“XANTHIP! DODGE!” Shouted Archeseus at the top of his lungs.

Xanthip barely managed to respond to her shock, She lunged forward, slid on the wet grime away from the impact zone. An explosion rocked the world, making her ears ring, as Xanthip even whilst sliding was knocked onto the air now scrambling for balance as the ground below her cracked and shattered under the immense weight of the Kings landing. A massive steam cloud blew out after its descent. Hot air billowing and growing in mighty leaps.

“Ru Wai! We need to draw it away!” Archeseus dragged Ru Wai up even as the dense, brown, steam cloud of blood, water, and mud enveloped them.

“With that steam there’s not much I can do Archeseus.” Ru Wai whined but still knocked an arrow on the bow he had picked up.

“How can I get you a shot? A clean shot.”

“… Only if you guide it outside the steam.” Ru Wai’s solemn eyes took in Archeseus simple nod with dread. He had asked for the man to die.

Ru Wai hopped onto a fallen tree, one of the many left inside the compound, having collapsed over the wall of someone's house off the side of the avenue. Thus he positioned himself ever so slightly above the heads of the men and women fighting to get out of the burning steam cloud.

“Consider it done.” Archeseus clenched his coal black spear tightly and rushed in. He jumped over and through boars, men, and obstacles diving deep into the discolored vapor.

There, in the unseeing depths, mounting heat stopped him in his tracks, the smallest of his arm hairs singed to a crisp. A heavy stomp rocked him in place and the flaring nostrils of a boar sounded out right in front of him. Its breaths of eternal stink puffed into his face, knocking his hair slick back.

Without hesitation Archeseus jumped, vaulting with the butt of his spear, he shot up and over the cloud of steam before landing on the arched spine of the beast. He plunged two knives into the base of its skull, piercing through its fire colored fur and scraped the tough bone inside. The Boar roared standing on two legs in pain before picking up speed.

Archeseus could barely keep his mind to not fall off, as is body screamed at him in pain. Flesh searing and bubbling from the heat of its fiery main, his combat garb mixing into his skin.

With pressure on one hand or the other the beast steered itself to where Archeseus vaguely guided it. It broke through the steam it had created flesh of both man and beast, chunks of it, falling from its legs, hooves, and underbelly, as it had plowed through everything in its path. Guilt racked Archeseus at the deaths this maneuver caused.

In its full burning glory the Beast rushed forth. “Archeseus! What are you doing?!” Xanthip saw her brother burning alive on the flaming back of the beast. She shouted in shock. She rushed after the rampaging beast.

“Over here! Look at me, Beast!” Ru Wai bellowed the Boar, an arrow thumped into its body, its anger reaching a fever pitch as these two humans so far below it, not even with a flame of their own could bring it so low.

Ru Wai knocked another arrow as the beast charged him down with furry in its eyes. He took in a deep breath and the rocking of his hands stopped. He let go of the taught bow string. Feeling the callused skin of his fingers clinging to it. His arrow flew true as the world stilled. It punctured straight into the right eye of the beast, digging dip into the cavity. Yet it did not still. It eclipsed the form of Ru Wai, and the thick bark on which he stood on.

Ru Wai took out a little skinning knife. He lunged into the air, screaming his throat hoarse.

“AHHHH!” Archeseus joined him and their shouts rose to meet the climax. The bark exploded into a million shards, splinters flying off like bullets into the sky.

“DAD!” Ru Shi screamed. Her bleeding fingers letting go of her bow and arrow for the first time in the whole fight. She was not too far away. She had seen everything. From the collision two figures were thrown flying out.

The two Patriarchs crashed and bounced off the ground like puppets without strings. Arms or legs twisted in impossible ways. As their own blood littered the ground and air in their passage. The two Patriarchs turned puppets stopped dead on the still standing wall of a mostly crumbled house, unmoving.

“DAD!” Ru Shi shrieked. She rushed forwards crouched down to her father’s broken figure. She patted him all over, fidgeting. Unsure. The Whole battlefield had gone still. Most Boars having died the warriors could focus on the horrifying reality of what they had just seen.

Xanthip rushed to the scene. Grabbing Archeseus and checking for a pulse immediately. She did the same to Ru Wai pushing the panicking Ru Shi aside to do so. Ru Shi fell limply on the grass, jaw slack, eyes wide and glazed. Xanthip turned around, she brought Ru Shi’s head close, her bloodied hands leaving prints on her perfect face. “Their breathing, their alive. We can save them.” She promised through her own despair, the sight of the two men’s bodies had shaken her deeply.

“We won’t get the chance to do so if we leave them here. Help carry the Patriarchs to safety!” Xanthip pulled away from Ru Shi as she regained her mind.

