Chapter 9: Baptism Of Blood(II)

Tynofast felt like something covering his scales no..., his being, had been expunged. The sensations made a mockery of his previous senses. The pain was alive all over him but more overwhelming, was his mental output that drove this change. But he might as well have day dreamed about his new found clarity because when murder's on your mind everything else is but wood to the homicidal flames of madness.

When Tynofast's reverie drowned in an ocean of animosity, the long-legged one was upon him. It bit him, its teeth finally breaching a weakened section of his scales. That was the last achievement it would have in it's short life. Tynofast disregarded further damage and yanked his body away from long-legs' maw.

Tynofast proceeded to bash it's dislocated leg with his vaguely luminescent tail, effectively torturing it by aggravating the injury. All attempts to congregate and seize the initiative was crushed by the new found gap in prowess. Attempts at a rescue, earned the crazed dragons full-body lacerations, most bone deep.

Finally, bored of the annoying cripple of a lizard. Tynofast delivered no mercy, slowly crushing its wind pipe as he ended it's pitiful life. The rest, save for the prickly prince were immobilized due to excessive blood loss and pain. Amidst the weakening death throws and squeals, Tynofast sloppily paced towards the one reliant on his tryed and proved defense.

It protected it's more vulnerable parts by curling up. Not that it made any difference to Tyofast, he preferred to vent the last bits of his dark desires on it. Ever so tenderly, he trailed his luminescent claws across its traitorous scales before violently slashing across eliciting a pained chirp. He repeated the action again and again until it was almost flayed scaless. Miraculously the stubborn thing persisted in surviving to the end of it's torture.

Soon it bled out, marking an end to the first bout. Tynofast had no chance to rest as he already detected would-be assassins from various directions. He might have been murderous but he had a brain and knew he wouldn't last through a prolonged back and forth. Sadly, he didn't have many options.

After a little thinking, he came up with an idea and quickly executed it. Feigning weakness, he escaped at half his top speed making pained squeaks along the way. By the time he arrived at the pool he was sure all his unnatural siblings had tracked him here.

Wasting no time he dived into the pool, pretending to head to the other end, while moving even slower. At this time, majority of the ambushing lizards left their cover and surrounded him. One by one, they jumped into pool steadily advancing towards Tynofast. They had sealed their miserable fates.

Unlike him, they lacked gills, it meant he'd be functioning on higher capacity and endurance while their strength slowly ebbed away. That would be a good enough difference to win with. So started an actual baptism in the pond, one where Tynofast turned the blue depths into a reservoir of blood.

Stealthily abducting and drowning the first dozen komodo dragons wasn't as hard a task as one would think, but as soon as too much blood was shed the rest could taste it in the water. They promptly gathered into the final group of 12 and restarted their search.

The bad news from what his personal AI could detect was, 5 of them had abilities. In a conservative way of speaking, the last battle would be tumultuous.

Soon, Tynofast had initiated the battle. Not a single part of him smelled of victim, so there wasn't any way in this life he'd let himself be hunted. He learned from his previous fights and aimed to take the most dangerous one out immediately.

Hence, he targetted the disgusting thing with corrupted blood, ambushing it and forcing it to stay underwater with him. By the time the others caught up, it was choked and drowned by the water it absorbed during the struggle. He was not left unscathed after the struggle, with his mouth and neck getting corrupted by the necrotic blood. He felt sluggish and sick to his core but the fight had to go on.

In his sluggish state, Tynofast got smacked away by a camouflaged tail. Just as he righted his spiraling body, he took an oversized limb to the face. This time, he couldn't stop himself from panicking. By the time he found himself held in a set of two heads from the same body. One head, bit into the wound at his side while the other applied pulling force from the opposing side from his neck.

Being beaten reignited the deadened anger within him and then some more. Tynofast bit into the head at his neck and slurped up it's blood like a famished scorpion. Alarmed and in pain it attacked his face only to be met by a ready claw. The dual force granted intimate contact with brain and claw. By the time he'd siphoned most of the blood in it's head, he let it go to drift dead in the murky blood water.

Murky enough, that his bodily senses could not detect his accursed siblings. Strangely, a predatory hunger pointed him to them with startling accuracy.

They were like negative poles to his positive. Like the induction from the waters of a sacred baptism. A beacon to rebirth.

The battle ended after 9 minutes. He was worse still but found the strength to get out of the pool. At the embankment, his legs and body failed him, taking him no further, so the sent his voice to declare his victory in the trial orchestrated by humans.

It didn't come out as a squeak but as an oscillating gargle racking through his punished body, into the empty colosseum. Exhausted and mortally injured his limbs ceased supporting him and he fell into unconsciousness.