Location: The Broken Foothills of Valoria's Range | Year: 7002 A.A., Nightfall
As told by Trask
The world spun around me in dizzying circles, as though the ground itself mocked my footing. Every breath seared my lungs, every twitch of muscle was a reminder that my body was not my own—it had long since been claimed. My exoskeleton, once glistening with confidence, now bore cracks and fissures. My mana, that fuel I once thought bottomless, sputtered like the last embers of a dying fire.
And worse still, the Shadow's power—his so-called gift—pressed down on me not as strength, but as fetters. What once surged like a roaring tide through my veins now gnawed at me like acid, corroding the very essence of what I was. It whispered, always whispering: "Fight. Kill. Prove yourself worthy—or prove yourself nothing."
I wanted to roar against it, but the truth was undeniable: every strike I threw, every drop of venom I spilled, was borrowed. Borrowed power, borrowed time. The chains had grown heavier than the weaponry of my foes.
But still—I could not stop. Not now. Not when the battlefield still burned. Not when the ghosts of my clan still watched, waiting to see if Trask the Horrible would finally crumble, or if he would force the world to acknowledge him. My hunger was not for flesh this time. It was for recognition. For proof that my existence—cursed, unwanted, reviled—was not a mistake.
And then he came.
Trevor Maymum, the Second Lord of the Hazël, stepped into the storm of dust and ruin as if it were nothing more than a spring breeze. The lightning that heralded his arrival still hissed across the air, scorched into the stone like the marks of divine judgment. He twirled his staff with a careless ease that mocked every ounce of effort I had spent just surviving.
Of course, he had arrived. Why wouldn't he? ArchenLand's prized champions always came when the fight was meant to be evened. The First Lord had tested me, battered me, yet still stood. And now—because fate delights in cruelty—the Second appeared to finish what the first had begun.
I should have been flattered. I should have laughed at the sheer honor of being deemed worthy of two Lords, two pillars of Narn and ArchenLand's vaunted might. What other exile, what other monster, had earned such attention? Surely my name should already have been etched in history for that alone.
But honor was not what I felt. Not awe, not pride.
Only rage.
Rage at their arrogance—that they could stand above me like gods, looking down with their calm eyes and golden weapons. Rage at their condescension—that they could smile as though this were merely another test of strength, another tally in their record of victories.
But more than all of that, I raged at their belief.
Their belief that they could end me so easily.
As if I were merely another foe to be struck down, another monster to be put out of its misery. Did they not understand? Did they not see that I had clawed and devoured and bled for every moment of this cursed existence? That I had outlived the sentence of my people, the judgment of my clan, the exile of my bloodline?
I was not some nameless beast crawling out of the dark. I was Trask the Horrible.
And yet here they were—Darius with his hammer of emerald fire, Trevor with his lightning smile—treating me as though I were an obstacle. As though I were an inconvenience.
The thought burned hotter than poison in my veins.
Trevor knelt down before his fellow Lord, and for a moment the battlefield felt less like a place of ruin and more like some casual courtyard where comrades might jest after a sparring match. The young one's tone was light, almost teasing, as though the shattered mountains and rivers of blood around us were but scenery for his humor.
"Wow, you are really banged up," he said, cocking his head at the First Lord's bruised frame. "Probably more banged up than the other guys."
The First Lord—Darius, that mountain of will and muscle—merely grunted. His breath dragged, heavy as thunder rolling across a stormfront.
I stood still. Too still. My body screamed for motion, my instincts demanded another strike, but my mind—my cursed, furious mind—was caught by their words.
"I don't get it though," Trevor pressed, his staff resting lightly on his shoulder. "Why were you holding back? This battle should have ended the instant it began."
The words crashed into me like a hammer blow.
The instant it began.
Had I heard correctly? Did this whelp, this lightning-born scion of the Hazël, mean to imply that all my effort—all my rage, my wounds, my triumphs and humiliations—amounted to nothing more than the delay of an inevitable ending?
My mandibles clicked unconsciously.
Then came the answer.
"If I had gone all out from the start," Darius said, voice strained yet steady, "there would be no ArchenLand left. Besides, that isn't quite the route to take if you also want to get information from the opposition."
The words chilled me more than venom. He had held back. He, the First Lord, had weighed not my strength, not my defiance, but the safety of his nation.
Had he unleashed his full might, he claimed, there would be no land left to defend. Was I then, not even his true opponent, but merely a hazard measured against his homeland's survival?
The humiliation cut deeper than any wound.
