The Desperate Mage

A man walked around an old dusty library, he then picked up a book from the bookshelf. Picking up a quill, he started writing on page 1.

<Max Elliot

Born 1010

Occupation: martial arts

Age 21

D A T A

This world is different, fascinating, and weird as someone from the 21st century. Getting used to the age of swords, castles, and primitives took quite a while.

Forty-five years before my passing, everything changed. The sky opened, the land spilled, and the air divided as multiple openings in space-time appeared around the continent.

I theorized that this could be a wormhole, but no one calls it that here. Instead called it the titan's mouth, Gaia's wound, the occult door, etc.

No one decided on what the anomaly should be named. Just like the savages they are, although that was the case before my birth. A few years ago convinced those damn officials to decide on one, and after hours of contemplation, we termed them dungeons.

From the dungeons, monsters came, beasts immune to blades and fire, healing instantly from severe wounds, outsmarting experienced hunters, bitting through rocks and metal, changing the weather by their breath, swimming through space like fishes in the sea, living in the mind of men.

The beasts plundered the grains, people died like cattle, panic spread through the capital, religions thrived of fear, and new ones formed to worship the beasts that descended.

But, there was a silver lining, A group of stranded soldiers, nineteen in number, managed to trap one of the beasts, or as the inhabitants of this world call them.

Gaeste

The Gaeste they hunted was as large as a liger weighing more than some elephants. They dug a pit hole and threw a bandit into it, filling the bandit's body with poisonous elixir and enclosing the ground with flammable leaves.

They made five large nets, enclosing them in bushes for camouflage, and covered themselves with potions to mix up their scents.

When the monster arrived, they surrounded the pit and set it on fire while using spears to keep it at bay or from jumping over the hole. The soldiers stabbed it a total of 1390 times, slowly tearing it apart, and exhausting its stamina.

Unlucky ones were brought down and torn apart. After the flames, stab wounds, and poison, the gaeste finally showed signs of weakening.

But as a result, it became more desperate and ferocious, leading to the fire getting snuffed out. The beast scanned the soldiers until it finally found a weakness in the encirclement.

It jumped out and escaped from the pit while staring down at the soldiers, and unlike most animals, Gaeste doesn't give up when threatened. They will end their opponent no matter the cause.

Facing the remaining soldiers was an injured, weakened gaeste. Despite the number difference, it was a balanced match-up. One could even say it was still in favor of the beast incarnate.

On the opposite side, there were nine left from the previous nineteen. The beast then dashed at one of them faster than cheetahs, although it the gaeste was weakened by the knight's despicable yet effective method.

The rest took the opportunity to throw the spears at both the lone soldier and the beast, turning both the soldier and guest into porcupines filled to the brim with spears.

The monster then glowed, using its abilities to heal as it shrunk to a very noticeable amount and released a lot of heat.

The soldier took this opportunity to enclose it with their shields and repeatedly stabbed it from all sides with their swords.

The monster struggled as it tried to push them away, almost succeeding in breaking through, but adrenaline swept through each of them as they forced it back in. The beast was finally dead.

The soldiers collapsed in exhaustion, and relief as they celebrated with the meat of the gaeste. Unknown to them, the flesh of the Gaeste released a mysterious energy that mutated their cells and gene structure, hardening their bones, increasing how many muscles they use, increase the speed at which their neurons fired, leading to heightened reactions and giving them a mysterious ability that people of this world and mine termed as life energy or simply ki/qi.

Thus they headed into dungeons, increasing in numbers, killing more powerful Gaestes that

could move faster than cars, be invisible in the daylight, poison a whole settlement, heal from a drop of blood and dig dip into the ground. But the soldiers strengthened accordingly. Some could cut down trees with their hands, out wrestle a bear, catch up to fleeing horses, climb walls with their bare hands."

Their deeds spread too far lands, exaggerated beyond measure escalated from being as fast as cheetahs to crossing lands with a single bound, changing the terrain with one hand, and destroying forests with their breaths.

More joined for fame, riches, and honor.

They created groups, suppressing the otherworldly abominations, and banded together to decide on a name.

They called themselves.

Adventurers>