The Great Rift

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

((Closed. Takes place before Of Kings and Killers.))

A still silence crept across the vast underground plains of Haidia. Few demons were moving in the neverending red glow of the demon realm. The few cities of Haidia were in their sleep cycle, since darkness never fell in the caves because of the Magi Crystal. Only the guards were awake, ever vigilant in their efforts to protect their homeland.

Deep in the city of Vainta, the capital city of the demons, stood a large building. Deep within that building, slept an awkward family. The large demon knight, normally clad in dark blue and black armor, was the High General of the Demon Army. His son, a half-demon, half-human hybrid, was a sorcerer and nephew to one of the most powerful sorcerers in Althanas. Their ever faithful companion, a small brown dog, had the power to transform into a mighty Magim Beast, with leathery wings and fiery breath. They were a very strange family indeed.

Stranger still was the boy, Kaza. A powerful sorcerer in his own might, he had also received the power of Destiny, one of the two most powerful elements in the universe. Among those powers was a power to see and control the past, present, and future. Even at that very moment, in the midst of his sleep he was seeing the future, a very dangerous future for all who lived in Haidia.

He saw a massive sea creature sinking down through a massive rift in the planet's surface. The beast's magical properties were forcing water through the rift to flood Haidia, creating a lair for it to live. It's gigantic tentacles and glowing yellow eyes sliced into Kaza's mind. He saw water rushing through the city, slamming into the king's majestic castle, tearing it to pieces. He saw the Demon Army being washed away into the massive current which would overtake the town. The trees of the Haidian Forest would be uprooted and the Magi Tower destroyed. Death would have a feast when that day came and Life would lose the battle.

However, despite the overwhelming pain and suffering, there was one who would attempt to fight the creature and would cause great damage to it, only to be inevitably destroyed. This human appeared to be a powerful warrior, well known among the human lands. Kaza did notice that his father's massive frame was obviously missing from the battle and he had the feeling that if his father helped the warrior, together they would succeed in defeating the creature. Kaza tossed and turned in his bed, his mind desperately trying to wake up, to escape from the horrors he saw in his dreams. Finally, the vision came to an abrupt end, peace settling over the massive lake where Haidia once had been. The platinum haired child opened his eyes and screamed out in his high pitched voice.

"Papa!"

[Letho]

“You can run, beast! But when you reach the darkest corner of the world, you will see me standing there, sending you to the foul pit you crawled out of!”

That was the thought that echoed through Letho’s mind as he stood on the stem of the frigate that defiantly smashed against the stormy waves. It was midday by his calculations, but the overcast was so thick and glum that it murdered the sun in cold blood and set the gray deathly tones to take reign of the sea. Only the sea was alive, the ferocious untamed sea that slammed against their hull in an attempt to deter him from his mission. And it was thus for five days now.

For five days they gave chase to the mighty Hydra. The monster appeared on the coast of Corone, a couple of miles from the Radasanth docks, and in a matter of minutes it unleashed hell that the locals haven’t witnessed in a millennia. Almost thrice as large as any dragon that Letho ever saw, the two-headed sea behemoth crushed ships as if they were made out of paper and erased the docks in a single tidal wave. It fed on anguish, on the cries of agony and the screams of pure dread that rang through Radasanth streets like hell’s bells. Hundreds... Thousands were lost in less then a day, fighting the leviathan. Thousands more lost their homes in the unprotected slums that got swept away by the tidal wave as if the whole scenery was made from a deck of cards. The beast was restless, relentless and it came to sate its hunger for flesh and woe.

It was on the eve of the first day that Letho led a band of rangers against the Hydra. Twenty-seven of them faced the beast on the shores of Niema river, twenty-seven courageous warriors that dared to defy this abomination that the nature sicked on them. For twenty-six of them that was the last night in their lives. Letho mourned for all of them, but only one of them made this fight personal. Only one of them made the swordsman give chase to the beast and swear to exact vengeance. Only one of them made him swear that he would have the head of the beast hung on the highest wall of Radasanth while he would shout her name for all to hear. Only one...

Sienna.