Trevor, ever the insufferable pupil, closed his eyes in thought and then nodded. "Yet, I felt your mana all over ArchenLand. You used King's Benevolence, didn't you? No wonder you're terribly low on mana for someone believed to have the largest pool amongst us. However, even with such a low reserve, you could have ended this squabble instantly if you wished."
Each phrase dripped like molten iron into my ears. Terribly low on mana. Could have ended this instantly.
I was not their opponent. I was not even their equal. I was a squabble.
A petty brawl. A mere delay.
Darius was silent at that. His silence hung heavier than any reply. He did not deny it. He did not affirm it. He simply let it rest—as if the truth were too obvious to dignify with words.
And Trevor's eyes narrowed, studying him.
The thought crept in like a serpent into my mind.
Did he want to be defeated?
Was that it? Was this titan of a Lord, this bull who had shaken the mountains with his hammer, merely toying with me because somewhere in his heart he sought release? Did he allow himself to be cornered, bruised, poisoned—not because I had earned it, but because he had willed it?
The thought should have comforted me. If his defeat were deliberate, then my struggle was not in vain. But it did not comfort me.
It infuriated me.
Rage seared through my veins hotter than acid, more biting than the Shadow's chains. My claws trembled, not with weakness, but with wrath.
If he had truly held back—if every strike I had thrown, every limb I had sacrificed, every moment I had fought for survival had been nothing more than playthings to these so-called Lords—then what meaning was there in any of it?
"Stop ignoring me, you stupid Bull and Monkey!"
The words ripped from my throat, ragged and venomous. They tore through the battlefield and echoed back from the fractured cliffs as though the earth itself were mocking me.
Trevor flinched. For the first time since his arrival, his playful composure cracked, and I glimpsed the boy behind the banter. His staff wobbled in his grip for a fleeting instant before his grin reasserted itself, bright and infuriating.
"Oh my," he said, pressing a hand to his chest with theatrical shock. "I almost forgot you were there. My sincerest apologies."
The sarcasm dripped like acid.
I spat, mandibles snapping in fury. "You filthy ape. Trevor Maymum, the 2nd Lord. Number two amongst the Hazel." I sneered. "So ArchenLand sends its top guns just for me. I should be flattered."
On the outside, I gave them rage. But inside—inside I was calculating.
One wounded Narn Lord was dangerous enough. Facing two at once, with one fresh and one still brimming with untapped strength? Impossible. Even the Shadow's gift could not bridge the gap.
I had been taught long ago that survival was not about defeating the predator but about outlasting the hunt. Could I win? No. Could I buy time? Maybe. Could I escape? Perhaps. If the Shadow willed it.
But every calculation led to the same conclusion: my body was fraying. My veins burned with poison of my own making, my chitin cracked from blows I should not have survived. The Shadow's gift was no longer a boon but a brand seared into my flesh.
Still, I whispered the name that bound me.
"Fısıltı."
The Shadow's strength surged through me once more, green fire crawling across my carapace, my body twitching with renewed—but brittle—power. Yet even as it filled me, I felt the toll. My essence stretched thin, each heartbeat threatening to unravel me from within.
Trevor's eyes sharpened. His antics fell away, replaced by something grave. "That just now…"
"Yes," Darius confirmed, his deep voice grinding like boulders. "He's being powered by the Shadow. That is the Arya of Emotion at work."
They spoke as if cataloguing a specimen.
Trevor tilted his head, serious now. "How do we stop it?"
"Only the Arya of Creation can purify the Fısıltı Çivisi—the Shadow's anchor," Darius replied. His words weighed like stones. "Once embedded, nothing can destroy it. Nothing but the Arya of Destruction itself, for its end lies beyond ending. However…" His eyes flicked toward Trevor. "Your Arya has the capacity to disrupt its workings. To render it powerless. But to truly disable it?"
He paused.
Trevor's tail lashed. His voice finished the thought. "It must be extracted from its bearer."
Darius inclined his head. "And the only way to extract it…"
"…is by destroying the vessel."
The words pierced deeper than their hammer or lightning. Destroying the bearer. Destroying me.
My mandibles clicked furiously. "Is that your plan?" My voice trembled—not with fear, but with wrath so sharp it scraped my throat raw. "You think you can kill me? My entire clan failed at it! My own kin exiled me, and when they tried to finish the task, I slaughtered them all! I personally killed the former Number Six in my clan! I decimated the Grand Order of the North when they dared refuse me entrance!"
I spread my arms wide, my wings quivering, green fire spilling from every joint. "You Narn Lords—ha!—you are nothing but pebbles!"
Every word was a scream against the suffocating truth. They had laid bare what I had always feared—that I was not master of my strength, not partner of the Shadow, but prisoner to its chain. A bearer, to be discarded when broken.
