"To make life." The lecture started, the theoretical divinity professor as monotone as ever, "It's an interesting thought experiment. Now, it may be interpreted as simple reproduction, but if we think of it in the matter of the gods' territory, it becomes something else."
"The gods create and control the elements of their domain. Gnos, like the many other gods of life, controls and rules over the matter of life and the living. Gnos also controls song and music, but that's second in both their domain and our studies. Now, Gnos's control over life dictates both the birth of life and harmony between the living. The way a living creature's body works and how living creatures interact are in the domain of Gnos. This is also one of the reason's Gnos loathes the undead—their very presence disrupts the harmony of life. The subject of the life gods in general are quite interesting, but I digress."
"Back on topic, to make life. Theoretically, it's possible to use magic to create something living. The process to make it, however, is unknown. In the past, it has been attempted. By life mage, by death mage, by any and all arts every race could think of. Maybe, as this is part of the god's world, they have deemed us as unfit for such abilities. If you turn to page 273 of our textbooks, you can see…"
*****
The monsters growled and pawed at the ground, the excitement of battle filling their very souls. The ape-thing was still there, frozen in place and becoming more and more congruent. Scales, fur, slime, and vines entangled together to make the unnatural natural. The thin vines woven together to make eyelids slid up, revealing two yellow spheres.
Jaws opened to reveal rows of thorn-crafted teeth, acidic slime acting as saliva stretched in bridges of viscous fluid. Vines creeped out from the monster's neck, each one dripping slime from its thorns. Like that, the floodgates opened, and the battle commenced. Rushing monsters stampeding the local area decimated the surrounding forest as they charged forth. The first wave came with a crash, spikes, bodies, claws, and all other parts of the monsters rushed at the ape.
With lightning speed, vines shot to the canopy and grappled the branches up there. Once high enough, the thing gripped the trees' arms with its scaled claws, and with surprising efficiency, it swung around above the monsters.
Coming to a sudden and jarring halt, it dropped onto the monsters below. Vines reached out and latched onto some sort of bipedal, extremely hunchbacked and hairy beast. The ape pulled itself toward the creature while its vines continued to coil around it.
Blood ran through the fur of the thing along with a bluish liquid that dissolved the monster's hair and curdled its blood.
Landing on the beast while it was still screaming, the ape shot out more vines. They wrapped around the monster more and more, each one extending to impossible lengths as they fully consumed the beast. Like that, with the ape on top, the two were connected.
The waves of monsters roared as they impacted with the ape. Eodum was amongst them, jumping between the beasts' falling legs. Most of the monsters here were of monstrous size. While Eodum was huge, it was only the size of a large dog, the monsters around it were of similar size or larger. The smaller beasts were things like horned rabbits or packs of raptor-like creatures.
Eodum hopped between the monsters trying to be the first to reach the ape. At the moment , Eodum was being driven by instinct and feral bloodlust. A hoofed foot came rushing down, and Eodum lashed out with a flying set of aura claws. The creature screamed out, foot damaged with blood rushing through the hard material. It stumbled and fell, disrupting the flow of monsters causing them to come to a rapid stop.
Eodum continued sprinting ahead, leaving the pile up of monsters behind. Through the rising and lowering waves of monsters, Eodum caught glimpses of the ape ripping through the monsters. Vines brought more and more monsters into its mass, their bodies wrapped in vines and being used as weapons. Some were kept alive, others were dead as can be, but all of them became part of the monster.
The vines forced the monsters to be used as puppets, pulled and pushed and forced the beasts to kill the others. The ape was also using its own strength to bash through monsters. It was stronger now. Much stronger. With rippling muscle just beneath the surface, it was bashing the brains in of all the beasts, becoming stronger and stronger with each murder.
What felt like hours passed is seconds as the excited and impatient rat finally reached its target. The beast took one over on all the monsters, failing to see Eodum as it blended into the shifting shadows of the monsters. The rat was always an ambush hunter, from rebirth to now, and the screaming sounds of instincts in its head told it to hide and strike.
Creeping along the ground, it carefully made its way across the ground, stepping over the cut-off vines. With a lack of caution though, stemming from unearned confidence, Eodum stepped on another vine. It could've hopped over every vine it came across, but it had believed them all to be cut off. Most were. This one wasn't.
The vine sprung to action, wrapping tightly around Eodum's leg and pulling. A sickening crack sounded, the noise drowned out by the sounds of battle. Eodum fixed its leg, setting its bones back together while firing off tendrils of its own. Inky black tentacles ripped apart the vines. Bluish-clear acid spit out from the damaged vines, falling on Eodum and tearing through its body.
[You have suffered acid damage -5 Hp]
[You have suffered acid damage -5 Hp]
[You have suffered acid damage -5 Hp]
[You have suffered acid damage -5 Hp]
[Skills: Acid Resistance have leveled up!]
The pain from the acid lessened, and Eodum formed tentacles with stingers on them that lashed out and ripped through the vines racing towards it. The battle begins.