The smug dwarf turns around, jaws snapping shut on his head. His body goes limp and blood bursts from the gaps of the creature's maw, mere seconds before it raises its head and start swallowing him whole. Another mage at his side turns and tries to get away, screaming in confusion and dismay before a spear-like tail skewers through his chest and lifts him off the ground. As unfortunate as their fates are, both of them suffer the quickest deaths; another beast pounces on one of the casters, pinning it with one set of arms whilst its lower arms dig into his stomach. Compared to the non-magical scum who fought near the shore, the Blood Tribe is ensuring that all of them feed these beasts the weak.
Ronin watches one of the beasts break formation and dash toward him, its tiger-like form easily distinguishable from the other beasts covered in blood. It stood taller than Ronin and its blue-black pelt normally allows it to hunt at night and along bodies of water in the Land of Stagnation; compared to most beasts that hunt in open plains, this animal normally hunts those who let their guard down while bathing in their earliest days.
A Blugera. Fifth-stage Evolutionary Beast.
Ronin tilts his sword and slides his left foot back, extending his right hand forward. Mist-like SP seeps from his palm, wrapping around the guard and washing over the blade from the base to its slanted tip. It has been months and his whole body aches as he primes his skill, mentally reading the notifications sitting almost transparent in the corner of his vision.
Three.
His blade hand turns fourty-five degrees, the blade facing outward. The blugera was around fifty feet away.
Two.
Cries as monsters descend on the last remnants of the magically gifted convicts fill his ears, all the while ignoring the non-gifted people fleeing towards the shore's cliffs. Twenty feet.
One.
The blugera roars, showing off its shark-like set of teeth and upperjaw's fangs before it leaps. Its lunge carries to forward faster than its sprint, covering the last ten feet and getting within inches of Ronin's face.
Iai Kinetic Strike is now ready.
The swordsman's sword and arm vanish from normal sight; to untrained eyes, it looks as if his arm teleports into swung position, yet the blugera's body splits from nose to tip of its tail no differently than if it had been cut. The kinetic force of his blade's strike sends its body's halves sailing away before the blood spills, leaving his sword completely unbloodied and the man untouched.
But the strike's effects on his body are immediate, tremors rattling through his muscles and his burlap rags tearing at the seams. Ronin reaches up and grabs the hilt of the sword, feeling his vision shake uncontrollably and just trying to keep standing.
Fuck. All I can muster is one? If it's like this, I-
Something pulls on the back of his collar, snapping him out of it. Ronin turns his head, seeing the worried face of another prisoner.
"Come on," he yells, the runtish blonde yells. Even with all the grime and dirt on him, his features would pass for a woman if not for his presence on these ships. "D-Don't stand here! The cliffs!"
"The cliffs won't work," Ronin growls, turning his gaze back just as the beast who ate the dwarf pulls away from the crowd. "That's what this hazing is about. You all saw the message: survive. But if we try to push to the cliffs..."
Ronin didn't finish his answer, knowing that the lad is looking back at this very moment.
The second thing that nobles learned about the Land of Stagnation is that its cliffs are the most dangerous. Beasts and criminals stayed for the most part on its land, yet the reason no one escapes this place is the beasts that patrol the waters. Ships arriving had magicians able to use Master-level Bless magic: Blue Pillar Faith priests. These priests use their connection to the god to placate the monsters in the water... and as such, they can safely pass through the storm-ridden barrier.
But to anyone else, approaching the water is death: blue krakens swarm the seas and pluck off anyone who remains on the shore or cliffs.
Crazed fools charge past him, leading a snake-like monster away just as the chimera charges the two of them. The blonde boy lets out a panicked whimper, pulling tighter to his back.
"P-Please! Swordsman, protect me!"
"Shut up," Ronin yells. The sword isn't done shaking in his grip but a chimera is easily just as large as the blugera. "Let me think!"
The large beast's half-lion and half crocodilian body stomps closer, slower, and with far more weight than the blugera. Unlike the beast before, this one is nothing but a land predator: it has stamina and tools to be a reasonable threat to even a well-armed soldier.
Three-Cut Rift!
Ronin's SP explodes around his sword, making three quick swings in quick order. Each one cleaves a golden crescent in the air that passes through each one, hovering menacingly before the convict grabs the hilt in both hands and steps his rear foot forward, taking an overhead cut posture with the blonde cowering and clinging to his side. The beast roars, deafening him as it stands its ground.
Unlike the blugera that isn't born to be competitive with other powerful beasts, a chimera is; in this moment, it watches Ronin with caution as the noble's crimson eyes glare back at its black gaze.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Right now, I'm desperate. I won't die to you!
The boy sniffles, whimpers, and sinks to his knees. "It's going to kill us!"
Chimera or not, Ronin curses his luck that the gods gave him a burden to suffer this sad excuse for a man. Blue Pillar saw the law as pivotal so he created monsters to punish those who offend it. Most of the men and women sent to the Land of Stagnation are either well-qualified for this sort of punishment or ineptly unjustified.
Memories of his past push at Ronin's mental block, making tears come to his eyes despite the fierce teeth-gritting scowl on his face. The moisture glistening in the sunlight seems to trigger the beast, too, since the moment he starts crying it starts running at them.
Fuck... fuck... RIFT!
Ronin's blade cuts down through the three arcs, the gold energy exploding forward and enveloping the chimera in purplish flame.
----------------------------------------
[Notification] You must rest.
The notification doesn't go away no matter how many times Ronin tries to blink it out of view. All around him, the carnage of the Blood Hazing makes it impossible to recognize dead from living. The lad clinging to his back is still crying but the tears sound like those of joy rather than fear from the last few hours.
