Monarch of the Calamity Beast

Kaelen swallowed, tasting copper and dirt. He spat a mouthful of bloody saliva into the mud at his boots. The rain over the Karst Ridge vanguard camp was steady, a miserable, freezing drizzle that smelled like sulfur and stung the eyes. He wiped his face with a mud-caked sleeve, smearing the grime rather than clearing it. He blinked, trying to get the grit out of his lashes.

His left hand pressed hard against his ribs. The boiled leather armor was split there, the fabric underneath soaked through and heavy. Blood seeped between his fingers, warm and sticky, contrasting sharply with the freezing rain. It was a stupid wound, caught from a stray piece of shrapnel during the first wave an hour ago. Now it throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache that matched his heartbeat. He shifted his weight, and a sharp spike of pain shot up his side, forcing him to lean heavily on his right leg.

He looked down at his right hand. He was gripping a standard-issue iron longsword. Most of it was gone. Only about a foot of jagged metal remained above the plain crossguard, snapped off when he had tried to pry it out of a beast's carapace. His fingers were locked around the wet leather hilt, cramped and pale. He tried to loosen his grip to get some blood flowing, but his hand refused to open. The cold had settled into his joints.

All around him, the remnants of his conscripted squad stood in silence. Thirty men. Farmers, debtors, and outcasts. Men with the Void Mark, like him. Expendable. They were staring out into the purple gloom of the Aethelgard evening, watching the toxic fog roll over the jagged rocks of the ridge. Nobody spoke. The only sounds were the hiss of the acidic rain hitting the mud and the ragged breathing of the man next to him.

The defensive line twenty yards ahead—a pathetic barricade of sharpened timber and rusted wire—gave way with the sound of snapping wet wood. Men up front shouted, their voices thin and reedy, instantly swallowed by the wind.

An Ash Ravager dragged itself over the broken timber. It moved wrong. Heavy, pale flesh hung over thick plates of dark bone, twitching with unnatural spasms. It swung its massive head, three pairs of yellow eyes blinking out of sync. Thick slime dripped from its split, bifurcated jaw, hitting the wet rocks and smoking. The smell of ammonia and rotting meat washed over the ridge, strong enough to make Kaelen gag. He swallowed hard, keeping the bile down.

Behind him, a heavy, resonant toll rang out. The golden bell of the Solar Aegis fortress. It was a clean, perfect sound that had no place in the mud.

Kaelen turned his head. The massive iron portcullis of the fortress was coming down. The chains groaned, a harsh grating sound that cut through the rain. The gate hit the stone floor with a heavy thud that Kaelen felt in his teeth. Dust plumed up from the impact, quickly beaten down by the rain.

Silence settled over the remaining conscripts trapped outside. The realization washed over them in a slow, suffocating wave. They were locked out. Meat left on the butcher's block to choke the beast down.

High on the battlements, shimmering domes of blue light kept the rain off the pure-blooded Aegis Commanders. They stood in pristine, sun-forged golden plate, untouched by the grime. Mana crystals glowed atop their polished spears. One of the commanders leaned over the edge, looking down at the slaughter. Kaelen couldn't hear the man's words over the howling wind, but he saw the casual wave of a white-gloved hand. A dismissal. A priest nearby raised a golden sun-staff, turning his back to the wall.

Kaelen turned back to the mud. A man beside him, an older conscript with a grey beard who had handed Kaelen a piece of hardtack that morning, broke. He dropped his spear and started running blindly toward the closed gate. His boots slipped in the muck, and he fell to his knees, scrambling backward.

The Ravager snapped its head toward the sudden movement. Long, serrated bone tentacles whipped out from the ridges on its back. They caught the running man around the waist, lifting him off the ground.

The man did not scream right away. He just kicked, his boots churning empty air, his dirty hands clawing desperately at the bone binding his stomach. Then the beast pulled him in and bit down.

The sound was like a heavy sack of wet grain tearing open. Blood hit the ground in a dark, sudden splash. Kaelen blinked. A piece of the man's leather boot landed a few feet away, settling into a puddle.

Kaelen breathed in through his nose. The air was freezing. His legs felt heavy, like they were filled with wet sand. He shifted his stance again, taking the weight off his bleeding side. The beast swallowed, its thick neck jerking violently as it choked the meat down.

Then it looked at him.

All six yellow eyes locked onto Kaelen. He stood alone in a circle of dead and dying men.

He raised the broken sword. The iron shook. He was so tired he could barely hold his arm up. He didn't have a plan. He had no prayers. The golden gods behind the wall didn't listen to vermin. He just wanted to put the sharp end into one of those yellow eyes before his heart stopped beating.

The beast let out a low, rattling sound and pushed off its hind legs, lunging forward.

Then the rain stopped moving.

Kaelen blinked. A drop of water hung an inch from his nose, completely still. The beast was frozen mid-air, its jaws open, saliva suspended like strings of dirty glass. The violent purple hue of the sky turned a flat, dead grey.

Kaelen tried to step back, but his boots were locked to the earth. A sharp, burning pain flared in the center of his chest. He dropped his sword arm and clawed at his tunic, pressing his hand over the black spiral mark burned into his skin. The Void Mark. It felt like a hot coal was sitting directly on his sternum, burning through the bone.

A voice slid into the back of his skull. It did not come through his ears. It was heavy, slow, and sounded like grinding stone.

"You are going to die in the mud," the voice said.

Kaelen ground his teeth. He tried to speak, but his throat was tight and dry. He thought the words instead, focusing on the pain. Who are you?

"I am the dark you were taught to fear," the voice replied, lazily. "The shadow those golden fools above you try to burn away. They threw you out here to rot. A stepping stone for their pristine boots. My name is Malakor."

