Bie was hurtling along the interior of the whale, his hand axe drawing a line in the purplish flesh as it skidded ever forwards from his perspective. He felt a severe sense of weightlessness, suspended in the air as he hung from the handle of Ekulech, his stump and right hand connected by Ariadne's Thread.
He fought off the ever-persistent metallic dragon, the gastric juices of the whale's stomach evaporating into acidic vapors that sought to digest them both. His skin burned as some of the flesh began gradually dissolving, though he doggedly fought on by propelling himself forward towards the encroaching scientific oddity.
He planted firm kicks with his heel smashing down on the draconic assaulter and redirected the returning blows by rolling the creature's slashes to the side with sudden increases in weight with the effects of Mountain's Step. His toes turned into hammers, his legs turned into spears, and his waist was like an anvil suspended in the sky.
The wounds from the two or so minutes he spent in the whale's body was mainly an effect of the sheer force he was displaying, as well as the sheer sharpness the metallic dragon possessed. The material was so dense and prickly, each and every hit was like diving a hand into a pile of steel needles.
"Why was Ekulech able to handle this...ugh..." His smile wavered a small amount as these words escaped his lips, though his gleaming topaz yellow eyes showed the signs of both joy and concern deep within his soul. Every second he spent in here was a second he could spend fighting with his comrades, and honestly, he was completely puzzled as to how he could finish this skirmish.
He had shown some signs of being clever earlier, but he was very much still developing. Every dip in sadness he had received over the time of being in this Path was normally replaced with the curiosity he was born with. Although worry nagged at his mind, fraying some of his nerves...he was beginning to feel like the kind of person that couldn't experience sadness for prolonged amounts of time.
Was it good to be cheery? Was it good to fight? What was good? These questions snuck into the deepest boundaries of his mind, worming their way into his Inner World. The Sconce was revolving rapidly, displaying a luminosity more potent than Bie had ever witnessed before. The mist around the Torch was beginning to coalesce, and the eyes of the pattern engraved on a tile opened, eyes narrowed as it lied in wait.
The germination of Conception has begun. Bie rolled into a ball as he dropkicked the metallic dragon in the face, his weight suddenly expanding to 500 kg as he pivoted, his Ink burning away so rapidly that within his Inner World it became vapor, rising up and dissolving into the sky.
The metallic dragon was sent careening with so much force that it directly slashed through the whale's intestines, momentum slowing with each 'wall' it collided with. The only reason it could seemingly cut through the gigantic whale was simply because of how sharp it was, as well as the structural integrity of the creature being compromised by long strokes Ekulech had hewn.
There was only a small hole Bie could see through, as blood began to stream in the stomach in thick rivers that began to overflow over one another. The sound was akin to an angry tide, or hippopotami stomping in waist deep waters. Bie could just barely hear over the noise...
And the sound he heard next blossomed forth his first "true" experience of anger.
--
"F*CK, YOU F*CKING BASTARD. EVANTTTTTRRRRAAA-" Thick branches of rapidly shimmering neon yellow light emerged from all the cracks forming on his body, as well as from his eyes and his mouth. The very air was crackling, popping as the light started to emit a sensation that induced heat, yet the branches themselves were as cold as a desert night.
Evant was smiling so hard as he similarly stepped up a notch, emitting dark yellow branches more potent than the rays of the sun. A sphere of darkening yellow tones encapsulated him, crying faces appearing within the confines of it. Evant's spine was curled backwards in an odd angle as he brought his wrinkled hands to his eyes, rapidly wiping away tears as he cackled, arcs like lightning sputtering from his face.
"Why blame me?" He said, "You were the one who wasn't paying attention...just like last time, Frederick."
Aimee gritted her teeth, bone coins forming in her clenched hand as she sewed them into the ground. Two huge arms composed of bones and fangs emerged from the cracked tile, and she emitted a viscous red aura as her visor blared with crimson light. Her whole entire body was bleeding with rage, and she extracted power that threatened to swallow her completely, the visage of teeth engulfing her as she emitted thick plumes of steam that turned into smoke.
Domingo was completely serious for once in his life, realizing that his efforts to redirect the beams were now effectively useless. The shooting scientists cloaked in the robes threw their boxes to Evant, giving up shooting any further as each and every light beam collided harmlessly against the now two spheres of light and dark yellow. Instead, he drew The Septum's Desire from the ground it was sheathed in, eyes completely still as he began dancing along the tiles.
His feet stretched beyond his elbow, then stepped into each other's shadow as his fingers rapidly wriggled, extracting a miniscule amount of light from the spheres. He was utilizing the Hook Theory, which was able to harness the power of Abram, and was granted only one ability of his choosing for the span of three seconds. Any longer and his body would explode, unable to regenerate.
He teleported to two of the beam-toting robed figures, slashing them into ribbons before Aimee reduced them into viscera. The two accidents were rampaging to the highest of their capacity, Aimee directing the bones while screaming louder than a siren, Domingo contorting his own body to prevent any and every enemy he could reach.
The last gift remaining was thrown to Evant as the Glimsweld woman died underneath their combined flurry. The four boxes floated around the blue haired man in a tidy circle, before popping open and revealing the contents inside.
It was four pieces that combined to form a chalk statue of a beautiful woman, her looks comparable to Uris, who was crying as her eyes closed, three holes lining her neck horizontally as smoke streamed out of her trachea.
The woman sported one large horn more imposing than a bulls, and two leathery wings each spanning two meters expanding from her leftmost calf. The wings were curled around her bodice, each reaching upwards as they pointed towards her closed eyelids, two crystalline lines imprinted down her cheeks.
The lids shot open, revealing marble eyes that held empty horizontal slits. The dark yellow light permeated the statue, yellow veins lacing its figure as the light condensed into an illusory image of a tree with smoky clouds hanging along the boughs.
It dissolved into particles before a giant circle formed, condensing the energy into a compact streak that impaled itself within both Ulun and Uris, Evant not even bothering to consider the others in his blow, though it also destroyed the front half of the whale Bie was formerly contained in. His power had dimmed considerably, and he had inadvertently killed even the two mages that summoned the whale, but he had more than enough for the people left remaining.
And so he gave a bow, his right leg stepping over his left as he bent at the waist and brought a hand to his chest. With mirth, he released the final words that Bie would hear before he was completely set off.
"A final gift, from me to you."