Realm of Monsters - Chapter 684: Battle at the River

Chapter 684: Battle at the River

  A blur shot across the docks like a whirlwind and launched itself straight into the hull of one of the warships.

  The warship rocked to its side from the impact. Belle stared in stunned surprise at the man-sized hole in the ship’s hull. Sailors screamed as the warship quickly took in water and began to sink.

  Shaking off the surprise, Belle channeled blue, and manipulated the water to propel her forward. She circled the sinking ship, picking off any sailor who leaped overboard.

  The screams of the men only grew in unison with the low groan of wood splitting across the hull. The ship sank faster than anyone expected, and before three minutes, only the masts remained in sight, though they too were quickly disappearing.

  Water swirled against the current in the middle of the sinkage and a silver head of hair broke through. Stryg sucked in a deep breath of fresh air and wiped the blood from his face. He reflexively kicked his feet underwater, though it did nothing. Only the torrent spell swirling around his body kept him from sinking to the bottom.

  “Stryg?! Is that you?” Belle swam over with the help of her own torrent spell.

  “Do you know any other blue goblins?” Stryg sputtered up a mouthful of water.

  “Good to see you still have your sense of humor.” She stared at the sinking masts. “Was that you? Ramming into the bloody ship?”

  “I was running so fast… It seemed the easiest way to stop,” he admitted.

  “You are a madman,” she laughed. “Why are you covered in so much blood? Did you rip every sailor’s throat out and bathe in their blood?” 

  “No, this is from earlier.” Stryg looked down at himself. The sea had done a quick, albeit messy, job of washing away most of the blood from the tavern massacre. No longer was his tunic a deep red; now it was a faded pink. But the blood had dried and clung to his hair, and the water was struggling to rinse it off.

  “Weren’t you sent off on a peaceful mission? You know, distract the dockmaster and all that?” Belle asked.

  “Yeah… Something like that.”

  “You killed him, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is that his blood on your shirt?”

  “No, this is from the other orcs.”

  “How many people exactly did you kill?”

  “Was I supposed to be counting?”

  Belle smirked. “Nah.”

  “My lord!” Gale ran across the water. Each step sank for a heartbeat before the mana-charged water pushed her foot right back up just long enough for her next stride.

  “We can do that?” Stryg glanced at Belle, eyebrow raised.

  “With enough skill and practice, maybe?” Belle shrugged. “I think we might be a little too heavy.”

  Gale skidded to a halt, generating a small wave that lapped around Stryg and Belle. Her legs sank with every moment, until she was waist-deep in the water. “Are you two alright?”

  “Teach me how to run on water?” Stryg asked, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Gale said flatly.

  “We’re tougher than we appear,” Belle agreed.

  “I brought you your sword,” Gale pulled Krikolm off her back, careful to hold the sword by its white sheath, lest she cut herself, and handed it to him.

  “Thank you.” Stryg drew Krikolm underwater and tucked its sheath on his belt. The water refracted the light across the scarlet blade in mesmerizing ripples. There was something comforting about holding the sword in his hand, as if he carried a part of his ancestors with him.

  “Are you bleeding?” Gale sniffed and furrowed her brow. “Not your blood.”

  “Nope.” Stryg watched as Krikolm drew the blood from his hair and his stained clothes into its scarlet blade. “There, better.”

  “What happened back there? Weren’t you supposed to be with the dockmaster?” Gale asked.

  “…I was.” Stryg suddenly found the blue skies very interesting.

  Gale stared at him with deep suspicion. “He killed them, didn’t he?”

  “He’s a god of death, it’s what they do,” Belle said nonchalantly.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Stryg said.

  Gale sighed. “At least tell me Tauri and Freya are safe.”

  “Yeah, they should be at the river by now,” Stryg said.

  “Good, I sent Nora and Beatrix ahead to pick them up,” Gale said. “They’ll rendezvous with the rest of the team on the other side of town once they have Tauri and Freya. As will we. Hopefully, by the time the orcs realize what’s happened, we’ll all be sailing far downriver.” 

  “Looks like we’ll have to postpone that rendezvous for a little while longer.” Belle pointed with her chin at the other warships.

  The two ships had ignored their fallen comrades and were quickly sailing out of the docks and into the sea, making a beeline straight for the Dragon’s Hoard.

  “Their ballistas will be in firing distance soon,” Gale noted. “We need to slow them down.”

  “On it.” Belle met Stryg’s eyes and a silent understanding crossed between them, “Shall we—?”

  “Let’s,” Stryg nodded. A chain made of shadows formed around his wrist and latched onto Belle’s waist. 

  “Shall we what?” Gale frowned.

  A metallic bronze sheen wrapped around Belle’s arms as she channeled Brown and hoisted Stryg out of the water. “Ready?”

  Stryg curled into a ball and made himself as small as possible. “Ready.”

  “Wait, what are you two—?” Gale reached out to stop them. 

  “Now!” Belle hurled Stryg with all her might. He flew true, straightening out like an arrow mid-flight, and soared through the air. Stryg aimed for the closest warship and crash-landed on the upper deck. He rolled as he smacked into the hardwood. Without losing momentum, he rolled to his feet and grabbed the shadow chain bound to his wrist and tugged with both physical strength and magical might.

  Before Gale could say anything, the shadows tightened around Belle’s waist and yanked her out of the water. The shadow chains quickly shortened as she reached the zenith of her flight and hauled her down onto the ship. She landed on her feet, knees bending and slamming into the deck on impact, leaving small indents on the wood.

  Sailors shouted in surprise and disbelief. In seconds, they had drawn their weapons and surrounded the duo. An uneasy shiver rippled through the crew as they took in Stryg and Belle’s vicious, almost feral, smile.

  The captain swallowed his fear and pointed his sword at the intruders. “A-Attack– UAAAGH!”

