Chapter 7 – The Feast of Beasts
The serpent's coils tightened, each contraction squeezing the life from its prey. The boar thrashed once, twice—then bones snapped with a sickening crack. Blood spilled from its eyes and nostrils, its screams dissolving into wet gurgles. When silence fell, the serpent loosened its grip, jaws yawning wide. Its fangs gleamed, dripping with venom, as it began forcing the carcass down its throat.
Soma's eyes locked on the grotesque sight. His heart thudded, but his face remained still.
Then, suddenly, the serpent spasmed. With a violent heave, it regurgitated the half-swallowed boar, the carcass slamming onto the blood-soaked ground. Its body swelled as it inhaled, scales stretching, ribs cracking under the pressure. Then it turned—eyes burning, tongue tasting the air.
It hissed directly at Soma.
Cold dread slid down his spine.
It… it sees me now?
His hand flew to a stone, knuckles white, ready to throw and flee.
But the world split open.
A colossal shadow fell. A bird—no, a monster—descended with a roar of wind. Its wings beat once, and the blast hurled Soma through the air like a rag doll, slamming him sixty meters away. He hit the ground hard, dust choking his lungs.
When he lifted his head, he froze.
The creature was terrifyingly divine: an eight-meter-long bird, owl-faced, its golden feathers blazing like sunlight, its white plumage gleaming like bone. Twin antennae twitched on its brow, sensing, judging.
It didn't hesitate.
The bird dove, talons extended. They ripped through the serpent's belly with a wet "shrrk", carving trenches of flesh. Blood gushed, staining the earth.
The serpent snapped back, jaws striking like lightning. But the bird twisted midair, wings folding then flaring open, its body corkscrewing away from death. The serpent's fangs slammed into the ground instead, splintering stone with explosive force. Dirt and rock rained down.
The bird retaliated instantly, beak plunging into the serpent's side. Flesh tore like cloth. The serpent's scream rattled the trees, and its massive tail whipped around in rage.
BOOM.
The tail slammed into the ground, shattering it. A crater formed where the bird had been a breath earlier. The bird had darted upward in a vertical spiral, faster than sight.
Soma's breath caught. They move like storms… no human could survive this battlefield.
The serpent coiled defensively, scales grinding against each other with metallic rasping. Blood streamed down its sides, pooling on the ground. Its golden eyes glared with raw hatred.
The bird circled above, each wingbeat unleashing a gale that forced Soma to his knees, the sheer pressure hammering him into the dirt. Then it tucked its wings and plummeted, claws raking down the serpent's flank, ripping scales free in bloody chunks.
The serpent recoiled, then lunged upward. Too late, the bird twisted—fangs sank into its right wing with a nauseating crunch.
The bird's scream tore through the grasslands like shattering glass.
The serpent's coils surged upward, wrapping the bird in a tightening prison of flesh. Feathers snapped. Bones creaked under the crushing force. The bird's talons flailed, slashing deep gashes into the serpent's body, but the pressure only grew worse.
Blood sprayed across the clearing as the serpent's tail smashed into the bird's chest, slamming it against the ground. The impact shook the earth.
The bird coughed blood, chest heaving. For a moment, Soma thought it was finished.
But the bird's eyes blazed. With a savage thrust, its beak speared into the serpent's eye.
CRUNCH.
The orb burst in a spray of gore, white fluid and blood splattering in all directions. The serpent convulsed violently, its coils unraveling, its hiss turning into a distorted, ear-splitting shriek.
The bird ripped itself free, feathers dripping crimson, wing mangled but still functional. With a final beat, it ascended, blood trailing like ribbons in the air.
Below, the serpent writhed blindly, smashing its body into the earth, tearing the forest floor apart, its hiss collapsing into a broken, endless rattle.
Soma could only watch, his skin crawling. His body trembled with goosebumps, his throat dry.
This… this is what real monsters fight. And I stood close enough to die just from watching.
For a long time, Soma stood still, eyes fixed on the serpent's twitching mass. It no longer struck or coiled—its massive body only shuddered, harsh ragged breaths tearing from its throat, the sound proof enough that life had not yet abandoned it.
But the beast was finished. Broken.
Soma's gaze shifted. He gathered a few stones in his hand and began to follow the bird's trail. Its once-supersonic flight had dwindled into desperate glides. Its great wings wavered, movements jerky, feathers falling like autumn leaves. The creature barely stayed aloft.
When Soma reached it, the bird plummeted from the sky.
It hit the ground with a crash, sprawling like a kite with cut strings. Blood fountained from its mangled wing, soaking the soil until it pooled into a shallow stream. Around the serpent's bite mark, the flesh had turned dark blue, venom spreading like wildfire through its veins. The bird's head sagged into the dirt, and a pitiful, broken cry leaked from its throat—a sound of agony that refused to end.
Soma looked down at the fallen titan. For a moment, something stirred in him. Pity. But it was smothered quickly. He could do nothing.
The bushes rustled.
One by one, shadows emerged—fifteen hyenas. Their bodies were small compared to the bird, only waist-high to Soma, but thick with muscle. Fur mottled brown and black bristled on their spines, teeth glinting wet in the sun light. Their yellow eyes gleamed with hunger.
They fanned out, circling the dying bird.
The bird shrieked weakly, snapping its beak, beating its wings in a desperate attempt to hold them back. But venom had dulled its strength. Every flap was slower than the last. Every lunge more pitiful.
The hyenas struck.
