Chapter 2

  Try as the man might, he was unable to claw at the monster’s slick tendrils as he was pulled into the maw of the beast, the sight of someone’s hollowed out sockets in the mouth the last thing they saw before all went black, and before the last sounds they heard were the sounds of its stomach sloshing around.

  Off to the coast, a fishing town called Mueryu is under attack by a monster called an Asurak. Sporting a scaling hide that served as armor as the fishing village spears broke upon impact, the beast crawled on all 6 legs, lumbering from side to side as the denizens fought to vanquish it.

  One man bolted toward it, stretching his legs upwards to gain air and leap onto the beast. “I’ll hold it down!” screamed the man, stretching out his arms and legs into elastic ropes and tying himself around the beast and gripping pillars. “Get the ice-user over here and freeze the Bastard!”

  The beast wrestled inside the man’s iron vice grip, trying to open its maw and chop down on the people before it, all to no avail. Its knife-like scales tore into the skin of the man, threatening to shred through the skin and muscles and grind against the bones.

  As his nerves were on fire from holding the beast down, he was chuckling maniacally, knowing the creature had nowhere to go. “Thought you could take us, huh!” screamed the man from atop the creature's back. “We’ll make fine leather out of this hide of yours, traitor! At least you’ll be of some use to—”

  With the smallest give in the man’s hold, the Asurak managed to stagger its way to its hindlegs and flopped onto its back, wriggling back and forth and shredding the dirt—and the man—into a mix of dirt and flesh.

  “It’s got Vkril!” Shouted a woman, who was snatched up when the creature shot out its 50-meter-long tongue and pulled the woman into its jaws. The screams of the woman could be heard from the others who either fled for their lives or stuck around and fought, muffled and agonized as the beast mashed her with its fangs with its mouth closed.

  Just then, a jagged piece of metal jutted out from the side of the creature's mouth, eliciting a blood-curdling scream that pierced the ears of everyone around. The woman had shifted her arms into steel blades and hacked away at the creature from the inside of its mouth, occasionally catching a glimpse of eyes staring back at her. She flailed her blade arms around before they caught on the creatures' teeth and snapped between them.

  The creature cocked its head back and swallowed her whole; her screams grew faint to those around her, the further along she traveled inside. Her only remaining blade leg dug into its slippery flesh, trying to hold as the dim light grew smaller near the entrance of its mouth, but her descent into the dark was complete as she felt the stinging fluid engulf her head.

  Outside, the beast was surrounded by pillars of ice that rose around its feet.

  “Everyone!” The ice-user yelled. “Those with combat Dogma stand ready! When it can’t move, I want everyone to blast its eyes! That’s its weak spot!”

  Hearing the call to arms, the fishermen and citizens gathered around let their spirits flow towards their fingertips, ready for the man’s command to unleash their collective assault.

  Swishing from side to side, the Asurak Wailed as it froze into place with frigid ice pooled round it’s legs, raising towards its underside and climbing.

  “Just a little more and—”

  The creature swung its own hammer-tipped tail against the ice from behind and fractured the ice in an instant, scattering debris at the crowd.

  Reeling its tail against the ice-Devakian, slamming down onto him from above and turning him into a pulp, tossing him 60 feet up into the air and landing onto the roof of a house before sliding down back to the ground.

  The beast broke out of its ice shackles with one final budge and roaring into the air. A Warcry as it made its presence felt across the village, heralding the continuation of its onslaught.

  “What are we going to do! one of the civilians screamed.

  “Where did that thing even come from? There are no Asuraks on this Island!” Shouted another.

  “How did it cross the sea?” Screamed another.

  Their questions would not be answered,for the beast, without hesitation, charged forth and grabbed another one of the villagers and chucking them up into the air and into its mouth.

  A few of the villagers, still scared but prideful all the same, continued to fight back as the rest of the Devakians fled to the outskirts of the village, stopping in their tracks when they found that the only way out was being blocked off due to an accident of tripped-over wagons and buildings caught in the crossfire.

