The Weakest Commoner Controls All Elements

Return of the Outcast

"Hold the line and thrust at the underbelly!" The voice of the watch captain cracked over the roar of burning timber.

"My spear snapped on its scales!" Guard Moser yelled back. He scrambled backward as a massive claw gouged the earth where he had just stood. "It is too thick!"

"Reform the pike formation on my mark!" Captain Rylen shouted. He gave the order from the safety of a stone well located fifty feet behind the frontline.

"We do not have a frontline anymore!" Moser screamed. He dropped his broken wooden shaft and drew a short sword. "Retreat! Everyone fall back to the manor!"

Jamie Hades stood on the ridge overlooking his home and listened to the chaos. Three years ago he had left the kingdom for the freezing northern peaks for external knight training and had forged his body into a weapon. He endured the isolation and the blood for one simple reason. His mother and his sister Janie needed gold to survive in this harsh world and the only way to get it was for him to become a knight.

Seeing thick black smoke plumed from his village square and blotted out the afternoon sun was exactly a welcoming scene.

Jamie descended the slope at a sprint. He hit the outskirts of the village and found the streets in ruin. Overturned merchant carts burned in the dirt. Villagers ran screaming toward the eastern district while the local city watch flailed blindly in the center square.

The source of their panic occupied the width of the main street.

The colossal crocodile possessed sickly green scales that deflected iron weapons like rain. Dark smoke seeped from its nostrils and its eyes. This was not a wild animal wandering into town. The black mist signaled demonic possession.

"Aim for the eyes!" Rylen shouted from behind his stone well.

"You come down here and aim for them!" Moser yelled. He barely raised his shield in time as the beast slammed its snout into him. The impact sent Moser crashing through the doors of a burning tavern.

"Insolence!" Rylen yelled. "I am managing the battlefield! Keep the civilians back and protect the noble estates!"

"My children are trapped in the tailor shop!" a village woman cried out. She tried to run past the well but two guards held her back.

"Your shop is an acceptable collateral!" Rylen told her. "The watch must survive to protect the lord magistrate!"

Jamie walked past the arguing guards without a word. He bypassed the screaming woman and stepped into the main street. The heat of the burning carts washed over his face. He felt no fear. He only felt profound irritation at the noise.

Moser dragged himself out of the ruined tavern doors and saw Jamie walking forward.

"Who are you?" Moser asked. He wiped blood from his forehead. "Get out of the way!"

"You hold your sword too tight," Jamie said. "Your arms are tired, drop your weapon and run away."

"Are you crazy?" Moser asked. "It ate three men in the market! You cannot fight that thing!"

"I am in a hurry," Jamie said.

Jamie kept walking straight toward the monster. The colossal crocodile noticed the movement. It abandoned the ruined tavern and turned its head toward the lone figure in the street. The beast let out a rumbling hiss that shook the glass in the nearby windows.

The monster lunged forward to bite. Its jaws opened wide enough to swallow a horse.

Jamie did not retreat. He anticipated the timing of the strike and stepped cleanly inside the guard of the teeth. As the jaws snapped shut on empty air beside him, Jamie drove a heavy boot strike directly into the beast's front right knee joint.

Bone shattered with a loud crack. The crocodile roared in pain and its weight dipped toward the injured leg.

The beast recovered quickly and swung its tail to sweep the street. The muscular tail tore through a wooden cart and hurled burning debris through the air.

Jamie shifted his body and leaped over the sweeping tail. He drew his steel longsword while in the air and brought the blade down across the exposed flank. The sharp steel parted the sickly green scales and drew a deep line of dark blood across the ribs.

The crocodile thrashed violently in response. It whipped its head around and opened its jaws for a final crushing bite.

Jamie sidestepped the incoming teeth. He grabbed the top of the creature's snout with his bare left hand and used it as leverage to vault himself onto the beast's neck. Before the monster could shake him off, Jamie raised his sword and drove the steel straight down into the base of the skull.

The blade sank to the hilt. The crocodile collapsed into the dirt and stopped moving.

Jamie pulled his sword free and stepped off the corpse. The physical host was dead but the threat remained. The dark smoke swirling around the green scales began to condense rapidly.

A parasitic shadow demon tore its way out of the ruined flesh. It possessed three glowing eyes and a formless body of ash. The demon shrieked and bolted toward the safety of the treeline.

"Kill it!" Moser yelled from the tavern steps. "Do not let it escape!"

Jamie raised his left palm toward the fleeing shadow. "Burn."

A condensed spike of fire elemental energy shot from his hand. The bright flame struck the demon directly in the center of its mass. The shadow incinerated instantly and left nothing behind but a shower of gray ash falling onto the dirt.

Silence fell over the burning street. The surviving guards peeked out from behind debris and stared at the dead beast in shock.

“Ahhhh” Someone let out a high pitched scream

"Janie!"

The scream echoed from the eastern district.

Jamie froze. The calm demeanor vanished and a cold nausea pooled in his stomach. He turned toward the sound of his sister's name and sprinted down the alleyway. He left the dead beast and the stunned guards behind without a second thought.

Moser walked over to the massive corpse and kicked the snout. "Did you see his speed?"

"I did not see anything," another guard said. He stepped out from behind a cart. "The smoke was too thick to track him."

Captain Rylen stepped out from behind his stone well and brushed dust off his pristine silver armor. He puffed out his chest and marched toward the center of the street.

"Stand at attention!" Rylen ordered.

Moser turned around and frowned. "Captain. The beast is dead."

"I am aware of the situation," Rylen said. He drew his own clean sword and pointed it at the sky. "I dealt the final blow."

"You were hiding behind the well," Moser pointed out.

"I was taking a tactical position," Rylen corrected him. "My noble bloodline possesses a secret martial technique. I unleashed a wave of pressure that shattered its brain from a distance."

"But a man in a cloak stabbed it," Moser argued. "He hit the knee and then he stabbed the skull."

Rylen lowered his sword and glared at the injured guard. "Are you questioning your commanding officer? Perhaps you want to explain to the magistrate why you abandoned your post and hid in a tavern while I fought the monster."

Moser looked down at his boots and went quiet.

The villagers slowly emerged from the alleyways and gathered around the dead crocodile. They looked at the massive teeth and the severed scales. The woman who had been screaming earlier walked up to Rylen and fell to her knees.

"Captain Rylen," she said. Tears streamed down her face. "You saved us from the demon."

"It was my sworn duty as a noble," Rylen said. He smiled and sheathed his sword. "The beast stood no chance against my power. You may all rest easy tonight."

The village hailed Rylen and sing his praises but a different thought ran wild in his mind

“Finally, killing this beast is my qualification to join the Holy Knights. No one must know i didn't kill it’ Rylen thought

“As for that guy that did” he whispered staring at the direction Jamie disappeared “I may have to kill him”