Grigut
Grigut is conscious, but hardly aware of his surroundings. He barely even registers as his body is pulled along by the roots and hoisted into the air, an angry Devil chasing his corpse of a body with the promise of complete erasure from existence. To finally free his ragged soul from his undying flesh.
The only thing he can really perceive is the words of the little gods. The deceivers that had led him and his people to their demise. Their words, spoken through the soul, are clearly heard and understood. Every explanation given by the Brother god, no, the Elf, because he is no god, to the Demon Queen.
He hears how his people were lead along just so they would be killed, turned into energy for a weakened god to consume. He hears as the Elf admits that he intends to do it again, to use Grigut like a pawn for their own purposes. To save the world…
His people would become nothing more than prey. The lowest of the lowest of prey. Life that only exists for the purpose of being consumed by the very earth beneath their feet.
Was this the fate of every little one that had died as they marched south? Every little one that had died by the hundreds to take down a single monster? Every little one that died by the thousands as they burned and conquered forests? Every little one that died by the tens of and now hundreds of thousands as they fought against the humans?
What of his children, his Sons and Daughters? Where they nothing but prey as well? Everyone raised by his hand and that had drank of his gifted blood to become something more. Are they nothing more than food? Food to be eaten by some god?
What of himself? Is he nothing more than a breeder, some domesticated animal destined to produce more of his kind, only for them to be sent to the slaughterhouse as he watches?
…
No.
No, Grigut is a King!
Grigut is not someone else’s food!
Grigut is not the prey! He is the hunter!
Like a smoking candle wick coming back to life, Grigut again feels his purpose return to him. He has not felt like this since the day that he swore his revenge against the Grey Demon. Back when he was still nothing more than a little Goblin barely capable of cognitive thought.
And as he is now, he is much the same as he was back them. With his mind torn apart by constant death and rebirth, his soul flayed and worn ragged, he cannot think. But he can feel.
Rage, pure and simple and blind. But also, the most potent of fuels to feed a flame.
Like a bucket of napalm thrown open atop the burning candle, it quickly explodes and grows, soon turning into a house fire, and from there into a blazing conflagration.
Grigut, hanging from a root in the treetops, with a roar so full of anger that it shakes the very earth and the trees around him, simply explodes.
…
If he is going to be used to destroy and create more bodies, then that is what he will do. Grigut will rage and he will rampage. He will kill everything.
He will start with the humans.
And then he will burn the //World Tree.
He will kill a god, even if he has to burn his very soul and destroy the world in the process.
----------------------------------------
Lain
I only have a spit second to react before everything is suddenly on fire. I had still been holding that compressed sphere of destruction, so I thrust it out to impact the oncoming wave of fire.
In a vortex of reacting flames, red meets black and violently cancels out, a hole getting torn in space as all the mana in our surroundings is suddenly sent spiraling off into chaos. Implosions and explosions tear apart the surroundings as twisting columns of mana spiral out in every direction; whole sections of wilderness being shorn through by the violent currents and either erased from existence or instantly vaporized by cleansing flames.
I manage to stand my ground, coating my body in black flames to weather the assault, but the tree I am sitting on can’t take the pressure. Its trunk gets shorn in half from below me, parts and pieces getting sent flying every direction as burning splinters. Caught the winds of chaotic forces that push and pull on my body, I am sent tumbling through the open air in every direction, getting knocked up and down and from side to side until I finally manage to smack into the ground. Digging my claw and shadows in, I anchor myself and wait for the winds to finally die down.
It only lasts for less than a moment, but my ears are left ringing and deaf in one side, blood trinkling out of my ears until my healing can repair the damage.
Slowly, the smoke clears, caried away by the wind as little sparks of light pop into and out of existence all around the area, red and black mana reacting violently in the air around us, destroying each other on contact only moments after taking form. The landscape around us is now torn apart and utterly decimated, with several meter thick trenches erased from the earth in spiraling patterns that radiate out from the epicenter of the explosion like a tornado etched into the earth. Further out, the pattern continues, with the spirals carving though sections of woods, erasing paths through trees and cleaving most of them in diagonally raising patterns. Anything that wasn’t erased, is instead burned black and charred, flames sticking to every surface and bringing light to the night.
