James Ironfang's Sacrifice. And Jack’s Fury!
Jack's body lay still but breathing. Stabilized. Alive.
Emma and James stood above him, their faces streaked with tears of pain, of relief, of raw, soul-deep love. The storm had passed. For a moment, just a fleeting heartbeat, there was peace.
But in this damned land, peace was a lie.
WHOOSH!
A blur tore through the air like a black comet.
SHLAAK!!
A slicing sound. Wet. Merciless.
Jack's instincts screamed.
Emma's heart dropped.
James didn't even have time to turn around.
The Shadowclaw Manticore had returned, its monstrous tail whipping forward like a reaper's scythe aimed straight for James's lower body.
"JAMES!!" Emma roared.
Jack's eyes widened in terror. He could only watch powerless.
But then
THUD!!
A flash of gray steel fur shot between them.
BOOOOM!!
The world went still.
Ironfang.
James's first tamed beast. His partner. His brother in arms.
He took the blow.
And he paid the price.
CRACK!! SPLAT!!
Ironfang's body explodes violently. Blood rained across the earth. Bones shattered into dust. His flesh, once proud and muscular, was reduced to meat and mist. All that remained… was a single, flickering Beast Core. Faint. Glowing. Alone.
Time froze.
But the Manticore bwasy didn't.
WHOOSH!
SLASH!!
Its tail redirected sweeping low, hissing through the air and sliced through James's legs in a single, clean arc.
SPLURT!!
THUD!
Blood gushed. His body collapsed.
"AAARRRGHHHH!!"
James's scream tore across the battlefield raw, primal, unforgettable.
Emma and Jack sprinted to his side. No hesitation. No fear.
"HUBBY!!"
"DAD!!"
Emma caught his trembling body, cradling him as if trying to hold together a life torn apart.
Jack dropped to his knees, grasping his father's hand, blood-soaked, trembling, cold.
James didn't even seem to notice them.
His eyes were locked on something else.
His hands clutched Ironfang's Beast Core. Tight. So tight it began to crack under the pressure.
"…Ironfang…"
His voice was hollow.
"…my Ironfang…"
His breathing grew ragged.
"…you said we'd reach the peaks together…"
A tear fell from his cheek.
No. Not only tears of water.
Drip… drip…
It was blood. Blood also come from his eyes.
Blood flowed from his eyes.
Bloody tears.
His grief was too deep for the body to contain. His soul cracked. His spirit bled. Even James lost his legs he doesn't care about that. His beloved tamed breast Ironfang just died now.
Jack stared at his father, a lump in his throat, unable to speak.
Emma shook as she held them both.
The Shadowclaw Manticore had vanished again, fading back into the mist like a demon that needed no applause for its carnage.
But it had already succeeded.
It didn't kill James.
It shattered him.
And some wounds… never heal.
James voice cracked into raw, broken sobs.
Then
Drip… drip… drip…
Blood spilled from his eyes, with that another crimson coloured blood also came. But this wasn't ordinary blood.
It was Blood Essence.
Blood Essence is very important in Sumsara World. It's a very Life Force of Living Beings.
Once Blood Essence gone He or She Will Die.
The sacred lifeforce of an Ascendant. The final reservoir of vitality.
Emma's face paled. She grabbed his shoulders, desperate. "Honey… snap out of it! Please! Don't waste Ironfang's sacrifice…"
But James didn't respond. He couldn't.
His mind was shattered. His heart is in ruins.
His mind filling with Ironfang beast memories of his journey of Ascendants. Like a movie every memories flash thought in his mind.
Fifteen minutes ago, the Wilson family had been whole. Now? Everything was broken beyond repair.
Jack, Emma, and James failed to notice the faint glow in James's hand.
Ironfang's Beast Core is still warm. Still alive.
It pulsed.
Softly. Like a heartbeat.
It wasn't just glowing. It was breathing.
The Blood Essence streaming from James's eyes was being absorbed greedily by the Core.
In the world of Samsara, Blood Essence was sacred. It was a being's soul in liquid form. Once depleted, death was absolute.
When Jack lost his tamed beast something snapped inside him. Not just emotionally. Spiritually.
That fracture bled. And what bled was not pain alone. It was his Blood Essence, his soul's scream, pouring from his eyes.
The Beast Core drank it.
GULP… GULP… GULP…
Ironfang's soul had not perished.
It refused to.
Because Ironfang… was never an ordinary beast.
His origin was a mystery even to James.
It's secretly arranged by Ava the Angel silently watching over them.
Eva goes grate lengths to get this Beast cub from her friend for James.
Ironfang bore a forbidden bloodline. One that could never be revealed to Samsara's natives.
But now, that bloodline…
Was awakening.
DING!
The Beast Core let out a sharp pulse. The glow brightened
And then
ZUUUUP!
It vanished. Not shattered. Not destroyed.
