A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 189: The Shadows - Part 14

Beam watched in dismay, as the blackness continued to consume her. He could feel the evil in the liquid now that there was so much of it. He was right to put distance between him and her.
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Then, just like the man before, her body began to crumble, and she faded away into ash, her face cracking into many pieces, still contorted in a mad smile of someone truly delighted with what they'd born witness to.

Then she too faded away.

"Hah…" Beam breathed out, shook to the core. Never before had he seen human life violated so thoroughly. Monsters were one thing, animals were another, but to see that which he shared biology with, that which had a chance of truly emphasising with… To see that rendered so ghastly. It shook him.

He was shaken too by the fact that he had ended one of their lives. He did not hate himself for it. There was a reason for that – a reason that his master had given him. The responsibility to protect the village, that fell to him now. It was that responsibility that lent him the strength to deal with the first man that he had killed.

Just as Arthur had grown to an immeasurable strength from taking on the protection of an entire country, so too was Beam able to stay strong, despite such an event.

As Beam dwelled on such thoughts, as an uncertainty welled in his chest, the cliff behind him began to rumble.

He saw eyes beyond the flames.

"How!?" Beam murmured. He was sure that every body that he'd put in there was dead, and yet those were unmistakably the eyes of a monster.

The hot logs that had been burning so ferociously before, they were cast aside with a vicious movement, dismantling the bonfire that had been built up, and coating the clearing in flames, sparks and smoke, as burning wood was strewn everywhere.

From beyond the flames, what remained of the fire and the embers, there emerged something that even monsters would call a monstrosity.

He didn't know exactly what it was. There was the unmistakable shell of a Konbreaker at its very centre, but the creature was on all fours, as though it were a Gorebeast, and yet, it didn't have three legs, it had four.

Those four legs were rippling with muscle, green awful muscle, the muscle of a goblin. And then the claws that extended from them, they were more reminiscent of the daggered claws of the Gorebeast.

The creature was already four times the size of a hobgoblin. It wasn't a monster; it was a Titan. Even as it stood that tall, its shape was not yet solid. It still had a liquid quality to it, just like the rabbit's body had when it was undergoing the process of monstification.

Only, this creature drew in all the corpses around it. That corpse pile that Beam had so carefully crafted, already a quarter of it was missing, and now, all that stood near the Titan was drawn closer, as though by gravity. The flesh started to melt, as it tried to augment its shape even more.

"Gods!" Beam cursed, seeing that it was still growing. Despite the overwhelming danger, he rushed in, now that it simply couldn't be allowed to grow any more.

The creature bellowed at the sky, an ecstasy in its tone. It had not noticed Beam yet. Beam rushed in, and moved to sever that half-liquid line of flesh that was flowing from the Titan to the pile of half-charred corpses.

Beam's sword easily passed through it, but the flesh was sticky, like goo. It clung to his sword, and wreathed around on it. He had to fight hard in order to fling it off.

The Titan finally noticed Beam. It seemed to see that the pool of infinite mass that it had seemingly been provided was severed.

Where the connection had been on its body, there was now the bubbling of flesh, as its shape became more consistent, and the organic matter hardened.

The rage was more than evident on its face, as all that power was denied to it.

Its fist came flashing down at a speed that Beam could hardly process. He jumped backwards, just in time for a shockwave to pass through the air, and a massive dent to appear in the ground where he had just been standing.

Fighting to steady his feet, Beam acknowledged his foe. Though he'd somehow managed to stop it from growing any further, this was undoubtedly an adversity of the most overbearing sorts.

In it, it was clearly made up of several goblins – that Beam knew for sure, since he'd seen what was missing from the pile. Two Konbreakers were also gone, as were four Gorebeasts. It was enough to make a monstrosity of the highest order. An overwhelming pressure that Beam was sure could flatten trees.

The Konbreaker head that it had was more menacing than any Konbreaker Beam had seen before. There was a helmet over its cheeks, as dark red eyes peered out. It roared out its anger to the sky, cursing Beam for denying it its greatest form.

Seeing that which should not exist, Beam could only assume it was a parting gift left by the two shadows. He did not see when they had done it, but they must have thrown a crystal at the pile of corpses. Or maybe even several.

But Beam had assumed – after seeing them so carefully do it twice – that the crystal needed to be in the place of the heart. If so, then what was this that he was seeing? What was this great evil that sought to rule the entire forest? Though he'd finally got a lead on the monster spawning, now there were even more questions to be had.

Of course, against a Titan of this magnitude, questions didn't seem so bad. Every cell in Beam's body screamed for him to flee. It was the overwhelming difference in power that he had felt when first confronted with a hobgoblin, back when even a lesser goblin was a threat to him.