The Black Woods: Part 11: The War of The Woods

The Terrible One let out a triumphant roar as it dangled Arkia on a skewer before the horrified soldiers and fellow members of the five who rule. The monster even telepathically commanded its skeletons to stop fighting for a few seconds so that the human soldiers could see what had become of their leader. The hideous toad like monster then blasted its way through the soldiers and the other members of the five using its fire breath.

Dozens of men and women were killed in an instant whilst the others were scattered, allowing the monster a clear path towards the city up ahead.

The surviving soldiers did their best to try and repel the beast, but the skeleton army soon resumed the fight and easily held them back.

The skeletons were incredibly fast and agile and able to outfight most of the men anyway. (They also outnumbered them greatly with each one of the soldiers often having to face three skeletons at once, when they were barely able to keep up with one.)

Just like the skeletons in the woods these creatures were virtually indestructible with any wounds the soldiers had inflicted on them instantly repairing. Even the five who ruled's spells, though keeping them apart for longer, still failed to destroy the undead monsters completely. The skeletons however were different from the previous monsters they had encountered in that they were created from the bodies of some of the bravest warriors who over the centuries had entered the black woods in a vain attempt to either conquer or save it. They were the elite of the Terrible One's army and their "general" for lack of a better term had even once been one of the most feared rulers in Tairos known as Hexlia. With a city to rival Dynamos itself, Hexlia had conquered many smaller regions, but his obsession was in ruling the black woods. He wanted to prove that he was superior to any supernatural power in Tairos. Sadly all of the armies he sent into the woods never returned and his kingdom began to fall apart as all of his resources were wasted trying to conquer a worthless, poisoned land.

Eventually he led the final army into the black woods himself, convinced that he could conquer the woods only to fall victim to the Terrible One. The monster made sure to keep him alive, suffering in its cave for years however until he saw his kingdom fall into complete anarchy.

The Terrible One certainly hoped to add all of the soldiers and the leaders including Arkia to its collection of skeleton soldiers once it had finished here. The four other members of the five meanwhile did their best to try and hold back the Terrible One who had almost reached the city.

Using their magic they were able to briefly trap the monster in a forcefield, but as soon as they did, the skeleton army who were equipped with special spears and arrows that could repel magic (which had ironically been created by Hexlia's forces) turned all of their attention to the five and fired a barrage of arrows against them. The four were barely able to escape in time, with the Terrible One then using its fire breath to scatter them. Each was then surrounded by dozens and dozens of skeletons.

As soon as the Terrible One reached the city it started to level the buildings with its fire breath, and crush, slice and burn as many of the civilians as it could. Throughout its entire rampage however it made sure to keep Arkia out of harms way. She was not actually dead. (Again the Terrible One knew exactly where to stab its victims so that the wound wouldn't be fatal.) Much like with Hexlia, the Terrible One wanted her to see the complete destruction of her city first.

Some of the large flightless bird like creatures and the Troglodytes tried to intervene and help the civilians, but they were no match for the Terrible One either. It slashed the throats of three of the Troglodytes with his spike and scared two more of the bird creatures off with his breath.

It became obvious just how much the monster was holding back during its fight with the first Troglodyte. In all fairness the first Troglodyte (who was busy holding off the skeletons, with his wounds having since been healed by magic) was among the strongest of its kind, but even then back in the woods, the Terrible One was in a sporting mood. Now the beast was furious with the city, and it was taking no prisoners.

Still the giant guardians of the city did not give up and six more of the large bird like creatures soon surrounded the Terrible One. Arkia meanwhile did her best to try and crawl off of the skewer, which was also repressing her power. The monster however soon noticed her efforts and pushed the Witch back down slowly.

One of the birds attacked the Terrible One from behind whilst it was distracted, biting its foot and then pulling it off balance.

All of the birds then swarmed the Terrible One once it was on the ground and started tearing massive chunks of flesh off of the abomination. Unfortunately all of its wounds instantly healed over and the monster was soon able to pull itself up and impale the largest of the birds through the side. The bird however still did not give up and closed its jaws around the Terrible One's head. The two animals wrestled with one another, with the bird in its death throes actually managing to push the Terrible One back into a nearby building.

The other birds again charged at the monster whilst it was trapped under the corpse of the largest bird, but sadly the Terrible One was to quick and too smart for them as it set the bird's corpse on fire and push it towards the other attacking creatures, driving them away.

Suddenly however to the beasts horror, Jade's tail wrapped itself around Arkia from above and pulled her off the skewer before the Terrible One could even react.

