The smell of musty earth and ozone, mixed with the acrid stench of the beast, burned S.K.'s nostrils. He was pressed against a crumbling stone wall in the bustling Commercial District, the sound of panicked screams and heavy footfalls echoing the violent beat of his own ancient heart.
"Bloody hell, you miserable, goddamn fool," he hissed under his breath, jamming a calloused thumb into his eye socket in a spasm of self-recrimination.
"Should have just waited the extra two days. Should have stayed at the shack, or at the very least brought some artifacts with me. But I didn't, and where am I? Right in the bloody bullseye of this bloody turd."
When the initial alarm sounded, he had been procuring the last of his provisions—a fine piece of smoked venison and some tea. He'd initially paid the warnings little mind. The sighting was a considerable distance from where he was, but the beast's rapid, unnatural movement had forced him deeper and deeper into the city's heart, as if it was… searching for something.
That was when the horrifying realization had struck him.
He tested his hypothesis with a desperation born of long experience. Tearing a swatch of cloth from his worn cloak, he'd used his own spit and some Flow to draw a crude but potent Sensory Array, turning it into a talisman. He stuck it onto one of the passing, bleating sheep that had escaped a collapsing pen and melted into the fleeing crowd, keeping his eyes on the animal. The Apex creature, ignoring the general panic and the thousands of potential human targets, had zeroed in on that particular sheep with terrifying precision—wounding but ignoring the others—and tore it apart in a spray of bone and gore before continuing its calculated rampage.
'Fucking bastards! They keyed it to my signature!' he thought, his chest heaving with cold fury.
'Those pieces of shit! They must have harvested a sample somehow and wired it into the beast! This rampage is a bloody search!'
Cursing his luck and the sheer audacity of his attackers, S.K. adjusted the greasy satchel slung over his shoulder. He began moving discreetly within the flow of the panicked citizens. He had drawn a Sensory Array on himself to prevent recognition. It was the only protection he had thought to bring with him, but that was enough for now, as it would be difficult to locate him within the crowd. The people after him were definitely watching from somewhere, and by following the rampage, they would be able to find him. At that point, it wouldn't matter how different he was perceived.
He took out a piece of cloth from his bag and peeled off small pieces of it, cutting into his thumb with the nail of his index finger. Using the drops of blood and his Flow, he made more talismans, taking detours to stick them quickly onto high walls, street signs, and discarded crates at random. This was to slow the creature down by diverting its attention. At some point, he began sticking the talismans on animals he came across—dogs, cats, rats, birds—and even considered using the crowd in this way to his advantage.
He hated it. A life was a life, no matter how small.
'But if they capture me, the chaos they could unleash would consume thousands more—perhaps the whole world.'
He spotted a fat, oblivious tabby cat in the alley he was moving through and, with a quick, practiced motion, slapped a talisman onto its scruff before pushing it toward a side alley.
'Forgive me, you fluffy little shit. It's for the greater good,' he thought, rubbing the part of his hand it had scratched.
Just as he inserted himself back into the mob, a collective, ear-splitting gasp of terror ripped through the crowd he was hiding in.
The source of the horror was magnificent in its terror. The Apex Beast had just ripped through a stone wall, emerging from a cloud of dust and pulverized masonry.
It was colossal, easily fifteen feet in height when fully extended, its body covered in thick, sapphire-blue scales that shimmered wetly in the light filtering through the mist its body exuded—an unnatural, chilling haze that frosted the air around it. The color was strangely beautiful, but the overall effect was utterly grotesque: massive, disproportionate forelimbs ending in razor-sharp claws; a head far too large for its body; and a powerful, serpentine tail that crushed everything it passed. Spikes ran along its sides and at the edges of its head like whiskers. Its tongue shot into the alley, and a squelching sound was heard, followed by a muffled yowl. The crowd watched as it pulled the impaled body of the tabby cat into its mouth, stood on its hind legs, and looked around before tilting its head down toward them.
S.K. saw his reflection in its orange, serpentine eyes, its inner eyelid blinking once. Then it roared—a guttural sound that rattled S.K.'s teeth—its gaping maw dripping thick, crystalline saliva mixed with blood.