  Stryg leapt on the man and bit down on his throat, before shaking his head side-to-side like a wolf tearing at flesh.

  “Captain!” A sailor screamed and charged at the goblin, right before Stryg spun around and ran him through with Krikolm. Stryg ran through several more sailors, speeding up his momentum with each strike as Krikolm cleaved their weapons and bodies in half. Blood swarmed all around, red ribbons of liquid life trailing behind him like a cape.

  Belle didn’t even bother with a man-made weapon. Black claws grew out from her fingertips as her fangs elongated and a pair of wolfen ears sprouted from her crimson hair. Her warm brown skin seemed to almost glow with an inner light as her scarlet eyes blazed a golden hue. 

  Without hesitation, she grabbed the closest sailor to her and jammed her claws into his ribcage, before pulling out his insides. A pair of sailors yelled a warcry and stabbed Belle from the back, but her aurum aegis flared to life. Golden particles of magic caught the blades just before they touched her.

  Belle turned on the two, grabbed their heads and slammed them together, crushing their skulls like fruit.

  A sailor screamed and turned and ran. Belle ran after her on all fours and caught the woman by the ankle. She yanked the terrified sailor to the ground and raked her claws through the woman. At first, the sailor tried to block with her arms, but her forearms were quickly torn apart, and her upper body followed soon after.

  The woman’s crewmates watched in horror as she was disemboweled and torn apart in a blood mess right in front of them.

  “They’re monsters!” A sailor screamed and the voicing of the crew’s worst fears shattered something in their hearts. They broke their defensive line and ran for their lives.

~~~

  “Gods damnit all!” Gale muttered under her breath as she ran across the water. It had only been a minute since Belle had hurled Stryg like a damn snowball and Gale could already see smoke rising from the warship and golden flames eating at its sails.

  People were leaping off the ship with abandon. As Gale drew closer, the terrified screams of the dying became evident. Focusing her blue mana, she commanded the water to form a funnel underneath her and lift her up to the ship.

  The scent of iron and smoke assaulted her nostrils as she landed on the deck. Blood pooled on the deck and filled the air with droplets floating towards what Gale assumed was Stryg. He was covered in so much red she could hardly make out his visage.

  Belle was hardly any better. The over two-meter-tall vampiress was laughing as she fought against a pair of orcs in shining armour. It seemed the warship had carried its own group of soldiers. Though from the bodies that riddled the slick floor, Gale realized none had fared well.

  As if to prove her point, Belle’s claws tore through the orc’s armour, leaving five deep claw marks in his chest. The man fell to his knees, gasping for a breath that did not come. The last of the soldiers dropped his sword and ran for his life. Stryg was suddenly there; he grabbed the soldier by the arm and tossed him into the main mast. 

  The orc’s body broke with a sickening, wet crunch before spinning past and falling in a puddle of blood next to several mangled sailor corpses.

  “What did you two do?” Gale muttered. She knew well what it meant to be a vampire and a warrior. To be drunk with blood and to feel the thrill of a fight. This was not that. This was a massacre, needless violence and wanton brutality.

  Stryg spun on his heel at the sound of her voice. His slit pupils widened like a cat and then he blinked. “Gale?”

  “You made it.” Belle licked her claws and rolled her shoulders.

  “What is this? Does this satisfy you?” Gale narrowed her eyes in displeasure.

  “Satisfy?” Stryg looked around curiously. “Not particularly. Belle?”

  “It was fun. But they were all weak,” Belle answered as she finished off the last of the sailors with a snap of his neck.

  This wasn’t like Belle. From the little Gale knew of the young woman, Belle was sweet, even awkward at times, not battle-crazed. Neither of these two was acting normal. An abrupt thought struck Gale, a warning Holo had given her about being in close proximity to titan-kind.

  “Chaos begets chaos,” Gale muttered.

  These were godlings, children of chaos who were bound to divine aspects of war and death. If a young vampire could become violent when they gave into their baser instincts, how little control would these two have when they did the same? What control could they even have over their divine nature? After all, in the eyes of the titans, these two were infants. 

  Suddenly, Gale understood why Bellum and Holo were reluctant to let Stryg and Belle out of their sights. One child of chaos was problematic enough, but two? They fed off each other’s chaos, the interaction as natural and easy as breathing.

  “Gale, are you alright?” Stryg asked.

  “No. I’m not. What were you two thinking?” Gale hissed. Someone needed to be the voice of reason. “Look at this place. Focus for one moment and look at what you two have done.”

  “I don’t understand. We did what you asked. We stopped the ship,” Stryg said.

  “Yeah, only one more ship to go,” Belle pointed her thumb at the final ship that was almost out of the harbor.

  Gale scoffed with bitter laughter. “You two think this is how you stop a warship? You could have punctured a hole in the hull like you did the first one. Or burn the masts, like Belle was already doing to this ship!” She gestured at the golden flames burning through the sails and one of the masts. “Not all of this!”

  “What difference does it make? They’re dead. They can’t hurt our people on the Dragon’s Hoard. That’s what matters,” Stryg said.

  “No. What you did here was unnecessary, cruel even,” Gale snapped. “I taught you to be efficient with your blade. I didn’t teach you to do this. You’re not a monster. You are Lord of House Veres. You are better than this, Stryg.”

  “Monster…? And what if I am?” he muttered with a scowl. 

  Gale frowned. “Stryg—”

  “Fine. You want efficient? Cousin, with me,” he said.

  Belle nodded and followed Stryg to the edge of the deck.

  “Oh, no. Uh-uh. You aren’t throwing each other onto that ship!” Gale stomped over to them.

  “There’s no need. It’s the last ship. We can let loose,” Stryg growled.

  “Oooh.” Belle bared her teeth in a wide grin.