The world fell into an eerie silence and everyone atop the wall found their mouths sealed shut with horror as they saw the smoldering spawn of hell appeared over the plane.
Several retched in the quiet of the scene as a bare-skin face of caved-in, hollow orbits appeared first. Next, a triangular opening in its face acted as an insult to the likeness of humanity and lastly, the mouth - the awful mouth. A slack-jawed cavern of darkness forever stuck in a silent scream.
When its body had finally materialized in the distance, they saw it drag a long, pale arm along the stone while thin legs moved it slowly forwards; deliberately slowly. Everything about it seemed construed to provoke primal horror in the beholders of its pale form - right down to the second, loud scream that made the platform reek of fresh sewage.
It was the first time Luna had truly made sense of its name - the Monstrum. Even with one of its arms clearly torn off, even with smoldering, black, charred skin covering vast parts of its lower body, it continued to move forwards. And still… there was no Logan in sight.
“He must’ve given it hell…” Ethel spoke, choking back her tears as she watched it slowly approach.
Demoralized, terrorized and petrified, the crowds watched as their window was rapidly closing - everyone, except a tall man in a white robe. Isaac leapt onto the battlement and raised an accusatory finger in the direction of the monster - the air around him crackling with a static that made Luna’s hair stand to attention.
“This is what Logan warned us about. This is what forced our ancestors up in these mountains - behind these walls. That is what starved us! While everything we had dwindled - while we starved and struggled, while we waited to die out from stagnation, that thing ate our loved ones! Our caravans, our scouts, our powerplant Engineers - our Administrator.”
Luna found that his voice had changed. His hair had completely abandoned his scalp and with his hood torn back, he seemed more frightening than even the Behemoth.
He spat drool from the corners of his mouth as he roared: “Logan is not here. Make of that what you will, but look at it - it’s burnt! He’s softened it for us and we’ll be damned to let it finish us after what he’s started. Stop pissing and shitting yourselves and bask in the glory of what a single man can do! Take back your humanity - take revenge for all they’ve done to us. Tear down these walls and pelt it with rocks until there’s nothing left of us! And then, when the last of us falls, we’ll tear it apart from its insides. Luna - fire those cannons!”
She blinked rapidly. Throughout his demoralizing, moralizing speech, the people had begun to brim with life again - some were pushing the cannons to the ancient aiming apparatus’ instructions, shouting corrections and countermands until all stood at attention and stared at Luna - waiting for her command.
She stepped up on an empty box of gunpowder and raised an arm to her side, timing her shot. She hadn’t a clue what she was doing, but if there was anything Logan had taught her, it was that need bred innovation. And she’d be damned if she’d be any worse than him.
She waited for it to raise its feet before chopping her hand through the air and screaming “fire!”
The dozen men pulled on the firing mechanisms as one - striking tinder against tinder inside the barrels to set the explosions.
The mountain shook with the roars of the cannons, knocking several of the men off their feet on the reverberating walls, but Luna remained stalwart - even going as far as to smile as she felt the explosions blow a shockwave of air through her coat.
Large balls of iron soared towards the beast - ten of which missed, but two struck the monstrosity in the shoulder and head; tearing large chunks of flesh from it.
But the beast did not stop. It only paused to stare the black pits into them as if wishing them to see the writhing wounds’ tendrilous sides close the gashes.
Before demoralization could spiral through the ranks, Luna roared through the ringing in her ears: “What are you waiting for!? Reload and fire at will - bring that fucker down!” She felt a sense of power coursing through her as she watched the balls tear through it, splashing the planes with its writhing, shed flesh. This was it - her and Guy’s dream of reclaiming the world from the Monsters. This was a battle not only for her dream, but for his. To reclaim the freedom that they had lost - no longer hiding from fantastical beasts in the abyss nor behind walls. If they could succeed in crushing this horror, they could take it all back.
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She turned to see the boys still stupefied in the corner of the wall and roared: “I, for one, can’t wait til it gets close enough to cut it!”
She doubted it had any effect - that it helped at all. But she held up her gun, firing round after round in between checking on the cannons. Next to her, the other Anzanites were burning through their ammunition with fervor, striking the beast with wounds too small to see. But it had to have done something, as its feet moved faster with every shredding cannon strike and with every bullet.
It was close enough for them to see it clearly - the writhing beneath its flesh and the hollow, empty orbit. It raised an arm high above its head and set its hollow orbits on the partition of the wall closest to it - its burned skin bubbling as large chunks of flesh rained down to the mountain to spread shed, scorched tissues to the granite.
