She had heard the story a million times. Power comes at the cost of fertility, trueborn children of anyone past midway into the Mutant Realm were nearly unheard of. Her father, charming man that he was, threatened to devour her and her mother for having the audacity to so boldly lie to him at first. Of course her mother was a cunning woman, she knew the type of man she had lain with and that very same audacity was what convinced her father to even for a moment hear her out. It helps that she did not ask for much, only to raise her child as the heir to a Sect and not merely the daughter of a nameless wanderer if she was telling the truth, offering her flesh and blood as… collateral… if she was lying. And it was true, as much as she sometimes wished otherwise she was undeniably of his blood. One day she was to inherit his position, his titles, his prestige, his duties…
His legacy…
She kowtowed before her father both to show respect and to have an excuse to avoid eye contact with the pitiful prisoner chained in the room. With all his secrets extracted, the broken form of the man had little more use to her father except for one thing. She didn’t know what would be worse had she lifted her head to meet the man in his eyes: the terror or the emptiness. In the end it was always one of the two.
“Raise your head, daughter, you have grown well since I left on my latest pacification campaign.” He said with pride that shamefully kicked up a small traitorous warmth in her core.
“Of course father… my apologies…” She quietly responded, rising shakily to her feet.
“But of course your growth could be improved, if you did not insist on being so conservative on your use of our family gift. I fear, good and loyal friends they may be, in their weakness Cinnabar and Aurelium have softened the iron in your blood.” He reprimanded.
“I simply…” She tried to rebut but was silenced by a wave of power and intent from her father.
“I do this because it is the best for your growth, not because it is pleasant or easy. Our enemies are without number, without mercy. We can no longer rely on the promises of distant deities in their shining cities, in this world to devour is to not be devoured!”
“What is this foolishness? I expect a child like you to play with your food, but your insistence on involving your daughter in such matters is ridiculous!” A familiar feminine voice echoed in the dungeon sparking a bright spark of hope in Cobalt’s heart.
“Oh, spare me the lecture, centipede, I know what I am doing!” Her father growled
“She’s not even of age! It wasn’t enough that you had her complete the whole gauntlet of the Trials when she was barely in her tenth summer, but you insist on this charade every decade? I am beginning to think you have forgotten what it means to be young, Agamemnon.” Aunt Cinnabar chided, slithering into view just outside the cell.
“She needs to learn, sooner or later; this is her legacy after all! You know as well as I!” Her father snorted.
“Agamemnon, just because we never got a childhood doesn’t give you the right to deny it to your offspring. It’s not like we have a shortage of beasts for her to practise devouring and it is clear she is not ready for such messy violence, just look at her face!” Cinnabar scolded.
“You spoil her…” Her father complained.
“Perhaps I do, but I don’t think killing should be easy.” Cinnabar replied.
“Her foes will be many one day, she can’t be weak before them.” her father spoke with uncharacteristic softness.
“And trust that she will be ready when the day comes, for now, do you want to eat that man, Cobalt?” Cinnabar asked her with a comforting smile on her porcelain face.
“...No…” she spoke slowly.
“Well there we go.” Cinnabar concluded with a smile. Evidently annoyed but unwilling to waste any more time her father took the prisoner in one large arm and devoured him in one bite before the unfortunate man had time to scream.
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She tried not to think about how her stomach grumbled at the sight.
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In an instant the clear sky was shrouded in a violent, howling storm. Bright blue flashes of lightning briefly broke up dark imposing clouds from which only a weak thin trickle of blood-red light could reach the pyramid below. During those flashes shadows of a beast with a scale that defied reason revealed itself, sending even hardened cultivators into a panic as the heavens were replaced with a vision of hell. Below, a gigantic man walked confidently up the stone steps of the pyramid, his blood-red skin blending in well with the blood red light above. A deafening roar shook the heavens and the earth but he alone stood unafraid, confident even, as he made it to the top with a stride that made his scant scrap cloth clothing appear like the adornments of a king.
“STOP! THE TEMPLE IS IN LOCKDOWN YOU CANNOT HAVE AN AUDIENCE W-” A spider-like guard called out before being silenced by a flash of bright blue light, leaving only a charred person shaped shadow on the ground where a man once stood.
“Do any of you want to share his fate perhaps?” The stranger remarked simply as if commenting on something as mundane as the harvest.
