Fear was all I could feel, an overwhelming deep primordial type of terror. The kind of horror that one felt when seeing a monster that shouldn't exist. Even though it was strongly diluted by our link, I could still feel my creator’s heart palpitate with it, transmitting it over to me.

This fear had to be caused by the strange creatures surrounding my creator, these monsters were scaring them. Yet as I took my first tentative steps forward the feeling of fear intensified greatly.

My creator wasn't scared of those strange beings, they were terrified of me.

This depressing realisation halted me, rooting me in place as I desperately thought of a way to reassure them.

After a short while of fanatical thinking, I came up with a solution. Me and my creator were bound together, we were two bodies and one soul. This link wasn’t just a one way street, I can communicate back.

So hurriedly I began pushing these new feelings of joy and elation of discovering a solution through our link and was met with failure almost immediately as my creator collapsed.

They were incapacitated and I was to blame, I had hurt my own creator. I had no time to wallow in anguish though as the abominations began to brutalise my creator, tugging at their fragile form and striking them in their centre of mass, no doubt trying to crush all their precious organs.

This wouldn’t stand.

This wouldn’t go unpunished.

With no pangs of external fear to stray me from the path of blood, I begin my charge.

Hurling myself forwards towards them and if I had the oratory appendage capable of it, I would be screaming at them as well.

In just a few seconds I was amongst the horde and butchering them.

For such bold creatures, they surprisingly seemed to have nothing to support their grotesque actions. I wasn’t exactly sending them flying with one blow but I also wasn’t really under a lot of pressure.

The monsters just screeched at me for the most part and threw themselves upon the ground, maybe they were trying to camouflage themselves?

A few of them did hurl themselves at me though, but I quickly slapped them down and crushed their centre of mass. Ending their lives easily.

I quickly dealt with the rest soon after. Slamming them into the rough sand and tearing apart their tentacles.

Almost all of them spat red fluids onto me, a venom based attack? If so it wasn’t very effective since I didn’t suffer any ill effects.

I tried to avoid killing them, just limiting myself to tearing off their tentacles and incapacitating them.

I was a newborn, after all. I didn’t want to make any mistakes. What if I was accidentally killing my creator's food source?

At least this way most of them would survive and regrow their lost appendages.

That's what starfish did and these creatures appeared similar to them, though hideously mutated.

In any case, it didn’t matter, I had done my duty, I had protected my creator.

Though just as this sense of fulfilment started to surge through me I heard a piercing shriek that cut through the heavy air like a swordfish through a school of tuna.

There were more of these creatures out there, maybe not just a pack but a whole school of them.

My unconscious creator and I were hidden behind a large sand dune, so we should be safe from whatever these things were.

But that did nothing to ease my discomfort. I was a predator yes but not an Apex one.

There were still things that fed on me, though now that I started thinking about it, I couldn’t recall what it was that hunted me.

Perhaps when my creator awoke I would get my answers, they were wise after all. They had to be. Otherwise, how could I have been created?

This wasn’t the time for pondering upon my existence though, for the more attention I paid to my surroundings, the more screeches I heard.

They seemed to mostly come from over the dune so at least we weren’t surrounded, but that was hardly comforting. For the sheer volume of the screeches numbered in the dozens.

It would be unwise to get into a fight with them, even if I had killed these ones easily enough, what if they were just the runts?

And so, I kept watch over my surroundings, carefully protecting my creator from any threats.

And after a few minutes of vigilantly standing guard over my creator's fallen form, they stirred awake.

As they slowly rose up into an upright position feelings of bewilderment and confusion made their way through the link.

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I thought to respond but I didn’t want to mess up and make them panic again, so I just stayed quiet.

Though it didn’t matter because after just a few seconds those feelings were replaced by the same primal type of fear again.

Then my creator squished two of their odd tentacles against their deformed one in some sort of pondering stance and began to let out a series of loud breaths before starting to tremble.

Perhaps to stimulate their mind?

While my creator was pondering some exceptionally difficult solutions, I carefully watched them, trying to figure out how to best help them.

My assistance wasn’t needed though as my creator rather quickly came up with a solution to whatever it was they were so entrenched in thought about.

Standing up, they carefully started walking up the sand dune. I trailed behind them, eager to see what it was my creator was going to do and also to keep them safe.

And then after clambering our way up to the top of the dune, we saw quite the sight.

Those eccentric abominations were prancing around and slapping each other with these pieces of coral, no swords were what they were called.

