Nick knew that he had to run. But for a solitary heartbeat longer, he simply stared at the colossal creature, taking in its towering form.

The beast he had named the river king looked like some monstrous amalgamation of turtle and dragon, merging the worst features of both species. It ran on four powerful legs, long enough to reach the bottom of the pond while floating on the surface. A sinuous tail stuck out from the back, helping the beast to swim, and likely serving as a weapon as well.

Near the base of its shell, wicked serrations lined the perimeter, curved like the edge of a saw. Its neck and face were covered in thick scales, ending in a beak like a turtle’s, if a turtle was powerful enough to bite a car in half without breaking a sweat.

Judging from its fiery breath and the width of its shell, it was clear that the beast had created the charred passages running through the woods. It was an apex predator, perched at the top of the local food chain.

He prayed that it couldn’t run as fast as it swam, because the beast was coming in hot, surging through the water at a disheartening rate. He turned to run then looked back over his shoulder, trusting Sophia to pick a path through the trees. It was a good thing that he did, otherwise the river king’s attack would have caught them by surprise, ending their lives in a jet of superheated flame.

The beast opened its beak and roared, tearing leaves from the treetops beneath the intensity of its fury. A ball of roiling red flame flickered to life in front of its face. The incandescent sphere rapidly swelled, shifting from red, to gold, to blinding white within a fleeting handful of heartbeats.

A shrieking flare of danger resounded when Nick used size up, not that he needed the skill to know that the river king’s breath was bad news. In the heart of that terrible moment, he was certain of two things. The beast’s attack was imminent and would reach them from that distance, reducing them to skeletal ash like the trees it had carved its way through.

There was no time to cry out a warning. Nick grabbed Sophia by the shoulders and dove behind a tree. A fraction of a moment later, a searing cone of flame erupted from the water’s edge, impacting the nearest trees and reducing them to char. The beast’s breath soon caught the trunk they had hidden behind, incinerating the entire area in the blink of an eye.

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It would have been the end of them both if they were still standing there. But instead of trying to hide, they’d begun weaving their way through the dense growth. By this time, the duo was a good seven trees back from the space where incandescent flame met a wall of living wood.

The river king’s ability took out dozens of trees as it panned its breath from one side to the other, growing closer each time that a trunk went up in flames. With cracks like gunshots the burning trees exploded, as the moisture within them vaporized and expanded. By now, the air was so hot that it stung his face. Neither of them dared to breathe, lest it sear their lungs.

Just as Nick was certain that they were going to die despite their best efforts, the flames cut off, fading away to the crackle of burning timber as black smoke wafted into the air. He was convinced that the beast had just started an immense forest fire, when suddenly, every lick of flame cut off at the same moment. It was clearly the work of a powerful spell or ability. Makes sense. It doesn’t want to burn its home down just to eliminate some intruders.

That was the moment when the ground began to rumble beneath his boots, and he realized that their troubles were far from over. “It’s headed our way. Fast.” Sophia confirmed his suspicions as they pressed their bodies into a greater burst of speed. They left the thick woods behind them and stepped out onto an open trail, running away from the river king for everything they were worth.

They sprinted down a lane that had been burned into the forest by the great shelled beast. Nick’s heart hammered in his chest, and adrenaline sang within his veins. He knew that if the creature closed even a portion of the distance, if they offered it a clear line of fire to strike them with its breath, they were dead. It was as simple as that.

Their only chance was to escape its territory and hope that the river king lost interest once they were out of the woodlands. In short, this was an opponent they had no chance of defeating. A grim reminder that as powerful as they had become, the multiverse was filled with countless monsters that could end their existence in the blink of an eye.

Although they pushed their bodies to the limits, the world around them reduced to a blur before Nick’s eyes, they couldn’t seem to widen their lead. If anything, judging from the roaring behind their backs and the vibrations transmitting through his boots, the beast was gaining on them steadily.