It shot forward like a spirit arrow
SHLUNK!
Embedding itself into James's Glabella the center of his forehead.
FWOOSH!!
It disappeared into his Spiritual Sea, nestling deep within the core of his soul.
James went limp.
But the moment of stillness was short-lived.
FZZZZZZZHHHT!!
The Shadowclaw Manticore reappeared silent, sudden, savage right behind Emma.
Its tail arched up, dripping with venom.
Ready to end another life.
But Jack saw it.
And something inside him
EXPLODED.
"YOU DAMNED BASTARD BEAST!!!"
His voice wasn't just a shout.
It was a warcry.
BOOOOOOOOM!!!
His aura erupted like a volcanic cataclysm.
The ground split open.
CRACK!!
Rocks shattered. Trees snapped.
The air warped dense enough to crush bone.
Pressure roared out in all directions like a tidal wave of death. It's come from Jack's Supreme Blessings.
BANG!!
The Otherworlder Ascendants dropped like flies slammed unconscious on the spot.
Even James and Emma, too close, too fragile, were overwhelmed. Their eyes rolled back.
THUD!
They collapsed into a coma-like state.
Only the Shadowclaw Manticore remained upright.
But even this beast of nightmares froze.
Its instincts screamed.
Retreat. Run. Survive.
Because what now stood before it…
Was no longer just a boy. He is like volcano that erupt any time.
Jack stood alone.
But he radiated power that didn't belong to this world. A tempest. A calamity. A storm given human shape.
His eyes locked onto the Manticore.
And the ground beneath him…
Shaken like never before.
Jack's gaze landed at Shadowclaw Manticore beast like lowlife. As if he looked down on this beast or as of he looked down on whole World.
Jack's gaze locked onto the Shadowclaw Manticore.
Cold.
Unforgiving.
He didn't look at it like an opponent…
He looked at it like filth.
Like a speck of dust that dared defy a storm.
No his eyes didn't just look down on the beast alone. As If They looked down on the entire world.
His eyes burned like twin suns with golden colour, blazing with wrath and divinity.
And then
BOOOOOOOM!!!
His aura detonated.
A shockwave blasted outward as Jack's body surged with power, his Ascendants stage violently Breakthrough.
2-Star Peak Stage.
But he didn't stop.
No this was just the beginning.
It was 3:30 in the early morning.
The winter wind howled gently across the battlefield, biting and cold. Faint sunlight began to pierce the horizon but it brought no warmth.
This was the Season of Cold and Stillness.
And yet…As the first rays of dawn touched the earth, the sky darkened instead.
As if the heavens themselves feared the power that had awakened below.
Mana swirled wildly around him eleven distinct streams of elemental power spiraled like a cosmic storm, each hue burning with primordial force with eleven colours:
Pyro — Scarlet red, scorching the air with raw flame.
Hydro — Deep blue, crashing like ocean waves.
Geo — Earthen brown, solid as mountains.
Dendro — Vivid green, teeming with ancient life.
Phoebus — Radiant white, blinding like the midday sun.
Erebus — Abyssal black, devouring light in silence.
Electro — Electric violet, sparking with chaotic fury.
Anemo — Sky blue, howling like divine wind.
Cryo — Icy cyan, freezing the space around him.
Chronos — Silver, bending time with each glimmer.
Khora — Indigo, vast and unknowable like the cosmos.
All that Elemental mana gather in Jack's heart. Former 3rd Magic Circle around his heart and 3rd Aura Force Ring form around his left hand. Then magic circle around his heart spin like vertex and Aura Force Rings Spin like snakes around his left hand.
They danced and twisted around him, pulled by an unseen gravitational force on Jack's very soul.
The mana he had devoured before raw with dead bodies of beasts in beast tide, violent, chaotic was now being refined, purified in this process.
His body crackled.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!!
Bones shifted. Veins lit up like conduits of living light. His core blazed like a star being born.
And then
BOOOOM!!!
A second breakthrough. 3-Star Ascendant – Early Stage.
A force far beyond what any should possess at his age now flowed through his veins.
Thunder rolled overhead.
The heavens rumbled in awe.
RUMBLE... RUMBLE...
Storm clouds twisted into a spiral above him drawn by the elemental imbalance he had caused.
The entire battlefield fell into silence.
Jack stood his back straight, his fists clenched, and his body glowing like a ethereal being descending. Now now looks more handsome and charming.
The Shadowclaw Manticore, once the terror of this blood-soaked field…
Trembled.
It had maimed James Wilson.
It had shattered his family.
But in doing so…It had awakened a monster far more terrifying.
Jack's gaze fell upon it like a predator examining prey. His presence alone crushed Manticore's murderous will.
It whimpered.
But there would be no mercy.
Jack took a single step forward.
THUD.
The air shook.
The earth cracked under his feat.
The heavens watched.
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To Be Continued…!!