Pushing through the smoke I stand up and look around, searching for the Goblin King. He is no longer held up in the air by those roots anymore, the things having been reduced to ash the moment he exploded.
Walking along the spiraled crater, stepping over molten stone and steaming mud, I search for his body. From behind me the sound of shifting earth meets my ears, and I spin around to find him pulling himself out of the dirt. He crawls out on three limbs, missing one of his arms along with half of his chest, only the left side with his remaining heart and lung being exposed beneath the remains of his rib cage.
Moving like a broken puppet, he lumbers about on three limbs, half of his face missing with only one eye showing as his regeneration slowly works to mend the flesh covering his exposed skull. Sniffing around like an animal, he looks around with his one eye and growls.
“RRRrrrrraaa… RRaaaaaaaahhhhHHhhhhh!!!”
With an earth-shaking roar, his body ignites with flame, and he kicks off the ground, running like a wild animal as he darts out of the crater and into the burning woods, heading south.
“Fucking hell! Get back here you damn Goblin!” I scream as I take off after him, my instincts screaming with rage as he moves further and further into my territory uninvited.
Sprinting at top speed, I easily catch up to his broken gait of an animalistic run. Moving to kill him again, I try to aim for his head, but he suddenly jerks and rears his head, his teeth snapping down on my hand just as I am about to stab him through the temple.
Teeth sink into the joints of my fingers and black blood fills his mouth, screaming in pain, I rip my hand away from him as I punch him in the face with my other. My hand comes away missing three fingers and pissing blood.
“MOTHER FUCKER!!!” I roar as I try to kick him, but he just jumps away and keeps running south, plowing through any trees that gets in his way.
Drawing on my shadows to speed up my regeneration, I hold my hand as three new fingers quickly regrow, starting with the bones before nerves, veins, and muscles flow over them and brand-new claws sprout out.
Brother is speaking as I go racing off to attack the feral Goblin King.
//Please don’t kill him! We need him alive still, at least for another ten years or so.
I scream back at the sky, getting more and more pissed the closer we get to home. “Then you should have thought of that before you sent him to fight me! I know that you little shits weren’t just doing this to save the world. You were having fun to! You wanted to sit back and watch us tear each other apart for your own amusement!”
//I mean yes… our intentions weren’t entirely, what is the word, Sister?
//Altruistic?
//Yes, altruistic! So, we were having some fun with it… But we knew that you guys could handle it. It’s the US Army! Of course they could deal with a bunch of Goblins. And we really did need the energy, so, we figured… What’s the harm? Might as well have some fun, ya know…?
“What’s the harm? What’s the harm!? The harm is that I am going to shove my fist so far up your ass that you’re going to learn what your own shit tastes like while I fuck your sister silly! You better fucking hope that we never meet, because if we do, you two are fucked! You hear me you little shits, fucked!”
The sister squeaks in fright, sputtering out as she speaks next.
//W-what!? Hey, you wou-wouldn’t do that, were still just fourteen. You pedo!
“I will rip your brother’s dick off and use it to fuck you in the ass, don’t think I won’t!” I scream at the heavens as I lunge for the Goblin King’s back and try to run him through with a spear of shadows.
Despite her not responding, I can feel her presence paling, like she just backed away from me in fright. The brother quickly responds, his voice sounding like he is a little pale aw well.
//Ok, ok… Let’s please not talk about doing anything like that, please? I like my parts right where they are, thank you… Uhm, how about this? We take the Goblin King far away from here, keep him away from you, and you promise to never come visit us, does that work?
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“No!”
//No?
