(??? Pov)
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"Listen here and listen well...I will not repeat myself...."
In the depths of ages past, there existed a creature of unspeakable terror.
An enigma shrouded its origins, for it appeared without warning, emerging from the depths of the unknown to unleash its mindless rampage upon the world.
The beast, a towering abomination of a nightmare, boasted three draconic heads, each crowned with jagged horns and adorned with eyes that glowed like voids of darkness, piercing through the ethereal mist that shrouded its form. Its hide, a mass of dark, scaly flesh, seemed to shift and undulate with sinister energy, its surface dotted with countless eyes that blinked and stared with an otherworldly intensity.
From its hulking frame sprouted many limbs, sinewy and muscular, each ending in claws that gleamed with a deadly sheen. Its many tails lashed about in a frenzy, each tipped with a barbed stinger that dripped with venom. As it moved, the ground quaked beneath its weight, and the air thrummed with the ominous sound of its approach, instilling fear in all who dared to behold its terrible visage.
The first city to fall victim to its insatiable hunger was none other than the illustrious Primis city of the Ghis Empire. Like a voracious predator, it devoured every soul within its grasp, leaving naught but desolation in its wake. Even the city's strongest Warlock, once revered as an indomitable force, was mercilessly slaughtered like mere cattle by the beast.
Relentless and unyielding, the beast forged ahead, its insatiable hunger driving it ever onward. It showed no mercy, allowing not a single being to escape its path of destruction.
With each passing day, more cities crumbled beneath its wrath, and more lives snuffed out in an instant of unfathomable terror. The land echoed with the anguished cries of the fallen, and despair hung heavy in the air like a shroud.
As the body count mounted and the world fell further into chaos, hope dwindled to naught but a flickering ember amidst the encroaching darkness...
"I wasn't yet born at that time, but from what I learned, a great army was raised against it, all the strength of the Great Empire gathered for a single, decisive battle."
It was a gathering of the strongest warriors, the bravest knights, and the most powerful sorcerers, all united under a single banner with one purpose: to rid the world of the abomination that threatened to consume it...
Tens of thousands of warriors, their armor glinting in the sun, marched alongside hundreds of sorcerers, their staffs crackling with arcane energy. But even their combined might was not enough to face the monstrous terror that threatened their world.
It was said that in the midst of battle, even the Harpies, creatures of legend and myth, emerged from their seclusion to join the fray. With their fanged visages, leathery wings for arms, and the lethal tail of a scorpion, they descended upon the battlefield like avenging angels. In their talons, they wielded thunderbolts, their wrath unleashed upon the abomination.
The sky rumbled with the clash of titanic forces as the Harpies unleashed their fury upon the beast, their piercing shrieks drowning out the sounds of battle below. Lightning crackled and danced across the heavens, illuminating the chaos below with its blinding light.
"However, it proved futile in the end..."
As the battle raged on, hope began to falter, and despair took hold in the hearts of the warriors. Each blow they struck seemed to only enrage the beast further, fueling its insatiable hunger for destruction.
The monster was unstoppable, cleaving through the army with terrifying ease. Neither sword nor spell seemed capable of halting its inexorable march, and with each foe it felled, it grew more formidable...With every life it claimed, it absorbed their strength, their knowledge, their very essence, swelling in size and power with each passing moment.
The monstrous entity wielded its power with devastating precision, crumbling the strongest swordsmen to mere particles of dust with each swing of its colossal limbs. The mages, masters of arcane arts, were torn asunder effortlessly, their spells unable to pierce the beast's body. Even the Harpies, famed for their ferocity and prowess, fell victim to its unstoppable wrath, their bodies torn limb from limb as they futilely attempted to resist its onslaught.
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The air resonated with the sickening sound of bones crunching and flesh tearing, accompanied by the anguished cries of the fallen. Limbs were severed, organs spilled forth, and lifeless bodies littered the blood-soaked ground, a macabre testament to the merciless might of the beast. As it carved its path of carnage through the battlefield, the stench of death hung heavy in the air, mingling with the metallic tang of blood, creating an atmosphere of terror and despair that seemed to suffocate all who dared to stand in its way...
Its three draconic heads, each adorned with razor-sharp fangs and glowing with otherworldly malice, loomed over the battlefield like dark omens of destruction. From their gaping maws, green searing flames erupted, consuming everything in their path with merciless fervor.
Its eyes, voids of darkness, gleamed with a sinister intelligence as it surveyed the chaos it had wrought, reveling in the terror and despair of its prey...
"Truly, it was an unstoppable force of nature, a living nightmare incarnate... but as the remnants of the once-proud army stood in despair, their hopes shattered like brittle glass....the monster stopped...and two of its heads ROARED. "
It was a sound unlike anything they had ever heard before, a symphony of agony and anguish that seemed to echo from the depths of the abyss itself. Within those roars, they heard the unmistakable echoes of pain, hatred, and torment, emotions so raw and visceral that they felt almost...human.
