The carriage raced down the road so fast that it nearly left the ground altogether. At such a speed, with a carriage behind, a single misstep could result in death for both the horses and the wagon’s passengers. Still, Shannon pushed the animals harder.
“I can’t believe I got caught up with the Good Samaritan brigade,” Chris sighed to himself as he sat carelessly on the carriage roof.
“Shut up,” Shannon snapped, his gaze never leaving the road. “Nobody invited you.”
“I figured I’d do you a favor and let you know what was going on. Would you have preferred for me to let that monster eat all your friends?”
Shannon didn’t reply—he only urged the horses to run faster.
Without an answer, Chris continued. “Anyway, I wanted to see how you’d handle this. After that pompous speech you gave me the other day, if you’d turned tail and run I would’ve stabbed you in the back.’’ Chris looked toward the town, where flailing tentacles of flesh were plainly visible above the buildings. “More important, do you think you really have a chance of beating that thing?’’
“How can I know my chances when I don’t even know what’s going on?” Shannon curled his fingers over the reins. “If I can’t beat it, at least I can create a diversion so the townspeople have time to evacuate.”
“The townspeople who drove you out? Even if you save them, it’s not like they’ll appreciate it.”
“You don’t get it, do you? I’m not doing this to be thanked.”
“And you’re going to put your life—and your sisters’ lives—on the line for those ungrateful people?”
“If you’ve got a problem with it,” Shannon hissed through gritted teeth, “you can get off now.” He jerked his head toward the road flying beneath them.
Chris smirked. “I’m going to enjoy watching this.”
“Shut up,” Shannon ordered darkly.
A child was crying. The little boy shrieked at the top of his lungs, calling for his parents. His tiny body shook as the sound echoed down the empty street.
Yet it would never reach the ears of his parents, who, had been unwillingly dragged away by the citizen’s patrol.
A fleshy tentacle, which was attached to a mass of twisted flesh as large as a house, wrapped itself around the child’s leg. It squirmed like a slug, heading slowly toward the center of town. The countless tentacles protruding from its mass shot down side streets and into buildings in search of prey.
Once a living creature touched the monster, there was no hope for survival. The creature destroyed the physical structure of living things and transformed them into anything it wished.
“Dad! Mommy! Daaaaaooooorrrrgh!” The child’s cries turned into a terrible roar as his body split in two. Red liquid oozed and splashed onto the cobblestones.
Common sense dictated that the boy would die. But somehow, even with his face split apart, the child continued to cry. “D-D-Dad… Ma…”
From the wide gash in the boy’s face, things started to grow. Eyes, ears, fingers, and other body parts emerged grotesquely before withering away. The tentacles finally drew what was left of the child toward its main mass of flesh.
The last part to disappear was the child’s ruined face, crying until the very end.
Chris stood up once the carriage finally stopped.
He and the Casulls had reached the outskirts of Taurus in record time, but continuing forward was going to be far more difficult - a net of closely woven tentacles stretched across the entire perimeter of the town. There was no way in or out that wasn’t blocked by the monster.
“Chris.” Shannon dropped the reins and stood.
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to use a special technique to get through this barrier. Will you take the reins until we’re clear?”
“Sure.” Chris took Shannon’s place in the driver’s seat, and Shannon climbed to the top of the carriage and helped Raquel scramble up next to him.
Shannon met his sister’s eyes. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“I am,” she replied, looking around. “I don’t sense any people nearby, so as long as we’re careful with the range, full power should be fine.”
Raquel’s face locked into an expression of deep concentration as she started to cast a spell. “Though only temporarily,” she called, “I hereby grant you…”
Chris recognized the spell—it was used to activate an emulator. Raquel could cast it to temporarily make Shannon a sorcerer. So he wants to use magic? Chris wondered.
Once the spell was completed, Shannon began his own.
“Heaven, Earth, and all things in between, I now grant you your end…”
While Shannon spoke, Raquel began to cast another spell, their voices musically overlapping.
“My hope, my wish, incarnate here…”
Something dawned on Chris as he listened to the spells. He widened his eyes, impressed.
Pacifica took that moment to lean out the window. “What’s going on?” she asked him.
“Just watch,” Chris said. He wanted to see if Shannon and Raquel could pull off what they were attempting.
“O, thou with whom we have entered this pact, lend us thy great power now!”
Shannon’s spell, the combat support magic Rune, finally activated.
“God and devil, now both be destroyed!”
A moment later, Raquel finished her own magic— the military attack spell Ragnarok.
Two intertwined spirals of white light burst upward and pierced the sky. A wave of intense heat and sound hit Chris, and then Pacifica, a moment later.
The net of flesh, as well as the town wall and a large chunk of the ground, were all blown to pieces. The light faded to reveal nothing but scattered debris.
“Wow!” Pacifica exclaimed, scanning the damage. “That was… awesome!”
Chris brushed a few pebbles from his coat. “So that was the real Ragnarok?”
Shannon sent Chris a glare before climbing off the roof. “I’m surprised you knew what it was,” he said thinly.
Chris smiled. “After you beat me that first time, I did some research.”
Ragnarok was a spell designed for two or more sorcerers. It had two parts: the actual offensive blast known as Ragnarok, and the support spell, Rune, which stabilized the blast and increased its strength and aim. When Ragnarok was cast along with its support spell, it had ten times the destructive power of the attack spell alone. A powerful group of sorcerers could destroy an entire fortress down to its foundation.
Pacifica suddenly cried out and pointed toward the monster. “Look!” she shouted.
The tentacles within the spell’s blast had been destroyed, and the ones on either side had momentarily stilled. But once it was clear that the explosive light was gone, the destroyed parts of the monster began regenerating at an incredible rate.
Chris pushed the horses to start galloping again and headed toward the center of one of the larger gaps in the monster’s defenses.
“Keep that up,” Shannon said as he drew his sword, “and we’ll make it in time.”
Sure enough, the wagon sped through the gap before it closed off behind them. Chris blinked in surprise as he pulled the horses to a walk.
The town had been completely seized by tentacles—all the familiar storefronts, streets, and well-kept homes covered with the fleshy limbs. The tentacles felt their way down every road and alley in search of new prey.
A tentacle suddenly shot out for the carriage from around a corner. Raquel threw up a hand.
“Wall, defend!” Raquel’s voice rang out, activating the defense magic Midgard. The tentacle’s end fizzled as the power globe deflected it.
Chris turned back to Shannon. “Now what?” he asked. “Should I head for the Big Bear Inn?”
Shannon shook his head. “Go to the Wild Horse Inn. That’s where the citizen’s patrol hangs out, and it’s been designated as the evacuation area in case of an emergency. Everyone should be gathered there.”
Chris nodded and cracked the whip.
“What the hell is that thing?” a townswoman whispered, her eye pressed against a chink in the window defenses.
Not one of the people crowded in the Wild Horse Inn replied—it was the one question no one could answer. The heavy silence that smothered the room was only broken by the sound of someone quietly sobbing.
“There’s no way we can fight it. What are we going to do?”
Again, no one answered. There was no answer they could give.
After a few livestock had been absorbed by the monster, several members of the citizen’s patrol had attacked the tentacles. They had managed to harm it somewhat with blades and fire, but the damaged parts grew back almost immediately. A member of the attack group had been absorbed in the process.