Trevor merely swung his prehensile tail, his face smoothing into calm resolve. The contrast enraged me more than his taunts. "Are you sitting this round out?" he asked, eyes sliding toward Darius.
The First Lord—bloodied, battered, yet unbowed—rolled his massive shoulders and lifted Baltacek to rest upon them. "Nah," he rumbled. "It's about time we brought this to an end."
That tone. So casual. As if I were no more than an obstacle to sweep aside.
Trevor's lips curled into a cocky grin. "Very well then! Let's play."
And then he lunged.
Every sense in my body screamed. His movement was quicksilver—no, it was lightning incarnate. Wait, that's not right we well. He was moving multitudes fast than Raziks plasma beads. Multitudes faster than light. The boy who joked, who mocked, now bore down with all the fury of the heavens.
I braced myself, claws spread wide, poison dripping, rage and despair intertwining until they were indistinguishable.
I rushed forward, rage guiding my every stride. The ground cracked beneath my claws, dust and splintered stone rising in my wake. Trevor did not dodge, did not retreat—he met me head-on, his slight frame colliding with mine like a falling star.
And in that instant, my eyes narrowed.
His staff—it wasn't real. The weapon he held shimmered strangely, fading at the edges, translucent as molten glass caught in moonlight. Amber light pulsed through its length, false yet vibrant, like a mirage one could touch but never claim.
Recognition snapped through me.
"The False Staff technique of the Maymum Clan," I spat, mandibles clicking in contempt. "You mock me with illusions?"
"Nah," Trevor replied easily, his grin widening with infuriating calm. His voice carried no strain, no fear—just the maddening tone of someone thoroughly at play. "More like you're not worth using Gözkırans true form against."
For a heartbeat, the battlefield went silent.
Not worth?
The words cut deeper than any blade. I had fought warlords and tyrants, scoured villages clean, feasted on champions and rivals alike. Entire orders had burned because of me. And yet, here he was—this golden-tailed ape—declaring me beneath the weight of his true weapon.
Rage boiled inside me, blacker and hotter than the venom in my veins.
"You dare belittle me?" I hissed. My wings unfurled, spreading a haze of noxious mana that sizzled in the air. "You'll regret mocking Trask the Horrible."
I unleashed a storm. My pincers slashed outward, blades of chitin moving in relentless flurries. They tore through stone, rent apart the lingering shockwaves of Darius's earlier strikes, cleaving the very air into shreds.
But Trevor?
Trevor moved like water poured into flame. He did not block with force; he flowed. Each strike I loosed was caught, diverted, or dissolved, as though the very world bent itself to shield him. He skipped back a pace, then forward again, his motions unnervingly precise—never more than what was required, never less than what was needed.
Amber light swirled around him. His false staff, translucent and glowing, pulsed brighter.
"ARCEM: Elemi," he intoned, and his aura shifted. The word thrummed through the ground, through my carapace, through the foul mana that suffused me.
The false staff ignited.
"ELEMI: Flame Staff!"
Amber became fire. Transparent became blazing. The once fragile mirage roared into a weapon alive with heat and fury, tongues of flame licking outward like serpents seeking prey. With casual elegance, Trevor swept the fiery staff against my storm of pincers.
And to my horror—they broke.
My chitin scythes, forged by instinct and hardened by the Shadow's amp, should have been unstoppable. They had crushed steel, ripped through enchanted armor, torn towers to rubble. Yet when they met Trevor's conjured flame, they cracked and melted.
Every clash was a slap in the face. Every strike turned away was another reminder: I was not fighting an equal.
Trevor's grin never faltered. If anything, it widened. He spun the flame-staff in wide arcs, painting the battlefield in swaths of orange and gold. Sparks danced across the crumbled stones like mocking fireflies.
"You fight like a beast trying to claw its way out of a cage," Trevor said lightly, his words dripping with taunt yet grounded in observation. "But a beast is still a beast. Do you know what that makes me, Trask?"
He pivoted, deflecting three more of my furious strikes in a blur of motion. His tail lashed playfully behind him as if the battle were nothing more than a spar.
"It makes me the trainer."
My veins burned. The Shadow's whisper grew louder in my head, the rustle of dead leaves behind my ears.
"Survive," it hissed. "Prove them wrong. Rage louder. Strike harder. Do not let the ape diminish you."
I snarled, the firelight reflecting off my mandibles. My mind screamed at me to focus, to adapt, but my pride—my endless, festering pride—would not allow retreat. I was Trask the Horrible, the devourer of kin, the terror of the North.