They watched in awe as two of the monster's heads suddenly convulsed, their snouts stretching and elongating until they matched the length of the original head. The once smaller heads now boasted the same menacing appearance as the primary one, their scales gleaming obsidian in the dim light, with eyes as dark as the abyss itself...
"...and the people began praying... as they witnessed the heads attacking each other with savage ferocity..."
Without warning, the main head lunged at the right one, its jaws snapping shut with a sickening crunch as its teeth sank into the neck of its counterpart. The air filled with the sound of tearing flesh as the monstrous heads clashed in a savage display of violence.
The sight was both horrifying and mesmerizing, as the three heads writhed and thrashed in a macabre dance of death.
The two newly grown heads, despite their physical inferiority, unleashed a torrent of savage strikes. Their attacks dripped with a bloodthirsty malice, fueled by an insatiable desire to tear into the flesh of their master. With each vicious lunge, they sought to rend and tear, to inflict agony upon the dominant head that had enslaved them.
"The beast, you see, feasted upon the souls of all those it slaughtered, gaining their essence and strengthening itself endlessly..."
The last vestiges of the army erupted in cheers as they rallied their resolve in the face of the apparent insanity of the monster. Slowly, one by one, they retrieved their fallen weapons from the blood-soaked ground...
"But what the monster failed to realize, or perhaps couldn't comprehend, was that the memories of those it devoured lingered within it..."
Soul Steel and magic poured down upon the beast as it battled itself, locked in a gruesome struggle. When the main head attempted to unleash a torrent of deadly fire, the other two heads surged forward with even greater ferocity, relentlessly attacking and thwarting its attempts to defend itself.
"...growing in number, increasing in strength, melding together..."
The soldiers watched in disbelief as additional heads sprouted from the monster's torso. These new heads were smaller, almost feeble in comparison, yet they thrashed about frenetically, sinking their teeth into the largest head. Still, undeterred by the grotesque display before them, they pressed on with their assault. Swords clashed against scales, spells erupted in bursts of arcane energy, and arrows whistled through the air, finding their marks amidst the chaos.
"They were suppressed in the beginning, affected by the beast's neverending hunger...until they broke free...and they fought back..."
The main head bellowed in frustration as its own body rebelled against itself. These additional heads were no longer truly human; they were fragments of the monster that deluded themselves into believing they were human, having ingested countless lives, memories, and emotions...
"The creature consumed everything it encountered, and in doing so, it descended into madness..."
But the monster still held to its sanity...the main part of it at least, and the memories that cursed it were also its greatest boon...
With a final bellow, the main head made a decision that defied its insatiable hunger for the first time in its existence...it decided to flee from battle.
With its resolve firm, the main head disregarded the six pesky appendages attempting to overpower its will and transformed its back scales into formidable black leathery wings.
As the creature took to the skies, its massive wings casting eerie shadows over the battlefield, the soldiers watched with a mixture of solemnity and relief. Their expressions bore the weight of the losses suffered, the lives sacrificed in the futile struggle against the beast. Yet, amidst the somber atmosphere, there was also a sense of relief, a collective exhale of breath as they realized they themselves were still alive, still standing amidst the carnage...
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"But just as they feared, the monster kept on living, and it..."
"Wait a bit. I have a question." An intrusive voice echoed through the hall, interrupting the flow of memories that had begun to surface from the depths of my fragmented mind.
Wishing I could exhale a weary sigh, I summoned forth my strength of will, focusing my attention downward through the tether that bound me to my avatar. Through its eyes, I glimpsed the source of my annoyance, an otherworldly demon who, by all accounts, should have met his demise by my very own hand, yet had somehow eluded fate's grasp through a combination of threats and promises...that I...we could not afford to ignore...
Even though wiping the smile on its reattached head was becoming more and more tempting as time passed.
"You keep referring to yourself as if you were a citizen of Old Ghis who learned about this nightmarish beast through stories and books...but that's a very weak lie and you know it..." the demon remarked, his voice laced with a hint of amusement.
"You were one of the heads who emerged from the Beast, weren't you, Miss Maiden?
I brushed off the demon's attempt to probe my emotions, resisting the urge to lash out at his audacity. Beneath his feigned amusement, I could see a calculated curiosity, a desire to unravel the depths of my being. But I refused to indulge his inquiries further. The game of answering questions had concluded, and I saw no reason to continue entertaining him besides the bare minimum agreed upon...
"As I was saying..." My ethereal voice reverberated through the hall once more, and the demon appeared content to merely listen, displaying no hint of shame for its actions...
"The monster persisted in its existence, and the newly emerged consciousnesses...we...continued to oppose it from within...until one day..."
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A.N :
"I don't stop when I'm tired, I stop when I'm done." - David Goggins