The desert was a vast expansive dust bowl. Emptiness all around as the winds kicked up high pillars of sand and small sand waves along the grooves.
"Finally, time to hunt," Big Star was eager. " Go, fly to the sky and rain down droplets of blood, the beast will rise.
"We are on the hunt for the Swallowing Sand worm, fire and lightning beasts." Au-ha reminded me like a digital assistant. I could see very few beasts roaming around, all creatures of no interest to me. I needed lightning, and that worm.
I followed the Lord of stars advice, and took to the sky, spilling droplets of blood. First came the desert birds, Who exploded violently from a blast of lightning from my third eye. It now had two pupils, doubling the strength of one, or allowing me to shoot two blasts. These beasts were weak, and had not even formed a soul.
I took the cores, feathers and talons, storing them in the spatial pouch. It did not have much room, maybe the size of a small house. More beasts came, this time of my favorite element, lightning.
A Lightning coated camel creature moved slowly, its humps acting as tesla coils. When I got near, I was sent flying back by a series of lightning strikes from the coils. My lightning blasts also did not affect it. I used a drill attack, flying quickly in the air, and spinning dropping down fast, my sword fingers fully extended. As I spun, lightning would be reflected by my Blood-alloyed coating, and I pierced through, eating the beast's soul on the spot.
More strength, the stream of lightning in my blood growing ever stronger, thicker, faster.
I flew to the skies again, strangely seeing no flaming beasts. A few more generic sand based beasts. Hawks, snakes, and large armadillos. One more lightning beast appeared, a lightning scorpion. We had a brief clash of tail strikes, when it swept its claw at me. I dodged under, and got close in my Mixed martial art stance, providing a devastating axe kick straight to its skull, cracking it open. A soul flew out, and I ate it.
I took its valuable parts after eating the soul.
Finally, after slaying a hundred or so beasts, only a couple contained useful souls. I took a few beetle corpses and what not.
Then, I heard a low rumbling below, at last, my time had come. Launching from deep underneath the desert sands, a massive hundred foot tall worm with a miniature dimension inside its stomach appeared.
The fight was deceptively simple. All it could do was swallow. I was fast enough to run circles around it. Its armor was tough, but I continuously smashed it down with my fists, legs, and tail. It eventually spat absolutely absurd amounts of sand from its stomach, creating a massive sandstorm on the spot.
I lost sight of the beast.
"Damn." I spat out in haste, "Can you see him, au-ha?"
"It is running to the lower regions of the northern desert, heed my directions." she spoke. She was able to see information, and could show me images and sounds of the immediate past events.
It was fast underneath that sand, but I was faster. I launched down underneath the sand, and started cutting through with my sharp alloyed skin. I continued smashing the shell of the worm, and it howled to the empty sky. Just as I was about to land the final blows, three more of them appeared at once.
Nobody told me they traveled in packs.
No matter, it was just a simple scenario of dodging these massive beasts. In the desert, one could see flashes of lightning dodging as 4 worms continuously leapt, soared, and swam through the sands in attempts to swallow me whole.
I finally smashed the shell of the first one, And consumed the soul within. I felt a cavernous spatial crack beginning to open inside of my body, each pore was a miniature entrance. My previous powers of magnetism began to blend into this one, space and gravity always attempting to combine.
The others moved faster and faster, shooting blasts of sand from their mouths. One shot a blast of fire, while another shot a blast of lightning. I lifted my hands, deflecting the blasts with a force push of magnetism. My powers of magnetism had been quite weak, but now contained the power of a miniature world within me. The fire and lightning spread out like clouds and dissipated.
The other three went down like the first. I ate, and ate the souls. I felt a wonderful warmth spreading across my skin. The world inside of me now fully formed, it was able to hold every drop of sand in the desert and more.
My tail could now form a mouth, and fangs.
My beast soul also began to grow, it had held elements of Blood, alloy, and lightning. Now, as it grew in size, a small dimension could be seen brewing at the center. Within it, forces of magnetism now leaked out. This magnetism would strengthen my powers of lightning, and allowed me to curve my blasts of lightning.
