The second envoy of the King took the limelight. A 3.5-meter tall man with red bird legs, and a human top half, with great white and black wings spreading from his back like a stiff cape.
With a red beak of a stork, he announced:
“I am ruling over today's congregation of the council. We have gathered to inquire about the sources of disturbance in the main parts of the sewers under our glorious city. We are accusing, and have come to judge Monsoon the Granite Shelled. We seek to know what caused the destruction in the bowels of the city, and why was it allowed to do so. Why was your duty not conducted properly? What say you, Under Dweller?”
Tens of gazes tried to pressure him into yielding his answer. He would not be so easily swayed as he was before.
Never again.
He took his time before he answered, seeming disinterested to his viewers. He rejoiced in the anger it caused them.
“I told you this multiple times, that I cannot handle the level 3 outbreaks alone, your secret disposal sites and laboratories pollute my domain so much that it is barely functional as it is, wha-“
“Lies! All underground facilities are registered and legal!”
“Yes!”” Yeah!”
He just waited in silence until those fake cries of outrage stopped. He met each of the screamers with a pitiful gaze full of disdain.
*Liars…*
He exhaled.
“As I was saying, even the 2 levels that are under my control are strained. The unmanaged Stomach and whatever now lies beneath it was and always will be a spawning pit of disasters. I could barely get any assistance to disperse the Bone Rats Swarm before it multiplied enough to overrun it. And they are just vermins. All those other creatures nibble and claw at my barriers which you barely keep up with maintaining or paying for it, most of you here are behind on your obligations.”
He took a pause to let that uncomfortable feeling of judgment set in on his accusers.
“I am not a creature of Battle, YOU FORCED ME INTO THIS ROLE!... I try to keep my domain safe and conductive to your needs but I warned you such time will come when something will rise from the depths ready to tear at your throats.”
“But what was it!?” The consul demanded to know.
“…two creatures.”
“Just two?! Do you think us fools?”
“… The first one is a mutated variant of a Bone Rat, almost a fully formed Bone Knight Slasher Rat.”
Sounds of hisses and surprised inhales could be heard.
“A variant? But we quelled the Rat plague before it spread!”
“Not good enough apparently. What you did manage to do was to make the dispersed few witness grand magic, absorb in panic, and strive for survival. It must have developed rapidly under that stimulus and escaping from other predators managed to squeeze through a damaged throat into the second level.” He said with an emotionless tone.
“Still, he was not yet a king, it would stomp a pitiful bug like you if it had time to fully develop,” said the older Atlantian, full of spite.
“You said there was another creature, what was it?! To wreck this kind of havoc… a Gritt Worm?! Or the Magma Mole?” The consul wondered out loud.
Monsoon moved his gaze from the Spork Man onto the younger Atlantian. He wanted to relish this moment.
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“VOID” he uttered this one word, and the whole room fell silent. His own wounds inflamed under his carapace.
The younger Atlantian twitched, all color draining from his face. His arm subconsciously traveled to his broken crown and the clouded eye.
His father clenched his clawed fists so hard they pierced his palms, with the sound of sandpaper scraping against stone. Cables of muscles writhed under his skin as his forearms twitched in anger.
He looked with disdain at his son, and as he looked back at Monsoon and noticed his smirk, his anger exploded.
“LIES!” he screamed and the hall shook, the sound wave rippling the air.
The group became distressed, they whispered among themselves with a mixture of emotions filling the air.
A hooded figure in a cloak of tattered, stitched-together skin that stood at the back of the hall lifted his head hearing that. As his head raised, light shone, revealing his scarred mouth and nose that had one nostril cut open.
He just smirked at Monsoon, revealing yellow, broken teeth that were visibly sharpened and covered in spit and fresh blood. He licked his dry, cracked, purple lips and bowed his head a bit, then soundlessly disappeared in a slash of reality that opened where he stood.
The commotion was stopped with three stomps of the heel coming from the stork consul. The Followers of the Slavic Gods were distraught the most, they share the most history with those that snuff out light.
“PROCEED.” Demanded the stork, trying to keep up his royal visage.
“I don’t know what It was, my mind hurts even remembering it, I found it as It was feeding on the barely alive Bone Rat, it ripped flesh in chunks methodically, feeding on the pain just as much as on the meat. It attacked me as soon as it noticed me, it took the power of my whole domain to crush it. It had no form, it coiled and transformed, it pierced through wards and stone alike, with no resistance.”
“PROOF! SHOW US PROOF” Some accusers demanded.
“I can’t project my memories, just witnessing it tore at my mind. But here, if you so demand.”
He rustled his armor, and moved slowly, sliding off his throne with the sound of grating stone. Shakily retaining balance he stood upright. His limbs creaked under the strain and his grated shell fell down like dust. He released all hold on the Void Infected wounds.
They flared to life, and with a vengeance, they Deepened and started slowly spreading across the flesh, slowly yet surely. From them, wisps of black smoke traveled outwards in the air, cracking the reality and causing it to form small shatters.
