The Hunger

Bodies clad in metal dropped down with loud clanks as they were perforated by bullets. Blood spurt out over the crowd of terrified nobles, with some, injured or died due to ricochets and over penetration of the bullets.

The crowd recoil away from the gunfire as the Marines advanced. They ignored the nobles, only targeting those with hostile intentions. The lightning fast movements of the Emperor's Lifeguards managed to cut down a few Marines before getting overwhelmed by the heavy pouring of gunfire.

One by one the Lifeguards fell and the once pristine stone floor of the great hall was littered with spent casings and pools of blood. The crowd of nobles retreated in fear to the side of the hall, leaving a clear space right to the Emperor who had a displeased expression on his face.

Major Joseph slapped a fresh magazine into his pistol and racked the slide. He gave a smile and bow to the Emperor and said. "Your Majesty, if you please come this way with us."

The Emperor gave a dismissive snort and stood up. "You barbarians... Do you think your thunder weapons are so strong? Can your weapons kill us, the Emperor?"

Joseph frowned when he saw the Emperor reached into his voluminous robes and drew out a vial of black liquid. The Emperor presented the vial like it was some kind of holy artifact. "Behold! The Elixir of the Gods!"

Joseph's eyes widened as he realized what the Emperor was about to do. He raised his pistol up in a two handed stance and fired without a pause, aiming for the small vial. His shots missed and instead hit the Emperor in the chest, slapping him back down to his throne.

A shadowy figure suddenly appeared and grasped the vial in the Emperor's hand. The figure quickly swallowed the contents of the vial just as the rest of the Marines reacted and fired their guns.

The figure laughed as its body suddenly seemed to swell up. Its tattered robes stretched and tore as the body inside expanded to inhuman proportions. The bullets of the rifles left marks of tiny puncture wounds that leaked a foul smelling black blood that did not seem to bother the flesh abomination which had grew to a large mass of over three meters.

Its misshapen body wobbled as it stomped its way down the steps of the throne and with a powerful sweep of its oversized arm, it smashed the ground were several Marines too slow to dodge into a bloody pulp.

Mad laughter suddenly came from the throne as the Emperor patted the smoking bullet hole over his robes leisurely. Joseph cursed as he emptied his pistol at the hulking mass of flesh wreaking havoc among his troops.

"RPG!" Some of the level headed Officers and NCOs cried out. Seconds later, shrieks of armor piercing rockets burst out of their tubes and hammered the meaty flesh of the abomination in point blank range.

The once elf could barely make any audible words as it roared its angry at the pain of the rockets that penetrated its body. It turned to make a move against those insects that tried to hurt it when the rockets delayed fuzes blew.

One second there was a huge hulk of flesh and the next second, it popped, decorating the entire Great Hall with black smelly fluids and gore. The entire Great Hall descended into silence as everyone stared in stunned shock at the sudden death of the monster when suddenly the noble ladies screamed.

The screams seemed to jolt everyone awake as they quickly turned their attention back to the Emperor who had a sour expression on his face. "Fine... fine... I acknowledge you Barbarians' thunder weapons are outstanding... But... can they defeat a... God?"

With that sentence, the Emperor stood up again and his body started jerking unnaturally. Joseph sighed deeply and gestured for his men to make ready. "Aim..."

"FIREE!"

The surviving Marines and Claymore One members fired without hesitation at the figure of surprised the Emperor. The Emperor cursed as bullets slammed into his body, forcing him back down to his throne, "W- what? I hav- haven't change ye-!!?"

A bullet smacked into his head, and blew out his brains, leaving the Emperor's words half finish as he slumped down on his bullet ridden throne. "Reload!"

Joseph gestured to the Claymore One leader to check the body as he reloaded his pistol. Tyrier nodded and together with his men, they advanced up the steps and surrounded the throne.

"Salt and fire?" Wolf nervously asked as he peered at the ruined body of the Emperor.

Tyrier was about to reply when the body of the Emperor twitched. "Aww.. fark... I knew it won't be this easy! SHOOT IT!"

The men of Claymore One without any hesitation emptied their weapons at the body of Emperor. When their guns ran dry, what remained was almost unidentified as a body. Yet the remains continued to twitch and suddenly a pair of wrinkled claws reached out from the bloodied remains of the neck cavity and pulled itself out of the corpse.

"SHIT! BACK IT UP!" Tyrier yelled and before he turned and ran, he purposely lobbed a thermite grenade onto the remains of the corpse where a monster was crawling out. The thermite burst into super heated flames a couple of seconds later and the monster that had half made its way out of the Emperor's remains screamed an unholy scream as flames almost as hot as the surface of the sun ravaged it.

The throne burst into flames and even the stone floor started to melt from the heat of the thermite grenade. The creature shrieked another unholy cry which would have deafened anyone nearby if they had no ear protection, which the nobles didn't, making them scream in pain as their eardrums burst and leaking blood.

The Marines and Claymore One troops suffered minor ear injuries despite their ear protection. They stared in morbid fascination at the creature who had finally clawed its way out from the Emperor's body. "What in the Heavens is that... shit?"

