LCoT Chapter 33

As soon as Marcus realized that it was no man but a creature, a monster that devoured human flesh, he stepped back and tried to warn Ismay by his side, trying not to alert the creature and failing to do so.

As soon as the creature's eyes shifted to look at him and realized that it had been seen, it moved like a predator that did not want its prey taken away by chance or coincidence. It moved out of the thick forest branches and trunks and landed in front of the group.

Marcus was surprised when the beast stopped and looked at them with its slitted eyes. It meant that this creature was somewhat intelligent—intelligent enough to understand and figure out whether the young man standing in front of it was a predator or a mouse, ready to be devoured without a fight.

When they saw the creature, the group jumped back and away from the hole they had been digging, stumbling over each other, tripping and falling like little children, fearful of the bad thing that stood in front of them. They ran back, sending clumps of earth flying everywhere. Two of them froze in absolute, unadulterated fear of the beast that looked at them, and one girl had her hand over her mouth, trying not to scream in fear of attracting it.

Marcus, on the other hand, had also frozen, but realizing that he was the one everyone was depending on, he shook his head, and now he was starting to regret a couple of things. The first thing was that he had not prepared as well as he should have.

He had thought it to be a wolf or some other common creature, but what was standing in front of him was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was the sort of creature told of in fantasy stories and board games from Earth, not something real.

The second thing was that the creature seemed more interested in him than the others. This was bad, very bad, because he had to fight the creature on his own.

He could cast three spells currently: Lesser Strength, Minor Blood Rush, and Razor Fingers—the spells he had used recently, hours ago.

Tier-two spells that were not as powerful and not as easily forgotten.

The spell Razor Fingers transformed his fingers into hard, blade-like claws. The Minor Blood Rush spell boosted his speed, reflexes, and strength, adding onto the already doubled strength from the Lesser Strength spell.

The quaggoth was no mere beast. Its claws were the length of a man’s arm, able to rend flesh, shear through steel and bone. Its mouth was large enough to fit a whole human head, and it had long arms and short legs that supported its hunched body and thick matted fur.

But its two slitted eyes were fixed on him.

The creature turned to the side, and Marcus knew that this was his chance. He rushed the creature, and as he got closer, he pushed all the aether he could manage into the three spells.

The Blood Rush spell made his body feel like it had been injected with energy. His entire body vibrated, buzzing with spent energy.

He pushed aether into his Razor Fingers spell, and they grew longer and sharper, causing him pain unlike before. When he used his Lesser Strength in combination with the Minor Blood Rush spell, he moved like a flash, appearing ever closer to the creature.

But before he could reach the creature, whatever had been distracting it was now gone, and he noticed the creature swinging a backhand into him. Marcus had a few seconds to react and raised his hands to block, the blow sending him flying back.

He expected the creature to be on him the minute he landed, but it wasn’t. It seemed distracted.

Just when Marcus thought he wouldn’t have enough time to get to his feet, Orlan shouted at the beast, getting its attention.

“Come on, over here. Come on!”

When it looked at him, Orlan blew out a black smog from his mouth that flew right at the creature.

The creature staggered, and from the way its body moved in a weakened state, Marcus guessed that was the other boy's innate magic—it was some sort of dark affinity affliction spell, and he guessed it weakened its target.

Marcus took the chance and got to his feet. He pushed aether into the spells until he felt they could not hold more. As tier-two spells, the most amount of aether they could hold was fixed—any more and they would break.

His fingers grew harder, longer, and sharper.

His body buzzed as everything seemed to slow down, and he felt too good to keep the Lesser Strength spell running for the entire day or so.

In its weakened state, the creature could not react in time, swinging its arms clumsily as Marcus got into its reach.

He held his fingers tight together and pushed his hand into the creature’s gut.

When he had blocked the creature's blow, it had felt much stronger, yet now it was not as strong.

The creature's clawed hand grabbed his, and Marcus let out a scream of pain as its large claws dug into his flesh.

It brought its other hand around, but he was calm under the effect of the Blood Rush spell. The quaggoth’s hand moved slowly enough for him to sway back and twist away from it. As he did, he shifted his feet until he was behind the monstrous creature and plunged his hands where he suspected the creature's kidneys would be.

The creature thrashed, and as it did this, Marcus latched onto it like a wild animal, digging claws as sharp as nails into its back, intending to do as much damage as he could as it pulled away from him.

The creature stumbled, and he realized that it had already been injured before it attacked them. It had a healing wound on the left short leg, so he aimed for it.

The creature growled in pain and performed a feat of incredible acrobatics and strength. It lifted itself up with its two longer arms and kicked him with its injured leg, sending him flying off of it.

