COI C220

The spirits send smoke across the battlefield, where the mighty beast fell. Along with the piles of dead preys failed to defeat the mighty, it groans as it barely moves. The goblin rider tried to comfort the beast with the best he can. The spirits tried to keep the beast from acting, but the goblin fought back. A rare moment, a time when this goblin removes all rituals around them. All of his powers lost and set loose, leaving the spirits to fade without its existing charms and trinkets. The beast roars out loud as it free from the silent groan.

A squeaky voice comes out near the beast, two little litters are coming to this world. The goblin feels the guilty that he brought a pregnant beast. The beast somehow able to hide it. It reveals its own magical rituals to the goblin. The voice of a mighty beast, bears powerful weight that any shamanism rarely used. A growl speaks out to the goblin

“You will descend a Horde chief from your restored tribe, bring my children overwhelming spirits of the home world. Bring the vengeance of why they summon us, even you. My master”

The beast fell silent as the last of its ritual gone, it can’t speak and felt relief after just happened.

The goblin can’t speak with the beast again, even with all the rituals returning, he can’t bring it back. The two little litters before him, where the beast picks them both with only its mouth. The two go back home after a fierce fight with the enemy tribes. Once at home, there where his child. The baby goblin reaches out with his mother surrounded with other strong beasts around them. The goblin shows his child the new little litters then told his woman

“Ceremonial message from our world, they finally separate with us. We are trap here”

The goblin woman already expected and told her child. “You look at those two, those are like you. Oh yeah, my man. What do you call these last batch of our ancestral creatures?”

The goblin looks at the beast that might fell into extinction if they can’t survive this world. A name, a new name. It will be better off not saying its true shamanistic name. On his hand, where he sees a piece of paper from a children picture book. It’s kind of surprising how it brought here during the tribal wars. Though this world never stops bringing any kind of living beings from other worlds. His woman snaps out of him, and he said to her

“Pu’ma”

The baby goblin heard his father voice, and engraved his very heart.

The rogue wakes up from the most painful teleportation she had ever experienced. Heist follows as he barely stands up. They look at their UI, the place they are in is safe but the map shows they couldn’t believe where they are right now. Far from any city in the Kinteinnou region to the east. The place they never venture to from the elves’ advice. They look around in the dark as they used their night visions. Roots from above, then they turned to the walls and floors. A dungeon like structure, this is where they shouldn’t be staying. The presence of elven magic burns their runes, and luckily, they were protected with it too. Both of the two are the first to enter the secrets of the elven preservation. It is too clear for them to realize what lies inside.

Heist have already figure it out. “And I thought this works on scifi movies, but these, I’ve never thought in a fantasy setting to preserve life like this”

The rogue disagrees “Have you forgotten when we were inside a freaking ship with robots coming after our goblin friend? Damn, I hope that small midget is ok”

“Well, we are not done yet here. This place is also dangerous. This is east mountain we are teleported to”

“I remember they said they attacked here and already took it over”

“But it doesn’t mean they have the time to rebuilt this place. Rogue, this here is filled with elven magic. I can feel my runes overacting with it”

The hidden chambers, bind together with powerful vines stretches through the spheres and green crystals, see through or not, containing countless of creatures and seeds. The elven light, glows in green but less identical to Alga’s light. Its elvish significant colors ray around the hidden jewels acting like prisms to ray down the spheres. It helps the vines to grow, leaving no leaves but its stems and elongated tendrils. The silhouettes are disappearing as their eyes soon adapt to the vision in this place. They are in awe to see such exotic creatures sleeping into the air and hibernating eternally.

They feel the chill, then slowly turns to warmth. The change of temperature made them worried if it is a trap. They look at their UIs and there are no dangers all around. Then a warning notification pops out. The faint noise they couldn’t hear starts to get louder. Their abilities couldn’t track it, and they change their RAPs to fit the requirements they need to do it. There is none. Lost and couldn’t find where the faint noise is coming from. The rogue and Heist start to look around. Since there is no danger, the Rogue told him

“If we want to get out of here, let’s first what the elves are hiding here. Also why did the ship teleported us here too?”

