Chapter 109: Death 13
A large, gray, and mighty hand caught a smaller, undead one.
Although seemingly callous, the hand caught the other with gentle efficiency.
‘Hey, man, what the hell?’
The light of Zan’s glowing eye illuminated the undead hand, to which the hand leaned forward, giving his friend its full attention. The two “looked” at each other.
Expectedly, the hand had nothing to say, for Quin did not have a mouth.
…Well he did, though the rotating set of circular razor sharp maws could not exactly compose poetry, nor words for that matter.
Yet, Quin did not have to speak. The rumbling spoke for itself.
Zan looked beneath him. First at the mellow swordsman, who now stood as straight as a rod, then at the wreckage below them, which was bustling and bumbling.
The undead hand climbed towards Zan’s shoulder, before enlarging and latching onto him in a way that almost made it seem like a pauldron.
Then, both Zan and Lloyd looked at the earth floor beneath them.
Thousands of freshly dug graves were disturbed, and although the ground quaked too, it did not stretch for as far the eye could see.
Sensing a gaze, Zan looked down, locking eyes with his former opponent.
“I do not think we are so lucky that this is not just some miniature earthquake.”
“Hahaha! Get your blade ready then, swordsman.”
“Whatever it is it seems to be pretty big, considering how—”
Zan did not get to finish his words, as a pillar of mighty flesh bursted out from beneath him.
As its body rose into the air, Lloyd bore witness to the sheer size of the thing that was soon to attack them.
His eyes opened widely as he felt a familiar memory, except now that sweet nostalgia was laced with a hint of fear.
Long ago on the edge of his family’s castle, he peered down below to see seven towers and seven islands rising. Right now, it felt again like seeing one of Everrain’s grand towers rise over him from beneath.
One particular tower was so close, that he felt like the tip was going to pierce through his body and send him into the stars.
It was one of the smallest of those seven towers, yet it casted an all-embracing shadow over Lloyd’s body. That tower alone had reached over two hundred meters in diameter, and over a thousand meters in height.
Now however, instead of the sun it was moonlight that casted over the gigantic thing, and that colossal tower was now a meaty monster.
From the wreckage of a ship that was thought to be giant, a mountain of a creature arose.
Its body was serpentine, but it was definitely not a snake. Chitinous armor pushed itself out from its eel-like flesh, and the creature seemed to now be coated in a crusty, white alien shell.
From above, Zan felt the waves of wind assaulting his back. The creature jumped into the skies in an attempt to push its body out of the earth, and the young man was lucky enough to go on a once-in-a-lifetime roller coaster.
The creature reached the height of its mad ascent, and within the moonlit night its colossal body was like a large void of darkness. Some survivors who were already fast asleep, had awoken to find a part of the sky was pitch black.
What they did not see however, was the flea-like existence accompanying it in the air. The driving force of the monster’s leap had sent Zan careening further upwards, away from the monster.
Waves of roaring wind poured into his ears. It was like going sky-diving, except he was being pushed perpetually upwards instead of falling down.
Finally he reached the height of his momentum, a few hundred feet above the creature who pushed him to such a peak.
And with the true sight of his red glowing eye, he saw clearly within the night as the “head” of the beast split in two.
“What! The! Fuck!”
The sight was disgusting. Zan saw the pink and red of the monster’s fleshly insides as it split. It was visceral and wet, seeing what looked like a colossal pale finger without a nail, suddenly split in two as the wet sinews connecting them opened and snapped off.
‘Fucking gross…’
Stranger still, however, was what came next. In the same way a finger put pressure towards soft clay, a hollow crater started to take shape on top of the freshly split flesh heads.
The craters became deeper and deeper in the center, almost resembling a very wide tunnel.
Then, some sort of bone-like material started to surface out of them like tumors. They came endlessly— more, and more came without pattern or reason. Zan soon witnessed a swirling cyclone of jagged growth as the craters became deeper into sets of trenches.
It was only until the seventh maw was made did Zan come to the conclusion that the creature was forming mouths.
Disgusting. And extremely, viciously dangerous.
The two trenches full of swirling teeth were both at least sixty-swimming pools across, and Zan definitely had no plans to swim in those vile juices that were sputtering out of the thing’s mouth.
Crashing tides of essence swam into his maze of energy pathways. His black blood quickened and so did the booming of his heart. A toothy smile started to form upon his face as the danger pushed his adrenaline levels to extreme heights.
And then—
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
And then…the crashing tides started to calm, his blood slowed, and so too did his heart.
A strange feeling emerged, one that he knew of but rarely met.