Kaelen looked at the frozen beast. He rubbed his thumb over his cramped fingers. He didn't care about voices in his head. He cared about the teeth three feet from his face. What do you want?

"I want to see the Aegis Order burn," Malakor said. The voice vibrated down Kaelen's spine. "I want to hear their golden fortress crumble. You have the right blood for it, Kaelen Thorne. The Void recognizes its own. I can give you the power to walk out of this graveyard. All you have to do is let me in."

The shadow beneath Kaelen's feet began to move. It detached from the rocks, ignoring the light. It crawled up his boots like thick, cold oil, wrapping around his calves.

He thought of the commanders on the wall. He thought of the clean, white gloves. He thought of the wet tearing sound the old man had made. He looked at the mud covering his own hands.

"Fine," Kaelen thought. The word was raw, scraped out of his exhaustion.

The oil climbed his arm and swallowed his hand. The broken iron sword vanished, consumed by the dark. In its place, the shadows stretched and hardened, forming a long, heavy polearm. A massive scythe. The blade was pitch black, dulling the light around it, absorbing the ambient grey. It was incredibly heavy, forcing Kaelen to widen his stance and grip the haft with both hands just to keep the blade off the ground. The cold from the weapon seeped into his palms, numbing his blisters.

"Good," Malakor murmured. The voice felt settled now, anchored deep inside him. "Now. Breathe."

The grey drained away. The rain fell.

The world came back loud. The beast crashed toward him, its mass driving forward, jaws snapping shut exactly where Kaelen's head had been a fraction of a millisecond before.

But Kaelen had dropped. He hit the mud on his knees, slipping in the blood and water, sliding directly under the monster's chin. The momentum carried him past its front legs, sliding under its exposed underbelly.

He twisted his core, fighting the sudden, immense weight of the weapon, and swung the scythe upward.

There was no resistance. The heavy black blade passed through the beast's thick chitin plates like they were made of water. Kaelen kept sliding, coming to a halt in a deep puddle of muddy water.

He stood up slowly, using the haft of the scythe for balance. His knees popped.

Behind him, the Ash Ravager hit the ground. It didn't scream. It just twitched, a long, flawless black line drawn across its stomach. Thick dark mist poured from the wound, eating away at the flesh at a terrifying speed. The beast's legs kicked a few times, its claws scraping uselessly against the rocks, and then it lay still.

Kaelen walked over to the carcass. He didn't feel victorious. He didn't feel the rush of survival. He just felt cold.

"The core," Malakor whispered in his mind. "Take it."

Kaelen stood over the dissolving monster. He reached down and drove his bare hand directly into the chest cavity where the black mist was eating the bone. It was hot inside, a sickening, wet heat. His fingers pushed past melting ribs and found something hard. It was about the size of a melon, pulsing with a sick, blinding yellow light.

He grabbed it and pulled. Wet tissue tore. Kaelen ripped the Aether Core free. It was heavy and burned his palm, sending a shock of pure radiation up his forearm. But the shadow wrapping his arm flared, tightening around the crystal like a vice.

He squeezed his fist. The core cracked under the pressure, then shattered.

Dust poured from the broken crystal, but it didn't hit the ground. The shadow sucked it in, dragging the glowing, raw aether dust directly into Kaelen's skin.

Ice hit his veins. It was a sudden, violent cold that made him gasp. He stumbled backward, dropping the scythe. It dissolved into dark mist before it hit the mud.

Glowing purple letters burned themselves into his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away, but the text remained, floating stubbornly in the dark of his closed eyelids.

Void Resonance Active.

Essence Core Consumed: Ash Ravager, Minor Calamity.

Assimilation Commencing.

Physical Attributes Increased.

Passive Ability Acquired: Ash Regeneration.

Void Core Growth Initiated.

Pain hit him next. His muscles seized violently. He fell to his hands and knees in the mud. Beneath his skin, it felt like his bones were being scraped with iron files. The deep gash on his side suddenly pulled tight, the skin knitting together with terrifying speed. He gagged, his stomach heaving. He spat a string of clear saliva into the dirt, coughing violently as his lungs expanded, forcing in more air than they had held in years.

He stayed on his hands and knees for a long time. The rain washed the spit away. The pain slowly receded into a dull, heavy ache in his joints.

Kaelen sat back on his heels. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing mud across his chin. He breathed in deeply, testing his ribs. The sharp pain in his side was gone. He ran his fingers over the tear in his leather armor. The skin underneath was smooth, covered in a patch of tough, grey scar tissue that felt as dense as iron.

He stood up. The world looked sharper. The toxic fog didn't bother his eyes anymore. He looked down at the dead beast. It was gone, reduced to a pile of grey ash washing away in the rain.

"Better," Malakor said. The ancient voice was quieter now, content, settled somewhere deep in the cavern of Kaelen's mind.

Kaelen turned around. He looked at the towering golden walls of the Aegis fortress. He could see the intricate carvings on the stone from here, details he had never noticed before. He could smell the sweet incense burning in their high towers, a cloying scent that cut through the smell of blood and mud. It smelled like rot. It smelled like a lie.

He walked forward. His boot hit something hard. He stopped and looked down. It was a dented golden helmet, discarded by some fleeing officer during the initial retreat.

Kaelen stared at the pristine sun symbol etched into the metal. He didn't crush it in a theatrical fit of rage. He just nudged it with his toe, watching it roll off the stones and sink into a puddle of bloody water.

He looked back up at the fortress. He wiped the rain from his eyes, adjusted his torn armor, and started walking north, away from the walls and toward the jagged peaks of the Obsidian Mountains. The long dark was just beginning.