The Tyrant Of The Red Throne

CHAPTER 3 A Bloody Reunion of Losers

The blood spike that had torn through the Beast Man's neck suddenly vibrated violently, then shattered into a red powder that scattered in the wind.

Right as the magic collapsed, Roy's knees hit the muddy ground. He coughed uncontrollably. It wasn't fresh blood coming out of his mouth, but clear fluid mixed with saliva. His head felt like it was being stabbed by a thousand needles, and the world around him spun wildly out of control.

The ancient interface flashed across his retinas once more, this time in a dim red glow that signaled critical danger.

[Warning: Acute Anemia.]

[Physical Vessel Blood Volume Remaining: 60%.][Martyr's Blood Art usage forcefully terminated to prevent brain death.]

Roy clutched his chest, which had just been forcefully knit back together by magic. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps. Paying the price with a memory was merely the prerequisite to summon the magic, but the actual raw material for the weapon was still his own body's blood. Killing just one low-level grunt had already pushed him to the brink of death. There was no way he could take on the dozens of monsters currently feasting in the center of the village.

"Insane, what a bullshit magic," Roy cursed in a hoarse voice. He lightly smacked his temple, desperately trying to stay conscious.

His mind, now completely void of that warm memory of his mother, operated on a much sharper, colder logic. If his family was dead, what about his three best friends?

The four of them, Roy, Ivan, Henry, and Faried, had been inseparable since childhood. They were known as the 'Boomerang Boys' around Oakhaven, a group of troublemakers who always managed to circle back into trouble no matter how hard they tried to avoid it. In the midst of this absolute despair, Roy's survival instincts screamed a single command, Find them. You need them to get out of this hell.

Using whatever strength he had left, Roy crawled through a dark trench behind a row of burning cabins. The thick smoke and the sickening stench of charred flesh acted as his protective blanket.

Near the village market area, Roy's ears caught the faint sound of groaning mixed with muffled sobs.

"Dammit, why is this stupid r****h cart so damn heavy?"

Roy peeked out from behind a wooden barrel. Right there, pinned underneath a massive merchant cart with shattered iron wheels, was Ivan. The curly-haired guy was sobbing quietly, blood pouring down from his temple, while his arms desperately pushed up against the cart's broken frame to keep it from crushing his chest.

Not too far away, maybe twenty yards out, a Beast Man was busy gnawing on a human thigh atop a nearby roof, completely facing away from Ivan's position.

Without making a single sound, Roy crawled closer. He wedged his own shoulder right under the cart's wooden base.

"Keep your mouth shut, Ivan," Roy whispered directly into his best friend's ear.

Ivan flinched hard. His eyes went wide as he took in Roy's face, which was as pale as a walking corpse and completely smeared with blood.

"R, Roy? Oh man, I thought you were already turned into shish kebabs by now!" Ivan whispered back. His voice was trembling as he fought back tears, but he still managed to force a crooked little smirk. "Pull me out of here. If my face gets ruined by this cart, who's going to flirt with the village chief's daughter tomorrow?"

"The village chief's daughter is already dead, eaten by the monsters. Just like my family," Roy replied coldly.

That completely emotionless response wiped the smile right off Ivan's face. But he didn't even get the chance to ask what happened. Roy counted down in his head, and then, using every last ounce of his remaining physical strength, he lifted the edge of the cart just enough to create a human-sized gap.

"Pull your legs out!" Roy hissed.

Ivan wriggled his way out like a frantic worm. The second he was clear, Roy let go of the cart. The heavy wooden frame dropped into the muddy dirt with barely a thud. Ivan immediately grabbed his right leg, which was badly bruised from being pinned down, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

"You're bleeding a lot, Roy," Ivan said, staring in absolute horror at his best friend's chest.

"I can still walk. Henry and Faried, where are they?"

"Faried made a run for the old watchtower the second the attack started. Henry, he said he was going to secure the kids at the orphanage down the back alley," Ivan answered with a wince, forcing himself to stand up despite his heavy limp. "Let's go."