And yet—
Why did my strikes feel sluggish? Why did my once indomitable claws splinter so easily under his conjured flame? Why did my heart pound not with victory, but with the dread of inevitability?
Trevor embodied everything I despised. His carefree demeanor, his taunting grin, his refusal to take me seriously. But beneath the jest, I sensed something colder—control. Mastery. Where my every move was wild and consuming, his was deliberate and precise.
We were opposites, clashing in philosophy as much as in combat. I wielded power like a hammer—blunt, overwhelming, merciless. He wielded his like a song—fluid, shifting, yet cutting deeper than steel.
And worse still, he was not even trying.
I roared, unleashing another cascade of pincers, green venom spraying like acid rain. Trevor's flame-staff blurred into a shield of fire, scattering my assault like wind dispersing mist.
"Come now, Horrible," Trevor teased, his voice maddeningly calm. "Surely you can do better than this. Or are you finally realizing…"
He spun the staff, flames arcing skyward in a blinding sweep. The light reflected in his eyes, unyielding, merciless.
"…that you were never our equal to begin with?"
The battlefield never gave me a breath.
I had scarcely steadied my stance when a force like thunder struck my back. The hammer end of Baltacek connected with bone and carapace, and the impact ripped the ground apart beneath me. My body hurled forward like a toy discarded by a careless child.
But there was no reprieve, no moment to reclaim myself. Trevor was already there, as though he had been waiting.
The flaming staff blurred across my vision. Crack! Fire seared against my face. Crack! Another blow followed, this one burning the mandibles that once tore my kin to shreds. Each strike was merciless, a mockery of my pride. I staggered, flailed, tried to regain rhythm, but he was too fast, too playful in his cruelty.
I poured mana into my pincers, forcing them to glow with the toxic veins of the Shadow's amp. My claws struck outward desperately, sparks flying as steel, flame, and corrupted chitin clashed in the chaos of the night.
Then Trevor's voice rang out, sharp and exultant.
"First and Third Climb: Yanardağ Yumruğu + Rüzgar Gölgesi!"
The syllables thundered like commands given to the very elements. In an instant, his form shifted.
His body blurred, leaving fiery afterimages that circled me like predators encircling prey. The flaming staff was no longer just fire—it was a volcano given shape, each swing birthing sparks that erupted into small gouts of flame. But it was not fire alone. The wind itself bent to his command, fueling the inferno. Gusts roared, carrying sparks and embers that clung to my carapace, searing the flesh beneath.
He struck from one side, then vanished, appearing again with another burning arc from a different angle. My pincers flailed desperately, deflecting one strike only to be punished by three more. It was no longer a duel; it was a storm.
My body ached beneath the unending pressure. My breaths grew ragged, harsh, each inhalation stinging with the fumes of ash and venom. My own mana was slipping away, not in torrents but in a steady, merciless leak I could not stop.
And then—silence.
Trevor vanished from my vision entirely. The afterimages dispersed. The air, for a fleeting instant, was still.
My instincts screamed.
Before I could react, light bloomed before me. A great sphere of spiraling energy had formed in Darius 's hand, pulsing with hues of lemon-green and gold. It grew in silence, its hum heavy and absolute, as though the world itself had been forced to acknowledge it.
My eyes widened, a rare and hated sensation surging through me—fear.
"Fifty percent output: Mana Blast," Darius intoned, his voice steady as a mountain.
He flicked the sphere forward.
It was too fast, too close. My limbs moved on instinct alone, pincers crossing before me in desperate defense.
The world detonated.
The blast engulfed me in a wave of incandescent energy, tearing through my aura, burning away the shadows that clung to me. Rock split, the earth cratered, the air screamed as the explosion consumed all in its radius. For a moment, I felt nothing but light—crushing, obliterating light.
The smoke cleared slowly, drifting away on the evening winds. Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of burning embers.
I still stood. Barely.
My body trembled beneath the weight of survival. My pincers, once towering blades of terror, were nothing more than smoldering stumps. The Shadow's corruption flickered weakly across my chitin, unable to knit the damage as it once had. My breaths came in ragged gasps, each one clawing its way out of my chest like a prisoner desperate for escape.
Trevor twirled his flame-staff idly, eyes scanning me as though I were little more than a curiosity. Darius stood silent, Baltacek balanced on his shoulder, his expression calm yet unyielding. Together, they were immovable, inevitable.
And me?
For the first time since my exile, since my first taste of blood as a hatchling, I felt the bitter truth coil in my gut. I was not the predator.
I was the prey.