An aura of power flared around him that made the red light from the skies appear dim. The weaker willed scattered instantly, the braver and perhaps more foolish stood their ground only to be similarly instantly fried on the spot as the stranger moved unimpeded deep into the temple. A man with an eagle’s head attempted to slow his advance only to be immediately reduced to a fine paste. A potent psychic summoned a telekinetic storm only to be silenced by a much stronger bolt of supernatural lightning. The dragon outside roared and nobody else dared to challenge this opponent, for there came a point where cowardice becomes wisdom and this situation was well past that.
In the inner sanctum dressed in golden robes was the lord of this region trembling at his throne. He was nearly as tall as the stranger, and indeed his old face bore great resemblance to him. If he squinted he could almost see the shadows of something familiar, but no… surely not…
“Tío Asta.” the invader stated with disdain.
At first the old man could do nothing but stand with his jaw hung open in shock and stretched beyond ordinary human limits by his mutations. However soon he regained his composure and returned the disrespectful acknowledgement with a sneer. “Iktan…”
“Remember when as a boy you taught me about the prize worthy of traitors? How ironic those lessons seem now…” Iktan said quietly as he made thunderous steps towards his uncle’s throne. “You see, I was wondering how it was that those Jackalope assassins found where we were hiding so quickly, we had hidden our tracks so well, and only revealed our plans to those most loyal… but see the funny thing about betrayal is that traitors do not easily find loyal men, in truth it was terribly simple to find one of your rats and make him squeal.”
“It would be a betrayal to continue to let our people toil in servitude to that brute! I serve our people, not the foolish conqueror who pranced around in the trappings of our proud heritage! Not the whore who in her thirst for power tainted our blood with that hijueputa!” He spat.
“If that makes you feel better, very well. I have no more words for you.” Iktan concluded with a disappointed tone. The world around them seemed to lose colour as the light around two individuals well into the Aberrant realm flexed their power.
Iktan shot first, moving with grace entirely unfitting for his stature. Empowered by the energy coursing through every single cell in his body, what would be skilled martial arts for a mortal was empowered into strikes that easily surpassed artillery fire in both speed and force. His uncle with even more experience against foes of similar calibre and mutations that allowed his form to contract freely beyond petty restraints like bones and joints easily flowed around the titanic blows like water in a stream flowed around boulders. The style Iktan used was peculiar, it bore much similarity to the old martial traditions held by the Kukulkan clan but was cruder, less refined. That was not to say it was ineffective or poorly practised however. In fact…
A well-struck punch sent a wave of air hurtling towards the stone walls of the pyramid shattering a wall made up of solid stone several feet thick. The shockwaves rippled like blades that left cuts along the watery form of the old lord. In spite of this the old man grinned wider than a human face should have been able to accommodate, his foe was evidently unused to fighting an opponent as fast and slippery as himself, victory was well within his grasp.
After dodging another powerful punch he stretched his arm over to where one of his bodyguards had fled their post and in a fraction of a second wrapped his form around his estranged nephew. Whipping significantly faster than the speed of sound, an ancient chainblade tipped with razor sharp blades of obsidian, empowered by the strength of his will, found its target in the soft neck flesh of the giant right between dinner plate sized gill plates in the time it takes for a mortal to process a thought. Deadly enough on their own, empowered by the psychic strength of its user the obsidian chain was enough to shatter diamonds.
Upon breaking the uppermost layer of skin the empowered obsidian shattered like the glass it was and Asta barely had enough time to widen his eyes in shock as a wave of searing blue radiation heralded sharp blades of blood extending from his opponent like spears. Helpless as a fish before the spear of a hunter, his elastic form was skewered by dozens of razor thin blades each travelling straight through his body and embedding deep into the stone floor below. Si-infused black blood flowed from severed veins and meridians searing all surfaces they made contact with, followed by a larger wave of fluid when he coughed up a sizable volume of blood that had been filling his punctured lungs.
“I was expecting more, if this pathetic showing was to be my grandfather’s legacy he would have embraced death on the spot. Thankfully I have no intention of staining our name further.” Iktan spoke softly, snapping off the spears of blood where they had emerged from his neck with nonchalance, the superficial wound already stitching shut.
“All you will be… cinders and ash…” Asta choked out.
“And all you will be is food.” Iktan mocked, whistling towards the sky. A large shadow blanketed all and Asta for the last moments of his life learned the true meaning of fear.
“Rest well, tío.” Iktan said, picking up the weapon used to slice his neck and inspecting its new edge made from his own crystallised blood. “With the sunset on your petty little kingdom comes the sunrise of a shining new khaganate, how fitting it is for a dragon to feast upon a snake; isn’t that right, Cipactli?”
Asta Kukulkan didn’t even have time to scream before his consciousness was crushed by an overwhelming presence and his body devoured by a beast that defied reason.