Once an abomination was hit it would collapse and spurt out doves of this weird red liquid. Poison perhaps? I didn’t want to have to consider the other option.

There must be some few hundred of them, though most of them were sleeping or tied up.

For a few dreadful moments that felt like years, I wondered if I had accidentally engaged in some twisted mating practice or despicable ritual. Now that I thought about it, this wasn’t actually so different compared to the practices I knew of.

Thankfully my creator put an end to these horrible ideas that were starting to swirl around in my head by saying something.

I couldn’t understand what they said audibly but I didn’t need to. The link made up for this inadequacy.

“War” was what they had uneasily murmured. Never had I felt so relieved over something my creator said, granted this was the first time in my short life that I had heard them speak but I was still overcome by joy.

Before I could celebrate though they spoke again and this time they gave orders, not an explanation.

“My Eclipsian, exterminate those whom wield swords and are clad in cloaks, spare the rest.”

I actually had quite a bit of difficulty piecing together these orders as they were overshadowed by the omnipresent fear that still echoed through our link. They were also issued incredibly unconfidently which made understanding what I was meant to do even more difficult.

So I didn’t completely understand what I was meant to do, or why I was meant to do it. Nevertheless I understood enough, my creator wanted these things purged.

And so, without any hesitation, once I had properly understood what was expected of me, I started to rush down the dune.

The battle was occurring a few hundred feet away but I was rapidly getting closer.

I could cover dozens of feet in seconds, so in no time at all I was on the outskirts of the battlefield.

It was strange, I couldn’t figure out what feet were despite racking my memory but I knew that was how far away the battle was. Feet weren’t the only thing that confused me either.

I had an innumerable amount of these strange words and ideas floating around in my head. Perhaps when I completed my orders and made my creator proud they would tell me what was going on.

Even as I neared one of the abominations, they still didn’t notice me

And then just as I was about to spring upon them, it hit me. These weren’t monsters or abominations. They were scavengers not actually predators.

Otherwise why were they so weak. Though it still didn’t quite make sense as to how they were all still alive. They couldn’t even properly observe their environment.

I practically had this one wrapped up in my tendrils and tentacles and it still hadn’t noticed me.

Maybe it was the swords that gave them the ability to survive. I could faintly remember something about how a knight could kill dozens of soldiers with one.

Maybe these creatures were baby knights or they had just scavenged the weaponry off of a corpse.

Oh well, no point in worrying about it.

I had a job to do.

Grabbing hold of their left ridged tentacle I yanked them off balance and towards my wide open maw.

They turned around to try and face me but all it meant was that they went face first into my mouth.

They only got to let out a brief shriek before I crunched down on them, silencing the scavenger forever.

Perhaps it was a bad idea but I was pretty sure the poison wouldn’t be that bad and I was feeling rather peckish.

Tearing into the supple and weak flesh of my deceased foe was far more difficult than I expected. For some reason, they had these weird sticks inside of them that made it difficult to chew.

They weren’t inedible but it was quite annoying to have to break them into little pieces before slurping down the creature's remains.

What was even more annoying was that I wasn’t able to see thanks to my gluttony. All the gore obscured my vision, thankfully my eye is shielded by a very thick membrane so it didn’t get irritated or hurt by all the sustenance I was consuming.

The scavenger turned meal also somehow tasted disgusting despite me not having any tastebuds.

How does that even happen?

It wasn’t even nutrition, as I swallowed down the flesh my hunger still remained unsatiated.

No wonder this species was still alive, they were just too foul to eat. Perhaps it was a dumb thing to waste my first vow on but I promised myself then and there that I would never eat another scavenger.

Worst of all though, was the fact that the crunching sound the sticks made when they broke had alerted the rest of the scavenger's pack.

Hurriedly I wiped the last of the gore off my eye with my tongues and prepared myself as a score of scavengers started sprinting towards me.

I briefly considered just moving backwards a bit and then flanking them since they had only heard the screams and crunching but hadn't actually spotted me yet but then a hurled torch was hastily thrown in my direction which helped expose me further to the horde of scavengers and ruined any chance of withdrawing unhindered.

Not that it mattered, they were scavengers, not predators, these pathetic creatures were probably the soldiers that knights preyed on.

And now they were my prey too.

And so I started to rush forwards to meet their charge. Confidence fueled my tendrils and tentacles as I prepared to mince them up.

And promptly I encountered my first failure, as the scavengers dodged my initial barrage of appendages and severed a fair few of them with a dexterity I had previously thought them incapable of.