Megan knew she was in trouble. This insidious venom was not just a normal poison, but one steeped in the core energy of the scorpions. One the entire beast race worked on together, her only chance to deal with this issue was a crazy idea she had read about in some information on cultivation that she had come across randomly, but the audacity of the solution stuck in her mind.
What she really needed right now was to find one of the other denizens of this desert dungeon, the snakes!
Megan knew that the snakes and the scorpions on this level of the dungeon were not allies, no, they were bitter enemies! Surprisingly the thing that the snakes and scorpions was not resources for their respective beast cultivation paths and innate bloodlines, no, their enmity stemmed from an argument between the two beast races about which venom was the most potent than the other!
The scorpions maintained that their neurotoxin was the most potent in the universe (or at least in this dungeon which to its denizens means the same thing as they don't know any better). They bragged about their venom and how it shut down the nervous system of any known being within minutes using special enzymes to target flesh and tissue. The snakes were all about their cytotoxic venom and how any being injected would be ready to digest in mere minutes with the enzymes that also targeted the flesh and tissue. Similar results but different methods, Megan hoped to be able to tap into this enmity between these two groups and hoped that their venoms would do the same and cancel out each other.
Megan needed two things to make this happen. First, she needed a safe place that would remain safe throughout not just the cultivation she needed to do but she was going to need to breakthrough to the next core progression stage in order to assimilate the appropriate energies to not just heal the damage this scorpion venom was currently doing to her leg but also increase her resistance to poison in general. If she survived, she would be that much stronger. With all the training and more recently the numerous fighting she had been doing it was surprising she had not progressed already, at this point she was roughly around three quarters of the way through her core awakening and was getting close to core compression, in which she would need to condense and pack as much core energy into her core as she could before she could spend time compressing and refining it to the last stage of the core forming cycle. So, gliding through the air of a mysterious dungeon, suffering from scorpion venom, exhaustion and energy depletion Megan studied the area she was gliding toward, looking for large and dangerous venomous snakes so she could do the only thing she could think of to survive. How did her life end up here?
Megan desperately searched for the territory of the snakes as she glided on the wind, although she could maintain the flight for a while eventually, she was going to come down no matter what she did to conserve her core energy. Meanwhile her leg which she had cut off from the rest of her body was slowly turning black and blisters were appearing on her skin.
Luckily enough as she glided Megan realised, she was much closer now to the distant distortion she had originally seen from where she woke up in this desert and could now make out what she was heading toward. It was a massive mountain of sand and rock! From what she could make out the mountain did not look natural at all, with what looked like expertly constructed deeply black obsidian bricks fitted together in some kind of pyramidal structure underneath all that sand. There also appeared to be a slowly ascending ramp that started somewhere at the bottom of the structure and circled around until reaching the peak. As she came a little closer, she could make out many figures on those ramps leaping about and acting mysteriously. Mysterious until she realised there was a battle for dominance going on. On one side was the scorpions and on the other were the snakes! As Megan got closer, she could make out more and more details of this battle. Quickly she came to the conclusion that this battle had been going on for a long time based on the surrounding area which looked like nothing more than a scorched wasteland filled with the spirits and bones of deceased scorpions and snakes, fresh corpses fell off the edges and landed on huge rotting piles and beast blood flowed down strange channels cut into the black rock that appeared to be just for this purpose!
Megan examined the area around the buried obsidian pyramid and the more she discovered the more amazed she was at the vastness of the whole structure. What was becoming obvious to her was that this pyramid was only the very tip of a much larger edifice that went below the drifting sands!
She could not figure out any rhyme or reason why the scorpions and snakes were duking it out together on the ramps leading up the sides of this pyramid but one thing she did notice was on a flat plateau at the very top of the pyramid no scorpions or snakes at all were present and none seemed to make any approach close to this area. Megan was hoping that this would be the case even if she was to land there to give her some respite, allow her to rest and restore her core energy reserves. Hopefully as well she would be able to find a chance to take down a snake or two and get the venom gland she needed.
As she drifted down towards the perpetual battle going on below Megan came to a quick realisation, she was descending to fast! At her current rate of descent, she would land somewhere about halfway up the pyramid in between the two armies of snakes and scorpions!