“No, I’ve decided to kill him! Fuck you, and fuck your plans! You need more people that can use magic? Fine, I can make more, I’ll make an army of Demons and conquer this entire continent as the Demon Queen if I have to, but his life is mine! Take this as a lesson you little dipshits; If you ever try anything like this again, I won’t be playing along. I’ll break your toys and mess everything up! And I swear to you, I fucking swear on that tree you call a god! If I ever end up having to visit you and your sister, your asses are mine! So do not give me any more reason to come and knock on your door, or else you better get the lube ready!”
//Uhm… Ok, I’m just going to leave you alone to calm down for now, seriously though, please stop talking about doing things to my butt… Uhm, yeah… We can talk later, ok? Bye.
The connection cuts like someone hanging up the phone and I can feel their presences receding somewhat, though it remains hovering above, just outside of my perception like someone watching from a distant window, like eyes staring at my back. Now that I know what to look for, I can probably tell if they are watching me again in the future.
To further prove that they actually aren’t entirely gone yet, more roots continue to sprout up out of the ground and attempt to grab the Goblin King. The wooden roots barely slow him down as he just burns his way through them, ripping and tearing them apart with flaming teeth and claws like a wild animal.
Burning away any roots that try to slow me down, I continue to attack his fleeing back, but her either dodges out of the way or tanks the attack. With another roar, he explodes forward, a burst of flames propelling him forward like a rocket, sending him crashing through the foliage and flying out the other side.
I follow, breaking through his path of destruction and fly out after him, surprised the find an army of Goblins on the other side. They are carpeting the landscape with their little bodies as they stream forward, the occasional Hobgoblin sticking out of the crowd like a sore thumb. The Goblins are all moving toward the wall, where combat is still going strong, and people are fighting with rifle and spear to keep back swarms of the little green terrors from climbing up.
From up high in the sky, I can get a view of the wall, where is some areas, the structure has fallen and the Goblins are streaming into the base by the thousands, like lines of ants streaming into the kitchen. Those that have gotten through aren’t bothering with doubling back and attacking the defenders on the wall and are instead running deeper in, a serious mistake on the part of the commander of the Goblin forces, though going by how they are all just mindless attacking forward and not taking advantage of the openings, I am finding myself doubting that the Goblins even have an actual commander.
Not that that matters, my only priority is killing the Goblin King right now. I can clean up the Goblins afterwards.
Spreading out my wings, I bolt forward in a flash, instantly moving myself above him as thousands of little voices are cheering and little hands are pointing up at us. As the Goblins are cheering and calling out to their King, I bring both of my hands down on his back and smash him with everything I have. The berserk Goblin King is sent rocketing straight down into the ground, cratering the battlefield as he smashes into his own forces.
Before I move to follow him down, however, a flash of blue light catches my attention. Looking towards a section of the wall, my eyes practically bulge out of my skull as I catch sight of Sky, lightning coursing across her body and arcing out from her fingertips as she rains death upon the Goblin hordes. All around her is an army of Kobold warriors, wearing armor of various colors and wielding spears to stab at Goblins that try to climb the wall or fight their way through the broken sections of the wall around them. The Kobolds have practically turned themselves into an island amongst an ocean of green bodies, holding back the currents with sheer spite and determination born from generations of grudges and righteous fury.
What is she doing here? When did she get magic? This is too close, too close! She’s supposed to be with my family right now, not here on the front lines! I’m ending this, right now!
With a flap of my wings, I rocket down towards the Goblin King like a missile, shadow flames spilling off from my body in curtains as I crash into the ground with explosive force. Black flames spread out in every direction, reducing hundreds of Goblins to dust instantaneously. Only the Goblin King is left relatively unharmed, his own flames protecting his still mangled body, his healing still working slowly to reform lost organs and to grow a new arm.
