The Leylines have no mouth, yet they scream
In Eastorea, children are raised to fear the Leylines. A source of mana, the reason magic is even possible... but so too, are they the cause of tragedy. Their primal, rampant mana is unstable, causing mutations...
Far, far from society, where the Leylines gather... the earth is fractured. Chunks of rock and dirt fly in the sky, mountains uplifted above the pools of rampant magical energy.
Firestorms rage on, lightning strikes at random, foliage continues to grow at aggressive speeds, lakes are formed and vanish at a constant rate as water is created and dissipated, the crumbling earth shifting due to magical tectonics. Random explosions occur at a constant rate, blasting chunks of debris into the sky.
Down below, the source of all mana... The prime Leyline. A pool of primal, unstable, pure, magical potential...
And deep within that pool, drifts a grand machine...
A machine, whose discordant noise agitates the Leylines.
And today once more... a voice echoes from the machine... a woman's scream. One that will not be heard by any living soul... though it's reverberations have grave consequences.
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Back in Araheim, ARMADA's home city, alarms go off. A new Leyline apparition had appeared within the southern woods. A creature born of this rampant magic, a titan that should not exist... A beast of light, of nature... of terror. Technicolour rays of light shine throughout the woods, radiating above, setting fire to the trees.
As the alarms sound, Division Zero operatives are sent out to take down the new monstrosity. Grizzled veterans, scarred and ancient, rush out of the headquarters... though they are swiftly outpaced by ARMADA's newest Division Zero Hunter... Clarissa Silverweave.
Rapiers and Flamethrower Tonfa at the ready, jagged leg armour equipped, she dashes past the lot of them, her eight arachnid legs carrying her as fast as they can, as she moves through the streets of Araheim, and out of the southern gate.
As she arrives in the woods, she doesn't give the beast even a moment to notice her, as she blasts her flamethrowers downward during a jump, lifting her high enough to ram both her rapiers into the stomach of the beast. It cries out in pain, before causing a massive radiant blast around itself, throwing Clarissa off and causing wisps of light to chase her.
Clarissa lands, dodging and weaving between the trees, jumping between them like a jumping spider would, watching as the wisps collide with them, causing massive damage... She can't get hit, that's for sure. As she runs, she leaves behind her silvery silk, tough and inflexible, though perfect to use for this... as she pulls it taught, swinging herself towards the beast, before blasting it with flames, and sending herself back to ground level using the recoil.
The creature screams in horror as it's wings start to burn, a mana destabilizing reagent in the flames eating away at it, slowly but surely. As it screams, swords of light appear around it, rushing towards Clarissa... though with her insane arachnid speed and perception, she's able to dodge each and every one of them. She weaves between the assault of swords, dashing and jumping to avoid them. She yanks on one of her strings, hooked onto a weakened tree behind the beast, collapsing it onto the radiant horror.
The impact seems to weaken it, but doesn't bring it to the ground. Instead, it seems to shine brighter and brighter, to the point where the light itself could blind someone. Clarissa feels the light burn, and she places one of her hands to the ground, using the blessing of Alchemy, given to her by her father, to create a stone wall to hide behind.
She weathers the cascading light, and as it dims down, she rushes out, jumping from tree to tree to finally land on the beast, impaling it with her armoured legs, almost impossible to shake off due to the barbs on the armour, though any time she were to move, she leaves grave wounds across the beast's body.
She starts spreading her silk as she moves, using it like razorwire to cut into the monstrosity's form, eventually severing one of it's wings. They crash to the ground together, Clarissa mounting the beast as it collapses onto the floor, slamming her legs into the beast's head, putting it out of it's misery.
As she rips her legs back out, the body of the beast starts to fade, only leaving behind the parts she cut off, which she collects for her father's research.
She stands there heaving... Another tough fight...
That's the seventeenth now... The Seventeenth Leyline apparition she's had to take down.
They used to be peaceful... Impossible titans that just exist in these lands... but recently, all that have appeared have been so... aggressive...
Something is wrong... She feels it... She knows it.
She returns to Araheim, signalling to the crew of Hunters that she had it covered the whole time, and that they didn't need to be there...
Some of them continue to look on in horror at the young Arachne...
Clarissa Silverweave, ARMADA's youngest and most effective Division Zero Hunter.
/uw just a quick post to expand a bit on Eastorea's lore, and show off how Clarissa likes to fight. She's definitely got a lot of it from her mom and dad...