This was not good, not only was she on the last dregs of her core energy reserves unless she could find some way to meditate and increase them, then she would be at a severe disadvantage in fighting these beasts. With her current condition worsening she doubted she would even be able to stand on her poisoned leg which had by now gone completely black and even had begun to show serious signs of decay. She had cut of the signals from her nerves from the leg a while ago and now also realised that her hold on the venom in her leg was not as tight as she thought and black veins were beginning to appear over her hip and was spreading around her waist.
Grimacing at her circumstances Megan steeled her will, readied her staff and prepared to fight for her life. Deciding to go all out Megan dismissed her wing forms from her arms after lining herself up and plummeted from the sky, swinging her staff with all her might as she came down directly on the back of a snake similar in size to the scorpions being roughly as big as a small house, but less condensed like the scorpions as their weight was more evenly distributed throughout the length of their bodies as opposed to the scorpions which was more concentrated around their central armoured bodies. Still, having Megan suddenly descend on the back of a snake's head and with the sound of a large explosion now where there was a snake there resided a decently sized crater and at the centre of this new crater in the black obsidian of the pyramid, smoke trailing around her, there was Megan, kneeling on her good leg, panting lightly.
Now a scene like this would probably surprise even the most hardened of war veteran so all around Megan the fighting slowed as snakes and scorpions turned in her direction, curious as to what would dare to interrupt their battle.
Using that hesitation Megan immediately entered a state of meditation in order to recover as much core energy as she could while simultaneously blocking the invading scorpion poison and pushing it down as much as she was able and focusing it. The timing of this would be really tight and Megan strained all her senses to wait for the perfect moment.
Seeing Megan frozen in position some of the closest unhindered scorpions and snakes separated from the main battle leading up the ramp on the side of the pyramid to cautiously approach Megan, circling around her warily watching not just Megan but also each other for obvious reasons.
This worked to Megan's advantage as the more time they circled without attacking, the more core energy she would be able to recover. What occurred next was a very tense standoff between the scorpions and snakes, all as big as houses, circling the small figure of Megan, kneeling in a crater liberally coated with the gory remnants of a snake, as she desperately cultivated, drawing in the thick energy surrounding the pyramid and drawing it into her core which was removing impurities and spitting out core energy at a prodigious rate Megan had never been able to maintain before.
Finally at some unseen signal one of the snakes seemed to decide they had seen enough and slithered forward with unbelievable speed towards Megan, his two companions following closely behind.
This was the action that Megan had been waiting for so she put her plan into motion. Looking up at the snakes, light flashing within her irises, Megan unhesitatingly slashed a conjured blade across her thigh were she had been attempting to concentrate the scorpion venom and from the wound putrid black blood spurted out smelling like death and decay, Megan had to suppress a gag reflex at the stench as she had not been expecting it at the same time as she slapped a 'Quick-fix' bandage to her leg and numbed the area as best as she could in order to be able to enact a backwards step out of the range of the first snake as its jaws snapped shut where her shoulder had been just a moment ago. Shifting left Megan concentrated on evading snake tails, dodging fanged bite attacks and escaping being constricted as three huge snakes surrounded her. Megan ducked, dodged and defended, only using core energy when absolutely necessary to enhance an evasion here or block/divert an attack. She couldn't afford the energy to create platforms for anything more than to extend a manoeuvre in a certain direction or dodge in directions her body was not normally built to complete. Megan concentrated and focused on the task ahead of her and begun to move up the ramp, completely letting her instinct take over Megan tethered the end of her short staff to a thick stable rope of core energy construct and put the method she had discovered fighting the first scorpion in the desert before her desperate flight here to this pyramid to use and on the other end of the staff a conjured disc with sharp spiky protrusions on the edges started spinning, making an ominous ripping sound as the air twisted and she started to twirl the rope around her using core energy which allowed her to simultaneously spin the disc, the staff and the core energy rope around herself giving room to move around and more importantly allow Megan to make progress up the pyramid. In addition to this spinning staff-wheel of death that spun around her body like an out-of-control spinning-top death-trap toy for children Megan also conjured two large sharp blades that covered her hands and forearms and extended out from her body a couple of metres to either side.
