It Begins With a Hug

Lifting his warhammer high, he swung it back down with gravity and momentum as his allies. A clang is all he heard before he was thrown away like a child would a doll.

Despite the heavy bulwark of plated steel that covers his body, he still flew by a distance. Clutching his Pauldron to ensure his limbs still works just fine, he picked up his trusty weapon laying on the ground.

Before he heard a, "Duck!" being shouted at him. Without time to question that voice, he does just that.

A single line of azure colored light that promises heat burns through the empty space where his head once was. Zooming its way in speed unperceivable by man's sight, into a truly gargantuan crustacean with claws that could snap three man in half.

Surrounded by a party of twenty, it fend off the assault of the vanguard and guard against the rearguard's volley of magic missiles. Unfortunate for it, the magic coursing within it spreads too thin to cover everything.

An opportunity the lone blue bolt won't squander.

The beam of light pierces through multiple layers of mana crafted barriers and find purchase into the soft flesh beneath crusted chitinous armor. Finally injuring the fell beast. The mark of the impact the size of a fist sizzles on the back of mottled yellow shell.

'SKREEEEEE!!' A chaotic wave of psychic thought waft over the mind of any being with sentience near enough to get caught in its range, instilling fear and promising pain.

Heavily armored warriors and slippery leather clad soldiers were blown away by it. Some are flung away while the other managed to stand their ground only to be grounded into pastes of meat decorated with jutting bones and dislocated limbs by swinging claws.

The warrior wielding the warhammer was amongst them. His proud armor intermingles with his torn meat even as the swamp's muddy water rushes in to fill the bent cavity torn into bloodied chestplate. Next to him, a warhammer snapped in twine.

The irate owner of the claws however, gives not a single damn to a single life's end. It flicks off the dripping blood still sticking to its claws.

Six stalks of ocular lobes turns at once to regard the culprit responsible for harming it by letting loose the projectile of light.

The man in question, a young man with skin unblemished and short cropped golden hair, clad in the same militaristic uniforms as the others, trembles. His mind having just caught up with the fact that out of the torrential rain of magical energy, his is the one to hit and subsequently drawn the ire of the beast.

A formless wave of power spreads out with the crab in its epicenter.

The earth was torn asunder, rocks become pebbles and pebbles becomes dust as the angered crab flew forward with wild abandon towards the unexpecting human paralyzed with indecisiveness, the crushed earth it left behind a promise of the man's fate should the angered beast caught up.

All around, what once was an unassuming marshland, with one gurgling waterfall as part of it landscape, have long since turned into a scarred ecological mess.

The ground which used to be covered with moss and grass glowing in green and yellow, are now covered with the dead flesh of both man and beasts. The muddy water are muddled even more with red.

The darkness of this swamp has long been repelled by the sole priest's miracle, a blinding sun that radiates glory in comparison to the caster hiding not unlike a rodent behind a heavily armed and ornately armored group of four, two of each gender. Three of which are contributing bullets towards the skirmish effort.

Unheeding of momentum powered minerals and others less lucky mass of magic, it crushes through a human who foolishly tries to stand on its way with a human-sized steel shield during the rush.

Enchantments woven into the shield snaps in less than a second, chunks of irons flew every which way as sordid armor and the now mundane shield tore like paper followed by flesh in front of an unseen field of force surrounding the beast. Left in its rampage is but a pair of disembodied armored feet still standing firm on the ground, all that's left of the disintegrated tanker.

The land feasts on his blood.

Other vanguards too who've gathered their mettle jumped into its path. Uniquely crafted spears, swords and crushing weapons fails to find purchase through magical barriers and their owner subsequently executed. Necks pincered to breaking points and fails to hold.

Within its way, be it a miniature river, a mountain of dead flesh, or a huge sword radiating Divinity wielded by a delicate looking black haired human. The beast rushes through it all-

Wait.

The crab realized that it had seen something horrible, and hurriedly tries to escape. It used all the power in its reserve to speeds towards the edge of this biome, swiftly entering through rock like fish to water.

It's intangibility inside the earth is its hope against the threat to its life.

"JUSTICIA DESCENT!!!"

Thundering and mighty, behind the fleeing beast a commandment towards the world itself resounded.

Destruction in the shape of a crescent follows.

The frightened beast picks up its pace.

...

Back in the marsh, disappointed pair of black eyes home in on the young magician who landed a luck propelled strike, a single strand of his similarly colored hair twitch ever so slightly even as he turned to face the one who succeed in obtaining his attention.

Ephemeral steam still wafting from his sword, he made his way to the soldier.

The pair of boots he wore cuts through the terrain's mud and filth, both dares not to dirty his possession as they slough off the instant the pair of scaled footwear leaves their touch.

"S-Sir, I-i was just, um..." The blonde human stutters, looking towards his squad members, his companions, hoping for assistance. Only to achieve the result of starting a contest of "who can look away the hardest" between his mates.

Within the span of a second, the man kneels with his forehead touching the muddy ground while shouting:

"PLEASE FORGIVE ME SIR, IT IS MY INCOM—"

"I haven't spoken a single word yet and you already are begging for life? Stand up." To the blonde human frantic begging for his life, the brunette only offers an even more disappointed look than the last.

