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[Skill-Eater] Chapter 5: Monster
🕑 Added 2024-06-26 17:02:01 +0000 UTCThe hulking brute was eight feet tall, broad enough at the shoulders that it had to twist to fit through the door. Even after entering the room, it had to hunch over, or it would have been even taller.
The monster walked on two legs like a man, but there the resemblance to anything human, anything natural for that matter, ended and the stuff of nightmares began.
Its powerful body was covered in long black feathers, palm-wide pinions that were oily and matted. Its legs were built like a bird’s but far too tall, lemon-yellow skin ending in broad talons.
Its arms were almost as long as its legs, muscular appendages leading to hands equipped with razor-sharp claws. Wicked weapons that were big enough Edge could have used one for a sword.
The fifth claw was reversed and thicker than the rest, giving the set the appearance of a giant set of shears.
The monster had jet black eyes the size of Edge’s fists, with no whites or iris he could see. A serrated yellow beak jutted out from the middle of its head like the blade of a scythe, stained with countless splatters of blood in a crimson collage.
He’d been smelling the creature drawing closer for some time now, without knowing what it was. Up close, the stench of rotting flesh was overpowering. It would have made him retch until his stomach was empty, if he wasn’t so scared that he barely noticed.
It was difficult to look directly at the monster while it was moving. Its form seemed to blur around the borders, splitting the difference between shadow and solid matter like the creature was only halfway in this world. It left a trail of living darkness in its wake like a mantle of smoke, making it even harder to track its position.
Most frightening of all, it exuded an overwhelming bloodlust. A seething malice toward anything free from the taint that had corrupted every fiber of its being. It made Edge want to curl into a ball. To crawl into a hole and hide. Unfortunately, the first option wouldn’t do him any good, and the second wasn’t available.
All predators would kill to eat. Far too many would kill for pleasure. But he’d never met anything until that moment that wanted to claim his life due to sheer, raging hate.
Edge had never seen a monster in person before. But it was clear at a glance that this one was far more powerful than anything that would have wandered into the region before the disaster. That’s at least mid stage-two. It must have crossed over from one of the swapped bits of land.
He knew with complete and utter certainty that the creature could kill him effortlessly. That it would the moment it noticed him.
Shutting out the pain of his wounds, he averted his gaze and remained as still as a statue. He barely dared to breathe, lest it draw the fiend’s attention to him. I was wrong. The jailbirds are bad. But this is much, much worse.
At that moment, the creature’s eyes seemed to light up. Not actually glowing, but intensifying, as if its stare had become deeply penetrating. It panned its gaze across the room, stopping to consider each of its prey in turn.
Edge had the sense that the monster could see right through him. That it was scanning his attributes and skills, learning everything about him within a handful of heartbeats. Whatever it saw inside him, it clearly wasn’t impressed.
The nightmarish thing took one look at the critically wounded prisoner then dismissed him with contempt. It seemed satisfied that the most dangerous man in the room was now completely helpless. He can’t use his elemental blade without his hands. It must have been what the monster was planning all along.
Edge realized in that instant that while the jailbirds were stalking him, the monster had been hunting them in turn. That it had been waiting patiently until the convicts were distracted by torturing Edge before making its move. That this moment had been fated to arrive from the moment he’d stepped into the ruins.
The monster’s gaze landed on the big man last. When it flexed his claws and began walking toward him, the uninjured prisoner went darting for the exit, terror writ clear in every crook of his features.
As inexperienced as he was, Edge knew it was a bad move. There’s no way that it’s letting us leave. You just stepped into its kill zone. Sure enough, fast as thought, the shadowy horror surged back to block the entrance, lashing out with its scissor-claws.
Snip. Snip.
The midnight blades caught the fleeing jailbird square in the midriff. They closed around his armored top and flexed, shearing through plastic and flesh in turn before cutting through his spine and severing his torso at the waist.
The big man screamed, convulsing on the floor in unimaginable pain. For a second, Edge couldn’t understand why he was still alive. But then he saw that the shorn section of the man’s torso kept trying and failing to seal, although the bleeding soon stopped.
His regeneration skill can’t keep up with a wound of that scale. But it won’t let him die either. Not while there are still magicytes burning in his core.
The monster examined the bisected convict with interest, then looked over at the prisoner who was dying in the corner, before stopping to consider Edge once more. He was bruised and battered. Helpless and lying in a pool of his own blood.
The fiend must have decided that the fight was over. Because instead of finishing any of them off, it picked up the severed arms and legs and left the room.
Or it started too…
The creature must have been worried that Edge would get away after all, because it blurred into shadows and then vanished from view. The next thing he knew, it was standing right beside him, claws extended and poised to strike.
Edge tried to get up while getting ready to run, but it was already too late.
Even if he had, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Snip. Snip.
For a moment, Edge didn’t realize what had happened. Until the wet agony erupting from his stomach caused him to look down… to where ragged gashes now marred the flesh of his abdomen, through which his guts began to spill.
The monster issued a self-satisfied squawk, added Edge’s fingers to its collection of parts, and then sauntered out of the room.
The whole thing only took thirty seconds.