Zan’s eyes flickered like dying lights in an abandoned city. His red, glowing eye was flashing bright and dark, whilst his human eye seemed unanchored. Bouts of clarity here and there followed by adrift haziness. Rising in and out of a world that was somewhere else.
Whilst he was in midair, scenes and memories flashed within Zan’s mind. The first of the visions was of that voracious, irresistible hunger, which led him to sink his warped and knife-like fangs into another human being.
Yet very quickly that memory was overlapped by another— a more recent one.
A rain of bodies fell from the sky, thumping and cracking with such force that it painted the green growth red.
Then slowly red and orange lights started to flicker into the second vision, and another scene emerged like transparent memories superimposing on top of each other.
Zan still heard horrified screams but this time they did not end in abrupt splats. They were prolonged and full of agony all till their death. Needless to say, the transparent memory that replaced the other was Zan’s witness of his burning village. He once again saw many he knew, and many more he did not know, lit aflame in a setting akin to hell.
But the visions came relentlessly. Dirt soiled his calloused hands as two finished graves came into view. They were dearly adorned with flowers, atop a hill where the past lovers met.
Then quickly the scene transitioned into the young man digging a few more sets of graves for the people in his village that he did know. His kind neighbors, and then the mean ones. Those who followed him out of respect for his strength, and those who would go against him. Well…who in the past, went against him, that was.
Then once again, the scene transitioned. The memory was of just a few hours ago. It was him, digging thousands of graves for people he did not know.
By that vision, all the scenes seemed to have lost their color.
The young man shook his head left and right, he had finally come into himself again. The visions had stopped there, with him digging graves over and over.
And as he shook himself back to focus, the feeling before the visions reemerged.
This feeling…
Hesitance. It was a feeling that he knew of, but was rarely acquainted with. It was hesitance that was the cause of his lagging blood, and sluggish heart.
‘Am I scared!?’ He questioned himself harshly— almost scoldingly.
Zan looked at the two monstrous pits below. If it was fear of the monster below then he only felt it for a fraction of a second.
Which honestly, was quite incredible, if not incredibly stupid in the face of a mountain-sized radioactive creature.
Within the young man, he held tightly a proud and zealous belief. A firm belief in himself, in his abilities, that drove him to be unafraid. Or more accurately, it forced him to be so.
‘Not scared. Not afraid. So why do I feel like this?’
Unable to recognize the source of his hesitation and vexation, gravity inevitably started to pull him down. He plunged downwards, diving into the monster with little time to think.
“Formation! Elite troops gather!”
On the ground, a long-haired man started to shout orders. Essence entered into his lungs, and his voice resonated thunderously like a king addressing his subjects.
“Non-combat personnel evacuate! Novices will lead the way south! Seasoned warriors enter fifth shield forma—”
In the middle of giving out orders, the swordsman suddenly paused. Even with ten whole fleets and ten-thousand soldiers, the odds of conquering the monster were slim. Even with ten whole fleets they would be as significant as flies towards such a thing.
“...Leave.”
“Wh— What?”
“Commander?”
“Retreat. Go, now.”
“What are you waiting for? Head south, and don’t look back.”
“...But what about you, sir?”
Lloyd gave the worrying subordinate an easy smile. By all accounts it was perfect, moreso because it came from a handsome man. It's only flaw however, was that it was not perfect by virtue that it was designed to be.
Comforting assuredness and solid dependability radiated from out of the smile, there was not a trace of anything that could lead one to think differently.
‘When...’
‘When do you think, Guinevere?’
“I will find you, now go.”
“Lloyd!”
A worried voice shouted from behind, and it spoke with obvious familiarity.
“That’s commander to you, sister.”
“Now leave.”
The rain priestess noticed the shift within his tone. Although still gentle it now came with a sort of distance, and authority.
Most officers and soldiers would think nothing of it, and in an instant they would snap back into line. But the girl knew him better than that.
“I will stay to help—”
A burst of gaseous energy and whistling winds released from the swordsman’s body, assaulting and pressuring the young woman to back down.
“Ugh…”
“Urgh…”
A few creaking groans and moans sounded out from behind her too. There was more than one brave but misled soul who thought an ant’s death could delay a giant.
Yet, this was one of the rare times that the lax commander became stern.
“Enough. You will all be of no use in the coming battle.”
“...And the rest will need a leader. Take up the gauntlet, Lara, you must.”
The swordsman turned around to give one more easy smile, “I’m sure you will make our family proud.”
Before he left in a sudden burst of speed.
