Wrath of the War God

[Terminate The Thrazkan To Proceed!]

The tentacles quickly snapped back into the darkness, the scent of blood thick.

Goleil stood above the mangled body. He couldn't shake the feeling he knew the man. Dread filled him as he felt his stomach drop.

His didn't match any of those he could vaguely remember, but he knew.

He knew, in his core, that he knew this man.

His head began to ache as he grasped it, his focus beginning to waver.

He heard a sound, a shift in the gravel.

Behind him!

He spun around, his glaive already making its way towards the target, when he suddenly stopped.

Merely a fingernails thickness away from the tip of the glaive, stood a boy no older than five or six.

His green eyes were dead and lifeless, tears pouring down his cheeks.

The boys arms hung limply by his sides, his mouth slightly agape as if he hadn't the energy to close it. Crimson blood stained his face and fancy clothing unbefitting the location.

A sword nearly his height was in his hand, its tip in the muddy gravel. It was clean.

Strewn around the boy were the corpses of a dozen armored men, all viciously torn apart.

"What are you doing here?! This is no place for a child!" Goleil growled, retrieving his glaive quickly.

Goleil kept the cave mouth in his peripheral vision. He had no intention of being caught by surprise.

The boy didn't respond, he hadn't reacted at all.

Goleil felt that he knew the boy as well. Come to think of it, he thought he recognized the torn apart guards, the rocky crags around him, the piercing moonlight shining from above.

The boy looked up from the cave mouth to Goleil. The knight shivered as he felt the boys dead eyes on him, but it quickly disappeared.

"Leave, I know you want to. Everyone else has. It's only here for me, so escape," The boy whispered.

Goleil could see in the boys eyes, an overwhelming hopelessness. A sick feeling in his stomach rose as he felt a strange memory struggling to resurface.

Blood, fire, and roses.

He shook slightly as his sen unconsciously rushed through his veins.

"You must take me for a coward. I am not afraid of that abomination." Goleil said as he forced his mind to refocus.

The boy looked at him as if he were an idiot.

"Then you will die braver than most."

Goleil chuckled as adrenaline and sen rushed through him, his body almost trembling.

"See? You words and actions differ. You're terrified," The boy whispered, "It killed my entire family. The men around me are my guards, and the man you just saw it rip apart... was my dear butler. I don't wish to see anyone else die today..."

Goleil glanced at the boy, his gold eyes betraying his anger as the boy explained. Perhaps if he explained why he shook, the boy would understand, but most likely take it for an excuse.

He looked into the boys eyes, and hesitated before saying, "Do not mistake fearlessness for courage. True courage is being scared, terrified even, and fighting anyway."

Goleil turned back towards the cave, his grip strengthening on his glaive.

'The Thrazkan... it's no mere animal, only killing for food. Clearly, it enjoys killing, even leaving the boy alive and delighting in his dread.'

Goleil remembered the boys dead eyes, how he hadn't reacted even when Goleil was about to stab him.

Goleil's brows furrowed as he looked into the cave, the darkness twisting strangely like a thousand tentacles.

'Suffering is all that awaits you!'

Goleil began walking towards the darkness as his aura exploded from around him.

'I can't see in the dark... but it doesn't matter. After all, I won't be fighting in the dark!'

Sen curled around his body like a great fire, fueling his power. Suddenly, he stopped fueling his body with the mana, and he began dumping the Eldritch magic out of his body.

'Fighting it like before is useless, it just regenerates no matter how much I carve off it. I need to finish this in one attack!'

His aura rose at a terrifying rate, but suddenly it was if it was being directed. It all began to gather at a single point in front of Goleil.

Once he had channeled half of his remaining magic into his attack, gathering about a quarter of his total mana reserve, the roiling basketball sized ball of blood like magic began to spark unpredictably.

'Controlling this much adthun is difficult... but I guess that was the point. Ty'Bral told me that with all my mana, I could destroy a city should I let loose. Let's see what I can do with a quarter of it!'

Goleil clamped down on the ball, compressing it. The rocks began to shake as the wind picked up, and Goleil could hear the sickening sound of a dozen tentacles sliding over each other.

He compressed the adthun until it was the size of his thumb, but then he thought of something.

'How do I direct this in front of me?!'

He could see the emerging figure of the Thrazkan, it's arms now replaced with a swirling mess of tentacles, its body emaciated as the fat had been weaponized by growing the new appendages.

One of the tentacles shot out, piercing Goleil in the shoulder, and passing through.

Pain thundered through his body as he took the hit. While he controlled such a massive amount of mana, he had to focus all his energy just on containing it.

As if spooked, the Thrazkan shot out two more tentacles, piercing Goleil's body in his torso and leg.

Goleil gritted his teeth as the monster seemed to burrow through his flesh. He continued to compress the magic until it was the size of a fingernail.

"Run away! You'll die!" He heard a shout. The boy was running towards him, dragging the sword behind him. Goleil supposed that it was too heavy for him to lift.

Another tentacle pierced Goleil's chest, blood and dark magic pouring from his wounds.

Goleil watched in horror as the tentacles grew mouths that feasted on his flesh, almost breaking his concentration.

He felt his magic reach its maximum compression and chuckled as he looked up at the Thrazkan.

Familiar faces danced in his vision as he felt the effects of rapid blood loss. His vision was beginning to tunnel, and his limbs were going weak.

The Thrazkan's features began to glow a healthy pink as it consumed chunks of Goleil's body, it's power growing.

A tiny dot of red energy floated up from Goleil's hands. When it emerged from his grasp, time and life itself seemed to come to a complete stop.

The wind had ceased. The crunching bones and squelching flesh stopped. The faces disappeared.

Goleil's doubts, anger, grief, hatred all fled him as he looked at the beautiful bead of red magic. It settled at his fingertip, as if waiting for him to direct it.

He could practically hear it begging to be released. It pleaded with him. He could hear it's voice echoing in his mind.

He looked up at the Thrazkan, and he was almost jealous.

With great regret, he flicked his finger toward the abomination, and like a bolt of lightning it screamed toward the abomination.

It formed a line of afterimages as it struck, and suddenly there was nothing.

A voice whispered in his mind, naming the spell.

[Wrath of the War God]

The ground shook like a giant had fallen from the heavens, and nothing but dark red energy spiraled out from his unstoppable beam of destruction.

No sound but the wind rushing toward the destruction reached Goleil's ear, then he heard a dull droning.

His vision cleared up, and where there had been a great bolt of divine judgement, lie only a deep valley of molten rock.

The boy stood beside Goleil, his sword still hanging from his hand. It was like life had returned to him, a spark of joy in his eyes.

Goleil glanced at the boy, and then back at the scene of destruction before him. The moonlight had been replaced by the dull glow of magic and molten rock.

The Thrazkan was no more.

A/N: Check out the character art of Goleil in the chapter comments!