He begged her not to come. He even pushed her away. For gods sakes, she was only seventeen. But when she pointed her revolver at his face and fired a stern glance at him, he knew that he could not talk her out of it. It wasn’t the gun that made him do so. No, it was the eyes, the incisive bullshooter eyes that poured liquid steel in every glance. She needed this, needed to prove herself in his eyes, needed to be a part of an adventure he always spoke about and she always dreamed about. She had the heart of a hero. But her first heroic act ended up being her last.

That was why even now, with two of their masts gone, with their hull leaking like a goddamned sieve, with his crew decimated and fatigued to the point where they barely managed to hold the oars, let alone row them... That was why even now he stood at the bow. The tempests slapped his face like an angry wife, tossing his black coat like a flag gone haywire, as the rain drenched him to the bone. It was a cold bitter rain, dead rain, an omen of the final encounter in which only one beast would remain standing. He didn’t care about the ship, the crew or himself anymore. He wanted the reckoning. For her, for the girl that never had him and that never will.

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

Zieg awoke with a start as the seven-year-old's scream echoed through his head. He was up in a flash, his fingers curling around the hilt of his blade which lay on the floor and jerking the sword from its sheath. His eyes quickly scanned the room searching for an unknown foe, but all he saw were Kaza's green eyes fading away in the darkness. He sat up and set his blade on the side table next to his bed. Pulling a lantern from that same table, he quickly lighted it using a match.

"Kaza, what is going on? Why did you scream?" The child sat shivering in his small bed, frozen with fear despite the heat of the underground lands. Xeppa, who had been curled up at Zieg's feet sleeping, now lifted his head and stared at the boy.

"It was horrible, papa." Tears began to well up in the child's eyes, the first time the demon had ever seen his son afraid. The father stepped over to his son and sat down on the cot next to him, wrapping his muscular arms around the platinum haired child. He shushed the boy and held him close, Kaza's tears soaking the shoulder of Zieg's cloak.

"It's going to be alright, Kaza. Nothing's going to hurt you. Papa's here to protect you. Why don't you just tell me what you dreamed." Kaza slowed his crying with several huffed breaths and was finally able to speak again.

"It... wasn't really a dream. It was so real!" Kaza wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "There was this giant hole in the ceiling of the cave and water gushed in. A big sea monster came in the hole and started killing people and flooding Haidia. Then everyone died and Haidia was a giant lake!" Kaza held tight to his father's arm.

"It was just a dream, Kaz. No sea monster will get us here." Zieg brushed the hair from the boy's eyes.

"It wasn't just a dream!" Kaza said defiantly. "It was too real! You have to believe me!"

"Alright, alright. It was real. We cannot do anything about it at this time of night. Let's just go back to sleep and tomorrow we'll go on a trip to try and find this sea monster, okay?" Kaza nodded, and Zieg set him back into bed and pulled the thin sheets up to his chin. He kissed the boy's forehead before standing.

"I'll always protect you, Kaza."

[Letho]

“Marshal Ravenheart!” a raspy voice shouted from behind the swordsman. There was fatigue in that voice, the kind that pride tried and failed to conceal, the kind that made a prizefighter get up over and over again at the count of eight just so he could take another set of punches. But Letho didn’t hear it. His eyes were peering into the distance, the blistering wind swooshing by his earlobes and nearly deafening the man. Left-right-left-right the tail fin of the beast went, almost mocking the vengeful knight and his crumbling ship.

“MARSHAL RAVENHEART!” the voice repeated, this time preceded by a deep inhale that amplified the loudness of the call. But Letho still refused to turn. His hand held the rope tight, his posture bold and defiant, as his eyes kept following the swinging fin about two miles in front.

“What is it, captain?” he responded. There was no weariness in his powerful gallant voice, the voice of a king that stood on his throne. It pierced the whistle of the wind effortlessly and reached the gaunt captain behind his back. The already frowned wrinkly face of the buccaneer that accepted to be the captain of the Maverick on this suicide mission, the burrowed stone-chiseled face of a weathered veteran with about six days worth of razor sharp gray beard, it frowned even further.