As I march towards the Goblin King, his mindless body fighting to pull himself out of the ground, Hobgoblins come screaming out of the crowd to get in my way. They come at me with spears and makeshift clubs, but my shadows move and cut them down before they can even reach me, their bodies falling into halves as they scream in pain or die instantly. I get closer and a Water Mage moves to stop me, a sphere of water forming around my head and forcing its way into my nose. I flex my Field and force my presence onto the battlefield, forcing the Hobgoblin to his knees as he desperately holds up one arm towards me, holding his spell in place. With a wave of my hand, spikes grow out of his own shadow and impale him in a dozen places, raising his corpse up into the air.
I get closer and more mages appear. An Earth Mage tries to spear me with a spike of his own, but I backhand and break it as I continue to walk forward. She tries to throw a boulder at me, ripping the thing out of the earth with her magic, but my shadows are already on her, moving over her body. With a black tendril wrapped around her whole body and neck, I lift her into the air and close my fist, breaking her neck and a dozen other bones in her body with an audible crunch before waving my hand to toss her twisted and broken body aside.
Little Goblins scream in fright as more mages try to stop me, but I don’t stop moving forward. The Goblin King is only just now pulling himself out of the ground, his one eye looking crazed. A Fire Mage tries to stop me next, flames rocketing himself towards me in a suicidal charge, his body glowing with the light of a collapsing star. I grab him just as he reaches me and spear him through the chest, tossing his body into the crowd where it promptly explodes like a buddle of TNT going off.
By now the Goblin King is back up on his feet, lurching forward as he moves to keep charging south. He takes a swipe at me, roaring like an animal as he tries to get past, but I grab his flaming arm by the wrist and hold tight, forcefully pulling him down and towards me as my skin burns. Drawing my knife, I slide it between his ribs and into his heart.
He stops moving and lurches forward, falling heavily against me. Roots try to grow out of the ground and forcefully separate us, but they burn away on contact with our flaming bodies, the brats entirely unable to stop what is about to happen next.
“Just give up and die already!” I curse through my teeth into his ear as he coughs up a mouthful of blood.
“…… No…”
His body starts to glow, his very skin starting to produce light as an energy underneath is fighting to be set loose. It only continues to grow and grow by the second as I realize that he is about to go nuclear. Images of the explosion he set off in the city flash through my mind and I quickly try to think of just how far the destruction would reach into the base if he where to go off here. I quickly start to stab him over and over again, destroying what is left of his chest cavity, but he doesn’t stop. Giving up on the knife and leaving it planted in his chest, I go for his head and pierce his brain with my claws, killing him as I flood his skull with black flames, but the light only continues to grow brighter and brighter, the heat radiating off of his dead body, hotter and hotter until my own skin is starting to bubble and pop despite my own protections.
All around us, Goblins are screaming and running away, but I ignore them, just desperate to stop this idiot from detonating. Sky is right over there! She’ll get caught in the blast!
Desperately, I try to find a way to stop him, but he is already a corpse, I can’t kill him any more than I already have. With time slowing down to a crawl as I think, I consider trying to completely destroy his body, but that would take time. I need to charge up a strong enough spell that could burn away his bones, and with his body overflowing with fire mana, it would probably just cancel out. Trying to match his power to cancel out the explosion probably wouldn’t work anyways, not after what I saw happen back in the woods. If anything, I would just make it worse by adding mine to his, causing an even more violent reaction.
Even in slowed down time, the light is becoming blindingly bright, like in the last moments before a lightbulb is about to burst.
With time running out and feeling desperate, I do the only thing I can. I let my instincts take over and hope that my other side can figure this out.
And surprisingly, it does…
Spearing my hand into his abdomen, my hand begins to feel fuzzy and detached as it moves in a direction that shouldn’t be possible, space bending around my arm as shadows flow over my skin and onto his body like a dark spot in the center of the sun. Grabbing something hot, I rip it out of his stomach, my arm returning to normal space as the weird distortions fade away. In my palm is a little bead, no bigger than a fingernail and colored crimson red. The thing is glowing like the sun in the palm of my hands and radiating heat so intense that my skin is falling away, the black bones of my hand left exposed as burnt meat falls away.