The two of them sneaked through a narrow passageway between two stone houses. Flames were still roaring across the rooftops, occasionally dropping hot embers right onto their shoulders.

The moment they reached the back alley Ivan had mentioned, the overwhelming metallic stench of fresh blood immediately hit their noses.

Slumped in the corner of the alley, leaning heavily against a blood-soaked stone wall, sat Henry. The biggest and most muscular guy in their group looked absolutely terrible. His face was beaten to a pulp, his left eye was swollen completely shut, and his arm was torn open.

Cradled tightly in his arms was the tiny body of a five-year-old boy. The child's head was no longer fully intact.

"Henry," Ivan called out softly.

Henry slowly lifted his head. The gentle giant, the guy who had always acted as the village's unofficial protector, was weeping uncontrollably. His large frame shook violently.

"God, his hands are so incredibly cold," Henry sobbed, pulling the child's lifeless body even closer to his chest. "I held the door, Roy. I swear to you, I held it with everything I had! But that monster just smashed through it with an axe, I got thrown back, and the axe," His voice completely broke, physically unable to finish the sentence.

Ivan bit his lip, looking away because he just couldn't stomach the horrific sight. "It's not your fault, man. We have to get out of here."

"Go? Where?!" Henry yelled, his voice cracking. "We're all going to die! Just look at him! He was only five years old, Ivan!"

"Put the body down, Henry," Roy's voice suddenly cut in, sounding completely flat and as cold as ice.

Henry stared at Roy with wide eyes, genuinely unable to believe what he had just heard. "Roy, what the hell are you talking about? He was part of our village. I have to bury him,"

"God is asleep tonight, Henry. Burying him isn't going to bring him back to life. Let the dead stay dead," Roy cut him off, completely void of any sympathy. His glowing red eyes stared dead into Henry's. "Put the body down right now, or Ivan and I are leaving you here to be eaten by the monsters."

Henry fell completely silent. He stared hard at Roy, slowly realizing that something inside his childhood friend had been completely, permanently broken. Roy's aura was no longer that of the naive kid they used to make fun of. It had shifted into something incredibly dark.

With trembling hands, Henry gently placed the boy's body onto the dirt. He stripped off his own cloak and draped it carefully over the tiny frame, before finally standing up with whatever strength he had left.

"Don't you ever talk to me like that again, Roy," Henry growled under his breath, burying a deep mix of sheer anger and absolute grief.

"Then make sure you stay alive so you can punch me for it later," Roy replied pragmatically. "Right now, we need to find Faried."

The three of them snuck their way toward the old wooden watchtower near the edge of the village. Henry supported the limping Ivan, while Roy took point, constantly making sure their path was clear of any Beast Man patrols.

Just as they were creeping up the tower's creaky wooden stairs, a long shadow suddenly dropped down from the roof rafters above.

CLICK!

The long, cold metal barrel of a hunting rifle was pressed directly against Roy's forehead.

"Take one more step, and I'll blow a hole right through your head, you bastard," a cold voice threatened from the shadows.

"Put that empty toy away, Faried," Roy said, not even blinking.

The figure stepped forward into the dim light, revealing Faried's sharp features. His usually perfectly slicked-back hair was now completely dusted with gray ash. The guy who always operated on pure, absolute rationality slowly lowered his rifle, clicking his tongue in annoyance.

"You knew my rifle was completely empty?" Faried asked flatly.

"You wasted your last bullet shooting that wild boar yesterday. Did you really think I'd forget?" Roy replied quietly.

Faried let out a long, heavy sigh, his eyes scanning the rough shape of his three friends from head to toe. "Absolutely perfect. We've got one pale guy dripping with blood, one guy with a completely busted leg, a crying giant, and me, holding what is essentially a rusty metal club. The absolute dream team for taking on an army of seven-foot-tall monsters."

"If you want to file a complaint, do it in hell," Ivan shot back, leaning heavily against the tower wall. "So, how are we actually getting out of here? Is the main gate closed?"

