His words trailed off as he caught sight of the thing, or rather, the creature that had the group’s undivided attention. Though he lacked the eyesight of some of his younger peers, he could still make out several divining characteristics of the thing. It was incredibly tall and covered in dark green and gray scales and, from what he could see, it had nine overly long serpents hanging over its shoulders.
However, all of that paled in comparison to the simple fact that it was surrounded on all sides by creatures no normal man could even dream of defeating and it did so almost casually.
"Ah, good. You must be the leader of this city. I've been waiting for you to arrive," the creature announced as it stared straight at Dorian.
"What is it that you want, creature?"
"I want entrance into the city, of course," it replied as if it were obvious.
"If you plan to attack then be forewarned. We will fight until the last man to defend our home."
The creature stared at Dorian with what appeared to be amusement on its face. "You seem to be a good man and I'd hate to have to kill you. So, take this advice in the spirit that it was given." The serpent moved forward. "I mean neither you nor the inhabitants of your city any harm. However, I believe a creature I've been hunting for some time now is within those walls and I will do whatever is necessary to drag it out of hiding. Even if it means tearing this wall down to do it. So, please, open the gate and let me in."
Upon hearing this declaration Tyr turned from his place at the rail and stormed down the stairs.
"Don't do it—"Dorian heard Kiera whimper.
"Lady Kiera, you know this creature?" He asked.
"Don't let it in!" she repeated, but much louder this time.
As Dorian placed his hands on her shoulder and turned her to face him, he saw the madness within her eyes as she stared at the creature.
"Priest, please tend to Lady Kiera. She is not well."
The priest, an old human male with graying hair, dark skin, and faded blue eyes solemnly nodded his head and gently guided Kiera over to a chair near the far wall.
Dorian turned back to the creature just in time to see the gate open slightly and Tyr walk out in full battle regalia.
"What the hell is he doing!?" Dorian cursed as he turned from the rail and raced after Tyr.
I WATCHED AS A LARGE lion-man marched towards me with a scowl on his face. While tall and extremely muscular, the lion-man was vastly smaller than I was at my smallest size. So then, why were his steps causing the ground to cave in?
As he drew closer, his skin began to take on a metallic sheen, his claws grew thinner and sharper, and his muscles bulged under his robe.
There’s always one, I sighed as the lion closed in and pulled back his right arm.
The punch came much faster than I predicted and slammed into my face with all the force of a building falling on my head. The blow almost managed to knock me over, but I regained my balance and faced the lion.
I threw a backhand at his head, intending to take it clean off and be done with it, but as my hand flew through the air, the lion raised his left arm to block. A loud clanging sound echoed across the field as the lion's arm was torn clear from his body. In response, the lion spun with the blow and kicked me in the stomach hard enough to push me back. Before I could recover from the surprise of actually being pushed back, metal shards flew from the ground and rapidly rebuilt the lion's arm.
Despite the blows and my curiosity about his strength, I wasn't interested in actually fighting. I was here for Rajah, nothing more. That all changed when I saw the lion-man's eyes flash a sickly red color and I realized who it was I was fighting.
"Hello Rajah, you sneaky little shit. How've you been?"
Tyr stared at Torga in confusion, then his face twisted into an insane grin that showed off his teeth. "I've been better," Tyr admitted. "But after I kill you, I'll be doing MUCH better." He laughed manically. His smile grew so wide it split his face. "After all, I've been waiting to kill you since you so rudely intruded on MY PLANET!"
"Keep waiting." I took a blow with my left arm, then twisted to the side and allowed two of my serpents to headbutt Rajah. His body was bent in half and sent flying. Rajah bounced off the ground, leaving large trenches wherever he landed, until he finally slammed into the base of the city’s front gate. The gate bent in the middle as if it were made of cardboard instead of metal and Tyr vanished inside the city.