I was nearing an evolution, a few more powerful beasts would do it.
I put everything into the small world within, as I took items into my pores, the stones in my bag, the beast cores and bodies. I could very conveniently produce the items with a thought.
"Don't you understand how amazing beasts are now?" the Lord stated smugly.
I nodded, indeed. Cultivation was far too slow a path for the likes of me. On top of that, the effectiveness of beasts and men could not be compared.
I began leaving the desert, when the sands started shifting backwards, the blood on the sand gliding. I looked back and saw a mighty creature, rising from the desert sands, roaring at the sun.
It had the body of a lion and the head of a man. Wings of a bird and a scaled snake tail wormed its way about its own flesh. It slowly moved its massive thighs, creating storms of wind with each step. All around it, reel the broken rocks of the desert sand.
Decades of a buried slumber, awoken to the smell of massacre. The beast looked towering and undefeatable, hundreds and hundred of feet tall. but I knew. It was something I could kill.
I rocketed toward it in a blur of lightning, four metal wings flapping my forward into the sky. It raised its paw, and swiped, it broke the air into pieces, and a massive shockwave sounded for miles across the desert.
I was sent flying back, hundreds of feet into the sands, my ears still ringing. I slowly got up, disoriented by the sound. Immediately, a massive snake was flying towards me, I shot straight into its mouth, My lightning blade cutting a clean hole through it as I flew straight through it.
"Take its legs, it can barely support itself." Au-ha instructed. Its tail partially disabled, it swung its paw toward me. All I could Do was shoot far into the sky, avoiding the massive shockwaves of the blow. I launched down like a thrown javelin, my whole body forming a weapon.
I tore through the beast's upper right knee, causing a terrible screech to escape its mouth. My ears were deafened by the sound. It's horrific man-like head contouring in expressions of pain and fury. I molded my ears shut, the transformative properties of the Blood Horde still coming in handy.
Now that it's screams were no longer an issue, all I had to do was dodge its disgusting strength contained in its paw swipes. I tore the front left leg, and the beast collapsed, buckling under its own mammoth size.
As Its head sank down low, It could only attack with its mouth. A nightmare of a massive humanoid head on a beast's body was approaching rapidly. I brandished two swords on each side of me while using my third eye to blast two bolts of lightning, using magnetism to arc the lightning straight into the beast's eyes.
In that opening, I rushed forward. It took a wild frenzy of powerful lightning blade strikes to begin to open its head. When the brain was revealed, I smashed into it, and tore it apart from the inside.
The creature fell down, ever so slowly on the sand, its body now lifeless. A large soul shot out of the beast, but I pulled upon the soul with the force of magnetism, and I opened my mouth. It took a few bites to consume the soul, each bite sending bursts of pure strength into my muscles. After all was said and done, I did not look any different, but my strength was monstrously improved. I felt I could lift a large mountain with each hand, or I could flip this entire desert upside-down.
My soul was now fully formed, ascended. There was a resonance from inside and soon, it would be ready for transformation.
It took a long time for the waves of strength to subside, by the time the process was done, it was already nightfall.
When I got back to my small cot, I collapsed on the bed, exhausted from the day of battle.
"Good work, darling. "
"Thank you, love." I replied to Au-ha, not even able to entertain the mental stimulation tonight.
I closed my eyes, and drifted off. In the middle of the night, a newly sewn quilt was placed upon me.
-----------------------
I dreamt again that night.
I was born a chimeric beast. I never once knew a father or mother. I arose from the desert one day, as if the personification of its indignant fury. I was the defender of this barren wasteland, who slept far below the surface.
All beasts in the desert would fear me, all beasts above would feel me. I was a vexing nightmare, spun into truth by the world itself. I Hid myself underground, and decades would pass in my sleep.
Whenever I felt the desert quake, I knew the worms were signifying a threat appeared. I crawled from my chamber down below, and in that rough hour, time come anew, I crawled toward the sun, to resurface once more.