A rumble ripples through the forest.

A disgusting and spine-chilling mana begins to permeate the air.

The crocodilian, who had raised his fist to strike me again, freezes to scan the area for the newly arrived threat. In this small moment of respite, I can barely raise my head to see what happened. Cuts on my face bleed down into my eyes and cloud my vision with a deep crimson. I wipe the red out of my sight and gape at my savior.

Where Ma once was, a creature stands on all fours. It was a nightmarish mix of half pulsating, rotten flesh, and half “healthy” gray flesh. Its teeth are jagged and yellow, thick saliva dripping from the ends. Its eyes are pure white slits and matted black hair hangs in front of its face. It shrieks and the earth around it quakes from its power.

The crocodilian man rises up from his kneeling state and turns to face the beast. It raises its fists into a high guard and rock begins to curl around its arms once more. It positions its legs into a stagger and hisses. It means to fight the creature bare-handed. The creature obliges him.

In an instant, the creature is in the crocodile's grill. It throws a roundhouse kick into the crocodilian’s high guard, but the croc is simply not able to withstand the force behind the strike. The stone around its arm explodes, scattering shards of rock and bits of rubble into the air. The monster is sent flying off its feet, tumbling through the air, and eventually crashes into a far away tree trunk.

Barely having landed, the croc quickly rolls to its side, narrowly dodging the beast that had already flung itself through the wood. It lets loose a wild punch that mangles the tree the croc had collided with and sends a shockwave through the ground behind it. The low cracks of several once-healthy cedars echo across the forest. The trees are rapidly uprooted, tip over, and fall. Leaves free themselves from branches and begin to swing to and fro as they float in the air.

The creature stands on two legs, hugs one of the fallen tree trunks, heaves up the end of it, and whips it over its head. The croc tries to dodge again, but it doesn’t have enough time to move out of the way of the thick trunk. The tree smashes the crocodilian and splatters its innards all over the forest floor.

The creature shrieks, announcing its bittersweet victory over the brother it was forced to kill.

The summoner, still in the same spot, has not had the liberty to spectate the fight since summoning his last resort. He had performed a summon that induced a massive overconsumption of his mana, so his physical capabilities had reduced to that of an old man with extremely painful arthritis. Moving at all would wrap his body in pain. Having heard a very unfamiliar screech and several explosive bursts of sound, though, he begins to run despite even that. Run where, he doesn’t know. What he does know, however, is that if he doesn’t leave soon, he won’t be able to run at all. Another screech claws at his ears. He covers them to block it out.

After running for a few minutes, his legs curiously stop taking him anywhere. That’s strange. He peers down at them to see what the issue is, only to find that they are no longer on the ground. In fact, his whole body was no longer on the ground. He was now suspended in the air by a gray arm jutting out of his chest.

A lump of red meat pulsates in the arm’s grasp. The hand grips it tighter and crushes it. It splatters in the summoner’s face. The summoner is returned to the ground and the arm removes itself from his chest.

‘Good, I can keep running now’, thinks the summoner, thoroughly relieved.

He falls to the ground and thinks no more. The fire that he started earlier fizzles out, deprived of the mana that fueled it.

The creature wastes no time in ripping up his body and feasting on its newly acquired bag of flesh. Not even his bones are left behind.

The creature returns to all fours and bolts away as quickly as it came.

I’m still laying on the ground, struggling to understand what had happened. That was Ma, that much is for certain. It couldn’t have been anything else. But how? How little did she tell me about what we are? Why wasn’t she able to do that all the time?

A dozen questions race through my head, all unanswered.

I hear the sound of claws ripping through dirt and leaf, and my mother in all of her fiendish appearance skitters to a stop before me.

The rotten flesh on the right side of her body begins to melt into a revolting green liquid. The liquid upon touching the ground sizzles and dissipates. Despite my injuries, I rush to her side, and catch her as she begins to tip over.

She’s returned to even less of her former self. A spark of black lightning skims across her chest, and the black stone from earlier materializes. It drops to the ground, its symbol now clearly visible. Etched in a simplistic art style, a hooded figure with a wide smile and jagged teeth is made plain to be seen, but the smile is beginning to fade. After a moment, it’s fully gone.

I return my attention to my mother. She’s in terrible shape. Her skin is clammy and a sick shade of olive green. Her eyes are sunken and glassy, like light no longer enters them at all. The skin around her maimed arm and leg is starting open as if they were old scars rubbed raw. Even during what must be excruciating pain, she still calls for me. I sit down and lay her over my lap, holding her head up in my arms.

(Sun… are you ok?)

She starts to cough, but it quickly turns into hacking. Blood coats the edges of her mouth. I respond to her call.

(Ma, I’m fine. I’m doing fine, really.)

I quickly attempt to reassure her of my wellbeing. She smiles, thankful that I’m still alive and well.

(You really took a whooping there… that spearman must’ve been pretty strong), she jokes in between her coughing fits.

(I was worried, you know? No mother should have to watch her son get his face punched in like that. Look at you. You’re all bust-up. Ah, what I would give to be powerful all the time, then you wouldn’t be hurt like this.) As she continues to talk, her words get progressively quieter.

(But at least you got to see your mother be cool, even if only for a little bit. I was pretty cool, wasn’t I?)

I start to choke up a bit.

(Yes Ma. You were very cool. The strongest I’ve ever seen.)

(That’s good, honey. That’s really good.)

She appears pleased with herself, like she was finally able to protect me for the first time in a very long while.

(But you know, what I did wasn’t something a crippled old bat should be doing. That was my last act, you’re smart enough to know that, aren’t you Sun?)

I can barely speak. The words all but get caught in my throat.

(Yes… I know.)

(But you’ll do great things, I just know it. You’re young, and you have your whole future ahead of you. You’ll be way stronger than I ever was.)

She turns her head slowly and faces the direction that the stone had dropped. It rested on the top of several fallen leaves, all painted with the blood of the dead warrior.

(And maybe… just maybe…)

you’ll make friends with her.

Her words are barely audible, and I don’t hear her.

(Ma?)

She smiles a big, toothy smile.

Then, in a voice as clear as the great blue sky after a rainy day, she says,

(I’m so proud of you.)

And she speaks no more. Her arm and leg go limp and her head becomes heavy in my arms.

Her eyes point to the stars, still smiling, as if she were relieved that she could finally join them.

My mind goes numb and my body feels weaker than it ever has. Nausea rips through my being, and I want to vomit, but instead, I begin to wail like a child. Like the sky was falling and the whole Earth was caving in. Like I was losing the one and only friend that I’ve ever had since birth. Like the only person that loved me in the whole wide world was leaving me all alone in a land that hates me. I cry until my voice is hoarse and my eyes grow sore. It hurts. It hurts so much. I stay there, holding her lifeless body in my arms until the sun rises once again.