This is bad… I thought, my mind racing with a speed that mocked my broken body. My carapace was cracked, my arms ruined, my mana seeping out like water through shattered stone. The Shadow's power—once a balm, once the whisper of strength—now burned through my veins as a poison. My form could no longer molt, no longer knit itself together. The weight of my wounds pressed against me, dragging me down like anchors in a black sea.
Then the ground itself betrayed me.
In an instant, stone and soil coiled upward like serpents and locked me in place. The earth hardened around my body, thick as iron, binding me up to my neck.
"What?! What is this?!" I roared, thrashing, my mandibles clicking in fury and panic. But no matter how I strained, the grip only grew tighter. Worse still—my mana was bleeding into the trap, siphoned with merciless efficiency. Each attempt to break free left me weaker than before.
Trevor's voice, maddeningly calm, drifted toward me. "Fourth Climb: Çamur Hapsi. Sorry, can't have you running off."
Through the thinning smoke stepped Darius , battered but still towering, his eyes steady and grim. The Baltacek shifted in his hands, turning to its hammer side. He did not shout, nor taunt, nor boast. He simply declared:
"Let's finish this."
Those words chilled me more than the Shadow's whispers ever had. For in them was no malice, no hate. Only certainty. Only the inevitability of the end.
I struggled again, forcing mana into my limbs, but the trap bled me dry. Every ounce I poured into resistance was siphoned away, devoured by the earth itself. Trevor spoke as though explaining to a child:
"Yeah, you can't get free because even the energy to break loose is taken. It's over, Child of Shadow. You couldn't survive this one."
For the first time in my life, my face betrayed me.
A look I had sworn never to wear—the look of prey cornered by hunters—slipped across my features. Fear.
Trevor raised his staff high. The flame that had cloaked it extinguished, leaving only amber light. His voice rang out like thunder as he invoked the climb:
"Seventy-five percent output: Wukong's Wrath!"
The false staff transformed into a weapon of storm, crackling with threads of yellow-white lightning. He thrust it skyward, and the heavens answered.
Rain clouds churned. The sky split. Bolts of divine light lanced downward in torrents.
Darius raised Baltacek and received the storm. The weapon roared with emerald and gold as it drank the lightning, channeling its furious charge into a singular, unbearable power.
He looked at me one last time, his voice solemn.
"It's over, Trask. I hope you find peace in the afterlife."
And then they spoke together. Their voices, one like thunder, the other like stone, merged in a single judgment:
"Combo Strike: Thor's Rampage!"
There was no time to scream. No time to curse, to rage, to proclaim myself Horrible.
There was only light.
It swallowed me whole. It was not the cruel light of scorn, nor the warm light of mercy. It was annihilation given form. Lightning and mana converged upon my trapped body, searing through flesh, cracking through chitin, boiling shadow and venom into smoke. The last thing I remember was the scent of….
_______________________________
When the light faded, silence fell.
The land itself had been remade. The foothills were gone, replaced by a crater so vast that even mountains seemed like broken stumps beside it. Forests flattened. Valleys overturned. And yet, though the explosion could have devoured most of ArchenLand, Darius had borne its heart into the center, sparing the realm from its full ruin.
In the crater's center stood Darius , battered yet unbroken. The Baltacek still glowed faintly, humming with the last sparks of lightning. His breath came heavy, but his stance was upright—unyielding, as ever.
Before him layed Thrax ruin.
What remained of Trask the Horrible was little more than a charred husk, a withered shell that no longer spoke of fear or power. Claws, armor, monstrous form—all reduced to brittle fragments.
And from the husk, drifting upward, emerged a shard of Amythx crystal: the Icicle of the Shadow.
It pulsed faintly, a remnant of the corruption that had chained me since my birth.
Trevor, no longer the jester, no longer the lighthearted monkey, shifted. His body grew luminous as he assumed his Grand Maymum form. The amber light of his staff deepened until it seemed older than time, as though it carried the memory of creation itself.
He raised it, voice resonant.
"Kargaşa…"
The single word unmade the Shadow's relic. The Icicle quivered, shivered, and softened. Where corruption had pulsed, petals now unfurled. In place of Amythx crystal was a daisy—small, unassuming, white and yellow. It drifted down gently, landing on the blackened earth where Trask had fallen.
There, it rooted.
Darius gazed upon the daisy in silence. For a long while, neither Lord moved. The battlefield was quiet save for the distant roll of thunder, the groaning of fractured stone.
Finally, Trevor broke the silence, his voice softened but steady. "We have to go, Darius . The others must be waiting."
Darius closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and exhaled as though releasing a burden older than the battle itself.
"…Yeah. Let's go."
And with that, the two Lords turned away from the grave they had made.