The Divinos Saint’s cloak clung to the surrounding shadows as he silently led a squad of nine Ionic Elites. The valley’s towering mountain peaks peered down upon them. They walked through their own territory, yet the darkness and sounds therein felt foreign. “Divinos, are you certain that your intel is true? If we’ve assembled this team in vain, you’ll pay a steep price.” A man to the right of the cloaked man whispered. Disdain on his breath.
“Divinos, are you certain that your intel is true? If we’ve assembled this team in vain, you’ll pay a steep price.” A man to the right of the cloaked man whispered. Disdain on his breath.
There are few on Planet Primos who can call upon Ionic Elites, and fewer still who can deliver them marching orders. Even the regent of the planet is their equal in most regards.
“Carver, let us hope I’ve been misled.” The Divinos Saint replied calmly. His status in The Divinos Way - no less than theirs in The Ionic Way. “Our prophets see dimly that the Nyke Conglomerate experiments with a dangerous force. A danger beyond The Deminos Way. The words they used were a force that consumes. Just pray, or whatever you Ionics do, that we won’t have to use those fancy upgrades you all have just added.”
“The Starling Empire won’t allow any mistakes.” An Ionic Elite on the left spoke low - his voice vibrating with the hint of a pur, “Carver, just fall in line, keep your mouth shut, and eyes wide. Dulihan,” he spoke the cloaked man’s name, “how much further?”
“It should be 200 meters ahead. Stay close to me and within my skill’s range.” Dulihan, the Divinos Saint replied. He spread his arms and a ripple of dark shadow engulfed the infiltration squad, then they appeared to sink into the ground and become shadows.
They crept forward as if they were ink smudges on the forest floor for another 100 meters when a sudden terrorized man’s screeching-scream rang out in the distance before them. They stopped in sync, their blood seeming to also. What followed was a loud unnerving chittering sound accompanied by crunching of bones and tearing of flesh.
“What the hell is that?” A woman behind Carver asked. The group had a clear line of sight to the area that the scream had just come from. Through thermal sensors they saw a humanoid body being thrashed around, but no other heat signature around it.
But Dulihan’s eyes saw clearly, his hands shook and a chill shot down his spine. His control over darkforce allowed him to see in the dark effortlessly. But he could also - feel - the thing in front of them. Photonforce radiated from its forcecore like a freshly stoked fire, and it was so unnaturally pure… “but how?”
“Hey divinos freak what is it?” Carver’s voice carried annoyance due to the lack of response in a critical moment. He turned towards the Ionic Elite on Dulihan’s left side, “Claret, should we engage? I can’t get a visual.”
Claret ignored Carver and touched Dulihan’s shoulder. ‘He’s shaking?’ The thought dashed through the Elite’s mind. He firmed his grip on Dulihan’s shoulder and whispered strongly. “Dulihan, what do you see?”
Dulihan didn’t turn. His eyes were locked unblinking, straight ahead. “It sees us. It sees my photonforce. But how?”
Carver’s hand grabbed his other shoulder, “What is it?” He tried to whisper through an angry growl.
“A monstrosity. Some sort of biological weapon. The energy levels are above mine. I can’t gauge its strength, but absolute caution should be assumed. Treat it as rank 4.”
A hush settled on the squad. His final sentence chilled their hearts. There wasn’t a rank 4 beast on the entire planet. They would be demolished if they faced one.
A communication link was open and broadcasting back to an HQ at the stronghold’s forward command post delta. Over the squad’s comm channel a voice sounded in their ears, “Dulihan can you repeat? Rank 4? Is it a primal beast you see?”
Dulihan’s shaking hand slowly went to his ear, as if a quick motion would trigger his doom. “It’s simply watching us while it eats sir. Not a beast. Humanoid in form. Large. Four legs. Four arms. Full of photonforce, but it’s different, not natural. Requesting an Ionic Archon or Divinos King dispatch sir. We’re already doomed sir, I’ll try and gauge its strength for you. Monitor my field cam for data. And sir, please tell my wife I love her.”
“Wait Divinos!” The comms rang out. But Dulihan’s resolve only steeled.
Dulihan sent a wave of darkforce energy backward, throwing the squad of Ionic Elites twenty meters back, “Run!” He yelled.
His action elicited a response from the creature before them. Dulihan saw in slow motion the leg of the creature’s victim drop from its dark purple beak-like mouth. Then it dashed his way, a silent blur that crossed twenty meters in a heartbeat.
