章 136: - The Flames of Reason, the Fires of Destruction
Fire is not so easily tamed by the faintest of heart. In times of old the first flame was feared, loathed, coveted until it was stomped out. The first fire died before it could ever do what it was made to do.
When the fire was birthed again, it was used, enslaved to do the bidding of humans. It burned forests, flesh and meat, plants and animals.
Humans. It was used like a weapon and the fire changed into one. Once a delicate flower that burned, now it raged like a fury of storms crashing against the ground from the thundering sky.
No rain would save the town, no hail storm would silence the flame that burned like the embers in the ashes. It was revived, and now it is consumed. Like a hungry beast, it would not stop until all was ashes and dust.
Until it became what human hands made it to be.
A weapon of torn flesh.
The window shattered and glass flew around their heads as both Arnold and Lia raised their arms to defend against whatever had broken through. Instead however, they heard the table crash behind them, breaking into splinters.
"Lance!"
Arnold threw himself over the man flung through the window, his face covered in blood and scars, the nasty type that exposed the red and pink flesh underneath the skin.
"What happened?"
Arnold turned his hands over the man looking for any exposed wounds deeper than the small scars that littered his face.
"Commander…the city…"
Arnold turned his head just in time to see the glowing eyes of a monster, its horrid beak and sharp talons tearing through the open window, seemingly after Lance. The monster opened its beak wide comping down on tables and curtains that shattered into splinters and ripped like loose cloth.
Arnold had little time to cover Lance who could hardly stand on his feet at the moment as he caught a glance at the city raging in flames, screams of the people echoing in his ears as the monster tore its head through the small entryway.
Then, suddenly, Arnold had realized he forgot about Lia just in time to see a small chair hurled towards the monster shatter into splinters and bits. The girl he had forgotten about picked up the long side of a table, turning it around with her body and slammed it against the beast's face.
"Wait here!"
He said to Lance as he charged forward with a broken table leg in hand, Lia already facing the beast's attacks head on as he drew closer, slamming the leg over the monster's eye the moment that he got an opening.
The beast reared its head in pain and agony, its open back just barely missing Arnold as he dove to the side. The monster shook its head from side to side, barely able to fit its own head inside the room. It gave Lia the perfect chance that she needed to rip the small dagger from ehr side out of its sheath, ducking under the monster's large head, and tearing the dagger's edge over its open and exposed neck.
Blood poured over her like a warm bucket of water as the beast roared in pain before its loss of blood, which was pouring violently out of its now open wound, caused the monster to slump to the ground. The weight of the beast was great and its head slowly slid out of the opening, falling to the Great House's steps behind it, leaving a trail of blood along with it.
It was now the only chance that Lia got to see the outside, the wall having been torn from the room exposed the raging fires that tore through the city.
The streets that were once filled with people dancing and singing were now littered with corpses and fire spilled from the hot oil lamps.
Stone houses and wooden thatched roofs were set alight in seconds as monsters of all sizes, shapes and colors broke through them, splintering the wood and crushing the stone to rubble.
And all Lia could do was watch the city burn, one word escaping her mouth.
"...Hell."
This was hell.
***
The basement was a lot larger than Cain and thought it would be. The size of the large open rooms expanded further than the actual house. He could see the tunnels that must have led towards the laboratory in the barn, the tunnels that led to the river for more aquatic animals.
It was a scientist's dream.
But strangely enough, the lights were off.
"Hello?"
Cain could see perfectly in the dark, but he doubted the farmer could. In reality it was probably just as detrimental to him as he thought it would be for Cain.
Suddenly the air slit apart and Cain just had a moment's breath to duck to the side and avoid the arrow that shot through the air.
'Or maybe not.'
He smiled, his eyes already mapping the way through the tunnel, the different rooms and the different exits the farmer might try and escape from.
It would be easy to find him.
"So many rooms, so many places to hide. What are you hiding down here.."
Another arrow, this time it slammed against the wall, snapping itself in half nowhere near Cain.
"Surely you're no little farmer hiding away out here in the woods. You've got bigger plans, am I right?"
A third arrow, but by now Cain was done playing around. He grabbed the arrow mid flight towards his head, breaking it in two with his bare hands.
"I don't have time for your little games. I'm on the clock right now."
Even though his eyes could see clearly in the dark, this farmer was hiding somewhere, somewhere he couldn't see him. Though it didn't bother Cain, it did prove to annoy him as his patience was now running thin.
'I swear, if this is another golem and not the real thing then when i find him-'
A voice tore through the air, shaky and afraid.
"W-Who are you?"
"The question should be what? What am I?"
Cain turned his head towards a small tunnel hallway, its long and narrow corridor allowing the farmer an easy shot to anyone who dared to come down that way. A perfect place to play defensive.
'Found him.'
Two steps to the side, one step forward and the next arrow that shot from down the hallway missed him entirely.
"W-what are you?!"
The farmer's voice echoed down the hallway, filling the basement with the sounds of his ragged and shaky breath.
Cain didn't answer, he only took several more steps towards the hall, his boots clicking on the ground resonating the sound of his approach. It only served to make the farmer more afraid, his voice growing thinner and thinner as the loaded his next arrow into his crossbolt.
"Don't come any closer!"