The cannons were now still, but still their most valuable weapons. Before she could order defenders to move the cannons away from the northern segment it was poised to strike, she saw that it had already been evacuated but for a single shape in a white robe.
“Isaac - mo-” Isaac raised his arms high above his head and as the hand came slamming down onto him, she was amazed to see the wide hand come to a halt a good meter above his head.
The mysticist roared with a fervor to rival that of the Behemoth. Even the beast seemed surprised to see its long appendage stopped by the small man with his mystical abilities.
The air around him crackled with blue-white discharges of power.
“We’ll send you right back to Hell, filth! Boys - the cannons!” He shouted. Michael and Marcel sprung into action, their faces still pale with horror, but Luna’s murderous glee had served to inspire them enough to break them from their stupor.
“Let’s make Bear proud!” Marcel roared as he pushed the cannon into rage and aimed the barrel up towards the hand.
Abraham took his place next to his Master’s side and raised his arms to strengthen the ward keeping the hand at bay. The stone crackled around them as the Behemoth lay his weight into the appendage, only to suffer punishment for it. The palm was blistering, bubbling and showering the barrier with rapidly evaporating steam of boiled interstitial fluids.
Luna was firing round after round into its claws, cracking the yellowed fingernails with every pellet. “Fire!” She commanded the boys.
In unison, they pulled on the fuses and blew the cannons, showering the flesh further up its arm with superheated, white-hot granite chunks that seared its flesh. Fire burst from their wounds, filling the air with a noxious cloud of black smog.
Again, the beast attempted to roar one of its demoralizing shouts, but to no avail. The Anzanites had seen the heroic hold against the powerful beast’s hand and felt the fire of battle burn in their chests.
The hand loosened from the wrist and fell down on the wall. Abraham and Isaac roared in unison as they threw the hand down on the battlement, shattering the cannons but giving them a trophy to remember the beast by.
[https://imgur.com/a/Cq4yeMt]
It reared back and as they tasted their momentary victory, it raised the long, pale appendage to display for all the Anzanites how quickly it could rebuild its biological weaponry. The stump writhed and bubbled, thickening to form another palm from which two fingers slowly extended - forming another, yet less potent hand. Luna was taken aback by the monstrous regeneration. It had obviously come at a price, as the one-flabby abdomen had now turned flat and famished, but its power was undeniable. It intended to fight them with everything it had until every scrap of its body was gone.
In the brief lull, it leapt forwards and crashed into the wall, head first - knocking several down the ladders from the echo slam.
It had landed with its arm over the wall - hooking it in place. Its open mouth of horror was now biting down on the battlement in a lurch, allowing Luna to see what was going on from its waist down.
Before her eyes, the legs were atrophying; the writhing beneath its flesh traversing from its lower appendages to fluff up its famished chest and, most notably, the site where its missing arm had once stood.
At the end of the rapid process, the only remaining anatomy below its waist were a pair of withered husks of cracked skin and bones, the rest of its attention set on growing an arm from the site of Logan’s dismemberment.
The Anzanites grabbed pitchforks, swords, pickaxes and cleavers - chopping and slashing at the arm pinning it in place. Luna watched in horror as the misfortuned souls who had climbed up on the flesh were quickly wrapped in long, tendrilous growths that bored into their skin - dragging them through vast openings in its flesh.
“Get down! Stay at a distance!” Luna shouted; a command the others were quick to pick up on as they watched the horrified faces of their loved ones disappear into the flesh.
Up above, Michael and Marcel had turned the next set of cannons on the face - firing them in unison to pelt the thin-skinned beast with yet more molten granite.
The explosions rippled through its flesh, breaking open vast wounds in its hollow orbits. Tendrils spewed forth from the cracked-open eyes; shooting across the platform to grab hold of whatever Anzanites were misfortuned enough to stand in its range.
“Michael! No!” Marcel screamed. Luna turned her attention to the right, where Marcel’s spear-wielding hand had been completely engulfed in the meaty tentacles. She raised the rifle up and fired at the tendrils - cutting through them with ferocity.
Isaac roared from the side and with a slash of his hand darted forth to sever a jungle of vines, quickly followed by his apprentice whose hands had come alight with sparks of lightning. Every bolt scorched and seared the growths - dropping them to the platform where they twitched and crawled, only to be stomped on by the Anzanites.
But Michael’s hand was still wrapped in the vines - with every cut, it seemed another ten tentacles would come to replace the severed ones. His hand first, then his arm, then his chest.
Marcel sprang to his side, the shield and blade raised ahead of him. Another few seconds more and Michael would be gone - eaten by the Spawn of the Devil Logos himself.