“Do you think this will work, my Lord?” Lucas asked the still possessed body of Jack.

  “That will be up to him,” Diako responded. “For now, begin organising the army I asked you to create. I know it is a tiresome task to run a nation from afar but know that you have my sincere gratitude for executing your duties so thoroughly. Also, speak with Rexus Aurelius. We may have need of his services.”

  “From what I gather, he’s not overly fond of you.”

  “Then proceed with caution and remember that The Organisation was not built on honesty and righteousness.”

  “Of course,” Lucas said, squirming slightly in his chair. Jack’s eyes were piercing as Diako’s aura lightly spilled out of them. It chilled the king to the bone. “Though please allow me to remind you that I am not a member of The Organisation, not really.”

  “You needn’t remind me Lucas. A king being beholden to the organisation responsible for murdering the previous monarch would be quite unseemly.”

  “That it would.”

  The aura surrounding Jack’s eyes vanished like a puff of smoke as Diako left his body. The assassin dropped to his knees, gasping as if he had been holding his breath the entire time.

  “No one told me how awful that would be,” he gasped, looking up at Lucas with red hued tears leaking from his eyes.

  “Did you think it would be pleasant?”

  “No, but that was…” he shivered and then looked around the deserted balcony. “I take it he accepted the offer then? I honestly wasn’t sure he would. He can be pretty stubborn from what I’ve seen.”

  “Indeed,” Lucas said, knocking back a stiff drink and staring far away into the darkness. “But he has his own agenda to pursue and I think our god’s wishes and his own line up somewhat. Despite his mistrust of the divine.”

  “Do you think this will work? I like the guy but this is no monster slaying contract.”

  “All we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” Lucas sighed, rising from his seat. “And on that note, we have work to do.”

  ***

  I stepped out of the portal into a bright world with two high, midday suns sparkling overhead. It seemed an Elysium of places and as I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes to the sudden and encroaching dazzling light, I saw a myriad of fuchsia petals dancing in the breeze.

  Cherry blossoms? I thought as I began to take in the picturesque clearing that we found ourselves in. It looked like something out of a slice of life anime. Beauty surrounded us and there was no sound other than the whistling breeze and chirping birds.

  “Wow,” Panda remarked. “Who’d have thought the god of shadows would have a pocket space so… pretty.”

  “Yeah…” I replied, “it’s definitely not what I was expecting. Do you have any idea what this place is, how it works?”

  “If I was to guess I’d say it’s a pocket dimension. Portal mages can sometimes learn to create them but it takes an obscene amount of power and crafted items to pull it off.”

  “I thought portal mages were rare, yet I’ve met two.”

  “They are, incredibly so. Freja is the only portal mage I know of, well apart from Diako apparently.”

  As we spoke Asmodeus began to stir in my arms. He was much heavier than he used to be. His body felt like pure muscle, tight, scaley skin pulled over a thick frame. Pitbulls were banned in England, but a friend of mine had a Staffordshire bull terrier and he’d said that they were similar dogs. My growing dragon familiar kind of reminded me of that dog now.

  “Where are we?” He asked sleepily and as I opened my mouth to begin filling him in I was stopped by a tremor under the ground. It shook me so hard I almost lost my footing; the trees shook and the tranquil atmosphere of the place took a sudden turn. “Something predatory is upon us,” Asmodeus said, suddenly wide awake and leaping from my arms.

  His wings spread wide as he beat them lethargically against the wind current and glided gracefully up above the trees. “We need to move, human!” He yelled down at me.

  Before I had taken even a single step, the trees on the other side of the clearing burst. Bark fired towards me like shrapnel. It was like one of those war movies where a bomb hit a forest and carnage ensued. Branches flew like spears in my direction, snippets of sticks like needles.

  I dived onto the ground as the wooden shrapnel bit into my skin like a swarm of angry hornets, piercing parts of my armour and cutting into my arms and back.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “What the hell is happening?” I yelled.

  “I don’t know, but you might wanna draw your bow, kid,” Panda shouted back, cowering behind a nearby tree. “Something big is coming this way!”

  Taking his advice I withdrew my bow from my inventory and gingerly got to my feet. The world beyond the trees shuddered in a rhythmic beating as the ground beneath me jumped with each quake. Raising my bow in that direction, I saw it.

  You have discovered a new monster:

  Big Ol’ Mammoth

  A common creature in eastern Celestia, the big ol’ mammoth is a three headed, tusk wielding, fur covered elephant of epic proportions.

  The story of its supposed birth is well known among the people of the east.

  Once upon a time, Cerberus escaped from the underworld. Like an Amish boy on his Rumspringa, the curious pup ventured forth into the unknown in search of a good time. He found it in the trunk of an Elephant named Ganesha, a sentient and unique monster that was being worshipped as a deity in some back water town.