Megan's whole reality became a spinning, whirling and revolving kaleidoscope of colour and overwhelming sound. Black blood of snakes mixing with the green blood of the scorpions and faint splashes of bright red blood from her own body. Bright green-black venom of scorpions sizzled and smoked mixing and reacting with the orange-black venom of the snakes, covering Megan, seeping into her wounds, every heartbeat booming in her mind, her pathways burning with power, her core spinning with ever greater acceleration. The use of her core energy getting more refined, less energy intensive. Megan learned to conserve when needed, each of her actions becoming more efficient and polished. Megan's fighting style evolved and matured, the movements becoming instinctual and ingrained in every action, a fanged maw would bite down, but Megan was no longer there, a stinger would pierce through but miss by mere millimetres as Megan twisted away, seemingly unnatural movements streamlined into only just what was required to pass by unharmed.
If someone was watching Megan through this trail, they would have needed to wipe their eyes in incredulity at the speed at which Megan's fighting prowess increased as she made her way up the pyramid. She hardly even needed to conjure platforms as there were plenty of places to rebound off like the eye of that scorpion, or the back of that snake's head, forceful attacks were used to guide her in directions she wished to travel. Never stopping in one place Megan's graceful and nimble figure appeared like a choreographed dancer putting on the performance that was to make or break their whole existence.
This is not to say Megan took no damage at all. There was no way to dodge every attack or hindrance to her path, but she did manage to choose the path of least resistance most of the time and she was not focussing on killing, more on just getting to the top of the pyramid as quickly as possible.
Finally, covered in gore and blood, poisoned with copious amounts of scorpion and snake venom flowing throughout her wounds, fangs and stingers still stuck into any exposed blackened and corrupted flesh she spotted the entrance to the plateau at the top of the pyramid on which no scorpion or snake could be seen entering. From the four corners of this plateau there rose four columns that met in the direct centre of the pyramid. Below where these columns met high above rising from the pyramid there lay a plain unadorned pedestal, seamlessly connected to the pyramid below.
Megan's whole world was pain, every muscle had been strained beyond the limits of what it could handle, honestly, it appeared Megan had more venom in her body than actual blood at this point, black blistered skin smouldered with a faint haze which contained the concentrated poison of two highly venomous magical beast species which had been perfecting their biological weapons for many years combating each other and anyone who was stupid enough to traverse their territories. With her goal in sight Megan paused a couple of seconds to focus on what she needed to do before passing this entrance. She already had a venom gland and beast core of a scorpion, now she needed the same things from a snake.
With a steel hard flex of will, the only thing she could rely on, Megan ran forward, leaped up while spinning the deadly whirling blade of energy around her, smashing indiscriminately at scorpions and snakes alike while she concentrated on the goal ahead of her, Megan discarded all her doubts, all her fear then, just before reaching it, Megan spun around a scorpion tail, leaped sideways and slashed the head off snake, then, using the little core energy she had in reserve dragged the body of the snake with her as she kited past the encroaching horde of enemies, most focussing on each other more than her, and then sliding on the slippery gore she managed to go under a leaping scorpion and slid right through the entrance to the plateau. Collapsing on the other side she rolled and turned to face any beasts that decided to follow her and was slightly concerned but mostly relieved that none had followed her, now that she looked there was definitely some sort of barrier keeping them all out, but that same barrier had allowed her to pass.
Not being in any position to ask complex questions like this Megan forgot about that and focussed on her current task, surviving what she was about to attempt.
Megan had no choice and little time, she picked herself up and slowly made her way to the pedestal in the centre of the pyramid, each footstep was agony, blood and flesh were sluicing down her body and onto the surface of the pyramid. Maybe if Megan was less damaged and not mostly blind, she would have noticed the circle of power below her feet that was whisking away all that came from her, glowing lines spreading, using her blood and flesh as a medium that finalised in a bright flash as Megan struggled to lift herself onto the pedestal where she sat, a scorpion beast core and stinger appendage in one hand and a snake beast core with fangs and venom gland in the other that she had hastily removed from the snake corpse while walking over.
Megan began to cultivate on the pedestal while at the same time stabbing herself with the stinger and snake fangs and smashing the two beast cores together.
If only Megan knew what she had started.