Dulihan dashed forth nearly as fast and prepared to unleash his strongest ability. Pressure knotted in his chest as he willed the photonforce from his divinoscore to gather in his right hand, forming a spear of obsidian glass.
They were a dozen meters apart - its carapace covered body now visible in excruciating detail. The creature seemed to be made of jagged-sharp bones of black and its face had the likeness of an ant and an eagle. Compound eyes stared at Dulihan, crazed with hunger.
The Divinos Saint skidded to a stop to thrust the spear he just made into a tree’s shadow as the creature crossed just ten meters from him.
Its eyes darted down a moment too late as the one spear that Dulihan had thrust into the shadow became three. The three obsidian spear tips burst from the shadow, blades up, and skewered the beast from the front, left flank, and back. The beast’s momentum was halted and it cocked its head, puzzled.
Exclamations and questions rang out over the comm links as the creature’s body finally came into view for HQ. It was roughly ten feet tall and as thick as an oak tree. Two of its arms were like flexible spears and the other two long arms ended with dark purple talons. Its sharp purple beak quivered and the eerie chittering sound broke the brief silence that filled the forest.
The obsidian spears had pierced mere inches into its boney body. With callous grace its talon bladed fingers wrapped around two of the spears and effortlessly pulled them out and it shattered the third spear behind it with a swift swing from one of its other two bladed arms. Its beak opened and a terrified man’s screech came out. The same sound they heard from before.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Dulihan staggered back, horror in his eyes. “That was my most powerful attack…” he muttered.
In his comms, the overseer called out, “Dulihan, pull back. Divinos reinforcements are inbound. Divinos King Peter has been dispatched. Do you copy?”
“Peter is coming?” A glimmer of hope surfaced in Dulihan’s eyes, but the glimmer was lost a moment later when the creature took a step forward. “How far out is he?”
“Leaving Stronghold Olivett now. ETA one minute. Hold out till then. Over.” HQ replied.
The creature’s other three legs twitched. Dulihan reacted and sank into a nearby shadow just before two spear arms slashed the air where his torso had just been. He reappeared from a shadow 20 meters away, his cloak swayed like the shadow he emerged from, and unsheathed two dark metal swords from within it.
The creature dashed to him in a fraction of a second. Its ten foot tall stature towered above the six foot three inch Dulihan. Its spear-like arms swung together in a horizontal slash that Dulihan met with his dual swords only by instinct, the slash too fast to track. The force of the blow knocked his blades into his chest and sent him flying through the forest.
Dulihan’s eyes never lost track of the creature. Even as he was swatted away it burst after him again, beak wide open with the bizarre chittering sound scraping through the forest. ‘This is it…’ Dulihan closed his eyes as the beast caught up to his ragdolled form.
One heartbeat. The pain Dulihan expected didn’t arrive. Instead…
*BOOM*
A neon blue burst of plasma knocked the creature back five meters. Its chest was concave a little bit from the impact but the creature looked as though it didn’t even notice the damage.
“How is that possible?” Claret asked. His nanobot armored hands had combined into a single massive cannon that was quickly fading from bright blue back to black. He just fired the strongest weapon ever created for Ionic Elites throughout the entire divinos realm. A top secret project for the Starling Empire. Even some rank 4 beasts would be directly killed when facing its full force undefended.
The creature turned its attention away from Dulihan to Claret now, who was floating on a silent disk shaped platform ten meters above the ground. Glowing red wings sprouted from its shoulder blades and buzzed like dull thunder.
Claret only spoke half of a word, “Shi…” before the creature crossed nearly 40 meters and bisected him horizontally from the shoulder to the waist. Slashing through his advanced nanobot armor as if it were paper.
“Claret’s been K.I.A’d!” Carver’s panicked voice rang through the comms.
“Tactical retreat now. Do not engage alone.” Dulihan ordered. He watched the beast bring half of the bisected body of Claret to its beak and ate. It took a few bites, but tilted its head in confusion. ‘It needs photonforce… these Ionics have abandoned photonforce, so they’re not its ideal food source. They only look like they have photonforce because of their suits. That means I am…” his mind processed thoughts and came to the dreaded conclusion as soon as the creature seemed to. The only person who would satisfy its hunger was the one in the shadowy cloak.
Suddenly a new voice enters their comms channel, Peter’s. “I’m 30 seconds out. Stay alive Dulihan.”
