The Sand Claw and the Energy Blade hit each other. The force shook the metal room, breaking all the glass tanks along the walls.
The Gardener was a creature made of energy and surrounding mass. It was as strong as a master. It pushed with all its power. Its core glowed bright, sending energy into its arm to try and cut through the sand.
It failed.
The sand claw didn't move. It was solid, held together by the beast's hate and a strange sealing power.
"Is that it?" Arthev/Shukaku asked.
His voice sounded rough and mean, like the beast was speaking through him. Blue marks on his skin glowed. His right eye was yellow and wide with excitement.
"You call this a cut? It tickles!"
Arthev squeezed.
Crack.
The Gardener's arm didn't bend. It shattered like glass. Red shards flew through the air and turned into dust before they hit the ground.
The Gardener, devoid of pain but programmed for preservation, but it knew it was in danger. It tried to turn into a streak of light to fly away.
Arthev's right eye flashed.
SUKUNAHIKONA
He looked at the Gardener's legs. They were still forming from the energy in the room.
"Shrink."
The legs became too small to see. The Gardener lost its balance and slammed into the floor.
"Stay down!" Arthev/shukaku roared.
The big sand arm swung. It smashed the creature into the wall.
Boom.
The impact left a deep hole in the metal wall.
The Gardener flickered. Its body looked broken, flashing between the shape of a man and a red cloud of light.
Inside its chest, something throbbed.
PULSE OF GLUTTONY
The energy surged. The Gardener fixed itself instantly. It didn't just heal, it changed. Its broken arm turned into a large cannon.
It fired. A beam of bright light shot toward Arthev. It was strong enough to wipe out a mountain.
Arthev stood still. He didn't try to block it.
KAMUI
The beam passed right through his chest. It hit the wall behind him, melting a deep hole into the heavy metal.
"My turn," Arthev growled.
He ran forward. The heavy sand on his arm began to shake and vibrate.
MAGNET RELEASE: GRAND SAND MAUSOLEUM
Arthev slammed his claw into the floor.
The entire platform exploded. Huge pyramids of magnetic sand rose from the ground.
They surrounded the Gardener and trapped it.
The Gardener tried to turn into pure light to escape through the gaps.
"You can't go anywhere," Shukaku mocked.
"My sand seals energy, you lightbulb!"
The sand squeezed. It wrapped around the creature's arms and legs, holding the light in place. The magnetic force broke the Gardener's hold on its own body.
The Gardener let out a sharp sound like grinding metal.
Arthev closed his fist.
"Seal."
The sand pyramid crushed inward with massive pressure.
Shatter.
The Gardener exploded. It didn't leave a body behind. It just burst into tiny sparks of light that simply light up the nearby area.
Arthev breathed out. The marks on his skin faded away like cooling coals. His eye turned back to its normal black color. The massive sand claw crumbled into dust on the floor.
"Possession disengaged," Arthev whispered. His voice was scratchy.
His muscles ached, but his eyes were fixed on the dissipating light.
He couldn't let that energy vanish. Not when he had the perfect tool to shape it.
Arthev didn't wait for the dust to settle. He saw the data escaping.
Floating in the center of the room was a red crystal. It was shaped like a heart with many sharp edges. It hummed softly.
Arthev reached under his shirt and pulled out his pendant. As it caught the crimson light, a holographic map of seven slots flickered into existence. One was already filled with a cyan light: the Heart of Skyheaven.
"Storage function: Intercept," Arthev commanded.
A beam of blue light shot from the pendant, but it didn't just hit the Core. It fanned out into a wide vortex, dragging the fading particles of the Gardener back toward the center. The white sparks of the guardian began to swirl violently around the crimson heart.
A localized vacuum of blue light erupted, intercepting the fading particles. The golden-white sparks of the Gardener were sucked into a swirling vortex, trapped in a state of flux around the crimson heart.
"Pulse of Gluttony... Re-compile."
Using the artifact's unique ability to rewrite genetic code, Arthev forced the Gardener's Level 94 data to bind with the biological essence of the silo. Then, he raised his hand, his fingers twitching with magnetic precision.
"Magnet Release: Polarized Lattice Compression."
He projected thousands of invisible magnetic vices into the swirling energy. He forced every single particle of the Gardener's Level 94 soul power to align to a rigid polar axis. Under the sheer weight of the magnetic pressure, the chaotic energy was crushed inward, forced to occupy a singular, solid space.
The air in the silo hummed with high-frequency vibration. The flesh-data of the Pulse of Gluttony acted as the blueprint, while Arthev's Magnet Release acted as the hammer.
CLATTER.
The light solidified and fell. A heavy, crystallized object hit the metal floor of the platform. It was a Torso Soul Bone, shaped like a serpentine ribcage, glowing with a malevolent red hue.
Arthev picked it up. The weight was immense. Because it had been synthesized from a Level 94 Guardian using the Pulse's gluttonous energy, the density was staggering, a 90,000-year-level Serpentine Torso Bone.
He pocketed the synthesized bone and held the pendant toward the crimson heart once more.
"Store."
The Pulse of Gluttony shrank down and flew into the blue stone around his neck.
Click.
The red light in the room died. The loud thumping sound stopped. The red roots on the walls turned gray and shriveled up. Arthev looked at his pendant. Two lights now glowed inside it: one blue, one red.
"Two down," Arthev whispered. "Five left."
He tucked the pendant back into his uniform.
The immediate threat was gone. The Flesh Pit above would slowly die off without the artifact's energy to sustain the mutations.
Arthev looked toward the teleportation array. He had the cure for Dugu Bo. And he had secured the second piece of the world's foundation.
"Time to go," he said.
He stepped onto the circle.
Zap.
He disappeared. The dark, empty room was silent again.
To be continued.....