“This is lunacy, marshal! The crew below is falling unconscious at the oars from exhaustion, the carpenters are patching the patches just to keep us afloat.” the captain spoke. There was no fear in his voice. No, it was merely reason, reason that was making it clear that if they keep following the Hydra and the storm it brought in tow, the only goal they would reach was their doom. “We must turn back!” his voice fought with the thundering storm above, his tousled greasy hair clinging to his face like a gray squid with multiple tentacles.

Letho’s head snapped sideways, his body rotating just enough for his blazing eyes to collide with the frowning glare of captain Gioran. “There will be no turning back, captain! Have you forgotten about those that fell at Radasanth docks?! Have you forgotten why we are here?! The remains of your friends are still in the beast bowels, and you want to turn back!” Letho shouted, growled, threatened even with his powerful voice, louder then the thunder and twice as fierce. But the captain wasn’t some wet-behind-the-ears whelp that just got on his first voyage. He stepped closer to Letho, intrepid and determined.

“Don’t you preach me about vengeance, boy! Don’t you dare! I lost my entire family five days ago! So don’t you dare give me lesson on sacrifice!” the scrawny captain bawled at the sullen knight, his fists clenching at his side as the images of his ruined home swept before his mind’s eye. “But this is madness. If it turns and attacks again, the ship won’t hold! And more lives will be thrown in the wind just because of your ludicrous crusade!”

Letho refused to budge. He was like a piece of granite, stoic and unmoved by the words. The two glares clashed like unseen swords and it was the captain that gave up first. “Their blood is on your hands, Ravenheart.” he uttered in a dreadfully low voice.

Letho’s eyes fell to his gauntleted hands, these tools of ultimate destruction. There was so much blood on those hands... Innocent blood. Sienna’s blood. He wouldn’t step down.

“Hold the course!”

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

Zieg dil' Tulfried, High General of the Demon Army, was just like any other father. He had to provide for his child. He had to protect his child. He had to scare away the monsters from the bedroom of the child. Even if the monsters were giant sea creatures and the bedroom was a giant rift in the ceiling of an underground cave. Well, Kaza never was one to go small...

Which was exactly why Zieg now sat atop of his horse Warrior, Kaza right in front of him and Xeppa walking nearby, heading for where the boy thought the sea monster would break through the earth into Haidia. He had told Zaketh and Johannan that it was a reconnaissance mission to explore the Unknown Regions of Haidia for himself, but he suspected they knew it was not the truth.

Zieg glanced down from the bottom of his helmet at Kaza. The seven-year-old had a grim look of determination on his face, a look that Zieg had only seen once before. It had been when he first found the child after Khazzele's death. The emerald eyed child had been so determined to escape from the pit he was in that Zieg had been overwhelmed by the child. Kaza never ceased to amaze him.

The demon sighed as he realized he was running a child's errand and wondered why he was doing this. He had legions of warriors at his command. He could have very easily have sent one of them. Why did he choose to go himself? He could not pinpoint his reasoning for such a decision. As he rode on, he wondered why the boy looked up to him so much. Kaza expected his father to protect him and Zieg had no idea why. Perhaps it was the innocence of one so young.

Zieg had no idea what went on in the half-demon's head, but as he neared where Kaza had said the creature would be, he began to see he was not delusional. Water was leaking through a giant crack in the ceiling. As it fell, it pooled into what was now becoming a giant lake. As the watched, the crack grew wider and the water flow increased. Then the water slowed as a long slender flipper slid down through the opening. Zieg and Kaza quickly jumped down from Warrior's back and stared at the strange occurance.

"See, papa, I told you it was real!" Kaza shouted excitedly, though the look of determination lingered on his face.

[Letho]

“WHIRPOOL AHEAD!!!” the scout in the crow’s nest high above their heads bawled in terror, his voice barely reaching the main deck through the racket of the storm. Letho’s eyes squinted a fraction more, his irises narrowing as he focused on the sea beyond the behemoth that he was chasing. And true enough, like a mouth or a gargantuan sea monster, a humongous whirl ceaselessly spun in a hypnotizing centrifugal motion, relentlessly drawing in everything in its vicinity. The Hydra, now some mere five hundred paces ahead of the prow of the Maverick, was immaculately heading toward the twirling doom.

