Spurned Luna’s Return: On Your Knees, Alpha Chase

Forbidden Forest.

Lavana’s mate exited the portal, landing on the ground on his feet. He steadied himself and saw the portal quickly close. Looking around with his now glowing viridian eyes to see where he was currently, all he could see were tall and wide sturdy trees that could likely be a few hundred or maybe a thousand years old. Their rough trunks were wrapped by various thin or thick golden vines.

There were also numerous shrubs, each having different leaf colours. A few of them were known but the majority he couldn’t identify. Hence, he had to be careful since the possibility of poisonous or lethal shrubs being amongst the plants was high.

Ahead of him was thick white fog and it served as the gateway to the lair of the creatures he was to defeat tonight, Silgioth- ranking first on the top dangerous beasts’ list. He had told the king that this was what he wanted, so the king had the portal drop him right near its dwelling in this taboo forest.

In addition to being hard to see in this fog, it irritated one’s eyes. The creature lording this area could even attack an individual in the fog and in seconds, render him or her handicapped, helpless and finally, dead. This fog wasn’t just irritating to the eye, if inhaled, it was also poisonous to the body!

Phoenix had not a single spatial ring or weapon of defence on him. He had to use everything he’s got to take down the beast in less than two hours.

Holding his breath, he rushed into the fog, eyes closed. He used his ears well to sense whatever danger would come at him. Although he was now shrouded by fog and it was possible to use his sorcerer powers secretly, he chose not to. By pure strength, he would take down the beast.

Advancing slowly but steadily in the fog, he suddenly halted. He had stepped on something sharp. But instead of waiting to check what it was that hurt his right foot, he continued moving.

Suddenly the vines on those trees outside the fog glowed and uncoiled fast, rushing into the fog at a swift pace.

Sensing something was coming, Phoenix assumed a fighting stance. Unexpectedly, prickly things wrapped around his hands and feet at the same time.

As he struggled to break free, the thorns on the vines on his feet impaled into his ankle and he was forced to open his eyes while still holding his breath. The vines that were wrapped tightly around his wrist couldn’t impale it due to the leather bracelets. Coming in contact with the fog, his eyes began to sting but closing them wasn’t an option at this point.

Worse still, another vine, a bit thicker than the others and rather of a black colour, wrapped around his neck but not tightly, thus the thorns weren’t impaled into his neck. But it did increase the discomfort its victim was feeling.

Still, yet, another bigger red one wrapped around his waist firmly. The belt protected his waist from being pierced by its thorns.

As he thought about what to do, the vines suddenly drew him backwards speedily and dumped him roughly outside the fog on the ground where several golden vines were already waiting for their prey. Upon falling atop them, those other vines enveloped him from the neck down, entrapping him and then commenced squeezing him, impaling their longer thorns into his skin.

Out of the fog were humanoid figures advancing towards him- they were made of mud and had rather sinister looks.

“Mud warriors,” he muttered under his breath. Feeble as they might seem, they pack a good punch and can give even a high-level wizard a headache.

With a little more effort, he broke free from the vine cage. Quickly, he charged at the seven mud fellas, punching a few of them into pieces.

But as they crumbled to the ground, they quickly reformed and went after their prey who had already rushed into the fog. Instead of walking as before, he was running. Even though his feet got pierced by many unknown sharp things, he didn’t care. For him, these were all distractions. The beast’s head and core were the goal.

A few minutes later, Phoenix was finally out of the damn fog. What he met was a dark cave that had two trees on both sides of the entrance’ their trunks were enveloped by thick green vines that glowed. Also, two mud warriors were standing in front of the cave, acting as security.

Looking behind him, Phoenix found that the seven mud fellows from before had caught up to him looking incensed. They were the creations of this Silgioth creature. He had yet to see the beast but had so much to deal with already.

Well, what choice did he have?

