21: Fate of the planet

And so, a few hours later, as the sun tried to once again pierce through the thick wall of ashes, twenty-one beings walked out of a spaceship, each wearing a gasmask on their faces, except for a big slithering snake, that held a gaze of curiosity.

Loki waved his hand, making a wave of energy, a mix of cyan and emerald, green wash upon the army and make their bodies disappear in the environment. The wind rattled against their armor, but nothing noticed them passing by.

While it did not seem as if they were walking quickly, in truth in a few minutes, they had already walked a few kilometers. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, they did not meet even one of the monsters.

On the dusty ground, they saw steps and followed them, but it led to nothing. They just saw many volcanoes spouting lava, the ever-hidden sky, and a few cadavers of big-looking birds.

The sight was always the same, lava, crackled ground, and ashes covering the horizon. {Papa! It's boring!} remarked Ladon, with a childish slither. Loki could only smile and shook his head. She was still a child after all. {Hopefully not for long} he told her, before freezing in his path.

He held his hand in the air, and his small battalion stopped walking. He went on his knees and looked at strange steps etched on the ashes fallen to the ground. "It doesn't look like their steps" he murmured to himself.

'Another surviving race, or just some sort of evolution of those beasts?' The mark seemed more humanoid but with strange patterns on the feet. 'Shoes?' It also seemed unproportionally large.

With a hopeful expression, Loki tipped his finger three times on the ground, before revealing a path of footsteps in golden wave of colors. He looked behind himself, into the eyes of Osi, who nodded at him, and the battalion started following the path.

Slowly, the path behind them became blurry, a fog was surrounding them, replacing the ashes in the sky. "On your guards" warned Loki, his voice spreading to each and every one of his soldiers.

It was at this moment that they heard a torrent of cries, while growls filled the dreary air. Monsters were rampaging on a small 'civilization' with wooden houses. Children, with tears trailing down their magenta skins, ran away in fright. Some of them fell, falling to their prey. While the older ones seemed to try to fight those monsters off, some of them were even able to kill some.

But they were outnumbered, and now only less than twenty of their species were still alive. As a small woman, with large feet, a pointy nose, black hair, and magenta skin wailed to a god for help.

One came. An invisible force started to pummel the monsters down with ferocity. Blood flowed out, from the monsters' wounds, quickly giving the dry forest something to drink. Whispers of confusion spread like wildfire, with the survivors standing up, still shaken up.

Many of them had died, but this was not the first time this had happened. They had however dodged from almost nothing their extinction. "W-Who are you?" asked an elderly-looking man, wearing some sort of wooden crown on his head.

"We are from Asgard." Responded Loki, using his magic to translate and speak this unknown language.

"Asgard, what is that?" asked a woman, her hands on her hips, and walking to the front of the survivor's group with proud steps, as if their end had not just been stopped by Loki and his small group.

Being as petty as he is, Loki's lips curled up, forming a cheeky smile. "A world like you have never seen."

As the woman wanted to replicate, another alien placed her hands on the woman's shoulder, indicating her to be grateful. She bowed, and said, "Please excuse her, she is still shaken up."

And again, as Loki wanted to answer that, Osi did it in his place. "It is understandable." He said with a warm and carrying expression. "Now, could you please tell us more about your race and those monsters? We have been tasked with the mission of annihilating them, so knowing their origin could help us and thus help you."

Hearing their goal, the aliens flinched. They became engrossed in their memories, as if PTSD acting up, tears welling in their eyes. After a few seconds of silence, the elder started explaining how what they call "the Doom" had begun.

At first, they were the apex race of this planet. They had a good relationship with nature and what they call spirits. They could make contracts with those spirits, to use their power over nature and bend the trees. While there were some wars between villages, it was relatively peaceful with everyone having a role in the circle of nature on this planet.

But suddenly, a meteor fell from the sky, or so they thought. It was no meteor, but just a massive ball of flesh. As it fell on the planet, ashes started spreading throughout the world. A shockwave spread waking Volcanoes up and crackling the ground.

A few days passed, and the ball of flesh continued to grow in size, it was now even visible from five hundred meters away. It had now also, started to gain some sort of form. It looked like a ball with many flesh bubbles and horns.

It also had tentacles, that grew eggs at their tip. From those eggs came the beasts that now roam the world. As they became more than two hundred, they started to annihilate every village one by one.

Each time a village was destroyed, the aura of death on the planet grew more and more, disturbing the spirits of nature. Of course, the magenta-skinned beings made an alliance to fight the monsters, but their entire military force was based on the spirits that were wailing in despair and had lost all of their power.

The beasts, who had grown to be more than five thousand, had easily killed them all, and with those deaths, the balance of the planet had become null. The beasts had now become the unrivaled Apex predators, killing everything in their path.

As the magenta-skinned beings started to fall in despair, an elder with a great connection to a high spirit, created this place as a refuge by scarifying himself and the spirits. But now, a few years had passed, and the protection started wearing down.

The magenta-skinned beings had no idea what the goal of the monsters was, but they knew one thing. If left alone for another few months, the thing would evolve into a true calamity for the galaxy.

'Wait, so this is what stopped the Bifrost. And Odin wants me to kill it?! Damn, madman!'

A.N: I write this in a rush as I have a tournament today.Please don't insult me for the grammatical errors, I'll try to correct them as soon as I can. I wanted to end this with a cliffhanger, but had no time. Sad...