“I’ll try.” Dulihan responded. The creature’s eyes caught his. It felt like 1000 pairs of eyes stared at every square inch of him.
He moved darkforce from his divinoscore to his feet and he swore that he saw the creature look down and follow it. ‘That’s not good.’
He followed through with his plan anyway and shadow jumped 40 meters behind the creature, his limit. Unfortunately, when he emerged from the shadow its head had turned 180 degrees and was staring straight at him. ‘Yep, that’s definitely not good.’
25 seconds.
The creature's body rotated to him as its head stayed freakishly still. Carver’s voice cut through the comms, “Welp, good luck with that, Divinos. I’m out.” He and the rest of the remaining Ionic Elite squad retreated from the valley at full speed. The creature didn’t even flinch at their departure.
‘I told you dinguses to retreat earlier.’ Dulihan shook his head. ‘Ok, time to get creative.’ He thought. His shadow suddenly grew and divided into ten clones of himself.
The creature's wings began glowing red again and the thunderous accompaniment began to build. Then *CRACK* a thunderclap, the creature streaked towards Dulihan, clawed hands extended his way.
Including Dulihan himself, eleven figures of him instantly disappeared into the shadows around. The creature’s index talon mere centimeters from his nose.
20 seconds.
A swipe and a shriek shook the darkened leaves of the trees in the forest. Dulihan’s eleven clones emerged from the shadows scattered around the creature. They all now looked exactly like him, yet the creature still quickly found the real one in a moment. Dulihan’s goal, however, was accomplished. ‘This could work. God, sustain my photonforce in this trial.’ Dulihan prayed.
The terrorized man’s shrieking-scream rang out from the creature once again. ‘I guess that means it’s mad…’ Dulihan's expression contorted in effort to fire his shadow jump skill again with his clones.
*CRACK* *SSSSHH*
A thunderclap followed by the rending of a shadow. The creature didn’t directly dash to where all the figures were. It chose one of the eleven spots that it saw the shadows would emerge from and dashed there. Luckily for Dulihan it chose the wrong location and slashed through one of his shadows.
15 seconds.
It found him again and *CRACK* dashed head on towards him. Dulihan ducked the claws and merged with the shadows once again.
He emerged and the creature found him again. Its posture turned crazed, opened its beak to the sky, and the chittering scraped his ears for a few seconds. ‘I’ll let you vent all you want, big ugly.’ Dulihan thought to himself. He clutched his chest and winced in pain.
The comms channel was quiet, but despite everyone at HQ being all Ionic fighters - he thought that he could hear some prayers.
Dulihan’s pain lifted and he smiled for a heartbeat. Then continued.
10 seconds.
*CRACK* *CLANG* *SSSHH*
The creature feigned a charge at the real Dulihan then dashed towards a random shadow jump location. The slight delay allowed one of his shadows to deflect the blow slightly, but it was less powerful than the real Dulihan so it had no real chance to block the attack.
‘Every second counts.’ He thought as he watched the shadow turn to wisps of black smoke. The creature turned to him again and like a berserker madly dashed at him. It seemed to forget its superior speed with its wings.
He waited until the beast was decently close, then jumped all the clones once again. This time they all emerged in a line as far away from the creature as possible - 30 meters. They also just so happened to be drawing the creature, meter by meter toward the direction of Stronghold Olivett. The stronghold that his superior, Divinos King Peter, was currently in route from.
He clutched his chest again. Something was wrong.
5 seconds.
*clink* *urgh*
Suddenly a clink resounded. Not from the creature, but from Dulihan’s chest where his divinoscore was located. In order to shadow jump nine of his clones the maximum distance six times had overloaded his divinoscore. Inside his chest a white crystal core cracked down the middle. White blood trickled from the corner of his lips.
“Come on, just give me one more…” he beat his chest as the beast charged like a berserker once again. His reaction was delayed by the immense pain inside his chest. Three of its talons pierced an inch above his heart and ripped across his face.
Blood sprayed. But he made it.
He vanished into the shadow. The creature shrieked. It looked up. Then…
*CRACK* *CRASH*
A golden flame-covered short yet stocky man descended from the cloudy night sky with a sonic boom and smashed into the creature's face. A giant golden fist crushed its beak.
0 Seconds.
Dulihan's consciousness faded. The last image in his vision of a golden flaming dwarf chasing a fleeing ten foot tall monstrosity.