When the bird lashed forward, two darted in from behind, sinking their fangs into its flank. When it turned to defend the rear, three more leapt at its chest, ripping feathers free and tearing strips of flesh from its breast. Blood spurted hot and steaming. The bird's cries twisted into wails, each one weaker than the last.
Soma's stomach knotted, but he didn't look away. Gruesome doesn't even begin to describe it.
The hyenas worked in a brutal rhythm, gnawing the still-living flesh of their prey. Clumps of meat tore free with wet pops. The ground turned slick beneath their paws. The bird's golden feathers darkened under a wash of blood.
Still alive, still screaming, it was devoured piece by piece.
Soma shivered. So this is how nature claims its dues. Not with honor. With teeth.
At last, when the bird was little more than a twitching, half-eaten carcass, something stirred within it. From the gore and torn flesh, a white orb the size of a fist rose, glowing faintly. It floated upward, slipping free of the ruined body.
For a heartbeat, Soma forgot to breathe. The orb shimmered above the gore—too clean, too unearthly. A realization dawned on him. His chest tightened with wonder. A soul… could this truly be a soul?
This one shone brighter than any he had absorbed before—radiant, beautiful. Reaching out, his hand brushed the soul. At once, his body drank it in. A cool, refreshing surge coursed through him, cleansing the weight of the scene for a fleeting moment.
Below, the hyenas froze.
Their bodies trembled violently. Foam bubbled from their jaws, spattering red-stained earth. Their eyes rolled bloodshot, veins bulging. One by one, they collapsed, convulsing, twitching violently as the serpent's venom claimed them.
Soma watched without moving. So… the serpent's poison reached them too.
The pack writhed in the dirt, their howls devolving into gurgles. Soon, silence claimed them. Fifteen carcasses lay scattered around the bird's remains, foam still dripping from their muzzles.
From each broken body, an soul emerged—small, dim, no brighter than fireflies. They drifted upward, pale against the endless light. Soma raised his hand, letting them sink into him. The warmth was faint compared to the bird's soul, but steady.
For a long time, Soma lingered there, watching the two suns burn faintly in the sky as the orbs' energy settled within him.
At last, he bowed his head toward the sixteen corpses.
"Thank you… for your souls."
His voice was quiet, swallowed by the blood-soaked earth.
Then, without hesitation, Soma rose into the air. His body floated toward the serpent's broken form, to witness its end—and to claim the final prize.
When Soma arrived, he found a pool of blood soaking into the soil. A thick red trail dragged itself across the ground, stretching toward the rocky cliffs ahead.
He crouched, tracing it with his eyes.
So… it fled that way.
The trail stretched on, winding across jagged stone and withered earth, more than half a kilometer long. Soma followed it in silence, step after step, the metallic stench of blood growing stronger until it stung his nose.
At last, he reached a looming boulder. Behind it yawned a cave, its mouth a jagged wound in the rock. The trail of blood slipped into its depths.
The entrance was lit only by a shard of sunlight filtering through cracks above, falling like a blade across moss-slick ground. Beyond that thin light, there was only darkness—thick, swallowing, endless.
Soma stepped inside.
The sound hit him first—wet, ragged, guttural breaths, like bellows straining against torn leather. Then came the sight.
There, curled against a stone slab, was the serpent.
Its once-glittering obsidian scales had shifted to a grotesque crimson, the sheen of blood and venom warping its body. Its eye sockets wept streams of black-red fluid, hollow voids where sight had once burned bright. Half its belly hung open, intestines spilling across the cave floor in a glistening tangle.
Every few moments, the serpent twisted violently, slamming its body against the stone, as if trying to crawl free of its own agony. Each movement painted more of the cave in gore.
Soma's body stiffened. His throat felt dry.
So much pain…
The serpent was no longer a predator, no longer a threat. It was just a creature crushed under its own death throes.
A knot tightened in Soma's chest—not pity, but unease, a strange heaviness pressing against his ribs. His hands trembled.
If I leave it like this… it will keep suffering. I can't. And yet… what can I do?
His mind resisted. He had never taken a life—not even an insect. And now, to kill something so massive? Yet the truth gnawed at him: mercy demanded cruelty.
He bent, gripping a jagged stone the size of a human head, its point sharp as a spear.
His legs quivered, but he jumped, rising into the air awkwardly, the rock heavy in his arms. A smaller stone slipped from his hand, falling first, testing gravity's pull. When he judged the height enough, Soma clenched his teeth and let the sharp rock drop.
The stone fell fast, cutting through the beam of sunlight before plunging into darkness.
CRUNCH.
The pointed rock pierced the serpent's skull with a wet, splitting crack, sliding through bone and brain like a knife through butter.
The beast spasmed. Its tail lashed once, snapping through the cave air like a whip. Then stillness.
Its body slumped, no longer trembling. The endless hiss was silenced.
From the ruin of its corpse, a white soul floated upward.
Soma reached out. It drifted toward him, sinking into his palm. The familiar coolness washed through him, the refreshing surge that came each time a soul was absorbed.
But the soul did not affect the surrounding. Its glow stayed small and hollow, refusing to push back the cave's darkness. Even as it burned in Soma's hands, the shadows swallowed it whole.
Soma frowned. Why doesn't it shine? Why won't the light spread?
Still unsettled, he turned and walked back toward the cave entrance.
His thoughts churned.What now? This glowing soul pulsed inside him, its purpose unknown. Was it strength? A curse? A key to escape this twisted world?
For the first time since his arrival, Soma realized—he was walking blind. And in a realm where monsters devoured monsters, ignorance might be the sharpest blade at his throat.