"Looks like peace talks have failed,” I said. “Enter the city and prevent anyone from leaving." As the serpents moved to obey, I added as an afterthought, "And don't kill anyone that doesn't attack you. I don't know how many of these people are truly innocent, but until I am sure, they are not to be harmed."
"Oh, how noble of you!" an insane voice laughed from just behind the gate.
"It never ends," I sighed while turning to face the voice. What I actually saw, however, was several hundred humans, a bisected lion-man with his guts hanging out, the leader I was talking to earlier, and Q-Shan all staring at me with blood red eyes and wicked grins on their faces. “You know what? Fuck it. Kill 'em all and let Amaar sort them out."
The serpents and the "citizens” charged at each other, while the now fully healed lion-man, leader man, and Q-Shan charged me.
Surprising, Q-Shan was the fastest of the three, so I took him out of the fight immediately. “Sorry, Kid. But you really need to sit this one out.” I pulled my head out of the way of a particularly vicious slash, then clapped him across the back. Q-Shan was knocked into the air, where one of my serpent heads caught him and coiled around him to both protect him, and to keep him out of the fight. “When this is over, no sword for a week,” Q-Shan screamed at me as if he’d lost his mind.
A heavy blow knocked me aside and was immediately followed by the lion-man raking his claws across my chest. At the same time, Leader man drew his longsword and spun beneath my arms, leaving thin cuts on my side and waist.
I stared at the rapidly healing wounds, then frowned at the two adversaries. I wasn't sure what Rajah had done to them, but if they were capable of leaving even small wounds on my body then I couldn't afford to play with them.
I turned my body slightly to the side and raised my fists in a classic boxing stance. My other eight serpent heads fanned out behind me and let out simultaneous hisses at the two men. "Don't disappoint me now."
They looked at each other, then charged. Leader man swung his sword in a heavy downward slash intending to finish the battle quickly. But one of my serpent heads bit down on the flat of the blade, while another wrapped around Leader man’s body and threw him into the air.
Meanwhile, the lion-man had once again leaped at me with his claws leading the charge. I tucked my chin into my chest, pivoted left and down, and sent a double-fisted right cross into his side. Before he could be blasted aside, two serpent heads rounded on him and bit into his legs. They swung him high into the air, then slammed him into the ground headfirst.
I twisted to see Leader man kicking the head holding onto his sword. The serpent head was forced to let go, then Leader man swung his blade in a downward arc, which bisected the head. His victory was cut short when another head bit him on the leg and lifted him into the air, before violently and savagely slamming Leader man into the ground. This gave the injured serpent head time to regrow and rejoin the fight.
The lion-man hit me from the left, then quickly cut across to my right and unleashed a bone-breaking haymaker into my side. The blow had me reeling. I stumbled and winced in pain. The blow wasn't a bad thing, however, as it taught me something.
The lion-man was getting stronger with every exchange.
I had to exchange a few more blows with him before I noticed what was happening: Every time I hit him, he would pull in metal from the ground. This made him stronger, tougher, and much, much heavier than he had any right to be.
I leaned back to avoid a particularly nasty swipe of lion-man’s claws, then grabbed his arms and yanked them apart. For
the second time in this fight, I was surprised. His arms weren’t ripped off like I intended; they were merely dislocated.
The lion-man planted his feet on my chest and pushed off, kicking me in the chin as he flipped out of my grip.
The heads were closing in on Leader man. Every swipe, every slash, and every stab was returned with an attack of their own. Slowly but surely, they were overwhelming him, and the only thing that allowed him to continue fighting for as long as he did was whatever Rajah had done to him. And even that was slowly beginning to fail him. I glanced down at his right leg and noticed why. The bite wound from earlier was leaking a clear fluid and had already rotted to the point of exposing his bones.
Apparently, they carried my acid venom too.
Suddenly, a head swung around behind Leader man and knocked his legs out from under him, then another head bit into his shoulder and lifted him high into the air before it and another head ripped his arms off. A third head grabbed his leg and slammed him into the ground where he lay unmoving.
