The Emerald Hunt Arc: Black Thorns

Alex collapses under the weight of his brother, frightened by the events that occurred. He glances behind and sees the grey knight fending the monsters off, but this was only delaying the inevitable. They encircle the guide and savagely tear him apart from the bottom up. They growl in excitement from his wails of agony while they dismember his body, ripping off flesh from bones and crushing them with their monstrous jaws. Dread fills Alex's heart as he watches helplessly. His father was right; he should have obeyed the elder. Now they are going to die because of his arrogance. He stumbles back to his feet and drags his unconscious brother as quickly as he can. The lad hoists Maximus onto his shoulders and scales the river bank; he is stopped dead in his tracks by a pair of glowing yellow eyes observing him from within the forest. The leopard elegantly emerges from the shadows. Its demeanour radiated a calm bloodlust. Its stroll is methodical and sadistic. Alex takes a step back with each forward stride from the leopard, fear in liquid form flowing from his eyes down to his cheeks. Soon he found himself at the edge of the embankment. This isn't a man he can reason with or bribe with bronze, silver or gold. This is a monster, blue with black spots on it, and it is hungry.

He looks down and sees the other Zheng duplicates creeping in on them, their mouths stained red with the grey knight's blood.

This is the end. Alex thinks, we have no more moves to play. Suddenly a yellow light illuminates from within the depths of the forest. The leopards snarl and divert their attention onto light. As the light closed in, the silhouette of a human formed. Alex has no idea what is happening but he uses the opportunity to skid down the embankment into the river putting some much needed distance between him and the monsters. The leopards pay no attention to him and remain absolutely focused on the light.

The light becomes a golden ray that bursts through the forest forcing the monsters to evade it by leaping into the waters. A black armoured man, with what appears to be a custom made wooden sword, stands on the edge of the embankment staring down at the monsters and the lads. 

"My name is Henry Gavin," he declares, "I am known as The Black Thorn." The arrival of the mysterious warrior gives Alex hope. His black armour is enshrouded with silver embroidery thorns. He wears a black helm but his blonde hair and blue eyes where visible regardless. Under the pale moonlight Alex sees the gold emblem on his chest and he realises who exactly this knight is. He is the S rank knight that had been sent from the capital.

The rain clouds disperse causing light from the lunar moon to wash over the humans and monsters. "Wait, did he introduce himself as Henry Gavin?" pondered Alex. "That name sounds familiar, where have I heard that from?" Gavin shifts his gaze from the beasts to the young men and carefully examines them.

"Are you two Broin's sons?" Alex wants to answer but his throat hardens preventing him from uttering any audible words. "Are you mute or deaf? I asked you a question" continues Gavin.

"Yes we are," Alex croaks weakly. At this point Maximus begins to regain consciousness, he opens his eyes as he tries to make sense of his surroundings.

"What the bloody hell happened?" he asks, "where is the fairy knight?" Alex remains silent. Max sits up, surveying the area. He peers past the monsters and sees a bloodied mangled carcass floating in the centre of the lagoon. The sight causes him to solemnly bow his head. "Fuck." The weight of the situation begins to dawn on him. They had failed, and a life was lost because of it. The leopards abruptly shift their attention from the S ranked knight to the downcast Max, who had begun to tremble with rage, lightning violently hugging his body

"Don't move." ordered Gavin, Alex could tell, Maximus was about to throw his infamous fit of rage.

"I will maim and murder every last one of them!" hisses Max with vivid blue eyes radiating from his skull

 "Stand down, kid!" orders the knight,

"Max, calm down!" pleads Alex

"Out of my way!" shouts Max as a wave of electrical current knocks Alex a distance away. With his outburst all the monsters pounce towards him in a carnivorous frenzy. Gavin simply smirks, and thrusts his wooden sword forward. A bright yellow ray beams towards the monsters, blasting them across the lagoon into the side of a waterfall much to the Alex and Max's surprise.

