NOVPUBSimulation Log — BEAST PLANE: Cycle 3171
Subject: Tyrant Encounter
Status: Combat Phase Engaged
The moment Tyrant charged, it was as if the simulation's realism tore into them with brutal hunger.
Regnare moved instinctively, flipping forward in a burst of glacial wind. He struck the ground hard with one dagger and channeled a wall of jagged ice, spiking out toward the monster's path—but the creature didn't even flinch. Its foot crushed through the ice like brittle glass.
"Formations! NOW!" Regnare shouted.
The dwarves responded first. Vorr, with his red spiraling horns glowing and his great hammers drawn, slammed the ground, invoking Geo Fortification. Massive slabs of volcanic rock erupted around them, forming a partial barricade. Harrek and Damak, the other two dwarves, leapt atop the stones, ready to intercept.
But Tyrant didn't go around.
It went through.
With a single sweep of its claw, it shattered the barrier and sent Harrek flying, blood spiraling through the air like mist.
"Harrek's down!" yelled Nyarelle, the dark elf, already channeling shadows around her fingertips. She vanished into mist, reappearing at the creature's flank, slashing with twin curved daggers—blades that drank light—but even those only grazed the hide.
"It's regenerating," she growled through gritted teeth. "Even Desicra steel barely cuts deep!"
"Regnare, it's targeting magic signatures!" shouted Maelis, the blindfolded mage, glowing symbols orbiting her hands. Her Sight allowed her to perceive beyond the veil. "It's tuned to our flow. It's... learning us."
"Then we make it choke on its lesson!" Regnare growled.
He threw one dagger, and as it flew, his palm lit up with dark sigils. The air around it shimmered—then the blade burst into a spiral of black ice and curses, multiplying mid-flight like jagged thorns of fate. It struck Tyrant's forearm, and finally, it reeled. Not from pain—but hesitation.
Regnare's heart pounded.
"Vorr, Damak—aim for the legs!" he ordered. "Rhask, push it off balance with a sonic pulse! Yamal, back me up—curse-link its lungs!"
Yamal raised both hands, his dark skin glowing with vampire sigils. Blood surged from his veins, weaving with the wind. He uttered an incantation that twisted the air, trying to disrupt Tyrant's breathing—but it snarled, turned, and unleashed a pulse of Destruction magic in a full arc.
The world shattered.
The pulse struck Damak squarely. His body hit the canyon wall, and didn't get up.
"Dam—Damak is—!!" Vorr roared, his voice broken, eyes burning gold. He surged forward, hammer spinning—but Tyrant swatted him away like a child's toy. The dwarf smashed through a bone tree and vanished behind a crumbling ridge.
"Regnare! We're losing too many!" Yamal called out, his breath heavy. "We need to call a retreat!"
"No!" Regnare snarled, slamming his palms together. His daggers hovered beside him, spinning in midair. Magic surged—his veins froze, and his eyes became shards of frost. Dark glyphs crawled over his arms.
"I won't fail where Father triumphed. I won't!"With a shout, he drove his daggers into the ground—And the whole terrain responded.
A titanic glyph spread from him in a spiral: an Arctic Malediction. Ice erupted beneath Tyrant's feet, cursed frost eating into its limbs, slowing it as the ground twisted with runes of entropy and pain. For the first time, the beast screeched—not in rage, but in irritation.
"NOW!" Regnare roared.
Nyarelle, Maelis, Yamal, and Rhask surged forward. Blades, sound, blood, and shadow collided with Tyrant from every direction.
And for a moment—just one heartbeat—they believed it might work.
Then Tyrant flared.
A core pulse, blinding crimson.
The Destruction Surge erupted, a dome of raw annihilation.
Regnare's curse magic shattered mid-cast.
Nyarelle vanished in the blaze, her scream echoing briefly before silence.
Rhask was knocked back, arm vaporized.
Maelis shielded herself with a spell—her blindfold burned off, and she collapsed, eyes bleeding from magical overexposure.
Yamal grabbed Regnare and blinked them back using bloodshift, gasping as the terrain melted in front of them.
They were down to five: Regnare, Yamal, Maelis (barely conscious), Vorr (injured but alive), and Rhask (crippled).
The Tyrant stood in the center of devastation, roaring skyward.
"This... this is worse than a B-Class Machabeast," Yamal whispered.
Regnare stared, blood on his face, his daggers cracked at his side.
"We're going to need more than power," he muttered.
"We need to outthink it."
3171th Culling Ground — 7 minutes into Simulation.
Blood ran down Regnare's face, warm and sticky, mixing with frost spreading across his skin. His fingers trembled slightly—not from fear, but from mana overstrain. He had poured too much of himself into the Arctic Malediction, and the backlash had begun.