“UNGODLY FILTH, BEGONE!” screamed the 12-eyed messenger of the Church. From all eyes pulsed a golden light wave that washed over Monsoon, dousing the Embers of the Empty, and frying his shell to crisp, cauterizing his flesh. He hissed in pain as the Void got overpowered and purified. As his flesh released smoke and he trembled from pain, the Atlantian smiled at the suffering as golden light settled in the wounds and hissed loudly, boiling the flesh it landed on.
No one commented on the Violation of the Council Law.
“Of course, why should anyone risk offending them for me, it's just the law…” Monsoon thought to himself as he shook off the remaining pain. The Void left some feeble seeds in his flesh but it was much more manageable now. He closed it off in his energy.
He dropped down on his throne with a loud boom, his lower limbs still twitching in pain. He was drained and hurt. He really needed to rest.
He gazed upwards at his accusers.
“ I fought it off, for hours. It chipped and slashed away at me. I crushed it with my body, my magic, and my domain yet it kept standing up. It took all I had and more to put it down. I collapsed over half of my domain. RUINED YEARS OF MY WORK SO YOU CAN SIT ABOVE IN COMFORT… it dispersed into motes of darkness after being torn and crushed apart. I can't be sure all of the infestations got taken care of, the body just disappeared. I can’t even scry my domain for it, it is untraceable unless the Void starts eating away at space.”
“So, is the threat taken care of or not?” The consul asked.
“I don’t know. The main threat yes.” He gazed at the smaller Titan as he continued. “But I don’t know what birthed the Void Spawn, or if there are more of them in the stomach or lower. Scream and yell all you want but I will not be able to check it out for myself. Something or someone started it all and, as the Primus Carta of the City of the Hundred Bridges dictates, it is the role of the Council to take care of threats of such level.”
“DO NOT QUOTE THE CARTA TO US, YOU BARELY QUALIFY TO BE INCLUDED IN IT” The Spork squeaked enraged as the anger took the better of him. He did not handle disrespect of his authority that well.
With a rustle of its feathers, it started pecking at them, a normal behavior for the Avian kind when they needed to settle down.
The group behind it started whispering to each other.
As the birdman stopped its grooming, it announced what conclusion it had come to.
“BY THE WILL OF MAJORITY, MEASURED BY THE DOMAIN OF THE COUNCIL, SHARED THOUGHTS AND INTENTS, CAST JUDGEMENT UPON THE TRANSGRESSION AND THE TRANSGRESSOR. YOU WILL REBUILD THE SEWERS ON YOUR OWN, WITHOUT ANY FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM US. IT IS YOU WHO HAVE FAILED TO KEEP THEM SUFFICIENTLY PROTECTED SO IT IS YOU WHO WILL PAY THE PRICE.”
It said casting a disdaining look at the tired, old man. Raising its wings high and spreading them wide, it boomed with a high-pitched voice.
“THE COUNCIL WILL GATHER, AND SEND A UNIFIED EXPEDITION TO THE BOWELS. TO CLEANSE AND TO PURGE. WE WILL NOT ALLOW FOR THIS GREAT CITY TO BE INFESTED BY MINDLESS BEAST OF DESTRUCTION. ALL MEMBERS WILL BE NOTIFIED OF THEIR DUTY AND SPECIFICS. PREPARE YOUR SOLDIERS, WE ARE MARCHING TO THE DEPTHS SOON.”
As the domain of the council retracted into the emblem of the now drained-of-life cultists, its husk dropped with a rustle to the ground. Lifeless and drained of energy.
The Stork Counselor sent a message through a mind bridge to the Judged:
“This is the last straw you filthy beast, one more failure and I will make sure you are dead. The Council has no need for useless animals to keep as pets.”
The group slowly turned and walked out through the gates, leaving only the Atlantians and the Crab in the Feast Hall. The Patriarch of Atlantians stood in quiet, unreadable until the last of the council members left.
Once the Hall emptied, he slowly walked towards the old man on the throne. He bent down to it, putting one massive arm on his shoulder and the second one behind him, on his carapace.
The sword-like teeth grazed against the ear of the tired, scared man. He heard a whisper.
“I see you are quite interested in my boy, don’t know what you’re planning but…”
He crushed his collarbone and shoulder effortlessly, armor and bone cracking like brittle glass.
“REMEMBER WHERE YOU BELONG.”
He intoned deeply, the whisper almost being drowned in the noise Monsoons shell made as The Giant pushed down on it, crushing the Throne to dust, smashing him into the floor with his legs sprawled on the ground.
The shell cracked effortlessly, the talons digging deep, and from the place they dug in, a spiderweb of cracks spread all around it, with greenish ichor bursting from it and seeping slowly on the tiles as Monsoon tried not to scream in pain.
He didn’t want to give this sadist any more satisfaction.
The Titan stood up and wiped his blood-stained claws on the hurt man's chest. He turned back and motioned at his madly smiling son that it was time to go.
The pair left the Hall chatting about their plans for the evening, leaving the badly wounded man to tremble in rage and indignity alone, in silence.