  I’m sure you’re hoping that I’ll tell you they fell madly in love and sired many offspring, but alas, like so many youths, Cerberus had a simple, and passionate, fling with Ganesha. Leaving the next morning without even staying for breakfast.

  Poor Ganesha was left impregnated and without alimony.

  The end.

  Naturally, due to being severely pissed off about their single parent upbringing, the big ol’ mammoth takes out its anger on any passerby. No good to society. Unloved, unwanted, and the poor fellow didn’t even get two Christmases since its dead-beat dad was nowhere to be found.

  In a lot of ways, he’s just like you.

  “What the actual fuck,” I said as the notification faded away. The system seemed even more unhinged than usual today and I was pretty certain that the entire story was made up just to take a jab at me.

  However, I didn’t have much time to dwell on it as I stared up at the mammoth which towered over the clearing. It really did have three heads, all with long, bloody tusks. All six eyes were directed squarely at me.

  It snorted at me and a hot, sweet breeze shot out of its trunk. Then it charged. With every footstep the world shook but I did my best to keep a steady hand as I drew my bow, channelling a quick soul shot.

  I fired and the arrow hit the mammoth squarely in the chest. Its skin began to bubble as a thick clump of matted hair dropped from its body, but it didn’t slow down.

  Diving out of the way, I turned to see the space where I’d been standing turn to churned mud and mulch. The mammoth charged past and began to turn in a wide arc without slowing down.

  As I began nocking another arrow, Asmodeus dived down and began harassing one of the heads. He clawed at it, taking an eyeball with him as blood gushed from the wound like a waterfall. The beast squealed with rage as it continued to charge and the second head began firing bullets of water at the hovering dragon from a now erect trunk.

  It looked like an anti-aircraft gun as the mammoth spat small, powerfully concentrated balls of water at him. Asmodeus somersaulted and then flapped his wings a single, pulsing time and a razor of visible air sliced through the space, cutting deeply into the spitting head and severing its trunk at the base.

  “When did you learn that?” I shouted up at him as I began charging up an acid rain attack.

  “I tasted the blood of many people during my short tenure with the cat, human. All three of my available power slots are currently filled. I don’t know what is going on here, but if we are to face more creatures of this magnitude then I expect I shall find great opportunity to grow.”

  “We both will.”

  Asmodeus, flew up high, dodging a tusk from the enraged second head which it shot straight from its body in his direction. A replacement immediately grew back.

  At roughly that moment I finished charging my attack and shouted a warning to the dragon before letting it lose. Hundreds of arrows fired from my bow, straight into the air, falling down all around the mammoth which screamed and whinnied like a distressed horse as it threw its front legs into the air and came to a halt.

  Arrows pierced all across its hairy body though they were almost indistinguishable from its coarse, brown hair. The area around the myriad of wounds began leaking as pustules bubbled to the surface. The chest wound I had inflicted earlier was bleeding profusely now and second and third heads began fighting each other. I wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was confused.

  “How is this thing still not dead?” I asked nobody in particular.

  “Now’s your chance, kid,” Panda called out from behind a tree. “Use your daggers and take out one of its legs. If it can’t run, it can’t trample you.”

  I nodded, dropping my bow back into my inventory and equipping my daggers. Gritting my teeth, I sprinted towards the beast and began to deliver slash after slash with the devastating speed of increased agility. Each blow was only a shallow cut, but that was all I needed. Each cut began to bubble almost immediately. Some turned a nasty shade of green and a few, though not many, even began to turn black.

  It had to be the many effects I had gained from upgrading my dagger. The chance to inflict necrosis or poison. I rarely saw those boons happen in normal fights. But due to the many cuts I needed to deliver to damage this thing the chances of the other afflictions manifesting increased exponentially.

  Within moments the front, left leg of the mammoth began to rot away before my eyes. The skin turned black, the hair fell out, pustules and poisoned flesh took form emitting the gag inducing smell of gangrene. Then the leg buckled and I was face to face with one of the heads.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  Stabbing down with all of my strength I forced a dagger into each eye. The beast screamed as blood and goop leaked from the popped eyeballs. But I didn’t stop there. I then began to slash at the beast, as I had with the leg. I delivered hundreds of tiny, shallow cuts in moments and once again the necrosis and poison effects joined sporadically onto the acid effect. I was becoming efficient at this.

  It was a horrible way to kill. A bad way to die. But it was certainly effective.

  “Jesus, kid,” Panda said as the mammoth finally stopped thrashing. Asmodeus had taken out the other two heads and I had so thoroughly destroyed the first that it more closely resembled one of those shrunken heads from the night bus in Harry Potter. “That was scary as shit.”

  “Think it’ll win me the tournament?”

  “Not at your current level, but we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Asmodeus said, swooping down and landing on the carcass. “But there’s a herd of those things heading this way. They’re on a rampage, the ignorant beasts.”

  I blinked a few times, wiped the blood from my face with the back of my hand, then looked over at him with a grin.

  “It’s going to be a long fucking year.”