Shikohkia Mountain
Death wasn't silent. It reeked. A thick, cloying miasma of spoiled copper, decaying meat, and the stark, mineral chill of unfeeling stone. It pooled, viscous and dark, beneath the small, crumpled form huddled in the barren cave's deepest shadows. Not a hunter, not a predator. A White Tiger Pup. Barely larger than a wolfhound, its potential snuffed before it could bloom. Snow-white fur, once pristine, was a grotesque tapestry of crimson gore, plastered over ribs that protruded obscenely through torn, necrotic skin.
One foreleg bent backwards at a sickening angle, jagged bone gleaming wetly under the weak grey light filtering from the distant cave mouth. A deep, pulsing wound on its flank wept a sluggish black ichor that reeked of corruption. Shattered boulders nearby screamed of a recent cave-in, the pup's tomb already half-built. This wasn't tragedy; it was carrion waiting for the inevitable scavengers. The stagnant air choked on the sweet-sour stench of its own rotting flesh.
***
<< Spatial Translocation: In Progress >>
<< Integrity Warning: Critical (0.7%) >>
<< Sensory Overload: MAX >>
<< Biological Unit: Irreparable Catastrophic Failure >>
Flaying. The word echoed in the dissolving shards of his awareness, the only concept that fit. His very essence, his self, was being shredded, atom by screaming atom, along a corridor of howling, chaotic void. The Abyssal Entity's mocking laughter vibrated through the collapsing architecture of his mind. Bone-white grin. The jagged, space-rending hunger of the Voidreaver. The fleeting, beautiful defiance of his final suicidal flame, snuffed in an instant. Rest. The thought was a shard of ice, colder than the infinite dark he tumbled through.
THUD-CRUNCH!
Impact. Brutal. Final. Not the yielding embrace of water. Bone met unyielding mountain granite with the wet, splintering finality of a hammer striking rotten fruit. Agony detonated – a supernova of wrongness. Distant, muffled, alien. These screaming nerves weren't his. This ruined, failing chassis of meat and bone wasn't his. The crushing, soul-devouring psychic dread of the Entity vanished, replaced by a sensory onslaught: the biting cold of rock beneath him, the stale air thick with the metallic tang of his own spilled lifeblood and the cloying sweetness of decay, and an immense, suffocating weakness that seeped into his very core.
<< Environmental Shift Detected: Terrestrial / Mountain Cave (Shikohkia) >>
<< HP: 0.9% (CRITICAL FAILURE - STABLE) >>
<< Status Effects: Catastrophic Physical Trauma (Multiple Compound Fractures, Massive Internal Hemorrhage), Advanced Necrosis (Systemic - Tissue Degradation Accelerating), Mana Depletion (Near Absolute - Core Flickering) >>
Open... eyes. The command felt like pushing through thick, cold mud. His consciousness, a flickering ember trapped in this ruined vessel, struggled. Vision swam – a blurred, dim nightmare. Rough-hewn rock ceiling swam above. Weak, grey light, like diluted ash, filtered from an impossibly far opening. The stench hit him anew, a physical blow to his fading senses.
'Rotting... blood... mine?' The thought was sluggish, alien, laced with the primal terror of the dying beast whose flesh he now inhabited. Pain was a constant, deep thrum radiating from everywhere, coalescing into a white-hot forge of suffering centered on the ruinous wound in his... flank? His flank? He tried to command a limb – small, furred, leaden with agony. A spark of will.
A jolt of searing, bone-deep pain lanced through the connection. Nausea, thick and sour, surged. Weakness, a vast, dark tide, threatened to drag him under into oblivion.
'I... survived?' The thought was a monument to cosmic absurdity. This wasn't survival. This was exquisite torture. Imprisonment within a ruined cage of small bones, matted fur, and organs failing one by one. 'Body... tiny... weak... wrong... Beast... Pup... Prey...' The animal's instincts bled into his fading human awareness, a chorus of fear and helplessness.
<< Foreign Energy Signature Detected: Residual >>
<< Pattern Recognition: Spatial Translocation Mana Echo - High Entropy Decay >>
<< Analysis Complete: Cognitive Transfer to Local Biomass (Designation: <
Fragmented images, sharp as broken glass, flashed through his dissolving awareness: Tumbling through snow-laden ferns, the sharp, clean scent of vole, the sudden, world-ending thunder of falling rock... crushing weight... helpless terror... blinding pain... 'Mountain... cave-in... trap...' The pup's final, terrified impressions, raw and instinctive, bled into the ruins of Kuzaki's consciousness, painting the scene of his new, horrific reality.
Rage, cold and sharp, surged through the haze of pain and despair. He tried to scream. To curse the capricious void, the mocking demon, the cruel twist of fate that had spat him into this dying, miniature hell.
"Huh.... Where am i..."
Instead of human defiance, sound emerged. Weak. Thin. A pathetic, high-pitched mewl, a sound of pure animal distress and confusion, utterly alien to his human mind:
"Mrrrr... rraa...?"
