An imposing animated armor clawed at a family who had been taking a peaceful stroll in the moorlands located in the north-east of a small country named Lopahz.
It had spectral blue patterns on an otherwise obsidian colored plate armor, covering every centimeter.
The family couldn't determine if anyone was inside, but that didn't matter.
Razor sharp claws tore down, and the father screamed in pain.
The father of 3 had protected the family with his body, but his lifeless bloody limp body was now unable to protect the wife and children he had left behind.
The wife picked up the youngest and urged her 6-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter to run. The children obeyed and ran, as did the mother.
It was supposed to be a relaxing stroll in the beautiful moorlands, but the appearance of this strange creature had blown the plans of their peaceful family outing into the wind.
The boy tripped over a mound, fell down and rolled down the slope.
The mother screamed as the living armor went for the boy who had become an easy target and ended his life in a heartbeat with a simple swipe.
Red stained the black and blue armor as it had claimed another victim. The moorlands which normally lacked in the red had now gotten that color added to its wide array of colors thanks to this living armor.
‘My boy!’ and ‘Why are you doing this?!’ were the words the woman shouted at the armor, but there was no response. Tears streamed from the woman’s eyes as she had to abandon yet another family member.
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Her infant in her arm started to cry, and her daughter too.
‘A hero or a knight in shining armor would be appearing right about now.’ was what the woman thought.
The sun rays bounced off the black armor, and the woman didn’t appreciate the irony of a shining armor being the threat she needed help against.
The woman gave the infant to her daughter and told her to run. ‘If just my children can escape.’ were her thoughts as her maternal instinct kicked in.
The claws of the armor raised into the air and tore the infant and 9-year-old to shreds.
“Is there no god?” The woman exclaimed as she dropped to her knees.
She wasn’t religious, but none of the 12 Sarian gods had been particularly useful in her opinion. The situation was hard for her to accept. She just lost everything in a blink of an eye and nothing could do.
A complaint was about to come out of her mouth when she too shared the same fate as the rest of her family.
The blood of 5 humans dripped off the claws of the living armor, which started to act odd after the armor took a look at them.
The armor gripped it’s head and dropped to its knees. It showed signs of remorse until black fog exited the gaps between the armor plates and its arms fell, and the armor acted like a puppet which got its strings cut.
It got up and walked away from the murder scene.
Nobody could stop it, nobody could punish it, as this armor had been given a name; the Moorland Menace.
Not much time had elapsed since it’s first appearance and it’s most recent kill.Lopahz was a relatively remote country, but it had great ties with its neighboring country, the Aquini Kingdom. Any help regarding this relatively new threat had come from the Aquini kingdom, but the difficult terrain and the strength of the moorland Menace had complicated things.
But what was the Moorland Menace? Where did it come from? Nobody knew, and nobody would know for a long time. But was this true? There was one person who knew. A wolf beast kin man named Loran Kijtran.