The King Boar was not done yet, it roared as a pig would roar, fire blasting from its pink fleshy nose. Orange flames turned to White burning hotter and brighter, the wind crackled and hissed overhead. The mane of fire flowing down its spine grew, flame encompassed its tusks. The Boar’s chest puffed out and a small crown of flames shone upon its dome. Its eyes pierced into Xanthip and Ru Shi with the single demand of letting its well earned pray right where it left them.

“I won’t let you have them!” Xanthip declared. Standing up with wooden spear and short sword in hand. The blood red tips of her weapons shone from the white flame of the King as it approached her. She dug her heels and braced herself once more for her death.

“FUUUUGAAAAAAAAAGH!’ Atlas emitted an almost feral scream as he finally pushed his way out of the rabble tying him down. His silver eyes focused on the Boar King’s figure, looming over his aunt. Blood marred one half of his face, silver turned to red. A Demonic rage compelled Atlas forward. He exploded out of the rubble and charged, heart pounding through his ears. His silk head scarf flapping behind him in the wind.

In seconds he was in striking range. Spear raised above his head, hands clutching its base, he pivoted at the balls of his feet and twisted his waist. His spear cut through the air, bending in on itself, almost like a steel whip it cut down on the King, it recoiled at the last moment yet a gash that left its nose hanging by a thin flap of skin still appeared on its startled face, its boiling blood burning the dirt it painted.

It tries to squeal in anger but only a gurgling sound is emitted.

But that wasn’t the end of the assault. Eyes sharp and cat like, he jumps and spins in the air. His body accelerates to blinding speeds as he brings down his spear in another attack. He passes over the King’s head and a deep tear in its flesh right below its eyes splatters in the wind caused by his passing.

The Boar charges after Atlas lost in its righteous rage, its white flames burning in new heights, Atlas slides under the beast, before it even starts, with a free hand he punctures its belly with a wrist knife and carrying that momentum he carves its belly open from top to bottom.

He came out the other side and before the boar can even turn around to face him his next attack has come and gone. A most horrendous screech of violated pain that could shatter any glass or crystal rang out from the King Boar as its sphincter was punctured by a dagger, its whole body locked up in response.

Atlas jumped back. Relaxing into a waiting stance a safe distance away, a smile on his lips, elation at the devastating attacks he had pulled off, yet somehow the beast was still standing.

With a glint in its eyes the King stared at Atlas. Its face scrunched up for a moment and suddenly its white flames bloomed from its body and surrounded it like a cocoon. The smell of searing meat filled the compound and seconds later the white flames retracted having lost their luster. The Boar stood strong from within, its wounds all seared shut, its bleeding stopped, its might no longer wasting away with every breath it took.

And then the flames on its ankles, on the rim of its hooves, on its spine, and from within its body turned a devilish red before gathering around its two massive tusks. The sanguine weapons stood hellishly poised and proud against Atlas’ silver-ash spear. With one remaining eye, having saved it from Atlas’ surprise attacks, it filled its lungs with burning hot oxygen and stormed forth.

Atlas rolled to the side of the devastating charge, incapable of doing anything against it. He looks up, weapon at the ready only to find the boar already upon him, sanguine wisps of flames burning from its hooves like rocket fuel. He lunged aside, pants of flowing silk scrapped on the spot as he barely dodged the enormous Boar. He landed prone on the dirt and spun to stand, but with barely a breath in his lungs at the King came upon him. He threw his hands forward, clutching his spear yet found himself tumbling through the dirt, spear nearly whisked away from his person, bones rattled and joints aching.

Years of training pushed Atlas to move, the techniques and martial arts carved into his body screamed at him, and he obeyed. Still rolling in the dirt he digs nails into the dirt and pushes himself to the air, kicking off a wall he dodges the charge that had been already upon him.

Before he even landed his upper body was flowing into the next dodge as the Qi empowered flexibility of the Boar caught up to him more and more with every charge. He hopped over the same wall and the King bowled through it, trampling on the bricks and turning them to black dust. Atlas hopped through the glass window by the crumbling houses kitchen and the King kept chasing after him, relentless. He spun around the trunk of a hundred meter tall tree only to have to jump aside in a scramble as the Boar burned its way straight through it, its enlarged tusks of fire and blood not meeting any resistance.

Atlas hurled himself from the ground and onto the roof of another house which the King destroyed and he jumped onto the branch of another tree nearby only to find himself falling to the ground along with the tree right back to where he was.

Atlas blindly backtracked in stalking silence. A cloud of dust making him unable to see, yet also unable to be seen. All he needed was a hint of the red flames of the King and he’d know where to strike.

