Chapter LXII: Battle Against Demonic Beasts III

Demonic Wildlands

Month of the Tortoise 33, 172 ,328 DE

Standing more than four meters at the shoulder, the Demonic Bull towers over everything around it. The bleeding furrows of claw wounds stand out starkly against its mottled black and brown hide. Pawing the ground, the Demonic Bull thrusts out it head and bares a set of sharp, jagged teeth that have no place in an herbivore's mouth. Whatever the Ferocious Cow may have

"Moooooo!"

"Get away from the cat!"

As Vorn, moving slowly, slides off the back of the dying cat and backs away, the Demonic Cow snuffles the air. It twists its head to eyeball Vorn sidelong. Its scent gives away the uneasiness and uncertainty that it feels.

I wave Vorn over to me, and he circles around, staying away from the center of the small more or less open area. Before he reaches my position, more Demonic Beasts show up, but they hover around the wall the Demonic Cow broke through.

"Nrarrr!"

A weird call midway between a whinny and roar echoes weirdly throughout the ruins. The Demonic Cow raises its head and angrily paws the ground.

"MOOOOO!"

The Demonic Bull's thunderous bellow shakes the loose rubble and assaults my ears like a sonic attack. The Beast is much stronger than Demonic Cats.

The Demonic Beasts hovering around the ruined tremble before growling, snarling, screeching, and hissing. Not many, if any, of these Demonic Beasts are friendly with one another, but that will not stop them from attacking and kill Vorn or myself. The enemy of my enemy is absolutely not my friend or ally.

That Best is too strong for you to face in your weak human form. my Mind.

Sister! Why did you warn that cur!? If it dies here, we will be free! Tama's angry thoughts interrupt Tia's cold ones.

Anger flares in Tia's thoughts. Free? Free to what? Be free to be claimed by some Primal tainted monstrosity? Be free to be hidden away for countless years by some corrupt thing serving the Primal Powers? Be free to be unable to fulfill our purpose?

After Tama does reply, Tia's thought return to their normal cold state. You cannot destroy this number of corrupted Beasts in that frail human form. To hide your true nature, your transformation seals too much of your Power.

Tia is not telling me anything I do not already know. I am just uneasy about revealing my true form here. I cannot shake the feeling that I am being watched.

The Beast blood human knows your secret. The oath-bound female cannot betray you. Anyone else can die. Even in your true form we can still fight for your. We can move ourselves, and if we could not, your Mind already has the strength to wiled us. Tia coldly appraises the situation.

I do not need to take another look at the Demonic Bull to know how powerful the thing actually is. Its strength should be on par with with a Rank 5, or maybe a Rank 6, Ferocious Beast. At least, it does not show any signs of being among the ranks of Beasts that have mastered Martial techniques or possess innate spell-like abilities.

I have not taken on my true form since opening my Core Realm and becoming a true Triune. I do not know how strong I am at this point. I had planned to rely my swords' abilities to use the Od to kill these Demonic Beasts, but that will probably not be enough.

Fight on your own.

I open my hands,+ and my swords float up to hover over my shoulders. With a thought, I connect my Core Realm to the outer Realm, and my clothing shifts into my Core Realm.

Sinking my awareness into myself, I no longer find the seal in my Soul. I can trigger the change back to my true with just a thought. With my awareness focused inside myself, my thoughts break free from the shackles of the Body, and the outside world slows to almost a complete stop. As I start the transformation to my true form, I sense parts of pattern that did not appear to even exit come to life. As Trinity flows through those previously dormant sections of my pattern, the ball of Trinity in my Core Realm floods out into my Body, Mind, and Soul. The basic nature of my Body changes. My muscles and bones become more than ten times as dense. The basic structure of my nerves changes, and the gaps between the cells disappears. My heart, my lungs, and my digestive organs strengthen and become more efficient. At the same time as my Body changes, my Mind and Soul change as well, but I do not have enough understanding of the Mind and Soul to grasp what happens to them.

As the changes to my basic nature finish, pain surges throughout my Body. My long hair shrinks into not-so-long fur, and, other than my palms and the soles of my feet, more coarse, thick fur sprouts from the rest of my body. As my fingers contract, retract, and my feet compress, their shapes change into that of paws. While a tail sprouts from my tailbone, all the bones in my Body crack and realign themselves. My body takes on the shape of a wolf, with an overly broad chest, thick shoulders, and heavily developed musculature that lesser wolves lack. My size balloons, until I stand even with the height of the Demonic Bull.

The change finishes in just a fraction of the time of my previous transformations. To Vorn and the Demonic Beast it probably looks like I explode into my true form.

My swords have risen higher into the air with my change in height. The sheen silver power still surrounds Tia, and now, black power, shot through with bloody red threads surrounds Tama. Both swords radiate an aura of hostile menace. Even if they are swords made for killing Dragons, they seem to hate anything and everything to with the Primal Powers that I have not felt from them at the mention of Dragons. For a fraction of a second, I wonder what will happen when I find a Dragon.

"AAAAOOOOUUUU!"