The crowd dissolved into pandemonium, screams turning into choked cries as people trampled one another in their desperate flight.
The beast chose its next target, its huge head swinging toward a cluster of frozen, terrified citizens. It was about to lunge when a silver blur intervened.
The sound that followed was the high, screaming clash of Flow meeting Flow, sharp and sudden as lightning.
A figure, moving too fast to be clearly tracked by the naked eye, sliced through the air. The beast roared in agony as its entire right forearm was severed in a clean, impossibly fast motion. The figure continued the motion, spinning to deliver a shallow but deep cut along the creature's flank, then pivoted, grabbing the creature's immense tail with an impossible grip and hurling the enraged monstrosity backward, crashing through the remains of the wall it had just breached.
S.K. didn't stop moving, but he risked a glance over his shoulder. He recognized Eddie Gable, who stood tall amidst the chaos. He was not in his formal silver armor, but in a tight black compression shirt that showed the fluid, massive power of his physique despite his age, paired with leather pants and boots. His curly grey hair, streaked with silver, blew dramatically in the sudden wind generated by the clash, framing a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. In his left hand, the Phantom—a longsword of gleaming silver metal—dripped with the corrosive black-blue blood of the Apex creature.
Eddie didn't look tired. He simply regarded the beast as if trying to assess its capabilities.
The Apex Beast let out a shriek of pure, agonizing rage. It licked the stump of its severed limb, the corrosive ooze instantly frosting over. It lunged, its remaining three limbs tearing up the pavement.
The clash began in earnest. The raw power was staggering. Every time Eddie's blade met the beast's scales or teeth, a shimmering shockwave rippled outward, shattering nearby windows and sending gusts of superheated air through the street. The ground cracked and buckled under the force of the creature's enraged strikes, and Eddie—relying on the evasive core of his Phantom Blade style—was a dizzying presence, deceiving the creature with each movement and striking true.
On the rooftops, in the shadows, and even among the crowd, the men in grey observed keenly, having followed the beast they had trained to find him and now trying to locate S.K. within the vicinity. However, they paused and fell back once Eddie Gable appeared and the Hunters and Knights began leading the people away. This withdrawal was not because they feared the Senior Knight; no—though he was a Saint, and they were Saints themselves, and could take him. But doing so would draw the attention of the other two Saints—the Lord of the land most especially—and none of them, not even as a group, were willing to face Alaric the Still. Beyond that, discovery would lead to complications. So they withdrew a short distance, still keeping a keen eye out for their target.
The target in question was steps from freedom. The crowd had mostly dispersed, people fleeing into their homes, with only a few heading in the same direction. He was just passing through the gate when he noticed, moving deliberately against the current, three… children?
They were a boy with streaks of scarlet in his blonde hair, being pulled along by an impatient young girl with purple hair, who was also dragging another boy by the arm.
"Come on, Elias! If you don't hurry up, we'll miss the good bit!" she said with a grin.
"I'm only allowing this for educational purposes, so you'd better not misbehave," retorted the third—a girl with platinum-blonde hair and familiar, emerald eyes.
"Don't be such a buzzkill, big sister."
"Don't call me that!"
"But how come only Elias gets to?"
"You are not Elias."
'Lunatics!' S.K. thought, aghast.
'What parent would let kids this age run toward danger like it's some kind of festival? Look how carefree they look! If this is how kids act, then the next generation is doomed.'
That last phrase stirred something in his memory. S.K. vaguely recalled a group of seven children he had watched, a lifetime ago.
'If this is how you lot behave, then your whole generation is doomed,' he remembered yelling at them. But they had just laughed as the group's ringleaders—two boys and a girl—tried to calm him down with smiles on their faces.
He stopped dead outside the gate, the fresh, clear air tasting like bitter ash in his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut, performing a desperate, agonizing calculus. Turning back meant certain capture—or worse, death by a Sapphire Beast. Escaping now meant life. But it also meant those children, those familiar young faces, would be alone.
He let out a strangled, weary shout of resignation that was half scream, half curse.
"Well, fuck me sideways!"
He turned his back on the open gate, on the smell of dust and blood, and plunged back into the shrieking chaos.