The Void's Embrace - TUTOR

Shortly after leaving, Lottus cut the fingers off the creature. It let out a yelp and started whimpering, without much more happening. As for Lottus, he’d instantly feel a surge of energy enveloping him, healing part of his fatigue and wounds away.

At first, when Lottus starts imagining the landscape of Hell, nothing happens. The dread of the void still looms over him and his food source. Then, after a moment, there comes a rumbling. It feels far away, but as the seconds go, it gets closer and closer. The environment starts taking shape as Lottus willed it. The red colors of Hell, the formation of an arena between them, and the appearance of Onis, demons, and other hellish residents. While it started rather blurry, and less realistic than the first time around, with proper time the elements of that decor would become more well-defined, and truer to what they are inspired by.

However, the whimpering alien picked up in intensity at the same time. The whimpering became yelling, and the yelling itself intensified to the point it unhinged its jaw. The sound became so loud that it would burst the Saiyan’s eardrums within seconds. The ensuing distraction would twist the shape of the world manifesting around them, adding chaos to the mix.

While it retained the base elements of the world Lottus envisioned, the resulting landscape would be a mess of these elements, some breaking the laws of physics. Parts of buildings were stuck in the air, buried sideway in the red ground. Flames burning horizontally. The place where Lottus stood appeared to be an arena, an open-air one with many corpses littered across the ground. A strange detail about these corpses was the almost perfect resemblance to Vale. On the other side of the arena, sitting on a throne made of red stone was the previous shadow that had whispered to Lottus. While its form remained blurry, the silhouette felt familiar, once again. The shadow pointed a finger toward Lottus and the Saiyan began feeling a sharp pain as some symbol engraved itself in his flesh. It took the form of an inverted cross on top of which there was a half-circle, making it look like a receptacle. Within that circle there was a complete circle, forming the symbol of death.

Lottus would have little time to consider it before six creatures joined the fray. The three smaller ones appeared like replicas of Vale, however they were faceless. Two of them were giant musclebound goliaths and though their form was overly muscular, they still had the same skin color, hair, and other features as Vale. Though they had a face, it was greatly malformed, their agape mouth drooling endlessly. Finally, the last one was a lanky version of Vale. Its distinctive feature was that it possessed five heads, each of them showing a different emotion. Before the fight could start, one of the behemoths jumped in the air, landing on the alien that had fed Lottus prior. If it wasn’t dead yet, now it would be completely squashed.

The shadow signaled the attack and the creatures attacked in unison, save for the taller one.

Meanwhile, the real Vale was unaware of what was going on, thinking Lottus was simply alone in the dark again. In other words, something or someone was interfering once again with his training program.

Against such overwhelming force, the first weaker creature would see its stomach burst open from the force of the kick, spraying black goo and innards on the ground. The second faceless monster would not have a second to react that the clothesline would strike, decapitating it on the spot. The head would fall down and roll on the floor, leaving a black trail several meters from where the headless corpse remained, motionless.

Weirdly enough, none of the monsters would react to that surge of power the way any rational being should, which was with utmost care against the Saiyan. The third monster attempted to jump on Lottus’ back. If successful it would attempt to siphon his overwhelming ki, turning itself into a bomb that would detonate soon after.

Upon his makeshift throne, the shadow would remain immobile. Its hazy, vaporous form would not react to Lottus’ taunt, instead remaining immobile. Maybe it was unable to interact? Or maybe it was too taxing on its form to do more than precise actions.

While the weaker monsters were no match for Lottus’ strength, the hulked-out ones would fare much better against the Super Saiyan. The first one would leap in the air, slamming down on Lottus, the impact creating a crater. The second one, staying at a distance, would point a finger towards his opponent. A small black beam with a white outline would be launched, targeting Lottus’ right arm in an attempt to vaporize it or at least heavily injure it.

While all of this happened, Vale was left unaware, seeing to other businesses.