It looked at him, recognizing that he was not prey—that, in fact, he would actually kill it if it tried anything else.

It took a step back and then another, and then turned to run back into the forest only to come up short as another figure appeared in front of its only escape route.

The creature growled in recognition, and this time took a step back towards Marcus, seemingly trapped between two dangerous foes.

But it recognized that one of the two men was more dangerous than the one holding a weapon, so it turned and rushed towards Marcus.

Marcus thought that if the quaggoth had decided it would be dying, it would take him along with it.

Not giving it time to take another step, with Blood Rush spell acting on him and the spell of Lesser Strength, his feet hit the ground with such force that he was propelled forward so fast that if one blinked, they could have missed him.

His hands found the creature's chest and dug deep, thanks to the force and momentum he had used in his approach.

The creature staggered back.

His hands deep in the creature's chest, they moved, aiming to catch anything fatal. His Razor Fingers met no resistance, cutting through organs and aiming to find something—anything solid—that he could hold onto, like the creature’s heart.

The quaggoth let out a deep, bellowing scream and moved to attack the small figure on its chest.

The hunter had moved as the creature turned its back to him. His longsword cut the creature's leg off, causing it to lose its footing. Then he spun to its other side, cutting its left arm off.

Before it could bite down on the young man’s head, the hunter’s longsword cut straight through its thick neck, separating its body and head, decapitating the creature and causing it to fall onto the young man.

Not a minute later, the creature was lifted off of him by the hunter. He watched as the hunter sheathed his sword and looked at him with an appraising look.

The human hunter wore a chest plate and chainmail underneath it, with shoulder plates. He wore greaves over his thick leather pants that were also covered in leather armor, allowing him to move easily through the forest.

“I am Aldric, warrior of Knight House Virnelle, protector of Dragon’s Landing. And who do I have the honor of speaking to?”

“Marcus. The name is Marcus.”

“Well, Marcus, it’s not often one sees someone as young as yourself fight off a beast of this kind.” He looked him up and down. “That's quite an odd name, but I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, looking between Marcus’s right eye and left eye.

“Are you a hunter?” he asked, waving his hands downward to get rid of the blood and viscera.

“Yes, I was sent ahead to clear the path ahead of the company’s arrival. I have been tracking this beast through the woods for some time now, but I knew it could only be headed in one direction,” Aldric said, trying to engage the young man in civil conversation.

Marcus was busy cleaning the gunk of blood and inner fluids off his fingers.

Aldric had seen the boy fighting with spells like a Warcrafter. He had fought like a madman, as if he had never fought a beast—but what caught his eye was how efficiently he was casting the War Craft magic. It was as though the boy was using all three spells simultaneously.

Whoever had taught the boy had done a good job, but what confused him more was that the boy had no colors of any known house, and he wore rags—the tunics old and dirty.

He had distracted the quaggoth to see what the boy would do, and to his surprise, the boy had attacked the beast.

It was not often you saw anyone go charging at a beast with no sword or blade. Only the Goliath did that, and in his opinion, they had less to work with in the head.

And after watching the boy fight the creature, it was the creature that had decided to run away—something he could not let happen, so he intervened.

“Tell me, do you have a master? Is it he who taught you to fight like that?”

“Yes. Ivor taught me.”

“No house name? He must be quite the warrior to teach you to fight like that,” he said with a mocking smirk on his lips. “But he didn’t teach you to fight monsters well.”

Ivor had never taught him how to fight monsters. All he ever did with the old man was learn how to fight against Thornan, but he didn’t need to tell the other man that.

“I see you have no house to your name. But if you ever need a better teacher, make your way to Forgehold. Ask for the Knight House of Virnelle.”

“No thanks. I have a house. House Morkan. I am Marcus of House Morkan,” he said, holding his bleeding arm as he opened his grimoire with the other arm and looked for the particular spell.

Healing Breath—a spell that healed his body when he focused on his breathing.

Aldric, the hunter, was momentarily surprised as he watched the young man’s arm start putting itself back together.

“House Morkan? Never heard of it,” he said, walking over to the creature’s fallen body. “It must be a small house. Must be a servant house most likely,” he added as he cut off the creature’s head. “If they’re giving the likes of you a grimoire… but if you want something better than what they offer you, come find me. A young man like you will be accepted, even with your… heritage.”

Next, he cut off the creature’s hands, filled with dagger-like claws, and tossed them to Marcus.

Marcus looked down at the claws and lifted them. They were the size of his forearm and weighed as much. The claws were ivory and faded to black at their sharpened ends.

“Proof you killed the beast,” the human hunter said