Lloyd flew— his speed really was like a strong gale or a whirlwind. An evacuating soldier saw a blur and then felt a rush of wind, before noticing that his blade was gone from his hip.
Speeding through like a shooting star, Lloyd channeled the essence of sharp rain, imbuing his sword with as much energy as it could handle before it's inevitable destruction.
In their make, all blades had a limit to how much essence they could endure. And this one was obviously not designed for a knight-commander close to breaking the limiter. Everrain's swords were top-notch, but Lloyd's original blade which could handle his power, was an inherited heirloom.
Lloyd reached his destination— a small hill that offered the most elevation out of the nearby surroundings.
At this point, the sword in his hands was screaming. In the same way water droplets appeared on a glass window, a violent storm encompassed the blade in a blurry, see-through aura.
A high pitched sound sang from the metal, and atop the hill, the swordsman was able to fully take in the whole body of the creature.
If someone carved out a piece of a mountain and placed it before him, it would look just like this.
A pale, moving mountain. Just the thickness of its body was akin to two grass fields, while its height reached almost a mile towards the skies.
Lloyd had no such ambition to take on the world, and now that a piece of it seemed to be going against him, extreme dread made him take a step back.
For a moment reality lost all color. No air entered his lungs, no beat was found within his heart, and yet…
…And yet his weathered steel heart resolved him once more. Color, the breath of life and vitality, disappeared and returned all in the same moment.
Bravery filled him as he regained his senses. He did not need to kill or even hurt the creature, he just needed to gain its attention long enough so that the rest could leave.
The swordsman raised his singing sword high above, and slashed it down straight towards that mountain of flesh.
A sword wave of resonant energy spread from it.
Thanks to the elevation, it took a magnificently wide arc, taking on the appearance of an expanding crescent moon.
It was like a tall cliff enduring a tsunami tide. The base of that mountainous creature seemed to take on a crashing wave, and in that same moment, tiny flitters of glowing silver blew in the wind.
In the past, the sword in his hands shattered into a thousand pieces when Guinevere beheld it for him to truly see, and Zan fittingly sundered the sorrow filled blade. Yet this one, could not even handle an ounce of his nor the pugilist’s power. The tiny glowing silvers from previously, were remnant, energized sword dusts being scattered by the winds.
Lloyd was gripping nothing but a hilt without a blade. The once sharp edge literally disintegrated after his attack.
But was this blade’s final slash worthy of being called its magnus opium? Worthy of its long life being sacrificed?
The swordsman’s eyes went totally wide the next moment, for it seemed like…it did. And disbelief was plastered all over his face.
The crescent strike he delivered enveloped maybe a quarter of the creature’s height; which no doubt was already a great feat— but the sword wave only slashed a few meters within the creature who seemed as thick as the earth.
Yet he stood stunned, as the creature started to split into two, right where he had slashed.
But then it started to split where he didn’t slash…
Lloyd had to crane his head almost 90 degrees upwards, and with the help of blue moonlight that seemed to reflect in an unusual way…he saw finally what Zan saw.
There were now two heads to the single creature, and one of the gigantic heads was slowly turning its numerous mouths towards the ground— specifically to him.
Within the dim moonlight he did not see the creature— or more accurately creatures. The mountain of flesh that was constantly rising out of the ground already took up his whole vision, how was he supposed to know there were unbelievable changes occurring in the sky?
Lloyd felt a chill. Not only from up his spine, but because a sky full of deformed teeth and pale flesh casted a dooming shadow over him.
The swordsman gripped his bladeless hilt…before dropping it. His breath momentarily stopped once again, trying to process the sudden change.
A hundred battles could not exactly prepare one to face a radioactive colossal…nor two.
The surroundings around Lloyd were awfully loud and chaotic, with urgent shouts screaming to run and the very air being torn apart by the colossal creature’s nosedive. Not that it had a nose. Yet, for the first time tonight, Lloyd’s mind was empty.
It was very likely to explode with racing thoughts soon enough, but that single moment of empty stillness…created an open channel.
Within the ephemeral and serene silence of his mind, a telepathic connection attached itself instantly to his very existence. In the boundless expanses of Lloyd’s psychic realm, a sharp hum resonated. Illogically, his blade filled the infinite space with its own infinitely expanding cry.
Of its own freewill the sword started to float, and even fly. This was not something it could do before.
Apart from its excellent essence capacity, his inherited sword was supposed to hold no other magical properties. Yet now it flew into his swordhand without even an ounce of energy.
A yellow tassel danced, and brushed his wrist, but he knew she was not there.
It was only him, and his newly sentient, thousand-shattered sword.