Dusk of a Hybrid

by Ryan Johnson

  Then he shook his head, waving his wet hair. He once again raised his free hand and lit a fire and waved it around his wet hair as a way to get dry faster than having it drape over his head.

  After he waved the fire around his hair, Valverno once again waved his hair and it was completely dry. He looked at his reflection again and saw it was the same it was before it burst by an electric pulse. He smiled and nodded at his perfect hair and looked back at the person who caused his personal hair to go haywire.

  “Got anything else more powerful than some electric shocks, Snake Man? As I mentioned, I’ve dealt with Dark Pangaeans before and they all have unleashed thousands of different power combinations against me, and they all manage to fail. No Dark Pangaean power is in no much against True Pangaean power.”

  The snake man hissed and dashed out the hole Valverno blasted that was meant to kill the person fleeing out of it. Black sparks formed behind the man’s back and formed into cloud-formed wings. He flew out the hole.

  Valverno shook his head, grabbed the sword he dug on the ground, and flew after the man flying out the hole. Valverno’s take of flight was speedy and precise; he nearly caught the man flying out the hole with his tail but missed.

  Both and the snake-man and Valverno were flying in the air. The man dropped down just Valverno launched his flying behind the diving man. The demigod rose high above the air and dived down like a falcon.

  His eyes were gazing at his opponent flying out beneath many bridges of the fortress’s towers. Valverno aimed to be slightly higher than the man flying beneath the bridges. Valverno had to turn from his falling-diving vertically to flying horizontally like a bird flying south for the winter.

  Valverno kept his eyes on the flying man like how an eagle with keen eyes focusing on its prey trying to outrun the eagle. They flew over and under many bridges and dodged many other towers they came close to crashing into.

  After a while, the man below spiraled to a tower to crash into it with a punch of his hand. The man went through it Valverno lost sight of him. Valverno only was left with an exploding impact and the small tower’s lower walls were falling from the roots and three bridges connecting it fell.

  After seconds the man went exploding through the small tower’s walls, the entire tower itself fell toward. Both the falling tower and Valverno were rapidly coming at a headlong speed the demigod didn’t have enough time to dodge it. However, Valverno stretched out his swords and spun fast like a tornado.

  The fires on his arms spread across his entire spinning body, making a fall tornado of fire. Valverno’s fiery spin plowed through the tower’s first spiral wall and he went out through the interior walls. Valverno stopped his spinning and watched the tower be torn in half of his plowing-through and fall onto mountain slopes.

  Then Valverno turned his attention to a loud gush of wind coming diagonally left from his left foot. His eyes quickly caught the sight of the snake leader coming to him from the falling sounds of the collapsing tower. The snake leader held Valverno’s swords with his own hands.

  “Yousss are quick,” said the hissing man. “Now youssss die!”

  The man spat poisonous saliva at Valverno’s face, which was blocked by his the end tip of the dragon tail. And the tail went to go impale the man who spat the saliva.

  The man gave a loud scream, and he felt his own poison that came from his own mouth being injected back into him.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Many Dark Pangaeans I fought with ten thousand years ago tried to kill me in various methods and all have failed. You’re using the same methods I’ve encountered by your ancestors. And I thought by now you and you fallen two friends would have learned new methods of killing, but I’m glad I couldn’t be more wrong. Using the same methods of killing won’t be effective when facing the same opponent who has experienced those methods first hand. Even my half-sister Sora would have been able to dodge such attacks.”

  Floating over his last enemy, Valverno scorched both the swords of the fires that spurred from his arms, and made the snake man’s hands go burning since he touched Valverno’s swords. “Go burn in the world of fires burn you endless with your two comrades and your king and that witch!” Then Valverno slashed the man in the heart with the two burning swords.

  The snake man hissed and screeched loudly as he felt burning flames scorching his heart. His eyes burst into flames and red fire puffed out his nose.

  Then Valverno pushed his swords through the man’s rips and going an opposite direction of the man’s body, one was pushed out the left side and the other the right side. Valverno watched as his enemy’s body cracking up with fire burns and exploding and incinerating into clouds of smoke and ashes.

  Valverno rose higher and saw the ashy remains of the last snake leader falling toward the mountaintops below: he had killed the last snake leader of the Snake Clan.

  REMNANTS OF A DEFEATED CLAN

  Valverno breathed softly as he drifted in the air for a short period; he had killed the three leaders of the Snake Clan. And since they are dead, the Snake Clan would be leaderless, and they would have no one else to turn to. He has the biggest opportunity to rally a forth clan to his aid and use the Snake Clan to serve as both scouts and soldiers for the other three clans he commands.

  He soared across the fortress to see what was going on. Down below, he saw the soldiers standing on the bridges. They saw him flying by and didn’t fling a single spear at him or let loose an arrow toward him. He saw many confused faces, and Valverno knew those faces had the expressions of “what just happened?” and “how did I get here?” and not showing hostilities moments after he dealt with the clan leaders.

  He soared across the many bridges connecting too many of the towers and seeing the same expressions on every soldiers face. Valverno had fought many of them and he had a sudden gut feeling of not to kill them and this was what his gut feeling was telling him: brainwashed soldiers set free.

