Chapter 22: Monsters

When Sigurd came back to his senses, deafening booms were already hammering against his ears.

BOOM!

The ground lurched beneath his boots before his vision had properly cleared. He staggered sideways, one hand instinctively reaching for his sword while the other caught the trunk of a nearby tree.

They were no longer inside the dense section of forest where he had killed the Armored Bloodfang. This place was an enormous open clearing, perhaps several hundred meters across, surrounded by the same colossal trees that dominated the forest.

Except many of those trees were no longer standing.

Entire trunks had been snapped in half, uprooted, or thrown across the clearing. Craters scarred the earth. Rocks the size of carriages lay shattered into pieces, and thick clouds of dust drifted between broken trees while another impact sent frightened birds screaming from the distant canopy.

Then Sigurd’s stomach remembered what Osric had done to him.

His face immediately paled.

"Oh, fuck...."

He bent over and vomited what remained of his breakfast.

The violent nausea was somehow worse the second time. Sigurd kept one hand against the tree while his stomach emptied itself onto the exposed roots, every unnatural twist of that damned teleportation replaying inside his head.

When it finally stopped, he remained there for several seconds, breathing slowly and reconsidering whether killing one’s instructor was acceptable under Zierghardt family law.

A quiet gulp came from behind him.

Sigurd slowly turned.

Osric stood several paces away, completely unaffected, casually sipping from his wine flask while wearing the satisfied smile of a man whose morning was proceeding wonderfully.

Sigurd wiped his mouth.

His iron-grey eyes narrowed.

"You...."

Osric raised one finger before Sigurd could finish and pointed toward the clearing. "Before you say something disrespectful to your beloved instructor, you should probably look over there."

Sigurd’s expression darkened. "I’m going to shove that flask so far up your...."

BOOOOOOM!

The earth jumped.

Sigurd’s words vanished.

A wall of displaced air struck the trees around them, ripping leaves from branches and sending dust rushing across the clearing. Sigurd immediately turned toward the source, expecting another Ferocious Beast.

Then he saw what was fighting in the distance.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Two gigantic creatures were locked together near the center of the clearing.

Calling them beasts almost felt insufficient.

The first resembled some monstrous combination of a bear and an ancient armored mammal. It stood nearly thirty feet tall when raised upon its hind legs, with shoulders so broad that Sigurd could have stretched both arms and still looked insignificant beside one forepaw.

Dark bronze fur covered most of its body, but enormous overlapping plates of black stone-like armor protected its spine, shoulders, skull, and outer limbs.

Two thick horns curved forward from its forehead, their surfaces marked by glowing amber cracks. Its forelimbs were disproportionately massive, each ending in five claws resembling curved swords. Blood poured from a deep wound across its abdomen, coating the fur beneath its waist and falling onto the ground in thick streams.

The second creature was longer and leaner, yet no smaller.

It resembled a great feline predator stretched into something far beyond nature. More than forty feet separated its snout from the end of its tail. Its fur was almost completely white except for jagged black markings running across its body like bolts of lightning.

A thick mane of dark silver hair surrounded its neck, and two saber-like fangs extended from its upper jaw. Bone ridges protected its spine, while its four legs ended in broad paws armed with hooked claws.

A second pair of shorter muscular forelimbs grew beneath its chest, giving it six limbs in total.

Its left side had been torn open.

Sigurd could see muscle beneath the shredded hide.

One ear was missing. Several bone ridges along its back had been broken, and blood streamed down its face from a gash above one eye.

Neither creature cared.

Their eyes burned deep crimson.

Whatever pain should have slowed them had been buried beneath a berserk fury so intense that Sigurd could feel their killing intent from the edge of the clearing.

Beside those monsters, the Armored Bloodfang suddenly seemed very small.

Sigurd looked down at himself, then back at them.

He felt like an ant watching two warhorses fight.

"What are those?" Sigurd asked, his earlier anger momentarily forgotten.

Osric lowered his flask. "Watch."

That was all the warning he received.

The six-limbed feline disappeared.

Sigurd’s eyes widened.

He didn’t see the creature accelerate. One moment it stood forty yards from its opponent, body lowered against the earth.

The next second.

BOOM!

The armored beast flew backward.

Thirty feet of monstrous bulk crashed through the ground, carving a trench across the clearing before smashing into one of the colossal trees.

CRAAAAACK!

The trunk fractured.

The tree had to be more than a hundred feet tall, yet the impact bent it backward before its lower half exploded into fragments. Its canopy came crashing down, flattening smaller vegetation beneath thousands of pounds of wood and leaves.

Sigurd’s pupils contracted.

He hadn’t seen the attack.

Not clearly.

There had been a white blur, followed by impact.

The armored beast roared and surged from the wreckage. Sigurd barely caught its movement before the earth beneath its feet exploded. It crossed the distance with speed completely incompatible with its size and swung one enormous forepaw.