Faried shook his head. He glanced over at the tower window overlooking the rest of the village. "The monsters didn't even bother closing the gates. They don't see us as a threat. To them, we're just livestock being rounded up into a pen. Right now, they're all gathering in the main square, eating, well, you know."

Faried purposely trailed off, mainly just to spare Henry's crumbling sanity.

"We have to slip out through the south gate and loop around behind the horse stables. The thick smoke from the burning barn should mask the smell of your blood for about two hours. Once that window closes, the north wind is going to shift, and they will catch our scent," Faried explained, laying out his mental calculations with zero emotion.

"Two hours," Roy muttered. He clenched his fists tight. "That's enough time."

And with that, the longest, most grueling escape of their entire lives began.

Time seemed to crawl by like a leech, slowly sucking away whatever sanity they had left.

Over the next two hours, the group moved like absolute ghosts right on the edge of death. They had to press themselves flat into mud trenches, surrounded by filth and the mangled corpses of their own neighbors, every single time a pack of Beast Men marched past carrying jugs of ale and chunks of human meat.

A grim dynamic naturally settled over the group under the immense pressure. Henry forced his completely battered body to keep carrying Ivan. Every time Ivan let out a muffled groan from his bad leg bumping against a rock, Faried would shoot him a death glare that clearly said, Quiet, or I'll strangle you myself. All the while, Roy took the lead. His eyes darted around on high alert, completely ignoring the massive, pulsing headache brought on by his extreme blood loss.

At one point, they had to hide directly underneath the wooden floorboards of a ruined house for twenty agonizing minutes, holding their breath as massive, furry feet paced back and forth just inches above their heads. Ivan actually managed to whisper, in a terribly forced joking tone, "If that monster up there decides to take a leak right now, I'm officially giving up on life," which only earned him a brutal, silent pinch from Henry.

The sheer tension was enough to fray their nerves to the absolute breaking point. But, against all odds, that thick blanket of smoke finally saved them.

Two agonizing hours later, their boots finally hit the dusty dirt road completely outside the wooden perimeter walls of Oakhaven.

The dark, dense forest waited just ahead of them. They had actually done it. The four outcast losers from the edge of the village had somehow survived an absolute massacre. The raging fires swallowing their home now looked like nothing more than a faint orange glow in the distance.

Henry immediately collapsed into the dirt, panting heavily. Ivan slumped against a massive old oak tree, wiping a thick layer of cold sweat from his forehead. Faried finally lowered his empty rifle with a massive sigh of relief.

"We, we actually made it out," Ivan whispered, a slightly hysterical chuckle escaping his lips. "Oh my god, I'm still alive! My leg is still attached!"

But Roy wasn't smiling at all. His glowing red eyes were locked onto the village gates they had just left behind. His newly awakened tyrant instincts were screaming at him, warning of absolute danger.

"Roy? What's wrong?" Henry asked, noticing his best friend's face had gone even paler than before.

The night wind suddenly picked up, harshly shifting directions from south to north. It completely swept away the smoke that had been masking their scent, playing out exactly as Faried had calculated.

All of a sudden, from behind the lingering smoke at the village gates, a deep, rumbling growl echoed out. It made the hair on the back of everyone's neck stand straight up. That sound definitely didn't belong to a Beast Man.

The heavy, metallic clanking of iron chains dragging across the dirt shattered the silence. Out from the pitch-black shadows of the gate, a horrifying black silhouette slowly emerged.

It was a mutant hound the size of a full-grown grizzly bear. Its grotesque muscles bulged beneath completely hairless skin that was covered in deep burn scars. But the most terrifying part was that the monster had two distinct heads, both sniffing the ground frantically. Highly acidic drool dripped heavily from their massive fangs, violently sizzling and melting the grass it landed on.

One of the mutant hound's heads suddenly stopped sniffing the dirt. It snapped upward, its half-blind eye locking straight into the darkness of the forest line.

Its snout twitched aggressively, picking up the heavy scent of Roy's blood still lingering in the air.

The distance between that monster and where the four of them were standing, was exactly ten yards.