The air was violently sucked out of the square, as if the earth had taken a deep breath. Nayden’s ears popped with pain, as if someone had shoved him underwater. The torchlight died. Nayden swayed. A dark trickle of blood gushed from his nose onto the snow. “Lovro...” His voice stuck in his constricted throat.

  The cobblestones under the altar cracked. Stone slabs, laid there by forefathers, shot upward, pushed by an inhuman force pressing from below. The earth split apart, opening a wide, black maw. The old oak, the sanctity of Volshev, vanished. Sucked into the abyss in the blink of an eye, as if pulled by a giant hand. Its massive roots, thick as aurochs’ thighs, snapped with the sound of breaking masts, whipping the air and crushing those who didn’t jump away in time.

  The holy square turned into a stone storm. The pavement heaved violently, slabs overlapping like ice floes on a turbulent river, slicing boots and breaking the shins of those fleeing. Whoever fell disappeared into the cracks or was trampled by the maddened crowd.

  The wooden skeleton of the tavern by the market groaned, unable to withstand the shock. The building simply folded, like a house of cards blown by the wind. Thatch and beams crashed inward, kicking up a cloud of biting lime and splinters. The screams of revelers from inside cut off abruptly, drowned out by the crash of crushing structure.

  Then the stench hit. A thick, greasy wave of methane, old sewage, and sweet decay. People doubled over, retching, before they could even think of escaping.

  And then something massive crawled out of the lair, shaking off tons of earth and debris. The oldest, darkest form of nature. Scales the size of shields, the color of rusted iron and wet slate, ground against each other with the sound of a rockslide. Between them oozed a thick, black sludge that hissed, melting the snow. From the dust emerged a head. Massive, set on a thick, sinewy neck. It was flat and wide like an anvil, covered in knobby growths and scars that remembered times when humans lived in caves. It opened its snout. Jaws parted to reveal a forest of crooked, yellowed fangs dripping with thick foam. From the depths of the gullet, which glowed like an open hearth, burst a puff of acrid smoke. The monster drew in air with a hiss resembling the work of giant bellows, and its small, reptilian eyes flared with cold hatred.

  Lovro stood at the very edge of the sinkhole. The bowl fell from his hand, hitting the cobblestones with a pathetic clang, but he didn’t even flinch. He looked up at the slime-dripping mountain of meat. “That’s impossible...” His lips moved soundlessly before he forced out a hoarse whisper that instantly turned into a scream: “Zmey! It’s a fucking Zmey!”

  The beast answered with movement. A lazy, heavy swing of a paw ended in hooks. The paw missed Lovro’s head by centimeters, but the push of air acted like a battering ram. The guard was launched backward. He flew over the heads of the crowd, tumbling limply like a rag doll, and with a dull thud slammed into a bakery stall, smashing it to splinters.

  The priest standing nearby stayed put. The man disappeared in a cloud of dust, ground into the pavement into a bloody pulp.

  “Run!” the scream drowned in the crunch of crushing stone as the beast began dragging the rest of its bulk onto the market square.

  Nayden, on all fours, choking on dust, reached the remains of the stall. Lovro was alive, but he lay in a pile of broken planks and trampled loaves of bread. He tried to get up, but his legs buckled under him like cotton. He doubled over and vomited onto the snow.

  “Get up!” Nayden yanked him brutally by the collar, pulling him upright.

  “Did you see...?” Lovro pointed with a shaking hand at the red, steaming stain where the priest had stood a second ago. “He... he popped. He just popped. Like a boil.”

  “Don’t look there!” Nayden dug his fingers under Lovro’s armpits and heaved with all his might. His friend was limp as a sack of wet sand. “Get up, goddammit!”

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  Lovro gasped for air. His eyes, previously vacant, suddenly snapped into focus. He pushed off the remains of the stall. The Zmey roared, and a wave of vibration knocked roof tiles off nearby huts.

  “Run!” Lovro regained his instinct. He grabbed his sword, which lay in the mud, and they took off.

  They ran through hell. People trampled each other, climbing over the backs of the fallen just to get further from the beast. Nayden turned toward a side alley, pulling Lovro behind him. And then he froze.

  The wall of the bakery was cracking. Bricks rained down. Beneath it, pressed into a niche in the wall, huddled a group of children. No screaming. Just wide, terrified eyes staring at the collapsing ceiling.

  “Nayden, no!” Lovro yelled, seeing where his friend was looking. “Leave them!”

