The creature stepped fully into the clearing, and Apollo's heart stuttered in his chest.
It towered above them, easily twice the height of a man, its massive frame silhouetted against the luminescent mushroom caps behind it.
Golden spores clung to its hide like a second skin, giving it a shimmering quality that shifted with each lumbering movement.
But what seized Apollo's attention were the veins that pulsed beneath its mottled skin, thin, winding channels of gold light that mirrored his own, though fainter and somehow corrupted.
"By all the gods," he whispered, his voice lost in the creature's rattling exhalation.
The beast stood fully upright on powerful hind legs that ended in three-toed feet, each toe tipped with a talon that could disembowel a horse with one swipe. Its arms hung long at its sides, ending in hands with elongated fingers that curled into wicked claws.