Innumerable telltales encircled this phenomenon and during his life as a wanderer Letho heard them all. Gateways to other worlds, wrathful devouring mouths of the sea gods, natural occurrences due to conflicting tides, even magical conjurations by an ancient race of sorcerers that lived under the sea, those were just some of the explanations that common folk used for what stood before them. And while the fables differentiated with every speaker in numerous details, there was one thing that they all shared, one little factoid that all the speakers agreed on. And it was that no matter what, you didn’t want to be caught in the mighty incessant cycle.

“That’s it, Ravenheart! I’m turning this ship around! That thing is swimming to its doom and there’s nothing we can do about it.” captain insisted, his scrawny left hand grabbing Letho’s shoulder firmly while his right pointed towards the madness that awaited them ahead. The storm around them seemed to be growing in power, making the Maverick shimmy more and more ardently as the waves kept attacking the main deck, spilling over the bulwarks and onto the main deck.

Letho’s head turned sideways with agonizing slowness and in one glance of those rich brown eyes captain Goranis could see all the contained fury and rage that the man held within. It was a look of a madman, of the last warrior on a battlefield that kept impaling the already dead body because the cogs inside him forgot to stop spinning. In Letho’s case they were fueled by Sienna’s azure eyes, those empty glittering eyes that thanked him even as life slipped out of her slender body. The maddened glance lasted only a second, serving almost as an insight into the raging turmoil within Letho’s head, before he once again managed to conceal it with the usual frowned look.

“You’re right, captain. There is nothing you can do.” Letho said, surprising the man with the coarse reasonable tone of his voice and the friendly clap on the shoulder. But before the man even got a chance to pry into this abrupt change of heart, the swordsman let go of his shoulder and picked up a massive harpoon that stood at his side. The projectile weapon had a large amount of rope attached to its blunt end and without thinking twice Letho rifled it towards the Hydra. It was a herculean effort, the distance so immense everybody on board predicted the harpoon falling short, but the power behind the throw made the jagged tip stab itself into the tail of the fleeing creature. With a grin directed to the captain, the dark knight grabbed the rapidly unwinding rope that yanked his body overboard like a rag doll. And suddenly the main deck of the Maverick became perniciously silent.

Exactly what ensued after his fall into the sea, Letho couldn’t say. The dark water around him kept pushing him backwards, kept tossing him around like a fish caught on a hook, giving him only a handful of chances to draw the necessary breath. His hands kept pulling his bulk up the length of rope as the Hydra picked up the pace, shaking its tail vehemently. And then, as if by some magic, the beasts speed grew at an exponential rate, nearly making Letho’s hand let go of the taut rope. He felt his muscles quivering, his fingers slipping, his strength leaving his limbs as water kept insisting on getting into his mouth, into his nose, filling his throat, his lungs. His eyes gazed into the darkness, lost, aimless, searching for one ludicrous impossible shred of hope that would make him pull through.

And just as he became certain that there was none to be found and that the Hydra just ushered him to the underwater grave, the watery chaos that kept assaulting his body was gone and he was freefalling like a rock. His eyes caught a glimpse of the two-headed monster below him, falling just as hopelessly as he was, caught in a jet of water that came from above, before it splashed into a large scarlet-colored lake below. About a second after the tremendous splash of the beast, Letho landed into the water as well, the collision nearly knocking the air out of his lungs and the rope out of his grasp. And once again the darkness took reign around him, but this time the sea around him was unmoving, allowing him to kick his feet and paddle his large arms in order to reach the surface.

He breathed as if he never took breath before, coughing up salty water as he desperately swam towards the shore, lugging his cumbersome armaments on his back. The waterfall that descended from above in a round spurt of water was deafening, silencing even the mighty beast that shrieked as it tried to get its bearings straight. But Letho didn’t care about Hydra right now. He had to take a breather, at least for a minute, and regain at least a portion of his strength.

Once his hands and legs finally made contact with the gritty shore, Letho turned his body and collapsed on his back, allowing the waves to wash over his body as he stared at the scarlet stony dome above.

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

((Again sorry for not posting. Computer problems have made it difficult to post.))