  Turning the corner with an anguished villager hanging upside down in the mouth of the beast before being eaten whole, the beast stared at the villagers trying to force their way through and bolted towards them on sight.

  Racing through the village streets as it planned to crash into the remaining villagers, the beast was caught off guard by its tunnel vision as a barreling wagon running down a hill struck at its sides and slammed into it, crashing into a building and falling over.

  The villagers stared off into the distance near the top of the hill where the wagon had come from, spotting a short blonde man with hair that stood up on the sides, standing off in the middle of the street, observing the beast from up above.

  The beast staggered back up to its feet, caught off guard but otherwise still in top form as it scanned the area before it shot daggers towards the man off in the distance. With a snarl that grew into a shriek of anger, the Asurak dashed forth and ran up the incline slope to sink its teeth into the man in revenge.

  The blonde man wasted no time as he twisted around and bolted through the wreckage of three streets in front of him, over broken crates and wagons and weaving through gaps in the fallen architecture obstructing his path.

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  The beast did not need subtlety as it barreled towards the man, blasting its way through all obstacles with its sights on the small figure running from him. Yet, try as he might, the beast could never catch up to the man, not because he was fast for him; this was a race the man would surely have been gobbled up by now. No, instead, the bolting man knew which paths to take, which shortcuts existed, seemingly knowing the layout of this village and being able to outmaneuver the monster hunting him down.

  As the beast drew closer, the man’s only thoughts running through his mind were not of the impending danger, but instead on the people who were currently depending on him to save them from utter doom. He could not allow this danger, this affront to the Devakians, to endanger the lives of the people he was bound to protect. The people who meant the world to him. He would rather allow the beast behind him to eat him first before such a thing could happen.

  And fortunately, he would not have to, as he spotted the building he was running towards within reach. He ran inside and leaped over a table as the beast crashed into the building, hurling debris all over.

  Snapping its jaws, it stepped back and charged forward repeatedly in a ravenous attempt to get through the building.

  The young man got to work.

  Grabbing a Knife that stuck to the side of the wall, the man got to work hacking away at ropes restraining some kegs of high-proof spirits and letting them spill onto the floor. As liquid spilled onto the floor, the beast was halfway through the building as it began forcing its way into the room.

  Looking back at the Room behind the beast, the man noticed the tight space it was trying to navigate through, taking notice of the ceiling above pinning it down, slowing its movements as it drew closer. He grinned as he ran over to a table, ripping a strap of cloth off and glancing over to a stack of crates, where he pulled out a bottle and uncorked it before stuffing the cloth inside.

  Taking one last look behind him as the beast roared, revealing a face staring back, the man grinned and lit a match to light up the fabric.

  “Die with the rest of them, you abomination!” the man exclaimed as he crawled out through a window and hurled the bottle at the Asurak.

  Crashing into him, the room burst forth into a river of flames that shot up and touched the ceiling, engulfing the beast as it shrieked in agony. Thrashing about against the weight of the building pinning it down, cooking it alive as it was held in place, the beast's skin was becoming scorched as it blackened and peeled underneath the growing inferno enveloping it on all sides.

  Giving one last push as a desperate stride to save itself, it pushed through the crumbling, burning debris around it and pushed through to try and escape. Unfortunately, it forgot it was on a cliff and plummeted back to the bottom, where it had begun its chase of the man.

  crashing into the ground in front of the people still trying to escape, everyone jumped back as a cloud of dust filled the area near the impact crater, careful to look out for the scorched debris falling to the ground along with significant chunks of the house landing on top of the creature.

  hesitantly, the crowd, coughing as they walked through the smoke clouding their vision, approached the pile that stood before them, and their hearts that had been hammering inside of their chests began to slow.