The sound died almost instantly, swallowed by the blood-stained, oppressive silence of the cave. Not a roar of defiance. The confused, pained whimper of a dying creature, its broken body now the prison for a shattered hero's consciousness. Kuzaki, Kin Slayer, in his past life, lay trapped, drowning in his own blood and the soul-crushing horror of his monstrous, miniature, and terminally broken reality. Survival wasn't a goal; it was a sick joke played by a universe that had already collected its due.
The Gilded Depths
<< Foreign Energy Signature Detected >>
<< Pattern Recognition: High-Density Mana Construct - Designation: UNKNOWN / Threat Level: CALAMITOUS >>
<< Proximity: Closing Rapidly - Spatial Coordinates Overlapping! >>
<< WARNING: Spatial Anomaly Detected! Gravitational Shear Imminent! >>
Reality ripped.
One moment: The cold, suffocating stone of Shikohkia, the iron-sweet stench of death. The next: Crushing, icy wetness invading every sense. Thick, silt-laden water, tasting of ancient mud and decay, flooded the pup's maw, invaded its nostrils. It sank like a broken doll, its shattered limbs offering no purchase, no hope. Murky green gloom, oppressive and alien, swallowed it whole. Vague, monstrous shapes flickered at the edge of its blurred vision – leviathan fish with cold, lantern-like eyes, drifting in the silent depths.
<< Environmental Override! >>
<< New Environment: Aquatic Terrain - Depth: Extreme (Estimated Pressure: 50 Atmospheres) >>
<< HP: 0.9% (CRITICAL - Pressure Exacerbating Trauma) >>
<< Status Effects: Catastrophic Physical Trauma (Worsened by Hydrostatic Compression),
Advanced Necrosis (Systemic - Accelerating), Mana Depletion (Near Absolute - Core Near
Extinction), Drowning Imminent (Oxygen Saturation: 8%) >>
Panic surged – raw, primal, beastly. 'Drowning! Cold! Dark! Not mountain... water?! Void-damned chaos!' Agony intensified a thousandfold as the immense pressure squeezed already shattered bones, threatened to collapse its tiny ribcage. Instinct screamed. He thrashed weakly, a spasm of terror. Utterly futile. Bubbles, precious air, escaped its maw in a silent stream. 'Light... above... so far... impossible...' Despair, colder than the abyssal water, began its final embrace.
Then, a flash. Not the weak, dying sun from the surface. Gold. Solid. Immense. A curved surface of impossible smoothness, defying the crushing pressure and murk, etched with intricate, glowing patterns that pulsed with a deep, resonant power that vibrated in its very bones. It radiated profound, ancient weight and a terrifying, latent potential that dwarfed the Entity's malice. It felt... alive. Hungry.
The current twisted. Violently, unnaturally. A vortex, silent and terrifying, formed around the impossible golden artifact, bending the water itself. It seized the drowning pup like a leaf in a typhoon, pulling it down with irresistible, gravitational force. It tumbled, a broken plaything, towards a gaping maw of absolute darkness beneath the colossal structure – an entrance, or a gullet?
'
<< Spatial Anomaly: Active! Event Horizon Proximity! >>
<< Energy Readings: Critical! Reality Fabric Destabilization Detected! >>
Plunged into the darkness beneath the gold. Not water anymore. Thick, viscous liquid light. It burned. Not with heat, but with pure, invasive magical energy that seared its spirit, scoured its fading mind, and invaded the deepest cracks of Kuzaki's shattered soul, now inextricably bound to the beast's phantasmal core. Visions detonated, sharper, fiercer, wilder, drawn by the artifact's power and the pup's own flickering, primal essence:
'...A mountain forged of broken swords under a sky bleeding crimson... DRAGONFIRE engulfing legions...'
'...A knight in silver armor, weeping tears of molten steel before a pyre... CLAWS OF SHADOW raking obsidian monoliths...'
'...A king of molten gold, laughing amidst a rain of liquid treasure... FANGS BRIMMING WITH COSMIC LIGHTNING rending the heavens...'
'...A cry that shook the foundations of worlds: "EXCALIBUR!"... ANSWERED by a BESTIAL ROAR that cracked continents...'
<< SYSTEM OVERRIDE! >>
<< Foreign Contract Imposed! Authority: Absolute! >>
<< Command Seal Matrix Engraving: Target Vessel - <
Agony – profound, existential, physical – lanced through the pup's tiny, broken form. This wasn't engraving skin; it was branding the very fabric of its being, its soul. Three intricate, burning sigils of pure conceptual energy, forged from the Grail's impossible power, flared into existence. They manifested not as simple marks, but as Blackened Lines etching complex, swirling patterns deep into its fur and charred flesh – ancient, resonant Hindu symbolism of power, binding, and primal energy. The lines ran from its brow, down the length of its neck, fanned across its tiny, heaving chest like dark, glowing vines, pulsing with the same intense, demanding gold as the artifact above. The liquid light receded violently, spitting the small, marked form out.
THUD-WHUF!