Ronin is still standing, completely coated in blood. Some of it is his; cuts on his right shoulder from a tailskewer's missed jab have stopped bleeding but a bite wound on his thigh still bleeds despite its hastily made rag bindings. The weight of the filth on his hair alone adds an additional pound, making it vastly more difficult to stay standing.
Yet despite it all, he still cries. The sheath on his hip clatters as the sword finally gets slid into its sheath, invoking the runt behind him to pull away and breathe deeply for the first time since it began.
"Ican'tbelievewe'realive," he slurs together, rubbing his eyes and trying to get some of the blood off him. "Somuchbloodsomuch-"
A boom from the distant fields make him go dead silent, making him scream in terror as Ronin drops to his knees.
"Sorry," Ronin whispers, tiredly setting his hand on the haunch of a bonebeast he slew hours ago. "I can't... keep standing..."
The lad crawls over, grabbing his rags and shaking him. "NonononostayawakeIneedyou!"
The words stringing together so tightly hardly inspire effort from Ronin, turning his gaze toward the kid as he keeps begging and asking for help. Whether or not this kid is a real criminal just using him isn't something that Ronin can care about anymore. Instead, his eyes turn toward where the explosion came from, feeling his eyelids sink as a group of people came over the same hill.
[Event Complete]
The Blood Hazing is now complete.
All participants and non-participants will now be awarded the chance to become a part of tribes.
"Whoa," one of the figures approaching calls out, whistling a long appreciative shrill. "This is a real scene! This season's stagnante aren't that bad!"
The blonde lad looks up, laughing and smiling. He starts running over toward the group before one of them raises a crossbow and fires a bolt through his neck. Even before he realizes it, the lad dies and slams the bloody ground.
"None of them are worthy of a tribe."
Ronin reaches down to his hilt, only for a knife to slip under his chin and rest on his throat. The group approaching laughs and hollers, just quietly enough for him to hear an indistinct whisper.
"Try to pull it and I'll kill you, Londel."
Hearing his name makes Ronin release his weapon, not shocked that the dagger remains. With the haunch to lean on, he isn't worrying about crumpling over and accidentally getting killed.
"You're... a stagnante... or... tribal?"
The blade pulls away slowly, moments passing before someone sits down beside him. A woman dressed in all black, her attire a mix of old cloth and new leathers. The dagger tilts and sets its point toward his face, forcing his view up to the young woman's face. Her lips have a natural pout and the tan of her skin makes her no doubt a native to the Land of Stagnation, her brown hair kept short as if cut with a bowl in the front and layered in the back. A functional haircut that lets her green eyes glare down at him. She doesn't reply to him but someone else crouches down beside her to grin at him.
And unlike the woman who was threatening him, the man's smirk and face are that of a conman. Pale as if he just got off the boat but his navy-blue hair is an unkempt ragged mess cut with a knife. The deceitful blue gaze, though, pierces through him and tells Ronin everything he needs to know about him without even seeing his steel armor's crest.
"The Wildfang Tribe," Ronin sighs. "So that's how you know my name."
The pair's other people spread out, checking the bodies of both the monsters and convicts. One of them approaches the bolt-skewered lad, picking him up and laughing to another.
"Yep," the man laughs. His voice is cold, flat of emotion but attempting to sound enthusiastic in rhythm. "A few of us tribes thought it'd be nice to pick up some fresh meat... and some fresh meat."
The man reaches to his own waist, pulling out a hand-hatchet and spinning its blade away to push the flat of the metal against Ronin's chin. "Of course, you stagnante sure were shitty this batch. The only one who survived was the noble... so it looks like the only group who wins is the Blood Tribe-"
Ronin tiredly pushes the hatchet away, feeling the woman set her blade on the back of his neck. That action alone makes the armored man gasp sarcastically.
"Whoa! Not bad! You still have spirit in you! I guess that explains how you were able to kill so many that you'd be covered in blood! You got a fire in you but you're not even one of those fools trying to join the Blood Tribe!"
"No," the new-arrival spouts. His gaze turns to the woman. "I'm not. Leave the blonde one. He's not the property of the Blood Hazing: he's mine."
That remark inspires a few chuckles and odd looks, no doubt as criminals and their descendants all consider the reasons for him wanting to keep a corpse. The only one who doesn't seem amused is the man and woman interrogating him. Ronin's statement, if anything, incurs an angered lift of the Wildfang's chin.
"You a corpse fucker, boy? One of those types with the Necromancy Element?"
Ronin shakes his head, feeling the woman relax and allow the guy to grab a fistful of Ronin's blood-soaked hair.
"You sure," he growls, forcing Ronin's gaze higher. The sight of his red eyes make the man grin again. "Because you Londel butcher each other. Let me guess: your mother?"
All the exhaustion in his body turns into a burning fire, the notifications rapidly ringing in Ronin's head. He reaches down and grabs the hilt of his sword, yet can't draw it more than a few inches before the woman's dagger stabs into his sword-arm. The man sighs and steps back from the two, allowing Ronin to scream before her thighs clasp around his head. The pressure outweighs any pleasure one might derive from it, the woman releasing the dagger and grabbing his hair before dragging him to the ground in a submission hold. Ronin kicks and squirms but the exhaustion in his body makes it impossible to get a foothold or grip.
The tribe members all laugh as his reality flickers and his pain overwhelms him, pushing him over the edge. Physical exhaustion saps every ounce of fighting strength left, giving the woman every inch to make him fade from consciousness. Darkness unlike the legs around his head seeps in as a single memory surfaces in the back of his head.
Broth...er...