When suddenly the cloud of dust was blown away, leaving him naked. He found himself surrounded by fallen trees and rubble. The Boar stood a few meters away, facing him with a self satisfied grin. Yet Atlas did not give it the chance to gloat. He hopped onto one of the fallen trunks and sprinted across it. It groaned under the sudden weight of the mad King jumped on it, and the two ran on its body, fallen on debris, not touching the earth. They rushed straight back to the avenue. Above the ground, rising along with the fallen tree.

Atlas dodged and slithered through branched and leaves, but the Boar had no such patience. Like a kick in his stomach Atlas felt his instincts scream at him to dodge, he ducked down and hit the trunk face first as the searing heat of a great blaze passed over him. A Crescent blade of blood red fire scorched the air, and flew true through all and any obstructions.

Atlas stared back in shock and the King Boar did much the same. Sweat flooded his back as he scrambled back up. With a glimmer in its black irises the Boar unleashed another. Death hurled itself at Atlas and he could do nothing but brace. He brought his heirloom spear forward, and closed his eyes, unable to look at the fire bright as the sun.

He felt the impact, clenched his fists, and sensed his legs leaving the trunk. He imagined his body shutting down as he was split from his other half, his blood painting the air pink, burning at its hotness and spreading a fowl smell over his despairing clansmen, yet he was not sad. It had been a wonderful fight, one that had tested the very limits of his mortal body, the peak he could have achieved at that moment, having not yet integrated with the Qi of the World.

Yet , then Atlas found himself landing back on his feet, standing. Feeling. Alive. He opened his eyes and wondered at the pristine luster of silver his spear now held. Intact and cleansed from centuries of filth, its luster as bright as the flames that had been unable to damage it. All around him, a great fiery plume of bright red whimpered out into none existence, infirm, without any more Qi of Flames to fuel them.

He had not time to thank his weapon or his luck as he found the King Boar charging straight for him. He parried one, two, three swings, each one sending him further up the trunk of the tree. Despite the second chance at life he had been given strength left his arms and body at every clash. The King Boar was once more upon him. Its tusks digging down on the bark. Atlas blocked, spear as a wall against the uppercut, but this was a scene Atlas was all too familiar with. He was knocked into the air once more. There was no more trunk to fall back on.

The Beast charged, the fallen tree cracking under its weight. Yet it held just enough for the Boar to meet Atlas falling figure. The jets of fire on its hooves burnt out in this one final charge. Atlas moved his body as he fell. The Boar slammed into him, his sides caught between its flaming tusks, his skin burned upon contact and his body collapsed In itself as its half missing snout slammed into his belly. The Two plummeted from a dozen meters in the sky, they were to crash to the earth in seconds. Atlas grabbed his spear with both hands and pierced it deep on the Boar’s skull with all he had. “AAAAHHHH!” Atlas screamed through the pain, clinging onto his spear, pulling himself up with spear as counterweight, digging into its bones, as every cell in his body seemed to boil.

In a meteoric crash the King Boar slammed the hard cobble road and a great cloud of smoke rose up once more. Stones took to the sky as if a volcano had exploded, but other than the sound of rolling stones utter silence overtook the compound, the grand estate.

Everyone stared in shock. Archesues, awoken by the medics to try and keep him to life, watched this scene from nearby. Unblinking, he pushed those trying to treat him aside, through blood and puss he sat up and screamed.

“Atlas! Fulfill your Duty and protect your People! STAND UP! You have no Right to Fall!” Archeseus voice was hoarse, shrill. Yet he ordered through that pain even as his sister pushed him back down.

Suddenly The King Boar rushed out of the smoke, it trotted sideways, still staring into the smoke as blood doused its face, a new injury marring its face, from the center of its forehead and up its spine, it pumped blood over it head.

The Fire all over its body having mostly gone away the King Boar stopped its retreat and readied itself once more, panting, barely standing.

Atlas whipped his spear around, the smoke near him whisked away. He had a clear view of the boar once more. He took a loose stance, spear in one hand. His long hair sticking onto his skin, either on sweat or blood, he could not tell, Head scarf gone and he could not notice. His naked torso heaved. Two large burn marks blooming on his sides reaching from his ribs all the way to his waste. His flesh still sizzling, pain wracked his brain, assailed his will yet he did not falter.

Atlas sharpened his focus one last time, leaving only the enemy ahead in his mind. All else faded to black.

[author] Hope you enjoyed. On Monday Eastern European time, in the morning. I will publish Chapter 6, which will finish this starting arc of the Story. From then on its, three times a week. Commnent, Favorite, become a Reader and stick around for the arcs to come. Voice your opinions of what you likes and what you didn't. [/author]