It slammed onto cold, wet stone, the impact jolting its broken body, forcing a weak cough that expelled brackish water and dark, viscous blood. The cavern was dim, lit only by patches of eerie, bioluminescent moss clinging to the walls. The source of the intense golden light now emanated from the intricate, fiercely glowing black-and-gold patterns etched onto the pup's head and chest – Command Seals unlike any ever recorded. The air hung heavy: dust, damp earth, the sharp tang of ozone, and the ever-present coppery reek of blood. Before it, rising from a shallow pool of the same luminous liquid it had been spat from, hovered the source: a massive, ornate, impossibly ancient golden cup. Power radiated from it in visible waves, vibrating the very air, humming with the promise of miracles and damnation.
<< Artifact Identified: Holy Grail - Designation: Fuyuki Lesser Grail (Temporary Manifestation - Stability 74%) >>
<< Contract Established: Master Status Confirmed (Designation: Non-Standard Vessel - <
<< Summoning Catalyst: Heroic Spirit Resonation Parameters Met: 'Defiance Against Overwhelming Odds', 'Sacrificial Flame', 'Spatial Anomaly Survivor', 'Primal Fury', 'Beastial Majesty' >>
The cavern trembled. The air crackled, thick with volatile mana drawn not just from the Grail, but amplified and warped by the raw, dying phantasmal energy of the marked beast. The golden light from the Grail intensified, swirling into a violent, chaotic maelstrom. Arcane circles of staggering complexity, older than nations and empires, ignited on the stone floor, their perfect geometries flickering erratically, their patterns twisting and warping under the chaotic influence of the tiger's presence and the unique nature of its Command Seals. The howling wind that rose carried whispers, but they were deeper, wilder now – echoes of legendary heroes mingled with the roars of forgotten beasts and the crackle of primeval fire.
Light erupted. Not the pure, focused conceptual power of a standard summoning. This was wilder. Primal. A chaotic storm of searing light and devouring shadow, tinged with crimson streaks of bestial energy and the deep gold of the Grail. It fought to coalesce, straining against the discordant energies, finally forming a towering, unstable humanoid silhouette.
Power radiated from it in discordant waves: the crushing weight of human history, the cold bite of forged steel, the scorching heat of unbreakable human will – but beneath it, warping and twisting it, surged something else: the immeasurable weight of geological epochs, the acrid tang of volcanic fumes, the incandescent, annihilating heat of a star's core. It resonated horrifically with the echo of Kuzaki's suicidal defiance and the White Tiger Pup's raw, dying fury.
The light dimmed reluctantly, settling with palpable, crackling tension. A figure stood, radiating unstable power.
Armour adorned, on the outer scale of her body, not plate, but fractured shards of captured starlight held together by threads of bleeding, liquid shadow. It seemed to shift and groan.
Adorned, on her body A cloak that looked as if it was long, tattered crimson, billowing as if in a hurricane no one else felt, edges fraying into smoke.
On top of her head stood a Helm Shaped like the snarling maw of a mythical, draconic beast. Within the dark slits, twin points of fierce, intelligent light burned… but they flickered erratically with volatile, dangerous crimson sparks.
The figure seemed to vibrate, its form straining at the edges, as if holding itself together against immense, internal pressure. Raw power leaked from it in visible wisps of dark and gold energy.
Its gaze, burning and intense behind the beast-helm, swept the cavern with predatory swiftness. It bypassed the pulsating Grail cup entirely. Its focus snapped like a physical blow directly onto the source of the contract, the raw, chaotic bestial mana signature, the designated Master.
There, on the cold, wet stone, illuminated by its own fiercely glowing, intricate black-and-gold patterns: A massive White Tiger Pup. Barely larger than a wolfhound. Fur matted with a horrifying mixture of its own drying blood, viscous ichor, and brackish water.
Body a grotesque ruin of shattered bone and necrotic flesh, visibly trembling with each shallow, agonized breath. Its head and chest were adorned with the fiercely glowing, complex markings – Command Seals that pulsed with ancient power, looking utterly alien etched onto the small beast. The figure stared. The fierce light in its helm's eyes narrowed to slits of pure, incandescent focus. Its posture, ready for anything, visibly locked. The subtle hum of power surrounding it stuttered, then stilled into an unnerving silence.
A resonant voice, layered with the echoes of a thousand battlefields and honed to a razor's edge of focus, echoed through the cavern, thick with undeniable, profound shock:
"I ask of you..."
The words hung, heavy as lead, in the suddenly silent, mana-charged air. Then, disbelief cracking the edge of that razor-sharp focus:
"...Are you my Master?"
The question slammed down, directed not at a human mage, not at a chosen heir, but at the broken, dying White Tiger Pup lying in a pool of its own blood and luminous water. The Pup's glowing, sapphire-blue eyes, filled with Kuzaki's shattered human mind and utter, incomprehensible terror, stared back. A weak, pained sound, barely a breath, escaped its bloody maw, echoing the Servant's impossible question in the only language its ruined body possessed:
"...Rrraa...wwrr?"