"Was that Light Essence?" He thinks, Alex looks at his brother's dumbstruck face, and then shifts his gaze at the blonde knight who stood there with a controlled sadistic smirk on his face. A leopard bursts out of the water a short distance away from Maximus, its eyes dead set on ripping him apart. Without hesitation, Alex lifts his hand and fires a green magic projectile that knocks Maximus to safety. Gavin leaps from the embankment into the water and faces the Leopard. They gaze at each other with only the roaring sound of the waterfall in the background. With a blink of an eye they lunge towards each other. Gavin matches the leopard's speed and thrusts his wooden blade aiming for its head, but the duplicate narrowly changes its trajectory causing it to graze past its side. The leopard halts, snarling savagely at the knight, but its ferocious snarls turn to timid whimpers as ice begins to rapidly form on the cut on its side. The creature falls over cold stiff.

Alex watches in awe as he sees this spectacle of a battle. Light and water, he thinks to himself. What type of monster did he kill to obtain those abilities? The Zheng slowly emerges from the waterfall with its duplicates by its side. Their glowing yellow eyes fixed on the smiling blonde warrior.

"Well come on," taunts Gavin, "I don't have all fucking night." Two duplicates race towards him but the knight lazily swings his blade creating a gust of air that knocks the monsters off their current position, dropping them into the waters. They begin to convulse with white foam oozing out of their mouths into the water as they frantically toss and twirl in the water. A foul stench hangs in the air reminding him of the stench of natural gas the returning mine workers in the village had. Finally the monsters stop kicking and only lifeless corpses remain.

 Alex, at this point, is beyond confused. Poisoned?! He used three distinct attacks which have no relation to each other. He has more than one monster essence? No, a human can't control multiple essences without corroding. He looks over to Max who is just as visibly puzzled and as scared as he is. This man is far more terrifying than the Zheng they faced.

"If you're done undressing me with your eyes, then get behind me," mocks the S rank knight. The brothers waddle towards Gavin and position themselves a safe distance behind him.

 The largest leopard of the bunch makes its way towards them with a predatory stride, its eyes firmly on the black armoured knight. Alex could feel its bottomless malice. The hunger that the beast once had was gone and in its place was pure rage. It is wrathful. Its yellow eyes explode with radiance as the corpses of the Zheng duplicates disperse into strands of blue mist that slither towards the remaining survivor, wrapping around it to form a giant black cloud, and out of it, a hulking five tailed leopard emerges with a black horn in-between its head. Gavin lets out a pompous chuckle and grins in the face of the monster that towers over them, Alex realises how deluded he was in thinking an untrained Maximus could take it simply because he too had an A ranked monster essence. He glances at Max, the colour drained in his face and his body trembling violently. He is frightened, enraged and ashamed.

"Alex, we are idiots for trying to hunt the Zheng. I hate this, and I want to go home!" Alex did not answer him, but he feels the same. The creature that stands before them is a predator by right, and the brothers played its game up until now. They never had control over the situation, but they let arrogance blind them, and now a husband will never see his wife or children because of it.

"You two are an embarrassment to the Wolf" Gavin declares. "I refuse to believe my Master raised careless runts like you." After hearing this, it finally clicked in Alex's head where he had heard Gavin's name from. The realisation plunged Alex deeper into the well of shame.

"You were Dad's student." Gavin doesn't answer him; his full attention was on the five tailed leopard in front of him. The knight plants his wooden blade into the soil as the blade sank into the ground he whispered

"Rise, Yateveo!!." Tremors ripple across the earth as thorny black vines sprout out of the ground and burst out of the water bank towards the beast. The Zheng sprints its way to Gavin, its mouth opened revealing its sharp set of death, with the aim of decapitating the knight, however with each vine it evades more emerge. It leaps toward the knight its claws almost find their way to Gavin, but another vine spikes out and amputates the paw in mid-air. The rest of the vines catch up and find their way into its skin, piercing flesh and bone.

Gavin stands upright and glares at the entangled and impaled monster in the middle of water, barely struggling to stay alive as it twitches and whimpers in agony. The vines begin to pulsate a dim blue glow which got brighter, while the Zheng loses its shape in relation to the glow. The Zheng is being absorbed, from skin, to tissue, to organs, to bone, until nothing is left.

Gavin pulls out his sword from the water and the vines begin to wither. He lets out a composed sigh and begins to pray quietly. The two brothers do not say a word while he whispers his prayers, not that they could anyway. After what they had seen, there is nothing they could say.

"Glory to Dyrarsir," concluded Gavin. Alex forces his legs to move until he is now behind the black armoured knight. "You know your way back home, right?" Gavin says.

"Sir please makes us your apprentices."