The sound of foliage being crushed by the massive Rox Mother sounded ahead of him, shaking the forest and the ground beneath him.
Thinking about his previous ‘fight’ with the beast he tried to come up with a plan.
It was large, and fast. But most of its strength seemed to come from its legs, and most likely its sonic screech. However there was a very good chance it wasn’t even capable of using it as an adult. There were similar cases of younger, or smaller variants of certain beasts gaining or losing abilities depending on size or specific mutation variants. He didn’t want to plan around it being weaker than he hoped, but it was still something to note.
It was massive, and yet almost as fast as he was, almost. He had managed to outrun, out maneuver, and out plan the beast on every turn, but it was always only a few steps behind. He had no doubt the animals here were smart, smarter than some of the people he’d met judging by how intricate the traps he’d almost fallen into had been, but it was still a beast.
And he was Human.
Its eyes were obvious weak points, small and beady as they were if he managed to rip them out or blind it in some way it wouldn’t be able to fight him as effectively - nor would it be able to chase him if he failed to kill it.
There was still the potential danger of the screech, but he might have a way to deal with it. He had no real practice, but he’d come close enough to success that Lilliha had nearly smacked him for trying.
Warmth began spreading throughout his body, starting within the center of his body before spreading throughout it.
I’m gonna barbeque this fucker, one way or the other.
As the warmth hit his fingers the beast erupted from the tree line, landing only a dozen or so meters away from him. The beast seemed surprised to find him there, facing it with violent intent instead of running like he had before. Its ears were sticking up, eyes open wide in shock to find its prey no longer running away.
It only had a moment to react before Mark had launched himself towards it, literally crossing the distance in a moment, leaving flying dirt and debris behind him as he rushed the beast.
The eyes, then the throat!
Whether it was in the jungle, or the city, the two biggest weaknesses anyone had were their eyes, and their throat. It might have been illegal in boxing, but it wasn’t illegal out here.
Nothing was.
His leap took him high, roughly two meters off of the ground - almost exactly eye level with the beast. With as much strength as he could muster he brought the Symbiote down onto the beast’s eye. The combined force of the leap, his swing, and the imbued strength of the Symbiote met the soft material of the beast’s eye.
The result was instant, and gory.
He felt the eye give in under the pressure, his hand - and then arm, sink into the beast's skull as gore exploded out from the wound. He felt pieces of the eye explode over his body as he sunk his arm deeper and deeper into the skull of the beast until he was almost elbow deep into the place where its eye used to be.
For a horrifying moment he was hopeful the fight was already over. His elbow was just barely into the beast’s eye socket, there was gore practically everywhere, common sense dictated that having something so deeply into your skull meant instant death.
The beast disagreed.
The second he had placed both of his feet firmly on the beast’s skull in an attempt to pry his arm out of the eye socket the beast began squirming, before seemingly awakening and thrashing around with him still stuck to it.
It flung its head back and forth in an attempt to shake him off, sending his body ragdolling to the sides as he began to hang on for dear life. After three or four shakes the beast gave up on dislodging him, and slammed him into the ground.
Back met dirt as it slammed its forehead into the ground, and him along with it. It had to have been panicking because besides knocking the wind out of him for a moment, all it did was lodge his arm even deeper into its eye socket.
To say the fight wasn’t going to plan for either of them was a minor understatement.
Crazy fucker is going to bury my entire body into his skull at this rate!
He had enough time to begin focusing all of the heat that he’d prepared within his body into his Symbiote before it began to throw its head back, mouth beginning to open in the telltale sign of its impending shriek. Where the original critters mouth was just creepy as all hell with how it opened compared to how large its body was, the Rox Mother was practically nightmare fuel. It’s mouth opened so wide that he was almost concerned it was going to consume its own body in an attempt to trap him.
Fuck it, skipping the throat!
The concentrated heat began to reach a crescendo, so hot within the arm that cold vibrations began to spread from where it connected to his body in an attempt to rush him.
Abrehi - Ignis - Foc- Fuck!
Before he had an attempt to finish the short chant the beast's elongated mouth began its screech. Where the smaller creature’s screech came out high-pitched and was loud enough to knock him on his ass, the larger beast’s began as a roar, the shock waves and vibrations making him feel like his teeth were going to fall out.
G-g-otta fin-nish th-s now!
“ABREHI!”
The roar increased in volume, matching the smoldering heat, and the smell of burning flesh as the both of them roared in defiance toward the other.
“IGNIS!
His arm began glowing bright orange, visible throughout his body and the beast's own. Its fur began blackening around the eye socket, and the Symbiote cried out in protest at what had to have been unbearable pain as the heat was focused onto itself, with nowhere to escape to but the charred flesh around it.
