1 | 1 | The Beast

A man who seemed to be in his 60s with grayish-white hair and a heavily scarred yet slightly wrinkled face walked down a stone, cavernous corridor laden with numerous holding cells made of reinforced metal bars.

The man wore a dark green uniform with lightweight armor and had a set of one-handed swords strapped across his back. On his shoulder, there were three bronze stripes.

The man's attire was the standard apparel for a guard, although the weaponry and rank would differ from person to person.

Walking down the corridor, he could hear muffled sobs, resentment, and pained cries. The man glanced at the reinforced cells placed throughout the facility before moving on, paying the obscured inhabitants little mind.

The name of the facility is site Avernus.

From persons of interest to anomalous artifacts to criminals, site Avernus contained them all. Anything remotely interesting, or threatening, was thrown into Avernus, most likely never to see the light of day again.

It was truly a wretched place where meals were scarce and where sorrow was common— And... where true monsters reside.

After another few minutes of walking, the man approached a cell different from the others. Rather than the standard metal bars that the others had, this particular cell was sealed by a solid metal door, and one could tell from a glance that it would take a little more than a few explosives to bust it down. The door had the number "0301" written on its surface in white.

The guards commonly referred to these doors as 'dead-locks.'

Why?

Because the only way something got past is when it was deceased.

Clang! Clang!

The man banged on the door twice with his knuckles before saying, "Oi! Your shift is here over! I'm here to switch!"

A voice resounded from the other side of the door, "Roger that."

The man placed the palm of his hand on the door, injecting some sort of energy before causing several mechanisms to whirr and unlock the door.

Upon opening, another guard, a young man with black hair, stepped out.

Laughing, the black-haired guard said, "Hahaha! I'm so damn happy to be done with this boring assignment! Now I can go back to the fun ones!"

The older guard became displeased by the younger guard's comment and curtly grunted, "Get a move on, Drake."

The younger guard, known as Drake, snarkily apologized, "Tsk. Sorry. I forgot about how you feel about our... Hobbies," before adding, "Anyways, Markus, thanks for taking over!"

As the younger guard departed, he sadistically smiled and kicked one of the nearby cells, causing the inhabitants to immediately yelp in fear.

Watching the black-haired guard leave, the guard known as Markus frowned but otherwise gazed indifferently.

Entering the containment cell, Markus was met with a familiar yet ominous sight.

Numerous paper tags with strange symbols coated the walls, and two tubes, each containing translucent pitch-black and icy-blue liquids, descended from the ceiling before feeding into a large, glass, tube-like vat in the center of the room. Strangely, the outside of the vat had small clusters of black crystal growth and was coated in a layer of frost, obscuring the contents. Upon closer observation, the two black and blue liquids seemed to act like oil and water, not mixing together. A quick glance at the ceiling would also reveal four vents of unknown purpose.

Locking the door behind him, Markus took a few steps to the side and ensured he wasn't touching any of the tags before heaving a sigh of relief and relaxing his posture a little.

Despite having seen the strange vat and the mysterious tags countless times, he knew almost, if not nothing, about it.

Being only a Stage-3 existence, he wasn't entitled to such confidential information.

Perhaps if he were at Stage-5, which would be on par with the vice-commander of site Avernus, he would know, but he wasn't.

Markus didn't dare to touch anything, lest something happen to himself, or worse, anything else in the room.

He felt it would be problematic if he were to touch the crystal growth, but Markus doubted he would be majorly harmed. However, the same could not be said with the objects in the containment room.

He didn't fear getting hurt, but he did fear his superiors in his kingdom, the Agrius kingdom.

For one thing, the higher-ups had a reputation for excessive cruelty and punishment.

The higher-ups had already reprimanded and punished him once before... Markus didn't want to experience it again.

Markus felt a chill run down his spine just thinking about it.

His only job was to just watch it and report any changes that may or may not occur.

It was a simple job, so it would be even worse if he somehow managed to mess up.

Crack!

Markus was abruptly taken out of his thoughts by a sudden cracking noise that caught his attention.

Turning his attention to the source of the noise, Markus narrowed his eyes towards the vat.

A small fracture had abruptly appeared on the surface of the vat.

The fracture began slowly creep along the vat's surface, and before long, Markus could no longer consider it a mere 'fracture.'

Markus could feel his body begin to turn stiff as whatever was inside the vat started to exude a pressure that only grew along with the cracks.