Jade had noticed the monsters desire to "protect" Arkia above all else from the roof tops and felt that was the only weakness she could exploit against the monster. Even if she couldn't fight it, the snake woman could at least use that to lure the beast away from the civilians.

She made sure to wrap her tail round Arkia's wound to stop the blood loss before slithering back up to the top of the building.

The Terrible One roared in anger and used its disgusting slug fingers to crawl up the side of the building after Jade. Despite the buildings massive size of several hundred feet, both Jade and the Terrible One thanks to their unnatural strength were able to crawl up it relatively quickly.

"Let me go" Arkia shouted to Jade.

"Oh I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to save your life." Jade snapped back.

"It's not that it's just if you give a minute I can heal myself with my magic and then I'll be strong enough to fly us both out of here." Arkia said back.

"Oh well that probably is better." Jade conceded as she dropped the Witch who within a few seconds managed to heal herself and then float away whilst carrying Jade, just before the Terrible One reached the top of the building.

Arkia then fired at the Terrible One again, with the monster blocking her rays with its skewers. With all of her power however Arkia who continued to fire at the beast relentlessly, was able to push the Terrible One to the very edge of the building, after which a quick strike from Jade into the monsters face sent it tumbling backwards over the edge and onto the tower of a church. The monster was impaled and as it lay there, struggling helplessly, several of the soldiers, started to open fire on the Terrible One as did Arkia.

Jade meanwhile believing they had it covered slithered back down the building to check on Diassa. Unfortunately however he was not where she had left him. She had told him not to leave until she could find a way to help him, but she should have known that the Wizard was too stubborn to ever do anything he was told. She searched high and low for him, though it wasn't easy making her way through the hysterical crowd.

Shelly, and Kelina meanwhile had been drawn out of their hotel by the commotion. They stared in both disbelief and horror as the Terrible One writhed on top of the church tower, it's entire body lit up from the constant barrage of magical rays being fired on it. The Demon however continued to struggle until eventually its weight caused the entire church tower to collapse, with the beast going with it.

The monster then came bursting forth out of the ruins of the church. It's body now completely burnt and mangled from the constant fire. It let out an agonized scream, before most of its flesh started to grow back. The army and Arkia continued to fire on the brute, but it just plowed its way through their barrage of fire and disposed of most of the soldiers with another blast of its own fire breath. The monster then started to destroy all of the nearby buildings using its flaming breath. Arkia still tried to fire at the beast, and she was able to knock it off its feet again, but the monster proved to be cleverer than she thought.

It kept her distracted with a blast from its fire breath, after which it instantly picked up and hurled a massive, burning piece of one of the buildings straight at her, knocking Arkia out of the sky and unconscious.

Shelly and Kelina who had kept hidden during the fighting ran to help Arkia. Shelly hated having to stand at the side and do nothing, but there really wasn't anything she could do to help against the Terrible One. Still as soon as she noticed no one bothering to help Arkia. (With everyone in the throws of panic and Arkia having landed in a small alley, where she lay helpless.) Shelly had to intervene, with her sister right behind her.

The two women tried to drag Arkia away from the Terrible One, but the creature despite still being attacked by the few remaining soldiers, noticed them and cornered all three of them against a wall.

"I wish the Al was here. Even as a child he'd tear a coward like you apart." Shelly shouted back at the Demon.

Incredibly enough the Terrible One seemed to be aware of what she said and tried to strike Shelly first with its skewer in anger.

Shelly was narrowly able to dodge the monsters attack, which cut through the wall behind them, though it didn't create a hole big enough for them to escape through.

Still Kelina thinking fast, grabbed one of the rocks that had fallen from the wall and threw it at the Terrible One.

The monster almost seemed amused as Kelina and Shelly both continued to throw the boulders at them, but Kelina noticing the monster wasn't scared threw her boulder straight in one of its fly like eyes.

The creature doubled back in pain for just a few seconds, which was enough for Shelly and Kelina to flee out of the alley with the still unconscious Arkia with them. The Terrible One however its breathed fire in their direction, with the three women only narrowly managing to avoid the blast. Shelly and Kelina along with Arkia who was beginning to wake up. (In her defense the boulder the Terrible One had hurled at her weighed over 2 tons and would have completely crushed her had it not been for her magical constitution.) Took refuge in a small building nearby, which the Terrible One started to tear open.

"Get behind me both of you." Arkia said to Shelly and Kelina as she fired up her magics. For all the good it would do.

Just then as all seemed lost, the Terrible One was struck from behind by another blast of magic.

