He could feel his heart pounding inside, its size expanding so greatly that it caused for his ribs to ache, but the pain only helped him focus, keep his eyes, his ears, all senses focused, on the undead before him, and also for any other that might suddenly appear, controlling his steps when walking in the air, manipulating the winds as per his will, maintaining his right eye active to its maximum strength at all times…
It was not a simple affair, the last time he had been forced to use such power was far in the past, in fact, he had never had so much strength at his disposal, indeed, it was just a few years ago when he had gone through his second transplantation, the first and only additional transplantation to go without any problems, an exploit especially impressive for what he had transplanted.
Although his people enjoyed some tranquillity, they had access to water through cacti, they hunted drylurkers to feast on their meat, it was a small community living in an immense, unforgiving region but they were safe, no other warlords had ever gone far into their lands, and had eventually given up on any serious attempt at an invasion, only the westerners were adapted to this environment.
Even then, Jaral Cribler had felt compelled to seek more power still, amongst the lords, he had been undoubtedly the weakest, the infernal Irlke Combruscrus, the knight king Alisart Cleavster, and the monstrous Derdlim Maulerd, he never could have faced off against either of them in direct combat if need be…
But a great occasion had presented itself to him a few years ago, when a great monster had awakened in the Central Plains, it’s size and strength so immense that it had forced the warmongers to cease all of their skirmishes and other war activities and come together for once, although only to bring that beast down.
It had been a glorious slaughter, but together, they had managed to bring it to its knee and slay what they believed to be a lord of monsters, as it had held influence over its lesser kin, when came the time to split the goods, the feasters had taken much of the flesh and organs, the pyromancers had only picked a few parts they deemed useful to them, the knights had settled on just some meat, as for the archers, they had also taken some meat, although, Jaral had also taken the monster’s heart for himself.
Indeed, the power to control other monsters was one that was simply too great, and to ensure that this aspect of the monster lord’s powers would be fully inherited through a transplantation, it was a most vital organ that he picked. Discover exclusive tales on freewebnovel
As all westerners knew, transplantation was not an exchange, it was a fusion, where the person’s original limbs, organ or whatever became one with others, for this second transplantation, the first ever of a heart, Cribler had prepared many more of the sanguine organs to be melded alongside that of the monster lord.
Considering that the mixing needed to occur with his own, this operation had been exceptionally dangerous, opening his chest up, exposing what laid inside to the outside air…
Alintair had tried many times to discourage him from undergoing this transplantation, telling him that it was way too risky, that it was understandable that he wished to be better prepared to face any enemies, but that it would be catastrophic if he were to die…
Still, he had remained determined and the melding of all those hearts with his own had happened as it was still attached to him, the pain had been excruciating, but it was all worth it in the end, he lived through it and perfectly adapted to his enhanced heart, learning to master the power it granted upon him, he had begun to catch drylurkers, and even captured a powerful bottom-prowler, they might retain wildness, but when he fully activated this new power, the monsters all fell under his complete influence.
That was without mentioning how much it had boosted his body, his strength, his stamina, everything had gone through qualitative changes, which was fortunate as he had needed to put in some work to make up to Alintair after scaring her like that.
With both his right eye and heart working to the best of their capabilities, his veins bulged, the winds gathering around him as the undead was right in his sight, even when down on one arm and one hand, the vulture remained an opponent he wasn’t willing to let go free amongst his people, as she had demonstrated moments prior, Liotra had many tricks still in stock.
The air condensed around him, the rays of light managing to pierce through the rotten veil of birds were getting rarer and rarer, many of his faithful people had already lost their lives, the hummingbird was busy with the bottom-prowler, struggling to put that vile thing down, the other nightbirds were forced to tone down their aggression as the drylurkers entered the fray, things were not yet lost…
’Alintair… I hope you are okay…’ he had not wanted for her to take on that nightbird by herself, but there was no cutting it, she was only second to him and the people needed their king by their side.
Visit fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm for the best novel reading experi𝒆nce.
The vulture jumped back, her form collapsing into feathers, a trick that all nightbirds seemed to be capable of, by now, Jaral had a good grasp of how it worked, they didn’t just disappear as they saw fit, they always jumped back and always seemed to reappear in the air, never quite with their feet already on the ground, even the one had manifested close to it had been slightly over-elevated.
Standing still, he could already imagine multiple places she might choose to appear at, but ultimately, it was up to him to react when it happened.
Hand tightly grasping the hilt of his right blade in particular, he exhaled, brown and white feathers manifested in front of him, slightly off to the right, she had chosen a deliberately bad spot to manifest in an attempt to flip his expectations around.
Cribler was not fooled, and with a single stroke, launched a blade of raging wind right at her, carving Liotra in two just above the stomach, his slash just a bit diagonal.
The nightbirds bisected halves did not stop, but it was meaningless, with another swing, he rendered the legs incapable of operating on their own, striking the undead’s face with the pommel of his other blade, bashing her skull in and sending the upper portion spinning to the ground.
’I just need to take care of the rest now…’ feeling a bit drained, he was not willing to stop there, the two nightbirds had managed to tire him a fair bit, or perhaps it was his inexperience using this power in actual combat that was causing this.
’...Shit’ just as the vulture was put down, many more nightbirds landed around him.
He had forgotten about the ones that had remained perched on the edges of the cliff.
A dozen of them surrounded Jaral Cribler, even if none of them were as problematic as Liotra or Topi individually, their sheer number was enough to solve that issue, especially when considering that each was a unique combatant.
"Come, I will tear you all apart"
His heart was starting to beat out of rhythm…