At my howl, all the nearby Demonic Beast freeze in place. The Dragon Gods may have placed a seal on this Realm's pattern, but I am still a Great Wolf. Even if the Beasts of this Realm have forgotten what the Great Wolves are, in the depths of their Souls, they still fear them. To be born of this Realm is to be born with an innate fear of the Great Wolves. Being corrupted by Chaos and turned into a Demon does remove that fear.

After a few seconds, the heads of t he Demonic Beasts tun in my direction. nearly twenty pairs of red glowing eyes fixate on me. From what I sense, the brighter the glow in the Demonic Beasts' eyes, the stronger their Chaos corruption. Fear and hate mix together in the scents of the nearly twenty Demonic Beasts. The Beast cannot decide between fight and flight. They are too low in intelligence for compromise, not that I would compromise with Demonic Beasts. Tension fills the air.

Without making another sound or tensing my muscles in preparation, I spring forward. My targets are the Demonic Beast that were trailing behind the Demonic Bull. Demonic Cows make boxes of rocks look smart. The not-quite-dead Demonic Cat is probably its main target. It will be the least like Demonic Beast to flee.

The head of a Demonic Snake, with venom dripping fangs, peeks over the rubble of the wall knocked down by the Demonic Bull. Before it can react, I am on top of the Beast. Even though a snake's eyes are physically incapable of widening, I still get the impression of shock in its eyes. For whatever reason, cold-blooded animals and Beasts give away very little of their emotional states in the scents. However, as my teeth sink into the Demonic Snake's body, right behind h its head, the acrid stench of fear fills its scent.

Crunch!

Closing my jaws, I crush the Demonic Snake's spine and sever its spinal cord. Releasing the already crippled Beast from my jaws, I spit out the foul, Chaos corrupted meat and raise my head to pick my next target. With the exception of three Demonic Beast, the rest look to be moving at three-quarters or less of their normal speed. Five of the Demonic Beasts were once Yellow Earth Apes, and the biggest of them still seems to be moving at close to normal speed in my perception.

The largest Demonic Ape has a thicker, bulkier torso than the other four. If it stood fully upright, it would be over five meters in height. Chitinous plates cover most of its chest, back and head. Smaller plates dot its limbs, and bone spurs stick out from all of its knuckles. Ant-like antennae stick up from its temples. It appears to have become some bastard crossbreed of an ape and an insect.

After the biggest Demonic Ape steps back and points at me, it grunt out a command in the Beast Language. "Kill dog!"

Spreading out, the other four Demonic Apes lumber toward me. The rest of the Demonic Beasts look suspiciously at one another. With hostility and anxiousness filling their scents, the other Demonic Beasts do not move or back off. Each one fears that the others will attack them if it makes a move.

"Raaaaarrrrr!"

"Moooooo!"

From behind, I hear clamor of Vorn attacking the Demonic Bull.

Tie up the ape minions!

As my swords, Tia and Tama, streak toward the nearest Demonic Ape on either side, I charge between them. The biggest Demonic Ape releases a grunt, which sounds like an exclamation of surprise, and moves farther back. It looks from side to side, while doing its best to keep me in its line of sight.

In a very non-ape-like manner, the Demonic Ape scoops a fistful of dirt and rubble form the ground and flings it at me, but narrowing my eyes, I dive under the fan of dirt. As the Demonic Ape's other fist swings at me in the wake of the dirt, I twist my head, avoiding its bone spur covered fist, and snap at its wrist. The chitinous plates on its arm keep my teeth from sinking into its flesh, and as the Demonic Ape jerks its arm from my mouth.

Moving at half-speed, the other Demonic Beasts scramble to move away from our battle, but they cannot seem to be able to decide whether to stare at me, my swords, or one another. Snarling at the other Demonic Beasts, I dash psst the Demonic Ape before spinning around to face it again.

On the far side of the broken wall, Vorn dodges the sharp point of the Demonic Bulls horn and claws its leg. In addition to its wounds from the Demonic Cats, the Demonic Bulls hide sports a few new sets of furrows. It would appear that Vorn has the advantage, but if the Demonic Bull hits him just once, it will probably cripple or kill him.

My swords bury themselves in the throats of two of the Demonic Ape minions. As their heads separate from their bodies, they start to fall to the ground, while already dead.

The Demonic Ape turns halfway toward me. Its nervousness seeps into its scent, and it keeps jerking its head from one side to the other. It does not dare to show its back to either me or my swords.

"Kill dog!" Ape are normally among the more intelligent Ferocious Beasts, but this Demonic Ape seems barely capable of speaking the Beast Language.

Thump-screech! Thump-screech! Thump-screech!

Standing up straight, it thumps its chest with its fists, and the bone spurs growing from its finger joints strike sparks off the chitinous plates. As the Demonic Ape finishes showing off, its points at me in what it seems think is a threatening manner.

"AAAAOOOOUUUU!"

Trinity infuses my howl, and hearing it, the Demonic Beasts, including the biggest Demonic Ape, shiver. As the biggest Demonic Ape appears to suppress its own shiver, it turns to face me. The other Demonic Beasts look torn between fear of the Demonic Ape and fear or me. Instead of attacking they shrink back.

I focus the flow Trinity into my fur, causing it to harden like metal, and launch myself at the Demonic Ape.