Markus instantly broke out into a cold sweat, 'Damn. Why does it have to be when I'm on the job?!'

As if his life depended on it, which it probably did, Markus swiftly brought out a small golden pendant.

The pendant had more strange symbols and a green gemstone embedded in the center.

The green gemstone began to glow as Markus injected the same unknown energy into the pendant before talking into it.

Markus urgently exclaimed, "This is Markus, ID:1387, reporting from containment cell 0301! The vat is starting to break! Requesting immediate back-up and a superior of Stage-4 or higher!"

A slightly distorted voice also filled with urgency came from the other end and responded, "Is this true?! Report received! Back-up will be there shortly!" After a slight pause with some muffled talking, a new voice said, "guard 1387, be prepared for combat. Whatever emerges may or may not be hostile. Under no circumstances is 'it' to be killed. I'll be there in a moment."

Upon hearing the voice, Markus quickly realized who was on the other end and didn't dare delay. It was the vice-commander!

"Yes, sir!" said Markus.

After putting the pendant away, Markus unsheathed the two swords on his back and readied them for anything.

Not long after, he suddenly heard a series of footsteps from beyond the dead-lock. In the next moment, the locking mechanisms in the door began to click and whirr, like when Markus first entered, before unlatching.

A voice shouted, "Surround the vat! Be at the ready!"

The voice was the same one from the pendant.

More than a dozen guards, all with their weapons ready, stormed into the room and surrounded the vat.

The last one to enter was a skinny man with blond hair and a sunken face—however, a twisted grin and a pair of abyss-like eyes made him seem... off.

Despite his skinny build, this man was strong, much stronger than Markus, as signified by the two silver stripes on his shoulder.

'The vice-commander!'

Staring intently at the now cracking vat, the vice-commander asked, "Markus, how long ago did the first fracture appear?"

Markus quickly answered, "Vice-commander Justice, the cracks first appeared less than a minute ago!"

The vice-commander, otherwise known as Justice, nodded before crossing his arms.

Vice-commander Justice saw some of the black and blue liquid seep from the cracks and pointed to someone and ordered, "You, contact the control room to drain the liquid from the vat."

The cracks had been progressing slowly at first, but they now began to pick up speed.

Everyone, apart from vice-commander Justice, could feel their bodies turn to lead as an overbearing presence expanded from the vat.

One guard cursed, "Shit! What is this pressure!"

It felt like their joints were locking in place as it became difficult even to turn their heads!

Crack! Crack! ...Crack!

The cracks finally encompassed the entire vat.

The containment cell was in pure silence.

Gulp!

The atmosphere was tense.

After what felt like an eternity...

Shatter!

Pshhhhhh!

As the vat fell apart, a whitish-gray decontamination gas filled the room from the vents and obscured the contents of the vat.

From inside the gas, a pair of icy-blue eyes peered out.

Justice swung his hand, and as if he was blowing away a bit of smoke, a massive gust of air stirred from his physical strength alone and cleared the room of the gas.

Where the vat once was now stood a peculiar beast.

It almost seemed like a black-haired wolf, but it had frosty-blue spines along its spine. It also had an outline of bone over the top half of its head, almost like a mask, and had two small little antlers adorning it.

The beast was small, only reaching to about someone's knees. Its small size kind of almost made it cute. That is, if you ignored the nightmare fuel it probably gave anyone who saw it.

Everyone stared at it for a moment as it curiously stared back, unknowing of the pressure it was releasing.

Suddenly, vice-commander Justice threw his head back and began to cackle, "Hahahaha! Marvelous!"

He shook his head while continuing to chuckle and exclaimed, "So much pressure, just from its bloodline alone! What a monster!"

His laughter froze, and after a slight pause, vice-commander Justice's gaze returned towards the beast, "However..."

Justice disappeared from where he stood only to reappear before the beast and, with crazed eyes, declared, "YOU are weak. Far too weak to be flaunting about your aura."

Bam!

In the blink of an eye, Justice grabbed the beast by the top of its head and forced it down to the ground.

No matter how much the beast struggled, it couldn't even budge the hand on its head a millimeter.

Justice squatted down and laughed, "Now, I don't know if you're an intelligent beast or not, and frankly, I don't care."

He smiled madly, "You. Are. A. Beast... So, little beast, you best prepare for a living hell."