The feline twisted.

Too late.

THOOOOOM!

The paw connected with its ribs.

The six-limbed creature became a streak of white and black, flying across the clearing before striking the ground once, bouncing, and smashing through a massive boulder.

The boulder disintegrated.

Chunks of stone shot outward like projectiles.

One fragment screamed toward Sigurd.

He instinctively moved.

Osric casually raised his hand.

The stone stopped inches from Sigurd’s face.

Sigurd stared at it.

Osric flicked one finger, and the rock dropped harmlessly onto the ground.

"Stay close," Osric said. "Watching is safe. Wandering isn’t."

Sigurd didn’t bother replying.

The fight had already resumed.

The feline erupted from the shattered boulder with a roar. Its six limbs dug into the ground, accelerating it forward. The armored beast lowered its horns.

They collided head-on.

BOOOOOOM!

A circular shockwave ripped outward.

Grass flattened instantly. Loose stones launched into the air. Nearby saplings bent almost horizontal before snapping. Even the gigantic trees surrounding the clearing groaned beneath the pressure.

Sigurd raised an arm across his face.

Through the flying dirt, he could barely distinguish what was happening.

A white blur moved left.

A bronze mass followed.

CRACK!

Something struck flesh.

BOOM!

A body hit the earth.

WHOOSH!

A tail swept through the dust.

Another collision followed.

Sigurd tried tracking their movements and quickly realized how pointless it was. His Perception was considerably better than that of an ordinary child, yet the creatures were operating beyond what his current senses could process continuously.

He caught moments rather than sequences: the feline appearing atop the armored beast’s back; claws ripping across stone-like plates; the armored creature rearing violently; a horn tearing through white flesh; blood exploding into the air.

Then both vanished into another blur.

Sigurd’s jaw tightened.

So this was what strength looked like farther up the path.

The thought wasn’t discouraging.

It was clarifying.

His fight against the Bloodfang had felt intense because both combatants existed within a range he could understand. He could measure distance, predict movement, create openings, and punish mistakes.

Here, he couldn’t even properly see the mistakes.

The six-limbed beast suddenly appeared against the armored creature’s side. Four paws struck almost simultaneously.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The black plates protecting the larger beast’s ribs shattered.

Blood burst outward. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

The armored beast roared, spun with shocking speed, and drove its skull into the feline.

THOOM!

One horn entered beneath its shoulder.

The feline screamed.

The armored creature continued forward.

It carried its opponent across the clearing and smashed it into the ground.

BOOM!

A crater formed beneath them.

The feline’s six limbs clawed violently at its attacker, opening enormous wounds across the bronze fur. The armored beast refused to release it. Its horn drove deeper.

Then the feline’s tail wrapped around its throat.

Sigurd caught the movement.

The tail tightened.

The armored beast’s head jerked sideways.

The feline ripped itself free, leaving a spray of blood behind, and immediately attacked again. One pair of forelimbs seized the armored creature’s shoulder while the second pair tore at its throat.

The larger beast stumbled.

For the first time, Sigurd saw weakness.

The feline saw it too.

It lunged for the neck.

The armored beast suddenly dropped.

Its movement wasn’t a collapse.

It was deliberate.

The feline passed over its shoulder.

The armored beast pivoted beneath it and surged upward.

Both horns struck the feline’s abdomen.

The sound was wet.

Sigurd’s expression changed.

The horns punched through.

The feline screamed as the armored beast lifted its entire body from the ground. Blood poured down the creature’s face, covering its eyes and muzzle, but it continued rising until the six-limbed predator hung above its head.

Then it threw it.

The feline flew across the clearing.

BOOOOOOM!

It struck the earth hard enough to produce another crater.

This time it didn’t immediately rise.

The armored beast charged.

Every step shook the ground.

THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!

The feline tried pushing itself upright. One forelimb failed. It collapsed, snarled, and tried again.

Too late.

The armored monster reached it.

One massive paw slammed onto its chest.

CRACK!

The feline’s ribs collapsed beneath the impact.

It screamed and buried its claws into the attacker’s foreleg, but the armored beast lowered its head, opened a mouth filled with thick jagged teeth, and clamped its jaws around the feline’s neck.

Sigurd watched silently.

The feline thrashed.

Its six limbs tore trenches through the earth. Claws ripped more armor from its opponent. Its tail whipped hard enough to break a nearby tree.

The armored beast held on.

Then it pulled.

Muscles swelled beneath bronze fur.

The feline’s eyes widened.

RRRRRIP!

Its head tore free.

A fountain of blood erupted several feet into the air.

The body convulsed once beneath the armored beast’s paw before collapsing.

Silence descended over the ruined clearing.

The victor stood above the corpse, blood dripping from its jaws while the severed head hung between its teeth.

Sigurd didn’t move.