Following Cobalt’s sharp senses, the duo soon came across a large procession of people huddled around a set of disparate vehicles. Upon observing from a safe distance behind a large boulder one thing in particular stuck out to John: it was the vehicle in the middle of the caravan, easily the largest one he had ever seen. Even from a great distance he could see hints of smoke rising from its tail like the Rust Wagon, only its design somehow made that ancient Relic look downright graceful. Indeed it was as though someone smashed together multiple vehicles out of scrap parts into an unruly heap, it even had at its front a set of ropes clearly designed to help some beasts of burden pull the ungainly vehicle along. Judging by the large group of people Cobalt spotted huddling around one of its wheels and the small column of smoke growing ever more evident he didn’t need to know exactly what it was to have a good guess as to why the caravan was stuck.

“Have you ever heard anything like this?” He whispered to Cobalt.

“I have heard about things like this, leftovers from the great war engines of the Red Star Khan… but never this far north. Something like this should be in the hands of one of the mad warlords in the far south bandied around like the crown jewel of their army but this one is just out in the open!” She explained.

“Do you think these are invaders?” He asked.

Cobalt shook her head. “They are too disorganized, and I can hear children with them. If this is an army I am a Rattlebeast.”

“Should we-” He began to speak.

“I’m going closer.” Cobalt cut him off, moving out of camouflage towards the strangers. Sighing John had no choice but to follow.

As they came closer some individuals in rusted armor, likely what passed for the sentinels of the group, jumped back in shock. Predictably they raised their weapons, mostly spears and ancient firearms, in response loudly shouting in a garbled mix of some language John didn’t understand and scattered bits of broken Glish. Mostly the usual ‘who are you’, ‘what do you want’ ‘stay back’.

“We are just here to help!” Cobalt explained, before shifting to the same foreign tongue as the nervous guards.

The guards looked at each other and again spoke something he couldn’t understand before turning to address them. “Explain what you doing here. Prove you not spy of Khan.”

“We came to check stories of Mountain Mauler attacks. We were not expecting people.” Cobalt explained slowly. “I heard your noise and we decided to come see what happened.”

“Mauler? You mean the Onza? Last night we were attacked by it, big thing of rock and teeth, as fast as the Toro Rojo.” The apparent leader, a large woman adorned with scars and pockmarked armor, remarked pointing at the monstrosity of a vehicle. “Even killed our Mustards before we drove it off, so unless you know how to repair centuries old engines I suggest you kids scram, there is nothing you can help even with your fancy cultivation!”

“How can you be so sure?” John asked.

The old guard laughed and pointed at the massive jutting pipes haphazardly sticking out of the machine. “Relics from the Golden Age, they can blow a hole clean through a mountain, and all it did was drive the thing off! Didn’t even kill the bastard, we expect it will come back for vengeance when it is done licking its wounds!”

“I may not look like it but I am Wanderer class, I can tell you that will be no issue! Let us bring over our friend first and we can help hunt down the beast before it comes back!” Cobalt proudly declared.

The woman’s glare was searing hot even through her helmet visor, before she stopped and shrugged. “Not my responsibility to stop you from killing yourself. Fine, bring the rest of your crew over and we can work something out.”

“Excellent! By the way, we didn’t get properly introduced, my name is Cobalt!” Cobalt cheerfully said.

“I’m John.” John awkwardly chimed in.

“If you want to help, you will work under my command, call me Capitana, same as my men.” The woman pretty much commanded.

John once more drew his attention to the massive gun barrels on the titanic machine and gulped, feeling in well over his head.

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Once they briefed Magni on the situation and took him over they were sat down by the Capitana to exchange some information. Impressively Magni actually managed to keep his mouth shut and avoided making enemies of yet another authority figure, not that one would notice by the aggressive, almost irritated tone the old woman used to answer each of their questions.

“Do you have any more questions?” She asked once more.

John tentatively chimed in. “I just wanted to ask, that machine… Toro Rojo? It looks really rare and powerful. What is it doing all the way up here in the middle of nowhere on its own?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Once Toro Rojo was a machine of war, first owned by the thrice damned Khan and then by that bastard man Loco. Warlord, slaver, murderer, he forced my clan to kneel at his feet with his foul sorcery and we served him for over a century.” She explained. “But then for once the heavens smiled and that bastard was fried by someone even worse… the Dragon Khan…”

“Dragon Khan?” John asked.

She scowled deeply and bitterly. “Blood of the Red Star they say, the name is well earned, I witnessed his pet beast myself as it burned a line through the sky and earth. In the chaos I gathered everyone I could and stole Loco’s prized engine, intending to flee all the way to the Frozen Land of legend to escape the wrath of the Dragonlord.”

Cobalt’s eyes widened; John had only heard distant legends of Dragons and the Khan so didn’t have nearly enough context on what was going on to know exactly why Cobalt was so nervous, but seeing her fearful sent a shiver down his own spine. The only one apparently totally clueless was Magni.

“So is it like another Warlord with a strange pet?” He asked.

Many emotions flickered over the Capitana’s face before settling into a dark sort of amusement. “He claimed he would reunite the Ancestral Lands before the year was done, and I believe him. I saw the night sky blaze a brilliant blue, I saw him bring the storm with a call and split the clouds with a shout. To call him a mere Warlord is to call the ocean a puddle.”

They were silent a while after that. It was quite a different thing entirely to listen to stories decades or centuries removed than to hear it from someone who witnessed it firsthand. The world for a moment seemed so much more massive than it ever did before, his mind struggled to comprehend the idea of the night sky blazing blue.