"I-I, SIR HERO! PLEASE SPARE ME! I—" The soldier shouts without getting up.

This prompts the man in front of him to sigh.

"I hate waste," Sheathing the ornate sword on his hand back into its equally ornate scabbard, he mutters underneath his breath.

"Your action here wastes time, mine and yours. So this will be the last i'll repeat myself.

Stand." The champion of The Three asks for one last time, impatience coloring his tone.

"... Yes sir." The soldier slowly stands up, trying his best to shake off the mud on his trousers and collared jacket while looking as crestfallen as is humanly possible.

"Name?"

Blonde hair matted with sweat, the pale faced and resigned man to steels himself, taking a deep breath, he starts:

"Luin Serebrim, sir! Fifty-third battali-"

The lone strand of hair twitch. A gloved hand raised in a signal to stop made Luin stops his tirade before it could fully begin.

"Luin, you need only to tell me your name. The formality you revere is wasted on me, could you understand that?" A stiff nod is all the statement receive in turn.

Breathing a sigh, the man in front of Luin surveys their surrounding, heads turns to avoid his gaze when it lands on them.

"Do you fear me? Are you so afraid of a sentence to slide befalling you and your kin that you would abandon your right as man in front of me?" Luin can feel his blood draining out of his face. The man sniffs at him.

"I jest." Though it's clear to see from his unchanging expression that the opposite holds true.

"Although this matter too is thought to be a jest at first, isn't it?"

"Let's move on from your blunder for now, how about this matter of a Cerebram crab creating its little swamp so close to the proximity of The Fortresse? I would say this isn't some laughing matter, wouldn't you say so?" He asks the soldier, fully expecting the hanging question to go unanswered and the soldier too thought that this is one of those demand for answer that shouldn't be answered.

Fully dissapointed, the man let his attention wanders away from Luin and into the surrounding gaggle of fighters who have went into a still silence.

"Since Luin here won't talk. Would anyone of you have the mind to enlighten me?"

Many among the spectators bristles, though they stay quiet. The hero began to formulate his next move before one amongst the surviving crowd before him obtained his attention.

The priest, who has been busy doing her best to consecrate the fallen assisted by her retinue while the hero admonish a feeble lamb, shakily raises her arm to the tension filled air.

The hero then adress the female priest, and so starts the info dump on the topic of the attack on the Cerebram crab. However what we are here for in this scene is for neither the hero nor for any the humans. And especially not for the exposition of something told by a human.

...

Far from the marshland where a commune between the hero and a nearly wiped out squad took place, is the cerebram crab. Still alive and still running away, An instinct of its species that always triggers when confronted by a life threatening existence, and this threatening existence in this case is an enormous Mass of destructive mana.

The crab used one of its eyestalk to look back, unaffected by the bright light and the earthen walls that it's physical vessel currently being inside of. It wished to see that the dangerous light has stopped chasing it. After all it has been running for quite a while now. But instead, It sees a vision of horror, as a huge crescent shaped construct made out of condensed radiant mana racing mindlessly towards it.

'SKREEEE~' The crab screams in terror as the slash is following it very persistently. No matter whether the crab moves in circles or square, diagonally or horizontally, changing directions faster than a rubber bullet shot at an enclosed box, it still follows.

Sadly, no matter how hard it tried, it would seem that the life it lives will end on this day. Strings weaved themselves into this fate the crustacean found itself in.

As the wooden door creaks and shows a gap between, disjointed fingers appear between the gap and held the door open.

'Skree...' The crab depressingly thought.

'Skree... Skree... Skreee? Skree! SKREEE!' The crab thought to itself. It will not stand for this!

It's such a shame that it will die.

At this last moment of clarity however, the crab made the most important and final decision in its life.

It is done fighting weaker foes, it is done ambushing.

It had enough of hiding and running.

Fighting its instinct these thoughts echoed inside its expanded mind!

'SKREEEEEE!!!' The crab screams as it turns back and rushed towards the accursed light.

Rocks, metal ores, and lava are not an obstacle for the both of them.

One of them is intangible and one of them destroys everything in its path.

It will certainly die.

The crab knows that.

It will die.

Yet in knowing that it will not run away, the crab is proud of itself.

It let a psychic smile slips on it's hole like mouth.

Converting the energy it used to run away, it prepares the most powerful forcefield it had ever created in its life. All to combat this most dangerous and final challenge of its life.

Seeing that the outcome it desired has been fixed the puppet chuckles and release its string over the beast's mind. The wooden door closes itself.

Before the final crash of its life, there was a sudden but brief moment of confusion over its own judgment as the radiance of the iridescent wave of death glows brighter and brighter.

As a crab and a slash meets in a biome pocket that consists of a blue forest filled with vines covered trees and vast carpets of luminescent mushrooms, a round orb, perfectly spherical, sitting as tranquil as it can be, bears witness to it all in fascination.

It's first memory starts with a warm hug.

Between a psychic invertebrates and a crescent mana of pure destruction.