The undergrown feels like a zoo from what they see. Well packed and stacked living creatures, seeds, stones, and other worldly natural resources they couldn’t describe as. The monsters are more realistically as animals, the stones look ordinary, the already grown plants are also normal, but once they reach deeper. They found the most extravagant creatures they barely seen by the many notifications blinding their views. The danger is sky rocketing. The description of each of those creatures are the same danger as the demons’ puppets. It wasn’t true though. Bits and pieces of their limbs were recognized but not as a whole.

Heist pointed it out. “Strange, I recognized those body parts, and they seem in a different size. Even during that siege, most of them were insectoid types. These guys though, on the body sense, they have that kind of muscle”

“Uh huh, being intellectual shouldn’t be your skill”

“Hey! I am just analyzing those creatures”

“Sure, this is a different world. Who knows what kind of creatures are they? Maybe . . .”

“Roar!”

Elven light is being pushed away, a thick of shamanistic rituals trying to force its way out.

The rogue staggered “. . . Damn, it’s the same roar. This one had a little hint of ritual”

“This ritual though is neither goblin nor spirits like. Hey, Rogue. How far did Illtended tell you about the spirits?”

“. . .” She thinks it over her head, with a little silent in between as she touches her lips

“. . . I can only remember only two, sorry”

She grins in disappointment of herself “It is worth to try. I’ll bring out my identify items. This is worth using since we might face it”

“I’d say we should do it for emergency”

“That roar pushes out the elven magic. You should’ve said: we’d be careful if that thing come after us”

“You just want to see it”

“You can just leave me. I don’t want to miss it”

“Sigh*” Heist watches her go

As they follow where the noise is, the rituals are getting stronger. Compared between the presence between elven magic and shamanism, the runes are able to resist better against the rituals than from elven magic. This shamanistic ritual is different from the surface. It feels something so wild within them. They check their runes already taken its durability down after they left the elven magic’s presence. The UI shows the results. It was surely the elven magic destroying their defenses, illusively filling their runes with it itself. Then starts to break when left its presence. Elven mana is dangerous than they have expected.

Another roar comes, clearer than the last one. The growl of the roaring beast is strong and intimidating. They used their senses to find its location, there was none. The sound though, it gets louder and louder as they reach the end where the rest of the path is quieter as they passed through. They head back, stop there, and look around. The thickness of the chambers is barely seen through. The presence of elven magic is incredible enough to protect these chambers even the shamanism is overwhelmed it. The rogue said to Heist

“Not even the demons would break it, right?”

“But we have seen other creatures with the same animalistic features though”

“Maybe it was before they got extinct”

“Now that’s too cruel”

Another growl reaches to their ears and look to the direction they heard. The sealed chamber as if it sealed by a green gem. The chambers start rumbling, as they turned their heads where the shaking is. Multiple different smokes moved passed above them. The rituals passed by as they form a circle to where the growl is. A magic ritual formed as the shamanistic drawings start to form. The Rogue thought it was a trap and tried to cleanse it. The spirits appeared against her cleansing items and eat it as the spirit fell in pain. She tries again, and more spirits risk its lives to protect it.

“Heist, we need to stop them”

“Right”

They raised their weapons. The rogue’s daggers and Heist’s hand claws aimed at the ritual circle. The spirits endured their attacks as much as it can. Their voices can’t reach them as they have no spirit keeper to speak to the living from their troublesome voices echoing nonstop. Both of the adventurers feel something wrong. The spirits’ shamanistic rituals were impossible to identify without a proper ritualist medium to decipher it. Their UIs only tell dangers. They know, the spirits know. The city adventurers’ gifts were their enemies’. Their only enemy.

“This is not good, Rogue. The notification tells us that they are freeing the monster inside”

“We should stop it before . . .!”