“FOCA!”
The fire doubled in intensity, the beast's screams mixing with his own as the searing pain began spreading to his own body as well.
“DESTRU!”
The final roar silenced everything, time seemingly pausing for a moment before it restarted.
The glow of fire spread through the beast’s body, looking like someone had put an oversized flashlight inside of it. He could see bones, organs, even large veins as they were incinerated from the inside out. The magic spread, erupted, and annihilated everything from flesh to bone in an instant.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
He had barely the time to recognize the destruction before the rox's skull exploded, sending him flying away surrounded by charred meat and bone.
He could practically hear the chanting, screaming, roaring of the non-existent crowd as he slammed into a tree hard enough to shatter bark.
Monarch wins.
-------------------------------
Abrehi-Ignis-Foca-Destru
Destruction-Focus-Fire-Death
Destructive focus, fiery death.
-Abrehm Maleco; Creator of the Original Ignis Spell.
---------------------------------
The sound of birds singing, the sound of trees swaying, he woke to none of it.
What he awoke to was silence.
Opening his eyes he was met with the singeing pain in his arm, and the feeling of his back having nearly embedded itself into the trunk of a tree.
He looked around groggily, an obvious concussion forming after the blast and subsequent impact into the tree. He was only a few dozen meters away from the charred, ruined corpse of the Rox Mother who had been chasing him just a short time ago.
Its body looked like someone had set off napalm from the inside out, which wasn’t far from the truth. Its head was entirely missing, with a massive hole in the back of its body where its spine used to be. Most of the fur was gone, and the few bits that had survived the ordeal were charred black.
I wasn’t joking about barbequing it, but I don’t even think any of it is edible now… especially since I don’t like my steaks well done.
Is rabbit red meat or white meat? Usually the stuff is considered high class shit, I don’t even see it in the ‘meat’ centered shops or butcheries, the only place you’ll find it is in the city center and even then you need to order it first.
Too bad I can’t bundle any of it up and take it home with me.
Attempting to stand he quickly found himself falling back over onto his side. The blast hadn’t done much physical damage to him, but the impact had left him just a few shades before broken.
Not much to complain about there however, if he’d been hit like that before he would have turned into meat paste.
Thank god for Ascensions, I guess.
His left leg and Symbiote arm were almost entirely useless, a seemingly common occurrence in his life it seemed. His leg was numb to most sensations, save the burning that accompanied his healing kicking in. His Symbiote was almost practically rags, the Symbiote having ceased any attempts at assisting him in an attempt to focus on its own healing. It was rather concerning seeing what had once been an unbreakable carapace-like armor reduced to what looked like a stuffed pillow with holes in it, but at least it wasn’t dead.
Once again, not something he could really complain about, he didn’t want to think about how he’d end up if it died on him because of his own stupidity. Plus the sooner it was healed the sooner he had his main weapon, and only real ally, back and ready for action.
Lifting himself to his feet - again - he made sure to account for the massive limp his left leg had as he began to move towards his kill.
This is definitely going to hurt later, especially the leg.
He’d nearly forgotten what pain really felt like since his Ascension. Sure the ‘fight’ with Lilliha had been painful, but it was over as quickly as it had begun. This however? He could feel the aftershocks of this.
The burning within most of his limbs, and practically the entirety of his torso only proved that the fight - or more accurately his botched spell - had been bad enough that most of his body was riddled with smaller injuries, with some areas having far more grievous ones.
However besides his arm he was mostly spared any life threatening ones, and even then it was only threatening to his Symbiote.
Walking through the small clearing clearly showed the level of destruction he’d caused to the environment that he missed before. As he got closer to the beast he could see scorch marks, as well places where chunks of bone and debris from the blast had torn up the landscape around the corpse. A rather large piece of skull, or at least what he assumed was skull, was even embedded into the ground as he trudged along towards the rox’s corpse.
He was tempted to pick it up, to use as a weapon, but judging by how his body protested against any unnecessary movements he figured he would have to wait until he was rested a bit more.
As he passed it, grunting in disgust when he saw the small piece of muscle still attached to it, he turned back towards the corpse. The closer he got the more he could appreciate the damage he’d done, or at the very least the damage the magic had done.
The spine of the beast wasn’t just burnt through, the entire area that the spine followed had melted away as if someone had poured lava onto it. The body hadn’t even cooled yet as he could still see smoke coming from the inside of the beast, giving off the smell of freshly cooked meat.
He would have been disgusted, if he didn’t desperately yearn to rip a chunk out and eat it.
I hope that’s just the hunger talking, and not some deep seated issue I am going to need to explore with a therapist.