The Goblin King’s corpse falls over, finally truly dead now that his core has been removed. But this hasn’t solved my problem. Now, instead of his body going nuclear, it is this little bead in my hand.
The still sane part of my mind is screaming that I should fly into the sky and throw it away, but my instincts whisper that there won’t be enough time. It is about to crack if I don’t act quickly.
My mind races at the thought of what it would mean to act quickly, but my body moves for me, acting of its own accord to prevent everything I love from being destroyed. Greed pushing me to protect what is mine.
I swallow it.
The crimson core, still wet with the Goblin King’s blood and hot like the sun, slides down my throat and falls into my belly.
For a spit second, I have the chance to ask myself what the fuck I had just done, blinking in surprise at my actions. The next moment, I am on fire and screaming, my entire body becoming nothing but a blazing pillar of pain signals trying to push my mind towards insanity.
The skin and meat falls away from my bones as fire pours out of my very being, my soul screaming when my voice is no longer able to. My eyes boil out of my skull and every sense is slowly cut off one by one until my world becomes nothing. Reduced to nothing but a flaming black skeleton, I fall forward and clatter to the floor of the muddy battlefield.
…
With every sense removed from my mind, and desperation pushing me to act, my instincts still whispering that the core is going to explode, I do the only thing I can and look inward. My soul is screaming in pain right now, but I need to act. If I don’t, Sky will die, and I have no idea how much damage the explosion will cause to the base. If it would reach my family, my Gremlins, my new home and all my stuff, or even how many of the humans that would die in the explosion. Because I have to protect the humans. I made a contract for three hundred years. I am not allowed to break my contracts. Never! Even burning alive, my soul will not allow it to happen.
A forced calm comes over me as my mind delves deeper. Here in my mind, in my soul, right now time holds no meaning. Even as my brain is slowly boiling away inside my skull, time starts to lose all meaning as I go deeper and deeper. Deeper than I ever have gone before during any of my meditations in the past.
I find it, my core. The pitch-black sphere is floating there in the void, a ball of black in a space of nothingness. Beside it, floating off to the side, is the crimson core, radiating light like a star meandering through space.
Side by side, they look like a star and a black hole orbiting one another, their energies violently clashing as black meets red in a contest for supremacy.
I only spare a moment to marvel at the sight of them, before moving forward and setting my metaphorical hands on them. With a push of will, I compel my core to open, and it obeys, drawing in energy just like it always does. The other core is not as willing to comply. It wrestles against my will and rages like a forest fire. I push harder and harder, digging my claws into its surface and trying to pry it open, fighting even as my soul burns against its flames.
But I don’t let go. I force it to open, prying it open layer by layer with a hundred claws and every ounce of energy inside my soul. Slowly, like a flower blooming, the crimson core folds open, its layers sliding and moving in directions that can’t be perceived and unfolding to lay bare before me.
Inside, I find a little soul. It is ragged, torn, and worn, but raging out against the world, snapping at anything that gets close like a wounded animal. But it is weak now, fading away as the inevitable is coming. I grab the poor thing and pull it into myself, devouring it whole. I don’t let the memories flashing past my mind distract me as I ignore the final words of Grigut. I have no care, nor time, for someone that tried to destroy my home.
With his soul gone and dissolving into energy, I grab our two open cores and bring them together, smashing the ajar sides together and forcing them to fit together like the heads of two flowers.
Without his soul in the way to resist me, his core slots in and finally stops fighting my control. With a push of will, I command my core to close over his. The black core shifts and folds in impossible ways and slides over its crimson surface, engulfing the flaming core and snuffing out its flames with uncaring and all-consuming void. Closing, my core seals up around the other and is now still. It is slightly larger now and swirls of red are bleeding through to the surface like radiation on the edge of a black hole, but it is done.
I have eaten his core.
…
Now, if I could just figure out how to wake up…
I can feel it, my territory isn’t safe yet. The Goblins weren’t the only threat I need to deal with. But, my body is dead. My brain didn’t survive the heat before I could finish eating the core…