The spirits lost control of the ritual circle. Reminding them the enemy they seek so long, and how those two can’t understand them. The barrier, the adventurers didn’t notice and the spirits see what trapped them inside. The powers they possessed, it blinded them to act. The release of the beast is the spirits’ mistake. Their haunting voices merged with the roar. Both of them react

“It’s too late”

“How was it possible to break free like that?”

The elven magic reacts the same with the spirit. The raging power of the elven gods remembered the level of powers those two have. Being harassed by the demons for so long, its patience took a toll and allow the poorly self-controlled spirits to take the sleeping creature out from its chamber. Rituals from the fright spirit and many other forgotten rituals blessed the beast as it leaps out from the chamber. Its body left into smoke, its instincts turn to ritual magic, and its strength restored after so many years stagnant inside here.

The two feels their runes overbearing with powerful reaction against the presence of the beast. The plagues, the curse, and bad omen are leaning on to them. Their UIs have shown them the impeccable amounts of negative buffs. Clever tricks with certain time and action acted on as bad luck. Heist sees his runes are shaken on the outside but his armor itself maintain stiff.

“What in the hell are we facing with?”

“I don’t know, Heist. Guess we have to fight it”

The beast watches them, slowly prowling to find an advantage to pounce. Its instinct improved with rituals already know where they will react.

Counting on the paces it can do, the voices of the spirits are trying to stop it. The beast ignores them, its hunger is craving for fresh meat. The elven magic rose its hunger to stay focus to kill them. The elven gods are not pleased of their presence here. The silent stare, the beast sprinted away. Heist watches its movements, then he sees the ability it did. He turns around and told the Rouge.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Place your trap there! It will teleport behind us”

The beast pounces and goes through the chambers. Fast through and teleported at their backs, her trapped sprung, but it was too swift as it dodges it. The Rogue was shocked

“This big cat didn’t get caught. Heist!”

Heist uses his doubles and tried to fight the beast. The giant beast lands on their shoulders one by one as it walks on them as platforms. It lands and found Heist before he even takes another move.

“So fast”

It claws reaching into his shoulder and its mouth into throat in seconds. Heist strikes it to the gut. It curls its body and roll over with its fangs on his neck. He rolls over with it almost bitten. Then he surprises the beast with his strength and throws it over before it gets the chance to grab him again with its claws. The beast returned to its position. It prowls once again to look at the two.

The rogue sees how good the beast is “One big cat knows how to fight. It’s kind of sad if we are going to kill it”

Heist is breathing heavily as he touches his throat “Cough* Kill it!? It can really fight”

The beast takes the initiative. Again, this time it takes at the front unleashing the spirits of smaller predators. All beastlike spirits come out and rooted them on the ground. It charges forward with relentless fury with its claws. All hit with its elemental rituals with iron and flames. The two transforms into logs where many splinters scattered in flames. Heist and the Rogue reappeared in the safe distance.

Heist sees the beast is not finished yet. He forced himself to use his magic rune. Time stops in front of him in a cone, stopping the beast to move. Where rituals around it shows numerous of rituals waiting to combine with the beast’s claws and fangs, almost readying itself casts a ritual spell. The rogue stands corrected

“Know how to fight? I mean it’s a huge alpha here”

Heist sarcastically chuckles “If only this monster would use neutral mana, and it would be easy as that”

“It’s fine, one more trap from me and this fight will be over”

“I hope so, I thought I would use that magic rune to fight those robots when we were at the ship”

After being stood still for sometimes, they have a better look at the beast. Its indeed look like a lioness or a tiger. There are no resemblances now when they saw its fangs. It’s not razor sharp, and only gives small sharp teeth instead like a shark. The rituals give the beast a saber tooth tiger kind of look. The spirits around it gives a demon like presence with all those smoke and mirrors. Its body though is a big different. Its fur couldn’t cover its massive muscles, displaying its reason of its strength and agility. Even its eyes froze still kept its intimidating stare.

The trap is set. The rogue added a few runes to quickly trapped the beast before its agile reflexes dodges it.