The Creature stood on a pair of short stubby clawed legs bent backward. It had the rough shape of a person's body with a pair of misshapen feathered wings instead of arms. A large crooked head that looked like some kind of feathered wyvern had a long narrow beak almost as long as its body and a pair of large red eyes that was void of the eye whites. Its coat of feathers was glossy with bright radiant colors except for the left side which was marred with scorched marks.

It shrieked as it spread out its winged arms and lowered its colorful plumed head to looked at the people around it. Surprisingly a shrill voice came out from the winged creature as it spoke, "Behold, mortals! For I, am a GOD!"

"It's a bloody hummingbird! Its the Sun God avatar!" Tyrier stared wild eyed at the grotesque mockery of the beautiful avian species. "Fark! Another Hero class?"

The members of Claymore One and Joseph were surprised by the appearance of the creature. As a Special Ops unit, they had access to some classified files and the same for Joseph who was of high command rank.

"Marines!" Major Joseph cried out suddenly in the tense mood of the Hall. "Show that fake God some love!"

The Emperor turned Hummingbird creature flapped its wings so fast that they appeared to disappear and the creature floated into the air. "HAHAHAHA! Pitiful mortals! I am a God! I hold the powers of the Sun and Darkness in me!"

A bubble of magic barrier appeared around the Hummingbird creature as bullets slammed into the invisible wall, making the barrier shimmer in a burst of rainbow colors. The Hummingbird suddenly darted forward towards the nearest person which was one of its eunuchs and stabbed its long beak into the body of the deaf and frightened eunuch.

Instantly, the eunuch gave out a cry of fear and pain before his body visibility deflated away. The Hummingbird made a satisfied noise before he jabbed into the eunuch again and injected dark essence into the deflated corpse.

The corpse of the eunuch ballooned up and like before, it started to develop muscles and bulk at an alarmingly rate, bursting out of its robes. The Hummingbird continued its actions on other people including the nobles and before long, a small army of flesh abominations milled around in glassy eyed confusion.

"Hahahahaha, my pretties!" The Hummingbird laughed as it ignored the small arms and rocket fire. "Kill them all!"

Joseph's expression turned dark as he saw the lumbering flesh abominations clumsily making their way over. "Stand your ground! Demo men! Rig this place to blow! You got five minutes!"

The Marines with demolition charges nodded and quickly went to work. They tossed their satchel charges at the foot of the pillars quickly inserted fuze lines into them while the rest of the Marines held off the flesh horrors.

"Sir! Running out of rockets!" An NCO called out and Joseph turned to his radioman. "Call for all units to gather outside this castle with all available heavy weapons! Now!"

The Hummingbird ignored the Marines as it flitted around the terrified nobles, hunting them among the pillars and upturned furniture as it sucked their lifeblood out like some kind of giant mosquito before turning them into flesh abominations. The smarter ones ran past the Marines who ignored them in favor of the horrors that storming their way over.

"Charges set, Sir!" A demo Marine cried out as he held a mess of cables in his hands. "We can only blow our half of the Hall!"

"Good enough!" Joseph nodded. "All units fall back till the entrance by the numbers! Now!"

The other Officers and NCOs took over as they did a fighting retreat, which half remaining in their positions and the other half retreating back in a frog leap manner. The Hummingbird spotting the Marines retreating laughed shrilly again and hovered over the heads of his grotesque army of horrors.

Seeing the troops piling out of the Great Hall, Joseph nodded to the demo Marine. "Set the charge! Two minutes!"

"SIR YES SIR!"

-----

Varacen was feeling intoxicated despite his flesh body had been destroyed. He could always make another flesh bag later, for now, his attention was on the surging power overflowing through his holy body.

Each time he absorbed the lifeblood of the delicious mortals before him, he felt his senses sharpen and even more power tickling through his veins, making him hunger for more. He watched the pathetic nobles who used to curry favor with him now turned into prey who pleaded for mercy. He loved the feeling as he stabbed his beak into their bodies, especially the dolled up females whose tears ruined their overly made up faces as their eyes widen in fear and horror, making him feel aroused.

The Barbarians' thunder weapons could barely harm him now that he had his divine protection of the Sun God, allowing him to enjoy his game of hunger amongst the Great Hall. Finally the last of the nobles breathe out his last and turned into one of his new born soldiers.

He turned his attention to the retreating barbarians and gave a hungry smile as much as a bird's beak could smile. "Go, my children! Kill them!"

"Run mortals... Run! And let the hunting game be-?!?"

-----

Several kilograms of high explosives packed into the satchel charges planted by the demo Marines blew up as the mechanical timer on the detonator switch triggered. The blast caught the middle portion of the flesh abominations as they exited the Great Hall, chasing after the Marines when the timer ran down.

Instantly, the weakened masonry of the Great Hall crushed down as supporting pillars were blown to bits. The initial explosive shattered dozens of nearby flesh abominations and the following resulting shockwave destroyed a few more before the collapse of a third of the Great Hall crashed the rest.