“Jzanna life sign detected!” A commander screamed out on the command deck.

The commander startled Leete and the Prince out of their discussion about Kohn’s episodes.

“Where!?” He replied in a commanding question. “WHERE!?” He yelled at the commander when he didn’t get an immediate reply.

“Inside the vessel High Mage!”

“Inside…? The bay!” He rushed to the edge of the command deck, looking down at the humans that were just starting to come back in mass.

“EVACUATE THE BAY!” Leete yelled down at them, but it was too late.

***

The Jzanna beast was over 40 feet in length from head to tail. If you knew about how the Jzanna’s body changed with age you would be able to tell that this was a young one as it didn’t have any arms. Instead it had 3 sets of wing-fins, the nearest to its head being the largest and the others became progressively smaller the closer they were to the tail. Little claws were found at the end of each rib in the wings.

Its skin looked like it was covered in varying sizes of purple-red pustules and between some of the larger ones little scales could be seen.

Its head had a very long cap-like skull bone from the top of its lips to what could only be assumed was the base of its neck. Lips were just about the only skin on its mouth as several layers of teeth were clearly visible. When it was in space its jaw had closed shut, but in the warmth of the Dark Vessel it had loosened enough to see a long tongue with some kind of octopus sucker on the end.

There were no eyes found anywhere on the creature. Instead what looked like 2 pits were found in its shoulders and if you looked inside you would see dozens of smaller pits.

It truly was an alien space monster. And Raymond just kicked it.

“EVACUATE THE BAY!” was yelled down from the command deck.

Before Raymond could even react the monster’s head moved at lightning speed, turning in on itself at an impossible angle, its teeth opening and closing around him.

***

Kohn was slapping his ass at Ker who had thrown a spear at him just moments ago. For some reason he found it to be incredibly fun to taunt the lithe man. Before Kohn did something even more daring, a tone filled the room signaling a vessel wide announcement.

“All available combatants to the bay! All available combatants to the bay! Dead Jzanna has reanimated in the bay!”

Kohn was stunned for a moment, before his brain went into overdrive as the adrenaline kicked in. For everyone else time was moving at normal speed but for him the next few seconds seemed to take forever.

Jumping backwards off the shelf he simultaneously pulled up his pants while flipping over backwards while twisting his body in mid-air to land at the perfect angle to soften the landing. Then as normal time resumed he was running out of the room and down the corridor that he had just been chased down.

Time didn’t actually slow down, it just felt like it.

When he got to the bay Kohn was stopped by a shield. It wasn’t like the shield that led out into space which acted like a mirror because space was so much darker than the shield. This shield which blocked Kohn could be seen through.

There was carnage everywhere.

Arms and legs could be seen all over the bay. Most of the bay was painted red with blood sprays.

The ‘corpse’ was moving fast. Its wing-fin like limps were beating at the ground to push it forward while its snake like tail allowed it to stand up vertically and make sudden turn adjustments. Its appearance, size and speed in the confined space made it terrifying to fight.

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Members of the Falling Fist were trying to push it back while the Winged Order were casting spells to keep it low to the ground. Neither was having an easy time of it as the Jzanna creature was insane with hunger, quickly snapping at everything around it. Every once in a while it would launch its tongue out at pieces of a body, like a frog to a bug, before quickly gulping it down.

At the foot of one of the make-shift beds Kohn stared at the head of Raymond. Eyes wide in terror. Mouth frozen mid scream.

The Jzanna’s tongue whipped Raymond’s head into its mouth in a split second.

White hot rage filled his body.

With the heavy Arms that the Armorer had given to him, Kohn beat against the shield with every ounce of strength he had. It only flickered before returning to its original state.

‘It’s a mana shield. It’s made of mana. So just absorb the mana into me like the shared mana from the mages!’

Kohn placed both of his hands, palms flat against the shield. He closed his eyes to concentrate and tried to block out the sounds of combat that was just out of reach.

He tried to remember what it felt like to have the mana injected into his body. The image of his body appeared in his mind and then the image of the shield appeared too, but it was just as mana. Slowly he changed the images so that the blue mana was disappearing into his body until a man sized hole opened in the shield.

Two steps forward he let the image in his mind go and the shield snapped back into place. Mana was diverted from other parts of the ship to recreate the full shield.

Once inside Kohn broke into a full sprint straight at the monster. Borrowing the shoulder of one of the soldiers, Kohn leaped high into the air just as the Jzanna spun to snap at the axe men trying to get close to it.

Its skin was soft and squishy, making it incredibly easy for Kohn’s expert hands to find purchase.

When it felt something grabbing hold of it the Jzanna’s head whipped around, folding its spine at an incredible angle to attack the offender. Before it could bite him though, the mages noticing what he was trying to do and started casting concussion spells at its head. Trying to disorient it for as long as possible.

With those few extra seconds Kohn clung to its snake like body with his legs, bringing his arms together high in the air above his head.

WHAM!

Heavy metal braces hit on the smallest wing-fin joint, shattering its bone with a sickening sound.

The Jzanna let out a shriek just a slight pitch higher than its normal roars. Instead of attacking Kohn again, it threw itself around the bay, knocking over a few mages and soldiers in the process.

Trying to stay on, Kohn grabbed the broken wing-fin for support while his legs tightened even more around its body.

It shrieked again and again as it tried to throw off the human that clung to its broken limb. When that didn’t work it flipped upside down and tried to scrape him off on the ground.

That came so close to almost working that it sent a shiver down Kohn’s spine. But luckily due to the awkward position he was in, his arm was braced against the ground reinforcing his fist allowing it to penetrate a Jzanna pustule.

More shrieks came from the monster, while a vile and repulsive smell came from the purple-red slime that now coated his arm and leaked out of the hole he made.

Immediately the creature flipped off its back, allowing Kohn to breathe.

Getting his bearings, he tried to grasp whatever he could with both his hands. The one inside the Jzanna touched a soft bone so he decided to try pulling on it.

Another bone breaking snap and the Jzanna’s tail collapsed. It gave off a pitiful shriek of pain, but it continued to bite at everything. An unlucky solider that let his guard down had his arm ripped clean off before he was smacked fifty feet away from it.

Kohn pulled out his arm. Raising both arms above his head, he brought the metal bracers down on the other non-broken, smallest wing-fin. It cracked just as easily as the other.

With 2 of its limbs broken and its tail end dragging behind it the Jzanna was noticeably slower. But he didn’t relent.

Partially crawling, partially shuffling, Kohn made his way up the massive body until he reached the next set of limbs. He broke those too, but they took a few extra hits.

Now the Jzanna was drastically slower and the soldiers were able to freely stab and slice the thing apart. When its head came off a small cheer erupted from everyone, but the damn thing was still chewing.

“One more time.” Kohn was really tired at this point. Running around, manipulating mana, jumping into a life or death situation and being crushed will tire anyone out. Add on the 50 pound metal Arms attached to him and there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be tired.

Letting the anger take hold of him, he used it to lift his arms up repeatedly before slamming them down on the Jzanna’s skull.

Slowly cracks formed. After a little while longer pieces started to chip off of it until finally a big piece clattered to the floor.

Inside was presumably the things brain, but it didn’t look anything like a humans. Weird soft balloon like balls were being suspended in more of its slime/blood by muscle fibers that connected to two opposing sides of its skull. There were 6 of these things, each about the size of a grapefruit.

When Kohn ripped them out of its head, with the muscle fibers still attached, its mouth finally went still.

There were no cheers. There were too many injured, maimed and dead.

Silence echoed through the bloodied bay.