“Ok, this is the first time I’m using fast traps. I hope you know how to predict its movement”

“Oh, it will work”

He snaps his finger and the beast steadily in motion as the trap is already on its feet. It sprung and its feet is stuck on the ground. As the time is returning to reality. They saw how the beast quick reaction as its mouth goes down on the trap and tear it off. The rogue reaches out her trap, but she was stopped by Heist

“It’s too late”

“You son of a bitch, that’s my new trap. NO!”

Time is slowly setting in, the sudden rip off from her trap went flying to the air. It broke it but it wasn’t enough for it to escape. The trap expands and sink to its feet. Down to its legs where it can’t move. The rogue sobs at her trap while Heist cheers their achievement.

“We did it”

“Sob* Fuck you!”

“Oh, don’t be that way, we managed to . . . It wasn’t enough?”

The rogue raises her head as she suddenly stops crying

“That ritual bullshit”

The beast pulls itself out with the earth spirit. It was no use. The beast is a shamanistic monster. Heist used another of his rune item. The beast stops again in time and they fled.

They run away as fast as they could. Their UI had already scanned the area and reveal them the map to where they need to go. They made it to the door and its lock. Heist said to her

“I’ll be unlocking the door. Distract it with your traps”

The rogue was reluctant “Ugh”

But she had no choice “Fine!”

The beast starts to move again. The spirits are still trying to stop the beast. The beast lays down on the ground. Starts to crawl down and rolls over, it starts to stretch as its body beginning to naturally returning its strength. Its mouth moves and finally roars. Its own shamanistic ritual casts out. The ritual spell sends forth at them. The rouge sees the roar is coming and the sound of the wave blown off her traps and herself.

Heist feels something is trembling as he feels light. The roar reaches him and blown away from the door. They flown in different direction. The beast reaches them as it walks carefully where the traps are everywhere. The beast is not alone, it brought a few more actual predators from the chambers. They charge forward, trapped by Rogue’s traps or moved passed it, its ferocious nature filled with rituals

“Damn it, one of the monsters are escaping”

“Shit! That cat moves fast”

“Growl*”

“Shit! Shit! Shit! It recovers so fast”

“It’s the Alga’s light, it will recover fast when they got exposed from it. Agh!”

Then suddenly, a big sound is coming from the door. It opened, and Silfa appeared to see her two friends are here. Along with Puma standing in awe to see the beast here. When Silfa gets there, the fight was already over. Both of them lying on the ground as they see Silfa. The rogue waves at her

“You made it . . .”

Heist yells out “Don’t let the door . . .”

Silfa walks in and something loud closed behind her “. . . close”

The beast growls at them. Puma watches its prideful form, not in flesh but its ritual spirit

The small beasts were slowly hesitating. They feel the presence of a powerful tamer. The sense of fear forces the chambers to pull them back before these almost extinct creatures fell into the curse. One left, the one where the spirits accidentally broke free. Puma says its animal name

“The puma”

“!!!” All of them where in shock.

Heist points it out “That’s a puma?”

“It’s nothing like it”

Silfa looks at the beast strangely. A strange looking animal that has little resemblance the animal called puma. Puma told her before, about the pack they did. The missing potential for her spirit to use is its actual trait.

“You want me to tame this puma?”

“Puma” Puma said it with determination.

Silfa sighs, she looks at the beast as it stays still. The look of its eyes, ferocious and willing to strike. It will cause many people to cause fear from its predator eyes. It wasn’t the case for her. She pulls out her inventory and gives it something to eat. The beast opens its mouth and gulp it down whole. The feast of the predator feels the sensation of satisfaction and she continues to feed it until it’s full. The rogue was in disbelief that Silfa knows what’s going on. Then it clicks her, but still confused

“It’s just hungry? It’s a wild monster”

Silfa answers her “Yes, and Puma here told me”

“Puma”

As the beast is finally full, the ritual circle opens again and lays down all around. Escaping the presence of elven magic interference, the beast is free from its preservation. Its shamanistic powers give it the ability to speak. Its tender voice spoke for the first time without pride

“I am the few of many packs. Different form of species through the wilderness and the domestic alike, I hear the spirits talk about you. Bear this challenge of my packs, and they will provide you the beast that you can easily tame”

A notification pops up and the list of different species and its details went in full screen.

