95 Ancient Treasure, or Ancient Danger?

Within the dense miasma in the room Yun could barely see a few feet in front of her. She looked down at the dense swirl around the indistinct skeleton in front of her and knew this was the source of her problem. She pulled out another glowing gemstone and rolled it across the floor to the skeleton, getting a better view of it. She confirmed again what she had seen before about this skeleton, and she was sure it didn't belong to any Lynhär races.

She also got a better look at what that core of energy was. She could see that inside the core there was an enormous amount of energy circulating, but there was no solid core of energy to help contain it. She was astounded by this, as this was obviously not an inheritance that existed in this world. Could she be dealing with something from another world?

She reached out her spear, holding tight to the shaft to keep control of it, and saw the head shaking extremely strongly to defend against the miasma's corruption. Just as her spear was nearly to this energy core before her she heard a cracking noise from behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Wuying's gauntlet breaking the ancient stone table in half.

As she turned, her shoulder shifted ever so slightly and her spear moved that last tiny bit and came in contact with the untainted side of the energy core. At this moment a spark of energy transferred up the spear and caused Yun to drop it, but instead of falling it stayed stuck where it was, like it had frozen in space.

Yun looked back at her spear in shock, but she was unable to move her hand near it. The miasma began to be pushed away from it as well, in a large oblong space it couldn't even get near. Yun stood in this space, and before long Wuying was standing at the edge of it. The energy within the energy core was no longer rushing about, but pouring into the tip of her spear directly, running away from the miasma and not allowing itself to be consumed.

Each moment the sphere of energy grew smaller, but the dark goo that was originally trying to consume it was unable to close the gap around the point of the spear. The concentrated energy flowing through that space shredded any piece of the goo that got too close. Moment by moment the sphere shrunk, until it finally disappeared completely, causing the goo to fall to the floor with a wet 'splurgh' sound.

On the ground it wiggled a little, struggling with it's new state, before a tendril reached out to the skeleton beside it. As it made contact with the skeleton it quickly began to disappear as the skeleton's bones turned black. The miasma in the air began to rapidly flow into the bones, causing creaking and clacking noises, as the skeleton began to move and be covered with a dark, flowing approximation of flesh.

Placing one hand on the ground, it leaned forward and began to stand up from the cross-legged position it had been in. Slowly but surely, all the miasma in the room was absorbed by this creature and it inevitably managed to stand fully upright. As the creature stood up, Yun's spear was already back in her hand and she had backed up a few feet and taken a defensive position. Just beside her was a dazed and somewhat non-functional Long Wuying, he was on the floor, leaned up against the wall, with a confusion in his eyes that betrayed his destabilized mental state. He was obviously not in control of himself quite yet, nor able to distinguish where they were or what the danger was.

The creature in front of her began to grow even larger than the original skeleton. Cracks and snaps could be heard as the ancient ligaments broke, each bone staying in the center of it's appropriate place in the growing body. Before long it was hunched over, too tall for the room they were in, but it looked a little thin. It suddenly screeched a horrible noise and rushed out the door of the room.

"Crap!" Yun shouted to herself as she realized why, "It's trying to absorb more miasma!" She rushed out behind it, beginning to circulate her combat techniques as she did. The moment she left the room she saw the creature, standing more than twice as large as herself, in the center of the main chamber with it's strange mouth-like space open wide and it's head tipped back. The remaining miasma was flowing around the room, circulating the space, before it was devoured by this monstrosity. Every second it consumed miasma the body became more and more solid, Yun had to stop it quickly!

She slashed out rapidly, activating her battle skills over and over, and sent multiple Crescent Moon blades flying at the creature. It looked over at her with it's distorted eyes but seemed to ignore her attacks, like they were nothing to it.

Swish! Slash! ScreEeEeEeEeEeE!!!!

The creature let out a horrific noise as soon as the first two blades made contact with it. They sliced through it like it wasn't even there, leaving a gap that struggled and squirmed as it tried to heal. It stopped absorbing frantically and glared at her like she was the demon in the room, ready to attack her at any second, but as it did it also looked at her spear — and the pale blue flame dancing on top of it — with a look of dread. This was what took it's food, forced it to such a desperate situation, and now what had directly injured it!

Yun smiled slightly as she felt a hint of hopefulness light up her eyes. But just then she also heard something that caused her no small amount of fright. From each of the closed doors she began to hear crashing sounds. Whatever was inside those rooms was now trying to break the doors down and get out!