When he’d reached its side he leaned out with his good arm and rested against it. He felt no small amount of pride at winning against it, but he also felt a bit embarrassed. He had gone through so much, met a literal Goddess, and he had almost died after being chased for hours through a goddamn forest by a literal rabbit/fox hybrid on steroids.
If it was a dragon, or something more frightening maybe he wouldn’t be so conflicted on the matter, but as it stood he couldn’t quite place how he really felt about the whole ordeal.
It was strong, but it looked so fucking stupid.
Pride and embarrassment fought each other for a moment, before hunger and exhaustion sucker-punched both of them from behind and took the victory.
Maybe it was the magic, maybe it was the damage to himself or the Symbiote, but he was starving. Ravenous, even. He felt hungry enough to eat the rox whole, which most likely wouldn’t be as much as he wanted due to the damage he’d done to it. He’d be lucky if even half of the beast’s meat was edible.
But half of this beast was still more than enough for him, he hoped.
I can cut the damn thing up after I sit down for a bit, I doubt I’ll get very far cutting this thing up when I can barely stand.
He didn’t even bother lowering himself to the ground, simply letting himself fall onto his back on the dirt below him.
Just a few minutes… that’s all I need.
He blinked, and he was gone.
-------------------------
Some fucking calamari sauc-
His dream ended the way anyone who was worried about a stressful day did, with him realizing something was off, and him being suddenly aware he had to wake up.
His eyes flung open, revealing the starry sky above him.
Oh no.
He’d merely closed his eyes for a moment, and he’d fallen asleep. On any other day he’d be happy, but not here, not today. He had just been wounded, had caused an explosion loud enough to be heard miles around, was right beside a cooked corpse, and was entirely defenseless to stop any predators from eating him.
He’d fucked up, and he knew he was lucky to have even opened his eyes, let alone open them with no predators around him.
He didn’t know for sure whether or not Vira was watching over him, or whether or not Lilliha was observing him to make sure he didn’t actually die, or if he was just plain lucky, but the fact he was unharmed after creating such a racket somewhere so dangerous was a miracle on its own.
And he didn’t really believe in miracles all that much anymore. Not when he knew they were actually created by Gods and Goddesses who actually existed.
He had to assume either he’d scared off the beasts, or someone else had.
Thank Vira I woke up with all my limbs attached at least.
He looked around rapidly for signs of any enemies around him. He was pretty sure he was safe, but ‘pretty sure’ wasn’t worth risking an ambush over.
Around him were trees, the plains he had collapsed in, and nothing else.
Nothing else.
Where the hell is my rox?
The body was gone.
Not just eaten by scavengers, but gone. Meat, bones, even blood. All that was left was the charred ground it had rested on. It was uncanny how little traces of the corpse were left.
What kind of scavenger eats a body like that, but not the other one right next to it?
He was on his feet by now, scanning the area around him for any traces of the beast. As stupid as it was he almost expected it to be somewhere else, maybe he had rolled away and the body was in another burnt crater he’d somehow created.
But there was nothing there.
What the fuck? Did fucking Lilliha steal it? She already had my fridge stocked with food, why the hell would she steal my fucking kill?
For some reason the fact it was his kill made the offense worse. Some fucking scavenger just taking his rightful harvest from such a difficult fight.
This wasn’t a thousand dollars he loses out in a fight, or some shitty bill that wipes out a decent chunk of his earnings, this was his kill. He didn’t fight in a ring or work in a fast food place for this, he fought for it. It was his!
He’d almost begun shouting when heavy vibrations ascended from his Symbiote, nearly shaking his entire body.
He looked down towards his Symbiote, expecting it to still look like the tattered toy it had before, but it was almost entirely healed, save for some choice differences.
Why the fuck does it have white FUR?
The arm used to look like an insect’s carapace, or some kind of expensive implant some of the Corpo types used to show off. Now however it looked like someone had taken it, and stitched the white fur the rox wore around the joints and wrist.
It looked more… fashionable now, but the fact it was wearing the fur of the kill he’d lost nearly gave him a heart attack from the implications.
“Did you eat my fucking kill? When did you eat it? Fucking how?!”
What the hell am I doing asking it questions, it can barely answer yes or n-
As he was ranting to himself the palm of his Symbiote’s ‘hand’ split open, revealing the gaping maw almost mimicking the rox’s… save for the massive teeth.
“WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU HIDE THOSE TEETH?!”
Wait, why is that my question?
“HOW THE FUCK DID YOU EAT THE ENTIRE THING?!”
The only answer he received was a small pulse of heat that spread from the Symbiote to the rest of his body.
“Smartass bastard.”