I blocked yet another kick to my head with my aching left arm, then grabbed it with my right and pulled the lion-man in close. This knocked him off balance and allowed me to finally wrap my hand around his throat and lift him into the air where he could not escape.
The lion-man struggled, kicked, punched, and screamed, but it was cut short when I sunk my teeth into the side of his neck and ripped out a generous helping of his throat. I held him off the ground while his heart pumped my acid venom throughout his body and sent arterial blood spray flying into the air.
However, a scant few seconds later, I began to feel the lion-man’s weight increasing at a rapid pace.
"What's—wrong, bastard?” the lion man gurgled. “Am I getting too heavy for you?"
I grit my teeth against the weight. "Are you trying to destroy your body as well as mine?"
"Fool!" the lion-man yelled. "Haven't you figured it out yet? Look around you!”
I did so. More and more civilians continued to pour out of the city walls and attack my snakes. Their eyes glowed uniformly red as they hit with surprising power, killing serpentine dragons and Earth Leviathans alike.
“Every living creature on this planet IS my body!" he shouted as his weight began to stretch his body into grotesque proportions. The weight of the lion-man’s body had long since passed what could be considered “healthy.”
"Oh—” I looked over my shoulder at a still thrashing Q-Shan. “Thanks for the heads up," I muttered. My grip around the lion-man’s throat tightened until the metal beneath my fingers screeched. “Is there a way to save them?” I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting it said out loud.
"T—They were dead the moment my spores infected them. You can’t save them, ‘hero,’" he mocked.
“I’m no hero.” I reversed gravity in a fifty-foot radius around me. The lion-man’s eyes widened as his weight became at first negligible, then it started pulling him into the sky. “A hero would’ve found a way to save these people. I’m a monster, just like you.” I let go of the lion-man’s throat, then quickly flipped gravity once again and amplified it. His body fell through the planet like he was shot out of a cannon. The ground shook, and a literal wave of stone and magma crashed into the wall, destroying it and the city in the process.
Chapter 25
HOW DO I ALWAYS GET myself into these situations?
I raised my arms in an X in front of me in time to block a bolt of lightning striking the dead center of my body. It was immediately followed by a large explosion as the body within the lightning slammed my arms and folded in on itself. After hitting the ground, the broken body rose to its feet and healed faster than I ever thought possible.
"Really wish you’d stop doing that," I sighed.
A slim fist waved away the dust and debris still floating in the air from the intense speed of the lighting strike. A human woman of about thirty years of age snapped her neck back into place, then grinned up at me. She was tall for a human and stood somewhere around six-five. Her long, flowing blonde hair seemed to vibrate from the electrical current that surrounded her, and a deep golden-colored robe was draped over her shoulders with seemingly only a cloth belt holding it together.
However, what stood out the most about the woman was her crimson eyes, which seemed to radiate a sense of wrongness.
She lifted one leg and leaped off the ground. Her lithe body spun at such speeds that the air around her began to distort from friction and she threw her leg at my face.
I tilted my head back as the foot passed less than an inch in front of my face. One of my serpent heads opened its mouth and fired a beam of energy at the woman’s waist. The only thing it succeeded in doing was making a hole in the wall a hundred feet behind her.
Damn.
Suddenly the woman was standing in front of me again. She slammed her fist into my chest before I could react. However, her magic was consumed the second she came within ten feet of me, causing her bare hand to smack into my body. She screamed in pain as her hand was violently broken upon impact. The woman growled and her body began to spark once again as she prepared herself for another attack.
I swatted her lightning enhanced fist away from my body and slapped her across the face. The blow sent her flying into the canyon wall over a hundred feet away and buried her up to her waist in solid stone.
"You're coming with me whether you like it or not, Rajah. Just be glad I want you alive for the moment or else I'd have expedited the process."