He knelt beside Maelis, whose lips were blue, her breathing ragged. Her blindfold was gone—her once-shielded sight now bleeding with raw magical input.
"I told you not to overcast," he whispered.
Maelis smiled faintly, pain dancing in her expression. "Worth it. I... got to see your spell at full strength. Your father would've been proud."
Regnare's jaw clenched. "I'm not him."
"No," Yamal said, stepping beside him. "But you're his son. And you don't have to win today. You just have to survive. Lead us."
Regnare stood slowly, watching the Tyrant prowl in the distance. It hadn't given chase. Not yet. It was watching.
Learning.
"It mimics," Regnare muttered. "It watched our formation. Identified our magic signatures. Then it punished the lynchpins."
Yamal nodded grimly. "First Harrek, then Damak, then Nyarelle. All of them were key to flanking tactics or terrain control."
"Exactly," Regnare said, his eyes narrowing. "This isn't a monster. This is a war machine."
Rhask stumbled over, holding his bleeding stump of an arm. "Reg... if we don't come up with something soon, we're dead. I can still scream, still deafen that thing with what's left of my vocal drive... but that's a one-shot."
Regnare's mind raced. He could hear his father's voice echoing—not literally, but from memory. "If you can't outfight it, out-think it. Destruction magic is like fire. Feed it too much, it collapses under its own hunger."
His golden eyes flicked to the bubbling ichor pools.
And then to the ribcage-mountain of the ancient Machabeast in the far distance.
An idea sparked.
"Yamal," he said, voice steadying. "Can you blood-link us all? Fast relay?"
"I can... but it'll hurt like hell."
"Pain is better than death."
Yamal nodded, biting his wrist and slamming his hand to the ground. Red tendrils shot out, touching each surviving member's chest. Regnare felt the sharp stab of connection—raw thoughts, shared pain, a hive-mind tether.
Regnare's Plan:
Lure Tyrant to the corpse ridge. Collapse the ichor pools.Drown it in decayed mana and use the skeleton's heartbone as a sealing anchor.
"That's suicide," Vorr growled through the link.
"Maybe," Regnare replied. "But if we get Tyrant to stand over the ichor, and detonate from beneath... its Destruction core might destabilize. Enough for a second of vulnerability."
"I can scream a rupture pattern," Rhask said, voice trembling. "Pierce the ichor veins."
"I'll freeze the pools, seal the area, then detonate," Regnare said.
"And I'll bind the corpse's spirit," Yamal added. "We'll anchor the beast's soul to this cursed plane."
They were battered. Bloody. Barely standing.
But they had a plan.
"Then we do this," Regnare said, lifting both daggers. He twirled them once and hissed an incantation:
"By frost and rot, by blade and shadow — let the curse of the last crown begin."
And then—
They moved.
...
They split into formations. Maelis stayed behind, shielding herself and creating decoy spells to confuse Tyrant's sensors. Yamal and Vorr led the frontal charge, taunting the beast with blood flares and hammer strikes.
Tyrant took the bait.
It roared, shaking the earth, and thundered toward them—its pace no slower despite its mass. Every step poisoned the ground. Rhask screamed from a cliff ledge, unleashing his last sonic pulse—the ground cracked, ichor bubbling up from hidden veins.
Regnare was already sliding across ice, carving glyphs mid-dash.
Trap the mana. Bind it. Break it when the time comes.
The ichor flash-froze under his spell, trapping the beast as it landed with both front claws into the glowing sludge.
"Yamal—NOW!"
Yamal leapt, crimson wings flaring from his back—pure vampire form. He slammed both palms into the beast's neck, speaking a binding word in the old tongue.
"E̸̩̗̐̑n̶̗̽̄̓o̵̡̲̻̐̚ú̷̪̲̘̈́g̴̖̩̀̆h̶͔̮͖̅̒̓."
The ichor exploded.
The Tyrant shrieked, its Destruction Core flickering violently, cracks running through its armored chest.
Regnare rose into the air, frost wings erupting from his back—his eyes alight with sapphire and violet fire.
He hurled both daggers, now infused with Ice and Curse. They spiraled into the beast's chest—piercing the cracked core.
Shatter.
The explosion rocked the land.
A blinding flash consumed the Tyrant.
Silence.
And then—
The beast… still stood.
Its core exposed. Beaten. Dying.
But its eyes still burned.
The simulation flickered.
Status: 14% HP Remaining. Combat Still Active.
Regnare fell to one knee, gasping.
But Tyrant was breathing heavy.
Bleeding.
They had wounded it.
And the battle was not over.