The massive crack created by the slick fin grew larger and larger as the creature fell down into the depths of the planet. The rock seemed to explode as the beast burst through the crust, dropping into the lake below. It was hideous, bearing two heads on long necks, a giant body, long snake-like tail, and two fins that were easily the size of the Demon Army Headquarters. All in all, this beast was the size of half the city of Vainta, easily three or four times larger than a dragon or any beast that Zieg had faced.

Following closely behind the water creature was a slender cable a figure. Zieg couldn't quite make out what it was, but he could tell that it was not a part of the creature. The lake, which was large in its own right had suddenly tripled from the sudden burst of water and was now only a few feet away from the demon and closing quickly. It rushed over his armored ankles, and quickly rose to his knees. Zieg glanced at Kaza, grimacing as he spoke.

"Can you do something about the water? I will be at a serious disadvantage if I have to fight this beast underwater." Kaza nodded and looked up at the massive break in the ceiling. His eyes began glowing a brilliant green and his feet slowly rose up off of the floor. Rocks from all around the area began to fly into the air, fusing together. Larger and larger the massive stone grew, until it was the size of the hole. Kaza waved a hand and the stone slammed into the hole and seemed to melt until it fit perfectly.

Weakened by this display of power, Kaza sunk to the ground. His eyes fluttered closed and he sunk under the water. His father quickly grabbed him up and put him on Warrior's back. The water had stopped rising just above his knees. Turning back to the creature, he found it had disappeared, seemingly under the water's surface. The demon knight grimly waded into the water, not eager to fight the massive beast.

Here I am once again. Fighting to protect my home, from beings that I want to have nothing to do with. Why must it always be my job? Why must I be the one to save the day?

Zieg waded as far as he could with his head still above the water, before sinking his head beneath the surface and looking around. The water had begun to settle and he could make out the rocky floor to the new lake. However, he could see no sign of the sea creature, nor whatever it was that it dragged down with it. He turned and slowly marched back to the edge of the lake, uncertain of how to proceed. There was no way he would be able to swim beneath the surface and fight the thing.

"Xeppa! It swam beneath the surface, and I see no-" Zieg began. As he spoke, he was suddenly grabbed around the leg and dragged under the water. He splashed about trying to get free, but to no avail. Water was not his element, and he was at the will of those that it was.

[Letho]

((It's cool, don't worry about it. I hope you don't mind the bunny. If you do, let me know and I'll edit.))

For the time being, the majority of Letho’s focus went to the simple procedures such as breathing, coughing and measuring just how much time he has until the rising water would cover him completely. His eyes were blankly peering at the ceiling of the cave, but the weariness and the adrenaline obfuscated even the things as elementary as the recognition of that which stood in his line of sight. Because he looked death in the watery eyes and he managed to get away from that gaze without loosing his life. Distantly, almost like a shadow of a thought caught in the rapid exchange of inhales and exhales, he remembered how people always said that life flashed before your eyes when you’re facing death. Letho faced death enough times to know just what a load of cow dung that was, and today’s encounter only corroborated his claim. It almost made him smile.

An echoing sound of clashing rocks shattered his leisurely moment of relaxation, bringing all of his senses back in a flash. And even as they returned, the thunderous rumbling of the descending water ceased as if they were magically erased from the scene. Letho propped himself up on his elbows, expecting to see the blasted Hydra as the origin of the peculiar change, but all he could see was that the large hole in the ceiling was effectively clogged. Only a handful of miniscule waterfalls tricked down. The swordsman was almost ready to call the new cascading formation beautiful, despite the events that preceded its creation.

Only when his brown eyes started to notice all the details he noticed movement in his peripheral vision. There was a large soldier figure aiding a smaller one on the back of the horse and what seemed like a magim beast. “Magim beast? But that would mean we sunk right down into Haidia. his mind finally regained the ability to ascertain and made a conclusion. Yes, it made sense. Nobody really knew just how large the Great Cave was, so there was no reason why a portion of it wouldn’t be under the ocean. And there was the unique scarlet illumination to confirm his suspicions.

Letho slowly struggled to his feet, almost like a drunkard that just woke up in the gutter and realized it was raining outside. Whoever these figures were, they were probably pretty damn powerful when they were able to plug the hole the size of a small town. And that was the first good news he received ever since he started chasing the scaly behemoth that rested somewhere beneath the surface of the new-formed lake. He would need allies to kill the beast.