The arrow only found the walls however, the farmer's eyesight not being so great in the dark and not nearly as skilled in the bow as Cain was in dodging them.
"I..I have monsters! Tons and tons of them back here. Come any closer and they'll attack!"
Cain finally spoke and the farmer found he was glad that he did, not wanting to be left alone with the thought of silence and some strange man in his basement. When an enemy is silent, the natural tendency for the defender is to believe they have the upper hand.
One of the many things silence had to offer in battle. Confidence.
"Ah, so you are the golem master. I would imagine that you have tons of them, spending most of your life on this research."
The farmer was all too glad to boast about his excellence, as well as his achievements.
"Yes! Yes, I have many monsters back here. So…so come any closer and they'll attack! This is my life's work, so you can expect them to be…"
It was then that a sudden thought crossed the man's head, Cain's voice repeating itself inside his mind.
'Life's work…how did he know…'
The crossbow was raised once again at the sound of Cain's footsteps drawing closer and closer and closer towards him. The hall was narrow so the man didn't fear that he could hit him, but he feared that the man he was up against could take a bolt to the heart and still be walking.
It was this that he feared.
"You… they sent you didn't they?!"
He fired another bolt and another, another and another until he found the sanity to stop himself, leaving only five bolts left in his quiver.
But the footsteps kept coming, closing in on him like the shadows of the darkness that clouded his vision.
"You mean the scientists of Woodneck's Grove. The men under the lords of this land's control?"
His voice was everywhere and nowhere at once, and the farmer had little time to point his weapon in several directions, twisting and turning with every word Cian spoke.
"Where are you!"
"I am everywhere and yet nowhere."
"That doesn't make sense!"
"Neither does making an army of golems to release them on the city and its people. In all honesty, you seem like the only one here who doesn't make sense."
The farmer had a thought then and it suddenly dawned on him that he wouldn't make it out of this place alive. But that was fine. He had achieved what he wanted.
"If you're after the monsters - if you've come for them, they're gone! I released them from their cages long ago, you're too late!"
If he was to die, he would bring them down with him.
"They called me insane. They called me a fool! All I wanted was to try, try like they taught me! Yet they all pointed their fingers and called me fools! They all condoned me to banishment!"
His voice was filled with raw and hated emotions, his crossbow sliding from his hands to the floor as he had now given up on fighting.
"...humans are wretched creatures."
The farmer didn't even see the two glowing red eyes chasing away the darkness before a hand reached out for the shadows and red covered his vision. Where his tears once fell, now there only feel the drops of blood spouting from his open neck, his head pounding against the floor.
"You say they're gone? That's fine, I'll just hunt them all down."
***
Lia and Arnold didn't bother to share any pleasantries. They both knew the severity of the situation at hand and knew that the longer they waited, the more deaths would rack up from their careless banter.
As such, they both threw themselves into battle like the soldiers they were, grabbing their weapons in hand and moving out as one, down the steps of the Great House, down the streets covered in fire and blood, past the corpses and people screaming, diving for cover, until they finally reached their destination.
The battle was raging on now, both Rian and Lukali could be seen in the midst of the fray, one firing arrows at rapid speeds and the other engaged in an onslaught against a monster nearly ten times his size.
Abigail was with them, her summons Bluey the Bear already charging the monster with his open maw, his claws slashing against the creature's stone like flesh and scales. It had two gray eyes that hid behind its large armor painted head, a head that no matter how hard Rian punched it with his gauntlets, the beast refused the back down.
"Lia?"
Luakli caught a glance at her as she barreled past her, Arnold in tow behind her as she threw herself over the monster's head, its claws slashing down on Arnold as he raised his lance above his head to block it.
She was on the monster's back now, familiar with this type of creature - the Bulette - and its large stone-like plating and claws that dug into the ground. The Bulette reared its head back trying to shake her off, but Lia held on tightly, giving Arnold the chance he needed to bash the underside of the monster with his lance.
One wrong move and the beast had tripped over the weapon, falling on its back as it took this chance to roll over, hoping to crush Lia. However, she narrowly avoided death when she flung herself form the beast's back.
It opened its mouth wide, exposing the large and empty maw that seemed too large for such a small creature, rearing its head around just in time for Bluey to bite at its head, pulling it down the ground with him.
"Under its fin!"
Arnold cried as he narrowly dodged the beast's claws scraping across the ground, pulling up dirt and rocks and rubble with it.
Rian rushed forward, given the chance thanks to Bluey's massive amounts of strength, he grabbed at the large dorsal fin on the creature's back, protruding from its large armor like scales. With all the strength he could produce in his chest, Rian pulled back on the fill, bending it in odd angels and the monster withered in pain, struggling against Bluey's strength.
Lia didn't bother with the formalities of an order and rushed forward with her sword drawn, stabbing it through the now exposed flesh as her steel sliced through the touch skin and through the beast's flesh. If one looked close enough, they would have been able to see the small glint of steel exposed in the beast's open maw as it withered in pain.
Blood poured from the creature like a fountain, spilling into the streets as the group took one silent breath before the sounds of screams echoing in their ears.
The city was on fire, monsters were running amuck within the streets, chasing people and destroying buildings with every chance they got.
They hardly took much of a rest, but the group or two now armed with three more all stared out at the chaos surrounding the place, ready for battle when it came.
'Damn it….Cain would have loved this.'
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