The Intoxicating Sound of Rock n' Roll [Asher, Safira]

Her cackling stopped when the sudden feeling of shrapnel cut through her palm. The beams burned her, yes, but were otherwise insignificant to the titanic arrancar. It was only when she felt the tiny creature gore her hand that it struck at her mind. The burning pain that made her body writhe and squirm. Her tail clapped against the side of the hole, sending tremors through the earth and up above which was carrying her sudden shriek as well.

Where there had been flesh, there was now a hole through her hand that he had cut. Cero to sear through her hierro and his blades to rend the delicate flesh underneath.

Safira opened her eyes properly rather than the narrowed slits she'd maintained, searching for him rather than feeling for his spiritual pressure, a predator on the hunt until she spotted the silhouette and snarled at him. Her pose shifted to hunch forward over the empty space, dashing over the dark abyss and through the poison mist like a ravenous beast that acted on pure instinct.

There would be no battle, there would be nothing to relish except the fleeting sensation of his existence being washed over by her own and nourishing her ego.

It seemed this beast wished to face him head-on. Good, she'd learned precisely how one ought to fight. That meant she was truly ready for the battlefield, to trample across the lands above and crush the weak forever.

So Asher lept toward the much larger Hollow without any hesitation. His bones once more moved to pierce the far larger creature, but this was not a mere stab. As he had done to so many other Hollows before this one, Asher let the full corrupting force of his energy overflow, flooding outward and through his bones to overwhelm the creature that stood against him now.

If he failed? Well, he would die. But a true warrior was always prepared for death, and was ready to face it unflinchingly for the sake of conquest.

Feast...

The words echoed in her mind, ready to crush Asher between her teeth like a guillotine to devour the weaker prey. Smaller fry might be consumed whole but she instinctively knew that if she did not bite him into pieces that he would retaliate and claw his way out of her.

His attacks plunged into her again but she did not care, his fate was inevitable. He would be washed over and broken down, consumed by her ego as nothing but an insect to sustain her. The fate of any and all which got in her way.

Yet, this was not the case. Her giant teeth ready to crush her but the weakened mental state which was fatigued from facing two opponents. Her instincts and him. She was susceptible, oh so susceptible to the energy that was flooding her body and the giant shape of Safira reeled away as if trying to escape. Writing and thrashing as her figure darkened from his poison in her system.

She smashed her body against the crater as if it would get him out of her against the encroaching darkness. It wasn't. She was going to lose, she was going to disappear. The idea of that was repulsive to her, a logical error which could not be, but she could not deny it.

Somehow she had to escape the fate of her vanity and his conquest, she had to escape somehow like how one might shed its skin.

Conquest.

This was what made a life as long as Asher’s so worthwhile. The thrill of the hunt, the weight of victory upon one’s very being. The tyranny of his existence itself was something none had stood against if he so wished it, and there was undoubtedly an almost regal sense of accomplishment as Asher watched his great serpent writhe.

“You will serve me quite well.”

Now that the battle was abating, Asher’s arms had slowly begun to mend themselves, though not with any particular expediency. Bone splintering back into its proper form, flesh knotting itself over where it had been torn and scorched, but it would take time. Thankfully, he had that.

No, I won't. The thought screamed through the fog of the corrosive influence of herself and her opponent. Self-preservation kicked in, she was a snake. A symbol of rebirth and change. He could take from her but he would not have her to go with it. So she mustered the reason, the ego, and every bit of the titanic form that was Safira. It was an act that made it easier for his influence to corrupt her senseless instincts that came from her power but it protected her.

The large figure twisted and thrashed as it became covered in darkness, leaning forward before expelling the black mud which would normally be turned into hollow thralls with the vast reserves of souls that numbered in the hundreds of thousands for her long life.

The black mud sank into the abyss of the Hole carrying only a single soul within that unholy soup that created life.

When the dust settled and the giant serpent settled though it had been warped, it was an empty husk deprived of its identity. Just a weapon to serve but what was for certain was that it would prove it was the strongest weapon in the arsenal.