However, even as he made the first step towards the peculiar gathering further ahead, Hydra made it certain that it arrived here with an intention to stay and eradicate everything that might stand in its path. Its tail wrapped around the demon’s legs, fiercely pulling him below the surface. The figure struggled, clawed at the water, trying to find leverage in the water, but to no avail. About fifty feet away from the shore, the two dragon-like heads emerged from the water with a bestial resonating shriek, strong enough to ripple the water surface. Letho grabbed his gunblade and brought it in front of him in one fluent motion. His arm instinctively aimed for one of the roaring heads.

The smaller figure that stood mounted on an imposing stallion shouted something that sounded like Papa!. Letho’s hand quivered for a second, his piercing eyes fleeing to the splashing figure that struggled beneath the scaly tail. He had a clear shot, probably as clear as it was going to get. But he just couldn’t pull the trigger. He probably could if he didn’t hear the desperate shout, but he did and his finger wouldn’t move. The massive six-foot weapon moved sideways, aiming for the tail whose portion arched above the surface. His finger obeyed this time, releasing the fourteen millimeter payload in a single booming shot that scudded over the surface and struck the scaly extremity perfectly. The entry wound was the size of a human fist, but on the other side of the tail the sheer power and the size of the caliber caused flesh and blood to explode outwards and dye the water black with the blood of the beast.

Hydra shrilled vehemently, raising both heads upwards as it retracted the wounded tail, releasing the scrambling figure. Letho made haste down the stretch of beach, getting waist-deep into the water to offer a helping hand while the beast was distracted. His hand met the one of the demon, the swordsman pulling zealously on it with his gauntleted hand until the armored warrior was standing next to him. And once he did, Letho’s frown deepened instantly.

“Zieg dil’ Tulfried.” he squeezed through his teeth, releasing the meaty hand and taking a pair of steps backwards, bringing his weapon into a battle ready position. He remembered the Haidian general well. The two met in the Gray Braves war and they stood on the opposite sides that day. Letho still remembered the sickening scent of his burning flesh as the demon nearly incinerated him to a crisp, and only due to the untimely ending of the strife the two never finished their reckoning. And now, of all times, the fate brought them together to finish what was started. Instead of an ally in his battle with the gargantuan sea demon he got a potential enemy.

“Of all the caves in all the world, I just had to fall into yours.” Letho commented, keeping his eyes on the crimson ones of the general, but keeping most of his focus on the beast that seemed to slowly regain its bearings. It was nervous, Letho was nervous, and he was pretty certain that Zieg wasn’t too far off. “Perhaps we should take care of a monster before we settle old debts. Agreed?”

[Zieg dil' Tulfried]

The sound of a gunshot erupted in the large chamber. Zieg thrashed wildly as he tried to escape the beast's furocious grasp. After the blast, blood peppered his face and torso, black in color. His legs were freed and a strong arm grasped his own and pulled him up out of the water. A loud gasp escaped from his lips as he sucked in the precious air on which he lived.

He turned to see his rescuer, a human by appearance, someone he recognized. If he recalled correctly, it was Letho, someone he fought against in the Grey Braves war. Zieg personally felt no grudge against the man, they were simply two men whose circumstances put them on opposite sides of a war. Apparantly, Letho felt differently, by the comments he made.

Zieg simply nodded in response and looked back over the water. The surface was churning as the beast sunk back under the surface. Out of the blue, several large boulders erupted from within the banks of the lake. The hurtled in all directions. One headed for Letho, but the man had his back to it. Zieg slammed into Letho, knocking both of them to the ground and out of harm's way. The boulder slammed into the ground hard, leaving a crater as it bounced off into the trees beyond. Boulders continued to rain down, but none were aimed at either of the two warriors.

"PAPA!" Kaza released a bloodcurtling scream into the air as one of the boulders slammed into him and Warrior, crushing both him and the horse beneath it. It did not bounce away, but simply sat atop them. Within a heartbeat, Zieg was up and sprinting at the boulder. The Gamygym was in his grip and fire erupted all around the demon. It quickly swirled into a massive cyclone around his body, and he pointed his blade at the boulder.