The monster turned round to see Diassa barely able to stand from Arkia's attacks, but still prepared to fight. Remembering how much trouble he had caused him in the woods, the Terrible One opened up both its skewers, wanting to make Diassa's death as prolonged and horrifying as possible.

The creature charged at Diassa who stood his ground. Just when it got near enough to stab him however, the blue Demonic power in the form of Jade jumped onto the creatures back. Diassa had released the monster. Despite knowing how dangerous it was, he felt it was their only chance against the Terrible One. The creature meanwhile despite its evil nature was more than willing to help, as it knew how dangerous the Terrible One was from the battle in the woods. (The creature shared Jade's memories as well.) Diassa had needed to distract the Terrible One as normally it could sense Demonic power, but fortunately it had been so caught up in its hatred of him that it hadn't noticed its attacker until it was too late.

The blue creature slashed open the Terrible One's throat and then proceeded to claw its face several times over before the toad headed Demon was able to bat the blue snake into a nearby building.

The Terrible One's wounds were not healing over this time and it actually clutched its neck in pain and began to stagger into several of the buildings.

The blue snake seizing its chance jumped onto the Terrible One's chest and started to tear it open. The Terrible One was briefly overwhelmed and fell backwards onto the road. It soon regained its composure however and managed to grab the blue snake by her tail with its right hand. The Terrible One then swung her around, smashing her head into several buildings before throwing her to the other end of the city.

The wounds around its neck were beginning to heal, though even then it was still a lot more slowly than they would normally take. The blue snake was a lot stronger on its own than when it was with Jade, as there was now nothing holding it's dark power back.

As the monsters chest slowly started to patch itself up, Diassa fired an energy blast straight into its the open wound, which kept it from healing.

Diassa couldn't hold the wound open for long, but while he did it left the Terrible One extremely vulnerable.

The Terrible One started to weaken greatly, and as it did its skeleton army soon began to collapse too, but seeing that Diassa was weak, it prepared to blast him with its fire breath. However the blast was blocked, ironically by Arkia.

The Terrible One released both of its skewers and prepared to use them to deflect Arkia's magic, but it was soon set upon by two of the giant birds and one of the Troglodytes. (Ironically the one that had fought with the Terrible One in the woods who had ran to the city when the skeletons had begun to collapse.)

The Troglodyte pulled the Terrible One backwards and started to hit the hideous monster in the face with its club, whilst the birds tore massive chunks of flesh from its stomach, though one of the two birds actually managed to rip off most of the Terrible One's right arm.

The monster still struggled however, but it was soon finished by the remaining members of the five who rule, who much like the Troglodyte had flown to the center of the city after the skeletons collapsed. They all fired into the open wound in the Terrible One's stomach not only helping to keep it open, but filling its body full of magics that were like a poison to it. The longer the wound was kept open meanwhile, the more the power from the blue snake was able to get stronger and override its healing powers. Fittingly like the poison from a snake bite spreading throughout its victim.

The monster let out an ear piercing scream as its body began to wither from the onslaught before finally giving up.

One of the two birds then clamped its jaws around the Terrible One's neck, but Arkia stopped it.

"Please let me do the honours she said." As she conjured up a massive sword seemingly made of lightening. (Despite its appearance this was actually fairly low level magic that wouldn't have hurt the Terrible One when he was at full power.)

"You should have killed me when you had the chance." She taunted the dying monster before using her sword to part its head from its shoulders.

All of the monsters skeleton army then instantly turned into nothing but dust here and everywhere around the black woods.

Arkia couldn't believe it was over. The city had been devastated and dozens of people killed, yet incredibly enough in the battle between the city and the most fearsome king of the black woods they were the ones left standing.

Diassa meanwhile had collapsed onto the road, having used up the last of his power to restrain the beast. Shelly and Kelina immediately tended to the Wizard but there was nothing they could do.

Fortunately Arkia soon flew over to the Wizard and within a few minutes she healed him of all his injuries.

Jade, having witnessed the Terrible One's death from the roof tops at the other end of the city whilst she was looking for Diassa had seen him fighting the beast and instantly rushed there to try and help. By the time she arrived he was completely healed much to her relief.

"Thank you." Jade said to Arkia, only for the Witch to then hurl Jade, Diassa, and Shelly and Kelina to a nearby wall.

"Don't thank me yet. For your help in destroying that monster you will all be spared, but you are still under arrest. For all I know Wizard you could very well have unleashed a worse monster on us. Split up and search for the blue creature. We can't let it escape" Arkia commanded the others.