  Valverno set free soldiers that were being brainwashed by the three leaders using their staffs for brainwashing magic. The Dark Pangaean magic that circulates through those staffs must have belonged to powerful users, and the three people he’d slain were descendants of those users.

  Since he has dealt with the last of the Dark Pangaeans, the Snake Clan has been disbanded the moment the brainwashing magic ceased in the minds of every soldier. But Valverno doesn’t see it that way; he still thinks there could be some people who owe loyalty to the clan leaders. He didn’t want to take the clan and place them somewhere else where they could still betray him.

  Right now he has three clans watching the Lion Clan and those clans can be outmatched by the fierce strength the soldiers of the Lion Clan. He’d seen what the Lion Clan can do in battle and how well organized they are, even when they were enslaved by the Five-Headed Dragon. From childhood to adulthood, each member of the Lion Clan learns the art of war and strategy battling.

  Even the Tigress Clan, which Valverno planned that could best rival the Lion Clan, didn’t have the necessary strength to fight against the Lion Clan. The Tigress Clan took heavy losses battling against Uragiru’s forces and has been slowly rebuilding their army since the battle, and the same goes with the other two clans; the Eagle and Cheetah Clans have taken heavy losses in that battle and slowly rebuilding their armies.

  Now with the Snake Clan without its leadership, they were vulnerable. Valverno had his chance to take over the clan. Since he didn’t kill away soldiers of the clan, they were at their full strength and they could stand a chance against the Lion Clan. They had ten thousand strong, and he knew they were well trained in battle with swords and spears.

  He flew overhead of where the tallest tower stood, and the same tower the three leaders hid in. Valverno placed his hands place and a small purple energy sphere glowed in between his hands.

  Then he waved his hands in opposite directions and the sphere broke into ab
out a dozen others and each shot like shooting stars in random directions. This was a similar way of what Uragiru did when he communicated through a crystal ball sent out across Shimabellia when he had Marina captured and showed Valverno’s corrupted face. And Valverno used a little dark magic to make a replica to reveal the real Uragiru from a kind, caring ruler to a power-hungry tyrant that made Lusìvar turn against the king.

  Valverno waited for a few seconds for the dozen of flying orbs to reach to their destinations. He waited a full thirty seconds and once he felt it was enough time he spoke with a clear voice and very loudly so people can hear him: “Soldiers of the Snake Clan! I come before you all. I have slain your three leaders and they can no longer help you. Your leadership has been sunk into the ground from battle and I rose to the top. I see many of your confused faces and you might wonder what has been going on: you all have been brainwashed.

  “The leaders of the Snake Clan used ancient black magic to crawl into your minds and turn you into mindless slaves. They served a corrupted king trying to bring a never-lasting reign over the freedom of people native to Shimabellia and Isla Maeli. A king who has been dead for three years, and your leaders still sworn their loyalty in him. I killed this king and now your leaders. And by doing so, I have killed them, and they have failed to kill me.

  “Now, it is the time for each and every one of you to decide of your own future. You can abandon this clan and join the other three clans or you can stay in the clan. Change the name if you need to, but you would need a leader. I would end up being your leader of this now Nameless Clan, because no one else will take up the responsibility. However, I will, as I am Valverno, Demigod of Pangaea and son of the Crystal Dragon God.

  “In the next hour, you all have a choice to make. Join me and fight an ancient Shadow threat trying to destroy the freedoms of people of the islands, or go your own way and find a life for yourself. Your future is in your hands.

  “If you side with Lusìvar, who is my sworn enemy, you will die! Now decide what you soldiers want to do. If don’t have anything to think about, I’ll be at the nearest northern mountains. Meet me there if any of you soldiers want to join me and have nothing else to do.”

  Valverno casted away his magic sphere and the glowing orbs he sent in random directions lightly exploded into sparkling spectacles of dust. He rose higher as he flapped his wings.

  Down below, he saw many faces looking more confused as to what he just said. He was starting to think these people don’t have the knowledge of what was or even was going on. It may have been like their brains were closed to the outside world and no words of the past twenty years went into their closed brains.

  Valverno could be speaking to full-grown adults whose have brains of newborn infants. If this was the case, he had no idea how long it was going to be if he could teach the freed brainwashed people twenty years of events in just a few hours.

  He was going have to fly to his destination and wait to see what would happen in an hour. He surely didn’t want or spend any time being a parent and teach ten thousand people basic knowledge of what’s going on, the events unfolding, yet alone who each of them may know of themselves.

  He turned away and flew away from the fortress. After a few seconds flight, he stood atop a small mountain three times smaller than the fortress’s tallest tower. It some fair distance from the fortress and an easy walk to get to, only if the soldiers from the fortress knew the way to. So, Valverno spewed a ray of fire and sent up a red smoke signal rising in the air on the mountain he spoke about.

  But the problem was: will the soldiers were going to come to the mountain he was signaling them to come to? Valverno was a bit curious of what will happen, if they didn’t come at all and all sat on the bridges and towers they were guarding. He would have to wait for an hour to see what will happen and hopefully the soldiers will be intelligent like real adults or he was going to deal with an army of children in adult forms.

