.

It was almost funny to watch.

I hissed in satisfaction, sending another spike of {DERISION} towards Tiamat, exulting in the sensation as the walls of my mind-nest trembled before her rage - but came nowhere near breaking.

I dove into the connections to each of my Coreless’ [Little Guardian’s Totem], searching for hints of [pain]; to my surprise, only Needle was displaying more than light soreness. The only other Coreless that had been injured beyond the minor bruising of any fight was the-female-who-was-not-Needle, and she had already been healed by the life essence that ran through her veins. Even now, a small amount of it still remained; I could see it in the bounce of her step. I had seen it in the way that she had moved during the fight, particularly when dodging the unexpected strike towards her throat.

With the others doing fine, I turned my attention towards Needle again. She was limping forward as she moved to collect her needle-fangs from the corpses, leaning down to reach them with audible groans and moans as her [pain] spiked.

I slithered down from her shoulder, converting most of my remaining mana to life essence as I went. By the time that I reached her wounded leg, my mana core was filled with vibrant liquid gold, only lightly spotted by a rare and elusive bit of blue. I bit down, activating [Life - Invigorating Bite] again, and she sighed in relief.

The thought-light flickered.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Invigorating Bite VII] Increased.

[Life - Invigorating Bite VIII] Acquired.

I got another awkward pat, and she radiated slight [discomfort] again as her leg began to fully heal. She really must have been overwhelmed with the failure of being injured. That was alright; she would know to do better next time. Failure was painful, but it was an effective teacher.

Needle limped for a few moments longer as she gathered her expended needle-fangs, and her stride slowly lengthened, becoming something more and more natural as the life essence mended the last of her wounds. By the time that she had reached them all, placing them within the oddly shaped skin-mouth where she kept her needle-fangs, the other Coreless had surrounded the final bad-thing.

It wriggled ineffectively as they slashed and hacked at its flesh but, despite that, it managed to stay alive longer than I would have expected. It was a fairly giant thing, larger than my Coreless by far, and seemingly fluid enough that my Coreless were having a difficult time finding its weak point.

Then again, it couldn’t really manage to do anything either. It flopped about uselessly, moving across the ground with an almost nonexistent speed, while airy moans and wheezes whistled through both its mouth and the many cavernous holes that had served as homes for the flying bad-things. The disgusting thing smelled of rot and death, and left oozing slime behind itself as it slowly inched forward.

It was pitiful, really, as I would expect of Tiamat’s creations. I doubted even a Lesser Core would design something so horrible.

I sent another wave of {DERISION} towards Tiamat, expressing the thought.

She hated it, the resulting thought-hisses filled with threats of enslavement and subjugation, but that was probably because she knew it was true. It probably didn’t help when I implied that whatever Lesser Core created her must have been particularly poor, given that her own blood formed such ill-designed bad-things.

That certainly got a reaction.

I pretended to ignore it, going silent, which seemed to make things worse. It probably wasn’t a good idea to taunt her so much, given her ability to create bad-things and send them against me, but I couldn’t really help it - I hated her for what she had almost made me do when I first received [Chains of the Creator I]. For how close she had come to making me forsake the Great Core.

I turned my attention back towards the world outside, moving away from Needle and slithering over to the mangled host-hive. Rivers of blood mixed with embers and ash, remnants of our defeated enemies. They coated my underside, the warmth of it all an extremely soothing sensation against my scale-flesh. Part of me wanted to rub against it entirely, coating myself in the remains of Tiamat’s children, as if giving a final scornful hiss towards the so-called ‘Mother of Monsters’.

Was that strange?

I didn’t think so.