  Nayden didn’t listen. He let go of Lovro’s arm and leaped sideways, straight under the falling plaster. “Here!” He reached them, yanking the nearest boy by the collar so hard the fabric tore. “To the alley! Now!”

  Something small and fast detached itself from the Zmey’s shadow. A lesser spawn. It looked like a skinned dog with too many joints. It leaped toward them, aiming for the throat of the bent-over Nayden.

  Lovro cursed vividly. He had no choice. He jumped in, covering his friend’s back with his shield. The impact was massive. The beast’s jaws clamped on the steel rim, fangs grinding against metal. Claws tore at the pauldron, seeking flesh. Lovro shouted with effort and drove his chipped sword straight into the monster’s open maw, twisting the blade. The creature went limp, vomiting acid onto him. Corrosive saliva hissed on the armor, but Lovro kicked the carcass off with his boot, not breaking his guard.

  “What are you doing?!” he snarled, wiping blood from his face. “We were supposed to watch the flank, not play nanny!”

  “Was I supposed to leave them?!” Nayden retorted, shoving the last sobbing girl toward the shadows. “Move!”

  They burst into the narrow alley, tripping over barrels. The darkness gave them a split second of respite. Nayden leaned against the wall, his lungs burning with liquid fire. The children, terrorized and silent, squeezed into the deepest corner behind a pile of trash. Lovro ran in last, dragging his leg. Acid had eaten through his sleeve; his skin was smoking.

  “It was a mistake,” he panted, leaning on his knees. “It was a damn mistake. We’re trapped.”

  They looked up. The mouth of the alley was gone. Replaced by a wall of scales. This Zmey was bigger. Anthracite armor gleamed in the gloom, saliva dripped from its snout, melting the snow with the hiss of boiling water. The beast prepared to spring, muscles tensing like coils.

  “Back!” Lovro screamed. He jerked his hand, tearing off the leather glove with his teeth. He spat it into the mud, right under the beast’s feet. Nayden looked at his temple. Veins turned black and swollen. He understood immediately.

  “No!” Nayden grabbed his arm. “Lovro, not here! It’s too narrow! The backlash will fry us!”

  Lovro slapped his hand away. “Then pay with something else if you have it!” he snarled, extending his naked hand toward the slime-dripping snout. “Get down! Now!”

  The air in the alley rippled, the snow under their boots evaporated in a split second, turning into hissing steam. “Eat this!”

  A wave of heat, thick and heavy as lead, hit the Zmey. The slime on the beast’s snout boiled instantly, turning into white foam. The howl turned into a high, cracking shriek as the creature’s eyeballs exploded. But Lovro screamed too. The narrow stone throat of the alley had nowhere to vent the temperature. The heat bounced off the walls and returned to the source. The skin on Lovro’s outstretched hand tightened, turned white, and then split along the knuckles. Red blisters bloomed on his fingers in the blink of an eye, bursting and releasing plasma that instantly hissed, evaporating.

  “Fuuuck!” Nayden shielded his face with his cloak, feeling the heat scorching his cheeks despite the distance. A smell hit their nostrils. Sweet, stifling, sickening. The smell of roasted meat. Not reptilian. Human.

  Lovro didn’t pull his hand back, though the muscles of his forearm trembled in spasms. Blood gushed from his nose, flooding his mouth and chin, mixing with saliva. “Die... Die, you son of a bitch...”

  The beast, blinded by pain, snapped its jaws blindly, slicing the air centimeters from their faces. Lovro ignored the fangs. The inside of his hand was black, charred by his own power, but he clenched his burned fingers. The air in the alley was sucked in with a hollow whistle. The sound resembled a giant’s sharp intake of breath. Nayden’s lungs burned as oxygen was ripped from the surroundings to fuel the strike.

  Lovro pushed with an open palm. The shockwave hit the monster straight in the head. The beast’s skull cracked like a trampled watermelon. The massive body collapsed limply, burying its snout in the mud. It stopped a meter from Nayden’s boots.

  The silence that fell rang in their ears. Lovro swayed. He doubled over and vomited bile onto the snow. Thin trickles of blood flowed from his ears.

  Nayden rushed to him, supporting him before he fell into the mud. “Lovro!” he shook him. “Can you hear me?!”

  Things escalated quickly, didn't they?

  I wanted to bring that raw, 'The Boys' style grit to this Slavic setting—no filters, just consequences and collateral damage. If you like the direction this story is heading, please leave a review. Early feedback is vital for the algorithm, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the world-building. I have over 56 chapters ready to be polished and shared, so there's plenty more where that came from.

  Happy reading!