  Swinging down with a rope to land atop the pile of wreckage, standing with a grin as he gazed down at the crowd surrounding him, a young man spoke out. “Have No Fear, my citizens!” Saikougott, King of the Devakians, Proclaimed. “Your king has saved you all from Harm and slain the beast that has taken many of our brethren and sisters with it. Though your hearts may want to weep for the missing, I urge you all to hold your heads high, knowing they fought valiantly and held off the beast so that I could have time to figure out how to save you.”

  The crowd looked up at the young boy, Unsure of what to make of his sudden arrival here of all places. Normally, he would be back at the castle inside the walled city. As they pondered this, Saikougott took in the attention of everyone around him, now the center of their world in this moment. The apple in their eyes.

  Inhaling and his hands trembling with joy, he continued. “Everyone! Take solace that your fellow Devakian loss will not go in vain, for we are all safe now and able to carry on with their memory. As your mighty king, I order you all to help me in gathering the bodies and holding a makeshift funeral to honor them before the festival can—”

  Saikougott staggered, feeling the pile shift for a moment, then another, and another, until he felt himself lift off the ground and fly back and land on the ground. Suddenly, the burnt wreckage burst forth and spread to the nearby houses in the vicinity as a roar erupted from the bottom as the creature stood up from the brink of death.

  The beast roared as its anger boiled and threatened to spill over.

  Pushing himself off into the ground, Saikougott jumped back at the ear-piercing roar of the beast as his citizens ran around in a panic, screaming and scattering in all directions as the beast continued its rampage across the village just as it did before.

  Nothing had changed from the King's intervention today, and as some would later view it, his actions made things worse as the fire from the debris the beast hurled into the air stoked the flames, igniting the houses and making it harder to escape. Some of the villagers ended up being burned and crushed as structures toppled over and crushed them underneath the massive weight.

  “No!” Saikougott yelled, looking at the mayhem surrounding him. How could this be? He was sure that the scorched inferno would kill the beast. How could things have gotten so out of hand so quickly? He had planned things out carefully in his mind before stepping in. All he had wanted to do was help and save his people.

  But as he was faced with the reality of his actions, his heart sank as he was left with no idea as to how to save everyone from the beast. No way for him to fulfill his role as the king of everyone here. If only he had power. Then maybe things would be different.

  If only he were his old self again.

  If he had the time, he was sure he would have broken down. But as fate would have it, he was not allowed even that as the creature drew its attention back onto the so-called king. Saikougott turned away from the beast and bolted, becoming another one of the citizens he was supposed to save.

  The beast grew closer as it marched through the crowd, hurling chunks of wood and stone at them from side to side with its head as it inched closer and closer to the king.

  The ground shook more violently with each passing second as Saikougott ran past the crowd, leaving him in the dust as high-pitched screams were silenced one by one behind him.

  He was sure that this was it. That his reign as king was about to be cut short. But then again, perhaps it was over a long time ago. Perhaps his role as king had ended for him 10 years ago when he was turned into this shadow of his former self.

  Atop the cliff overlooking the gorge, however, a woman with blue petal-like hair with bangs converging the center of her face and two longer strands ending near her shoulder gazed down at the mayhem from above, her eyes going wide when she spotted the young king running for their life with the Asurak close behind.

  Jumping off the cliff and plummeting down below, she spun as the air rushed all around her, reorientating herself as she tucked her legs in and centered her mind. Within a few seconds, Saikougott had tripped and fallen to the ground as the beast charged and opened its mouth to scoop him up.

  Before the beast reached Saikougott, the blue haired woman landed with a boulder weighted stomp to the monster's spinal column, shattering it and causing every nerve above its back half to erupt in unified agony as it screeched in turmoil and fell to the ground, flailing from side to side as it’s four back legs limped lazily around, feeling in them all but lost to the creature.

  Standing on the ground with its two remaining front legs, the creature staggered up to stand and raised its head with fury in its eyes as it stared down the woman in front of it. With the king safely behind her, the woman took her stance and exhaled, the world around her fading as the only things that were left were her and the prey that would challenge her.

  Lyaikomi—Guard/caretaker of the king.

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