Kapitel 2: The Monster In The Woods

The children are laughing and giggling. Everyone is smiling while eating the delicious meat and vegetables that Suzumi made for supper. Then at this time the vigorous months of training with a sword began with his father. Tatsumi takes Ankoku to the whispering woods where strong magic beasts and monsters dwell, he looks at Ankoku and with only a few short words he stares at him and says

"Enhancement Magic: *IRON SKIN*

Te then glows a shade of purple and his body becomes as tough as a form of metal, he looks at his son and says

"Son do what I did"

Ankoku tries for 100 times and never got it until he finally got it on his 102nd try, in this instant Tatsumi looked at Ankoku and said

"Good Luck, my son."

He then runs away swiftly leaving Ankoku deep inside the whispering woods. He begins to race through the woods when he hears a cry for help he looks around but he can't see where the person is so he rushes in the direction of the scream when he sees a monster called the Shrieker, It mimics the voice of those it kills and devours. Tall and Slender with its rib cage popping out with long serrated teeth lining its mouth with bright red eyes on the front of its head and 2 on the back of its skull with long spiky needle like poles sticking out from its spine with long slender arms with giant poisonous claws standing about 9 feet tall. Ankoku recalls the tale of a monster his father once told him about that once killed around 20 kingdom knights and still got away from them.

—flashback—--

"Son, if you ever find yourselves in those woods and you come across the horrifying creature tall and slender with giant claws, do not ever attempt to fight it."

Ankoku looks up at his father in shock and fear and says

"Father, how do you know about this?"

Tatsumi took a deep sigh and said

"Well, I was once a knight of the Rekya Kingdom and I was one of the knights that once fought that monster and I still wish I never did."

"We were just walking through the edge of the woods on patrol when we heard someone beg for me to be the captain of the patrol, and my 30 men too run into the woods to help there. We found nothing but footprints. We followed the footprints to a cave stinking of rotting flesh with bones at the entrance. I had the priests of our patrol force cast

"Holy Guidance"

On our weapons and it lit up the cave as we marched inside. We looked around, bones everywhere. I could feel the crack of the bones I was stepping on. At the moment we made it into the middle of the cave we heard a shallow child's voice down a pathway that split off one of my knights ran towards the child's voice I didn't realize at the time until it was too late I saw bright red eyes in the corner of the corridor he was running to and as I screamed

"IT'S A TRAP RUN"

My knight, my friend, was grabbed by the head and lifted into the air as he screamed from the pain all we could see was him being brought up into the sky and the loud *SLASH* and his body fell to the ground missing his head *CLANK* The body hit the ground hard as the monster threw his head at our feet and two long skinny arms with massive claws reached out and clenched the walls of the cave tightly breaking the rocks with its grip. It roared loudly, shaking us to our core. We were all shaking in fear but I still gave the command to attack the monster. The knights took the frontlines as our mages and priests were casting magic in the back line. The Priests lift their hands facing the palms of their hands towards the frontline knights glowing a bright white light with a circular symbol in the middle of their palm with an X inside the circle and they chant

"Presidium"

The knights glow white and a slight shimmer appears around them. Tatsumi yells

"CHARGE MY KNIGHTS TAKE THE BEAST DOWN!!"

The 10 knights charged towards the shrieker they slashed and striked at the beast with swords and spears barely cutting it's iron hard flesh the shrieker raises its claws impaling one of the knights right through the stomach lifting him into the air and throws him into the wall the knight lay dying against the wall all of the knights looking shocked that it happened lightning fast. The Mage Unit Sergeant ordered the barrage onto the shrieker, the mages all stare at the shrieker in fear and chant at the same time

"Purgatorial Flame"

then bright red magic circles appeared above below and to its sides and is set a flame a burning bright red flame then it fell to the ground letting out a loud shriek as it fell. The Patrol team smiled and began to celebrate when they heard a loud sound like a whip being lashed against metal *SHINK SHINK* Just at that moment all of the mages and priests fell dead, cut in half and decapitated. All for 2 mages out of the ten they had, the two mages looked down to see one had a massive cut in her stomach, the fiance of the mage captain, as she dropped to her knees and stared at her fiance

"Dear…I..I don't want to die..not ye-"

Just then the shrieker slammed down taking a bite out of her head. The mage captain, afraid and angry raised his arm to start an incantation. At that moment he realized his hands were on the ground no longer attached to his body. He began to cry and begging the shrieker for mercy just then the Shrieker spoke to him, in his fiance's voice,

"do not fear my love you won't feel anything"

It began snickering in a deep evil voice, Then a quick slash from its claws the mage fell dead. With his remaining knights he knew he could not win so they made a dash for the exit as they ran the beast smiled at them like it knew they wouldn't get out of this place. *SWOOSH SWISH* it appeared in front of two of the knights trying to run away and mimicked the mages magic

"Purgatorial Flame"

*FLOOSH* the knights burst into a blue hellfire melting them down to ash. The Shrieker's eyes glowed a shallow a shade of crimson and dashed *BOOM BOOM BAM* slashing through the knights killing six more of the knights as the remaining knights and Tatsumi exited the cave into the sunlight. The nine knights and Tatsumi stared at the red eyes staring into their souls from the dark it began snickering

"hehehehehe, my oh my, how did you manage to escape me..how lucky"

in a deep monstrous robotic type voice. The eyes slank back into the darkness as the remaining member of the patrol force exited the forest looking depressed and defeated.

—flashback ended—-

Ankoku started to slowly walk the other way while keeping eye on the Shrieker eating its supper which appeared as to be bandits corpse, he could hear the sounds *SPLAT SPLOOSH SPLASH CHOMP NOM* as it fed on the bandit once he was far enough away he made a sprint for the edge of the Whispering Woods when he heard an animal cry he looked over and it was a baby fox being cornered by horned hellish wolves, he charged at them as he used his martial art

"TWIN AIR BLADE STRIKE"

sending two slashes of wind at high speed hurling towards the two wolves slashing them both and they ran off injured growling and whimpering into the woods. Ankoku bends down and reaches his hand out towards the fox as it lunged at him biting onto Ankoku's hand, Ankoku stayed there and let it bite as he could sense the fear in its eyes, he lifted his other hand behind it and said

"HEAL"

the fox grew bright yellowish white and it's cuts healed up and closed. The Fox looked at Ankoku and wagged its three tails that's when Ankoku realized it was a spirit fox he had saved one of the rarest species of them too a white haired fox with red tipped tails with bright gold eyes and red fur surrounding the eyes with two sharp fangs sticking out on both sides of the baby foxes mouth. Then it leaped towards him phasing through Ankoku leaving a yellow orange mark in the shape of a circle with unknown inscriptions on the rim of the circle with strange carvings and symbols in the circle. The baby fox then ran off into the woods, Ankoku didn't notice the mark on his chest as it faded away and began to run out of the Whispering Woods again and then he exited them entering the sunlight once again. The smile on his face grew exceptionally wide when crossed the road to see where his father was waiting for him, smiling wide and laughing. His father then proceeded to tell Ankoku that the Shrieker is no longer alive for after they told the king about what they encountered they blew up the only entrance into the cave and therefore it must have starved to death the Shrieker Ankoku saw was merely an illusion magic from a memory his dad had. Tatsumi bent over and lifted exhausted Ankoku onto his back and carried him home as Ankoku rested his head against his father sleeping soundly looking happy.