He directly charged at the entrance, blasting the mudmen who tried to stop him to bits. They quickly reassembled, looking unhurt, but he had no time to entertain them. With them chasing after him, he dodged nimbly the relentless vines that had unwrapped from the trunks, wanting to entrap him by all means.

…

After thirty minutes of battling the pesky vines and the nine indefatigable and ineradicable mud warriors, he was able to sneak into the cave by tricking them.

The vines and mud men did not follow him this time.

As he advanced in the cave, he remained cautious, making good use of his ears, so as not to be caught unawares.

Venturing deeper into the cave, he made a turn and found a broad passageway to his left that was lit by several giant white pearls that were placed in unnatural circular holes in the cave. This creature was quite wealthy and ostentatious, wasn’t it? Just see how it used so many pearls as a mere source of light while the outside world would initiate a dog-eat-dog game just to land their hands on one.

Even he as prince hadn’t seen pearls this big and of extreme purity!

The moment he took another step forward, a creature suddenly materialised close to him, the distance between the two of them was just four steps.

Phoenix’s face adopted a look of surprise.

Silgioths aren’t capable of invisibility, right? He knew a lot regarding creatures of the taboo forest.

This Silgioth he’d chosen tonight was a zaffre-eyed giant beast with 3 brown heads and impenetrable silver scales that covered most of its body. Its tail was very short and it had a great advantage in speed and flexibility despite its huge size. It had just two weaknesses and that was its eyes and neck.

Silgioth had control over the vines on those trees outside the fog and also those just outside the cave and kept them as security and had the ability to make living human-like warriors out of the soil. Additionally, it had a lazy personality and only liked to show up for a fight in the fog, to terrorize and maim its prey, or if someone was able to enter its cave.

But what was this beast then before him that appeared just now? He had no time to study its features as he quickly retreated a few steps, assuming a fighting stance.

The look on the strange creature’s face was that of arrogance and great disdain. It didn’t even put Phoenix in its eyes. In it’s eyes, this wiz blood before it was already dead and dismembered!Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Silly,” the creature spoke. Phoenix wasn’t stunned by the fact that this strange creature could speak. After all, Silgioth itself was a conscious beast.

“What are you?” Phoenix questioned with a frown.

“Me?” the creature let out a horrible laugh, “You ask what I am? Can’t you see clearly? I’m me!”

Phoenix felt this beast was deliberately being difficult. He was well aware that there were some beasts who hadn’t entered into the record since they never showed up to fight anybody.

But the fact that Silgioth ranked top among the beasts in this forest was indisputable.

Yet, merely looking at this strange creature in front of him that had three long glowing rose-red horns on its serpentlike head, gold eyes and a scintillating Aegean blue body, he could sense that using his hands and feet to fight against this unidentified creature could only have one result- death. If he stubbornly tried to fight it physically, then he was no different from someone trying to poke a hole in a diamond by using a needle.

“I guess you must be some groom who wanted to kill the Silgioth to prove your ability to protect your bride, right? Wiz blood and their silly customs. You are quite unlucky today, young man. You don’t have a sceptre and your fingers are bare too. At this point you’re more pitiful than a cornered bunny,” the creature looked amused and then closing its eyes began to change form, becoming three times bigger than it already was.

Its eyes changed from gold to pitch black and nine more heads sprouted with necks longer than that of the main head, all intimidatingly letting out their meter-long, black forked tongues. Its thick maroon red tail had become five times longer than before and even multiplied into three, each having a half-meter-long stinger at its end.

The tails weren’t just for adornment, they roved about, seeming eager to tear their opponent apart.

“You’re lucky to die by my hands!” the creature growled as it rushed forward in glee, its heads stretched forward to attack.

Phoenix’s face became more solemn as his hair turned silver with cerulean ends and lengthened past his shoulders, stopping a few inches above his waist. A red moon mark appeared on his forehead, and four circular purple marks appeared under both lower eyelids.

Now wasn’t the time to care that his people could see his actions via that special mirror in the ceremony ground.