Rajah pulled her body from the rubble and glared at me with eyes that ran red with blood. "Ohhhh, well sorry for wasting your time! Let's just go then, SHALL WE?" Rajah's body glowed yellow as she ramped up her magic and was suddenly gone.
I was hit three times before I could react, each blow was hard enough to break stone. However, all the hits served to do was break the limb she was hitting me with.
Such was my durability now, the blows felt more akin to being smacked by a plastic bat than an actual strike meant to do damage. I turned my head to the left and saw a large trail of dust leading into a wall. As I moved, the air around me picked up and a gentle breeze blew the dust away.
"You know, parrying your attacks were so you wouldn't get hurt. Not the other way around." I bent down and lifted Rajah's broken body by the throat; All four limbs were a deep purple color and were bent in odd angles. Even so, Rajah attempted to bite my hand as he was lifted into the air. Eventually, Rajah gave up and his eyes dimmed.
"Fine, you win this round, but I WILL have my revenge!"
I lightly flicked Rajah on the nose, causing it to turn black. His eyes immediately returned to their normal color, and he started whining from the pain of having his nose broken.
"None of that shit. You're not some two-bit demon-lord, so stop acting like one. You lost, I won, get over it and yourself." I bent my knees and was preparing to fly when a sudden thought occurred to me. "Oh, and no trying to abandon your body and escape. I'm destroying this planet from orbit whether you're with me or not."
"WHAT!? WHY!?"
"Because, hunting your bacteria-ridden ass all over this planet for the last two days has A. Pissed me off, and B. Made me very hungry. So please, do keep reminding me why I’m pissed off and hungry. I’m sure it’ll work out great for you."
"No thank you. I’d prefer to live a little while longer."
"Excellent, now shut up." I lifted into the air, slowly at first, and then I began to pick up speed once I was above the canyon walls. Within a few minutes, I was at the branch and climbing rapidly. Once I broke through the upper atmospheric layer, I turned away from the branch and drifted closer to the planet, while trying to remain close enough to the branch that I could still breathe.
One of my serpent heads coiled around the Rajah's body. Rajah's eyes widened, but he didn't make a sound as the head carried him as far from me as it deemed safe. Don't try to escape. I may not be able to digest food like the main body, but I guarantee you won't like it if I try, I
heard the head whisper.
"You can talk!?"
Are you supposed to be talking?
Rajah shook his head and looked away from the very sharp teeth that lined the snake's mouth.
My body rapidly expanded and grew until I was looking down on the planet. It was still bigger than I was, but I was almost as tall. My tail swung around and coiled around the planet, while my eight other serpent heads stretched out as far as the eye could see. They reached out in either direction and observed what I was about to try from every angle they could get.
The first to go was the atmosphere of the planet. My aura sucked it away and devoured it in only a scant few minutes.
Without the atmosphere, the planet began turning a deep black color, starting from the areas closest to the branch and rapidly expanding outwards as a wave of blue energy flowed into my mouth. I greedily drank in every last bit of the blue energy like a man dying of thirst. This process took several days, during which I was in something of a trance, completely unaware of my surroundings, save for the constant supervision of my serpent heads.
And then the planet itself was devoured: I created a gravity well stronger than any before and focused on pulling everything in my sight towards my body. Everything was crushed, stretched, and ripped under the insane gravitational pull until it was reduced to little more than dust then it was sucked into my aura. What was originally a beautiful planet with a radius of over ten thousand miles was destroyed and devoured in less than two weeks.
I shrunk until I was at my smallest size—around a hundred and thirty feet—then approached Rajah.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a right bastard?" he asked.
"Says the guy who enslaved tens of thousands of people. I may not be the best man around, but at least when I kill something, it stays dead."
"You have no idea what you're talking about! I gave them purpose. Don't you see that? Before I came along, they were living out their miserable lives in some backwater planet on the edge of Yggdrasil. Sickness, war, starvation, these things propagated like maggots among the population for millennia! I. Helped. Them!"
A Snake's Path (A Snake's Life Book 2) Page 22