Heist takes this chance and read the description as soon as possible. After reading it, he was a bit mix

“These monsters are great and all, but the requirements are really hard”

Silfa receives his message in her UI, the preferred beast he wants are mostly the dangerous kind. Stealthy and godlike powers, Heist is asking too much, and she herself knows that this is a pack. Broke it, and it will be free and roam as a feral. Silfa had already known about it since with Puma. She was expecting this would happen, but all this to save her friends include with a pack is real something.

The Rogue reads the rest and said to Silfa “All of them are impossible, these are all tribal challenges. I can’t believe when I’m saying this. We should go what Illtended told me before. A little cheat”

The beast suddenly appeared to her face. She backs away and the beast follows her eyes with great fierce. They both stop moving as the beast says to her in a disturbing voice

“Dare to, and I’ll show you”

“Shit! Alright, I won’t say it . . .!”

The beast already set its claws and fangs on to her before its pointy edges touches her skin. She response sincerely

“I’m sorry, Ok!”

The beast moves away then the Rogue gives a snarky comment “. . . This piece of”

Silfa feels scared where the rogue was almost got caught by blind view. The rituals it possesses is greater than the goblins are using. It hides the beast’s next move with its blurry magic. With that kind of difference in mana, no wonder why Puma wants her to have it. It shows to her about the strong rituals that can level their mana. Puma hears the rogue right. Its hand holds the Dujin’s spirit, ready to give itself to capture the beast spirit. The cheating idea is the only way to get that spirit. Silfa reads it in Puma’s dialogue explaining why.

“Remember what I promised you, master . . . haha. You got to love how I say it. Anyway, to open up my rituals to release all my trinkets, charms, and most of all your key chains . . . Haha. It makes me laugh. This beast is the missing part of my wholeness. The dignity of completing the Kes’thar’s as a whole. Cheat it, there is no other way. No humiskis have ever obtain from my lost world. It’s my gift to your wishes. I know you want to go to east coast . . . coast . . . coast”

The echoes hit her as she summons Puma into her shoulder. Puma raises the ember sprite, calling out the beast. The ritual circle of the beast turned against it and become vulnerable. The elven magic returns and weaken all of them. The small predators were taken away and returned to their chambers. The beast resisted by its raw strength and vicious competence. Silfa tells Heist and the Rogue.

“We must fight it!”

The Rogue responds “What!? Silfa, you don’t know how that big cat was able to beat us”

Heist agrees “That huge thing nearly chew me off. Why not we should pick the challenges instead”

“No, me and Puma had already made a pack. Puma is a beast tamer, and tamers choose who they want to capture”

“You mean?”

“Gulp* I think I get it. Heist, do you want another round with it, don’t you?”

Heist turns and the beast already pouncing on him. Puma jumps in and grabs it throat holding the vicious rituals raging into the beast’s head. Puma releases the rage and broke its rituals. The elven magic forces at the beast. It hits Puma to the air. Leaving those three to face it.

“Puma!” It disappears into the corner of the chambers.

Silfa sees Puma faded away, giving her the sign as she pulls out Dinju’s spirit.

“Dinju” Its echoed voice threatens the beast.

Its strong physique quickly lunges as Heist face it one more time. The two’s reflexes as much the same, the beast is getting faster, and Heist lies down on the ground after its multiple strikes. The beast turns around. It opens its jaws directly to his head. Heist feels the weight of the beast and the ground collapse. The rogue’s trapped appear below. The beast quickly jumps off the trap leaving him falling down. Heist lands on the trap on his feet without harm.

While the beast in the air, the Rogue rains down her knives. The tiger dodges every dagger thrown at it, and it lands on the daggers in mid-air giving it to move in the air.

“You got to be kidding me”

Silfa casts her force field into the beast trapping it in air. Where the beast lands on the edges of the force field, its claws ripped it as it almost broke through.