  It took some time, but Valverno saw a large gathering of every soldier coming to the tower he was at. He waited some long hours, but they did come. His eyesight gave him great enhancement to see miles far away and all the soldiers he fought before and the ones he didn’t lay harm on came to him.

  By his eyesight, all the soldiers that brainwashed in the Snake Clan have come to his attention. He could detect much sense of eyes gazing at him in seriousness. He wasn’t dealing with an army of children after all. It seemed during their time being brainwashed, their minds were open to the outside world and they all didn’t have the minds of a newborn infant. Each of them was a full grown adult and many of them came to the mountain Valverno stood upon.

  And Valverno couldn’t be more surprised: all ten thousand came to his attention. He was the center of attention of the entire clan and they all came to him. He sensed in each soldier they tried, with sheer will, beat back the brainwashing magic the three leaders conjured, but were ultimately defeated in the end and eventually becoming slaves and minions for the now-dead leaders.

  “I can see all everyone has come,” shouted Valverno. His voice echoed across the mountainside. His voice was crystal clear like a real human’s voice and he spoke fluently so that everyone could understand him and not hearing a so-soggy, dragonize voice. “I am Valverno, Demigod of Pangaea and son of the Crystal Dragon God. I am the sworn enemy of Lusìvar, an ancient being of Shadow that is meant long ancient. Such idol threats of the Snake Clan’s dead leaders and the king they serve are dead, but a few things remain; the leader of the Lion Clan, Teutates, and the Shadow King Lusìvar still remain our threat.

  “If you don’t have the knowledge, I might as well tell you. Lusìvar is mine to deal with. So, people of the Nameless Clan, I want this clan to join the other three clans keeping their eyes on the Lion Clan and their leader. With this clan, it would be four against one.

  “Why else would every one of you come before me when all you could have walked free and make your own future? I can state the obvious: none of you have a family or a life you’re willing to take. You all spent your lives being brainwashed and have nothing to lose. But if you join me and fight for the Light, you will have meaning in your miserable lives. Will any one stand behind me and join me as I fight an ancient Shadow as I bring balance to Light and Shadow back into the islands?”

  Valverno paused and listened closely. All he heard was the sounds of the people breathing through their noises.

  Then one sound of a foot stomping the ground grew as a hundred more feet grew. After several seconds, thousands of feet pounded the ground like thunder in the sky being shattered by the sounds of feet breaking through cracks of rocks.

  Soon enough, all the people Valverno looked upon were pounding their feet very loudly, and they all shouted in war cries. They all lifted up spears while shouting out annoying voices that could make a bee lose its flight trying to cover its ears.

  Valverno was greatly immune to the annoying voices that sounded like a spoiled kid who’s got his favorite toy taken away from him by an eagle. But he could tell this was indeed a sign that all ten thousand soldiers were declaring the demigod as their new leader. This Nameless Clan now had a new leader they would turn to and see the demigod lead them to whatever his main goal or objective may be and may lead them to.

  And Valverno would have to think of a new name for the dismantled Snake Clan. Instead of being named after a vicious, poisonous reptile, he would rename the clan the Lizard Clan. He himself didn’t know why he would name the clan of another retile; he thought lizard sounded less evil than the word snake.

  He would shout to all the soldiers he looked upon that they were now part of the new clan: the Lizard Clan. And he hoped the other three clans would be willing to accept this new profound clan he had taken over.

  FOUR CLANS UNIFIED

  Getting a clan under his wings was easier than expected, but transportation was harder than trying to finding a needle in a hays
tack. For the next few days, Valverno had to transport members of the new profound Lizard Clan to the eastern coast of Isla Maeli. There was a city that served as a seaport and the only inhabited city on the entire island.

  He had to guide his new army under his command from the southwestern coast and to the most central eastern side to the Seaport City: the city where Teutates and the Lion Clan were living. All the soldiers had thousands of ships that transported them from Shimabellia to Isla Maeli.

  He always thought to using portals to transport the clan to the Seaport City, but using magic to create portals to transport people to other territories consumed too much of his body energy to stand on his legs and go numb very quickly. The power he uses to create portals was intense enough to put him into a long coma, which he manage to stay away from.

  Since his magic powers he had inserted into him from dead creatures from a certain laboratory and a Shadow power from the Pool of Shadows had stripped away when he summoned forth the God of Shadows, his power was now very little than it used to be. He still had the physical muscle strength he had the time he fought the Minotaur, but he magic powers were weakened.

  So Valverno had to limit his magic power and only use it to deal with powerful enemies such as Lusìvar. But he hasn’t been since against the dead king and witch. Valverno had spent the last three years fighting with limited use of his magic power. When he would find the last artifact which would restore him fully, Valverno would avoid collapsing and use magic power endlessly.

  Now, he had another clan with a big army under his wing, and he was seeing them all sail to the Seaport City. The ships he saw the clan traveled with weren’t just passenger ships but warships. A few soldiers explained to him the battleships were made from rare wood with great durability and mass force that can ram into other ships, which either could be big or small, and the battleships won’t get a dent from ramming into other ships.