Before they could dwell much more a small voice made itself known. “Abuela, ¿quiénes son?” A child too young and bundled in rags to tell if they were a boy or girl, asked.

“No te preocupes por eso.” The Captiana spoke softly. “Shoo now. Bed.”

The child nodded and looked cautiously at John and his fellows. Cobalt did her best reassuring smile which only succeeded in making the child blanch.

“Ella me está asustando…” the child whispered to the Capitana.

The Capitana knelt down before the child and put her hands on their shoulders, quietly saying something John couldn’t quite make out. Whatever it was it seemed to have worked and the child, albeit warily, made their way back to the tower of rusted metal.

“Normally I would not trust outsiders so much. The only reason I tell you this is because I know not even the Dragon Khan sends agents this young. But know that we are desperate, I am not sure if we can survive a second attack.” The Capitana whispered even as the child left earshot. “Do not dare disappoint us.”

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“And this is the most likely lair location judging by the freshness of these tracks and the smell in the air, but past this point even I cannot say for certain.” Cobalt noted as the group approached a large cave. A long almost cylindrical hole in a hill with an entrance perhaps forty feet in height and width.

“I suppose that’s why you dragged a poor injured boy like me here to this obvious deathtrap.” Magni faux-complained, making an effort to dramatize his wounds, though even with the speed by which he was healing they were bad enough he didn’t need to do much.

“Maulers are notorious ambush predators, as they age their fur hardens and grows into matted clumps which change form to perfectly resemble the rocks of their territory. Since every inch of their lair already reeks of them and they are known to be silent enough to surprise even experienced Cultivators… in short unfortunately yes.” Cobalt explained.

Meanwhile John was already poking his head into the cave, adjusting his vision to the dim stream of sunlight trickling through the entrance. The small shaft of light revealed a stony floor littered with crushed bones of various creatures, the evidence of a successful hunter, and long vicious scratch marks several inches deep into the stone walls. Besides that there was no other evidence of the Mauler being present. Though rationally he knew that after being hit by an artillery strike no creature Spirit beast or otherwise could possibly recover so fast, for a moment a part of him even doubted the creature was even there in the first place. It was as though the creature had simply left to go hunting and hadn’t returned yet.

“John, remember the plan! Don’t stick your head in there until we are fully prepared!” Cobalt warned.

John bashfully backed off. “Sorry it’s just… I find it hard to believe such a powerful Spirit Beast could really be hiding in there.”

“And that’s how they get you. Worry not, your Senior Brother will help keep watch for nasty beasts in the dark, but of course the able bodied first! Don’t want to push an infirm into the line of danger!” Magni laughed, though there was obviously an undercurrent of real fear in his voice.

“We are of the same rank… and you aren’t even that injured anymore…” John grumbled, trying to hide his own fear.

The trio made their way into the cave, stepping over bones and things John would really rather not think about. Idly he noted the bright yellow fragments of bone, what was left of the Mustard Horses the beast dragged away. He saw a Mustard once, a hulking mass of muscle and sinew that was nearly as large as some of the homes in the slums. A creature that could reduce multiple of them into nothing but tiny bits of crushed bone, surely it couldn’t hide so well.

Eventually they reached the end of the cave, their progress blocked off by a wall of jagged stone. The smell was all consuming at this point: not quite rot, not quite the scent of a normal animal, but a cloying pervasive musk which seemed to drown out more than just the sense of smell.

“Is that it, there’s no Mauler here! There is nowhere in this kracking cave it can hide!” He found himself complaining.

First he noticed Magni did not make any sort of wisecrack or quippy response. He turned to see the older boy with every single eye wide open behind him, shaking in the dark. Before he could think much more both he and Cobalt were tackled to the side by Magni, barely avoiding the snapping jaws of a titanic predator.

The thing was truly massive, its girth taking up the entire width of the cave, it seemed impossible for the thing to get in or out but nonetheless here it was in defiance of all laws of nature. It snarled in annoyance, the irritating prey just barely out of its grasp, and idly swatted a paw towards them.

Cobalt blazed and grew in proportion to the massive claws headed towards the team, sinking inches into the stone as she blocked the impact with a deafening bang.

“...the side! The injured side!” He heard Magni shout out once the ringing in his ears subsided somewhat. Focusing all his attention to the flanks of the beast he saw the large crack seeping blood and pus which was most likely what Magni was referring to.

Sparing not a second thought he rushed forward, charging everything he had into punching the wound. The instant ARTOS made contact with the stony armor of the Mauler, he sent a massive pulse of electricity to his arm, combining the force of the impact with a bolt of lightning through the metal plates of ARTOS.

The creature roared in pain and tried to bite him. John narrowly avoided the snapping jaws of death by quickly swinging onto the neck of the creature out of reach of its claws or jaws, hanging onto the scales. Now thrashing the Mauler slammed into the sides of the cave to dislodge the irritant, leaving John feeling like he was a canteen being sloshed around. The entire cave shook and suddenly John was acutely aware of the risk of a cave in.

Apparently during that time Magni had climbed onto Cobalt’s back and was instructing her on how to best fight the foe, something John only learned when he saw her leap a dozen feet into the air holding Magni between her bony wings to stab he lengthened claws deep into one of the beast’s eyes. The Mauler roared in agony again, and then did something extremely unusual. Instead of simply trying to shake them off or slam into the cave walls again it sprinted straight ahead with its attackers still hanging onto its body. The sheer speed it was running at was simply impossible for a creature of its size and structure, for a moment John wondered where exactly it was running to, until he saw the silhouette of the Toro Rojo in the distance.

The creature was hurt possibly more than it ever had been in its life by two different groups of foes, and it intended to kill two birds with one stone.