“Silfa! This cat is pretty dangerously cool. What!?”

The Rogue sees something inside the force field. A presence of a spirit comes in and subdue the beast. Powerful flames broke out in sunlight and the loud voice comes with it

“Dinju!”

The beast’s body flown back into the chambers leaving a soul left behind. Silfa sees the spirits are capturing it, then she brings out from her inventory, another stuff toy. She threw it into the forcefield causing the rituals blasting like a waterfall. It rampages the spirit of the beast with strong resistance. The spirits held strong and merged it into the doll. The chants of their spirit voices can’t be understood, yet powerful like the Kes’thar ritual. The doll is finished, filled with rituals and unimaginable powers it had, and fell to Silfa’s hand as the doll’s size grew bigger.

The doll opens its eyes. Its voice sounds off as the keeper consciously decides its tone.

“Meow”

It spoke cutely and its deadly aura gives fear to the Rogue and Heist. The two said to Silfa

“That was the fastest capture I have ever experience, to a godly beast no less”

“Still thanks though, who would expect your doll to be . . . Nevermind, the way you treated the Horde Chief’s soul like a baby doll is really messed up”

Silfa carried the big stuffed kitty doll into her arms showing her the doll’s happy expression. “Really?”

The Rogue smirks out of annoyance “Yeah”

“Laughs*”

After it was over, the three looks at the door closed. The same door that protects the demons’ army from entering. This is such an incredible experience being here. Heist asks Silfa

“So, how about the reinforcements? We’re in east mountain under the killer moonlight. I don’t think getting out of here wouldn’t be that easy, would it?”

“Oh yeah, reinforcement. They will take longer to get here. I am sure they are busy on other things”

The Rogue raises her eye as if something is fishy. She tried to use her abilities about Silfa’s intention. The big kitty doll blocked it with its stuck face looking so cute and silly.

As they focused on the door, they hear something playing drums from the distance. Ritual drumming coming where Puma was thrown to. Silfa forgot about her doll and tried to resummon it. It ignored her. Then the big kitty doll starts to squirm. Something was not right and Silfa proceeds to follow the drum noise. They follow her and quickly get a move on. There they see Puma hugs at the chamber

“My Puma”

It spouts words more than its name. It was the voice who it truly missed. They moved closer and sees the green gem chamber clearer. They moved back where their notification pops out in alarming rate.

They were backing away, but Silfa didn’t. She keeps moving forward as she picks Puma up, carrying the stuff toys in her arms are very distracting. It doesn’t matter for her. She looks at the creature rests inside. It was small, a really normal sized animal with its height below their knees. It is smaller than the goblin would ride it. Why is Puma so missed with that small creature?

“Ok, Puma. Are you satisfied with having a pet?”

“Puma / Yes”

The doll said it both relief and sad. They did what they can in this place, and they don’t want to stay for long where it belongs to the elves.

Carried away along with her new pet. The new pet shows its concerning looks, due to its new body can’t give a frown face yet. It was fear, and Puma knows it. The doll sees its tribe’s old mount. Constricted to a small size creature, proven to be chained into elven magic. The small beast, suddenly grew larger and larger. As the green gem loses its transparency, the sealed creature reverts back to its imprisoned size. It eyes see them reaching the door, still closed. Smelling the scent of Puma in spirit, its yawning breath roared as it fell asleep again.

The door opened as they about to reach it. The silent roar where it reaches to the spirits’ hearings and many of them blending into the elven magic. They burst out from the door acting like a gust of wind.

Heist notices it “You see that?”

“You can’t see air” The rogue makes a snarky comment.

“It doesn’t matter, we have to get out from here” Silfa told them as she is struggling keeping her new pet doll from moving.

“It’s okay, we will be fine”

Puma didn’t say anything and let the pet doll struggle. Although Silfa got her pet, Puma rather have this one than its own keeps. Dinju tamed the beast with the best it could. To tame a legendary beast is impossible, and Puma knows it. This is enough to keep its part of the pact.