Flames jumped forth and pounded into the boulder, knocking it off Kaza and into a nearby tree, shattering the tree into tiny splinters. Zieg tossed his blade aside and slid on his knees through the mud and stopped at Kaza's side. The boy's eyes were shut, but he was faintly breathing. The bones of the boy's left leg was shattered into three pieces and his right arm appeared to have an extra joint. He had sunk a good distance into the mud, which had kept him alive.

The child's emerald eyes flickered open for a moment, staring into his father's. He touched the demon's armor covered arm, and Zieg began to glow red. High above the water, Xeppa also began to glow. Kaza smiled and closed his eyes. Zieg stood and turned to the water, as Xeppa flew down at him. The Magim Beast seemed to fly into Zieg's body and the two of them began to meld together. The light was blinding, and when it subsided, Xeik was all that remanded. The doglike face, large leathery wings, and massive clawed hands and feet were all that remained of Xeppa. The Gamygym and Rohtan merged together to become an incredibly long osmium longsword.

Xeik turned to Letho. "I do not care about your petty debts and thoughts of revenge. We must defeat this monster now!"

[Letho]

The two-headed behemoth liked to play hard and fast, its actions barred of any and all complications and ponderings, and it had no trouble of displaying this aspect of its savage nature. Even as Zieg and Letho came to a silent agreement that they need to eliminate the current threat before they could finish their reckoning, Hydra attacked again. The sullen swordsman didn’t see it though. All he saw – and more importantly, felt – once he lowered his gunblade was the demon before him tackling him vehemently. Oftentimes quick to anger, Letho’s first thought was to retaliate against the cheap shot of his ally, but even before he managed to form a counterattack and the two collided with the mud below, a gigantic rock darted past them.

“I guess that makes us even.” Letho commented, fishing himself out of the mud and taking off his cumbersome coat. The damned thing felt like it was made out of iron now with the mud clinging to it and the water drenching it completely. However, while the two bulky warriors were left unharmed by the stony projectiles, the mounted demon had no such luck. Letho was almost certain that the child was a goner, crushed under the rock that Zieg trashed almost effortlessly as he sought his son. Unfortunately, Letho’s assumption was almost certain. The young demon was in shambles, his arm and leg broken, his chest badly bruised, making every breath a taxing effort. The swordsman could treat him, but not with the accursed Hydra raining stones at them.

Zieg went ballistic. Letho wasn’t certain if the injury of his son was the cause of the transformation, but the demon merged with the magim beast into a rather detesting phantasm. With a visage of a rabid hellhound and wings of a magim beast, Zieg dil’ Tulfried looked like a monster from a telltale. His body glowed with a scarlet aura, fitting into the already reddish environment perfectly. In a way, Zieg became what Letho would come to picture as the embodiment of Haidia. But right now he had no time for such sentiments.

“It’s not the revenge I seek, Zieg. It’s the reckoning. But you are right – there are bigger monsters to fight right now.” the swordsman spoke with a grin, the pun intended, but merely a jest that seemed too appropriate not to be mentioned. Another restless shriek effaced any trace of joviality quite effectively though. “Fly up to that thing and keep it distracted. I’ll swim up to it from behind and...”

That was the major flaw with all Letho’s plans. They always went that far and then all is left up to improvisation and the hopeful touch of luck. He hoped that he would be blessed by both today. “...well, kill it. Or at least try to do so.”

With that said, Letho slung the six-foot gunblade across his shoulder and made a run down the right shore of the new-formed salty lake. Both heads of the beast failed to follow his dash, Zieg’s scarlet aura more then enough to keep all four eye focused on the winged demon that dared to defy its intention to create a new home. Once the sullen blademaster managed to flank Hydra enough to be confident that he was standing in its blind spot, he took off the gunblade, reloaded it hastily, and prayed to the gods that the damned thing would fire once he reaches the beast. With these last preparations, Letho dove into the murky water of the Hydra Lake and swam towards the gargantuan colossus as fast as he could. Zieg might look threatening and imposing, but it was only a matter of time before the beast would overpower him. And as much as Letho’s pride still ached for the unfinished battle between the two, there was a soft spot for the Haidian general as well. Because the demon had a child and a parent’s love was a horrible thing to waste.