The air in the chamber felt heavy enough to crush a man's lungs.
Malphas sat on his throne of obsidian, his feathers shimmering with a dark, oily light.
When he spoke, the sound wasn't like any language Lemony had ever heard. It wasn't Creatian, the tongue of the world above. It was a series of grinding clicks and deep hums that sounded like tectonic plates shifting underground.
Suddenly, a wave of pure pressure rolled off the beast. Fiji, the massive mossback, hit the floor with a deafening thud.
"Lemony! Be careful!" Fiji wheezed, his face pressed against the stone.
Lemony stood his ground, though his knees were shaking. He looked at the giant monster and thought of the copy in the void. He thought of the spinning machine and the promise he had made just to breathe again.
I do not want to be tortured for eternity. I have to do this.
"AHHH!"
With a desperate shout, Lemony lunged forward.
He pulled the black vampire strand from his pocket and forced it back into his system, feeling the mutation tear through his muscles once more. He jumped, his claws extending as he flew toward the creature's massive neck. He managed to sink his teeth into a patch of dark skin, but Malphas didn't even flinch.
The beast simply twitched a single wing.
The impact sent Lemony flying across the room like a rag doll. He slammed into a stone pillar.
"Lemony, stop! You not kill!"
Lemony spat out a mouthful of blood and pushed himself up. His vision was swimming, but he charged again. He was demolished.
Every time he got close, Malphas swatted him away with the casual indifference of a human brushing off a fly. He was tossed against the walls, trampled by massive talons, and bitten by shadows that seemed to grow from the floor.
Finally, Malphas seemed to grow bored.
He let out a screech that shattered the glass-like moss on the walls. With a burst of invisible force, he threw Lemony through the black iron gates.
Fiji was kicked out right behind him, tumbling into the dirt. The massive doors slammed shut with a finality that felt like a tombstone being set in place.
Lemony scrambled to his feet, his face a mask of blood and sweat. He ran to the door and began punching the iron.
"Open it! I have to kill him! I have to!"
He punched until the skin on his knuckles peeled away. He punched until the bones in his hand shattered into splinters, leaving red smears across the cold metal.
He didn't stop until Fiji grabbed him by the waist and pulled him back.
"Enough! You die if stay! Look at hand, Lemony!"
Lemony slumped to the ground with his destroyed hand hanging limply at his side. He looked at the door. It was impossible.
How could a creature like him ever kill a god? Malphas hadn't even used his real power yet. He had only shown his aura, and that alone had nearly ended them.
Fiji pulled a small, glowing bottle from his moss and pressed it into Lemony's good hand.
"Drink. We go to top now. No more fighting today."
Lemony drank the bitter liquid, feeling a dull numbness spread through his body. As they began the long, slow climb back toward the surface, his mind was filled with thoughts.
He couldn't do this alone. The gap between a Pale-Mantle Manul and an ancient beast was a canyon he couldn't jump.
I need the others. If we don't kill that thing together, none of us are ever leaving this grave.
"Is it even possible for us to defeat a thing like that?" Lemony asked.
He looked at his mangled hand. The bones were still shifted under the skin. Even if he gathered every single person left in the base, they were all just mere beings.
Malphas was something else entirely. In the hierarchy of the Great Bestiary, there were clear distinctions between the Common Paws and the Divine Treads. That creature was essentially a god of the lower layers.
How could trash beat a god? The logic of the world said it could not happen either way.
But I have to find a way. If I can combine the power of at least ten people, or maybe find a specific elemental weakness in his ancient biology, I might have a chance.
Lemony started mentally mapping out the chamber, trying to find a blind spot in the beast's aura.
But Fiji placed a heavy, moss-covered hand on his shoulder.
"You have to give up, Lemony. It impossible to defeat Malphas. He is the mountain. You are just a small stone. If you go back, you only find a faster death."
Upon hearing those words, Lemony felt a cold spike of terror.
This was his last run.
If he failed here, the copy in the void would be waiting to start an eternity of torture. He couldn't stay still. He couldn't let his mind settle on the impossibility of the task.
He began to run.
Lemony sprinted past a massive stone pillar, and for a second, the grey walls of the cave blurred.
He wasn't in the cave anymore.
He was a small child again, running through the crowded, dirty streets of his home city. He remembered the feeling of his parents' hands letting go of his as they traded him for a box of lemons.
He passed another pillar of stone.
Now he was a teenager with his body mostly covered in the purple and yellow bruises of a slave who hadn't worked fast enough. He felt the phantom weight of the iron collar around his neck, chafing his fur raw.
He passed a third pillar.
His body was a wreck of destroyed parts. He was limping now, but he kept moving. He moved through the pain because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant realizing how little he actually mattered.
Finally, he burst through the final opening and collapsed onto the cold snow of the mountain peak.
The wind was howling, biting into his open wounds. He dragged himself toward a wall of ice near the cave entrance and looked at his reflection.
He was still beaten up. His fur was matted with filth and gore. Even though his crest had fluctuated and his deeds had grown, the person in the reflection hadn't changed at all. He was still the same worthless being his parents had sold. He was still the useless slave who survived by pure luck.
He was right.
I am definitely useless.
He stared at his broken reflection with wide, hollow eyes.
I am the most useless being to ever graze this earth.
----------------------------------------------------------
"Everything is destroyed," Pippin whispered.
He was huddled behind a massive bone pillar at the entrance of the base, his fingers digging into the cold marrow of the structure.
Beside him, Ve was staring at the scene with a hollow expression. The sanctuary was gone. The fires had died down into a smoldering, grey heap, and the bodies of their friends were left dangling from the wreckage like worthless trash waiting for the wind to sweep them away.
If only we hadn't left for that scouting mission, Pippin thought. If only we were here, maybe we could have changed something. Or maybe we would just be in that pile too.
"What do we even do now? This is completely wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen to us," Ve asked.
Pippin didn't answer. He suddenly jumped from their hiding spot and landed with a soft thud in the fresh snow.
"What are you doing? Get back here! The wolves are going to see you!"
Pippin didn't even look back.
"The wolves are gone. Stop being paranoid."
"How can you be sure? They could be waiting in the shadows!"
"Look at the footprints," Pippin said, pointing at the ground.
"The edges are soft and filled with fresh powder. No one has walked through this area for at least two hours. They did their job and they left."
They had spent the last few hours near Fort Rib, trying to squeeze information out of a few straggler wolves they managed to corner. They had learned a few things about the troop movements, but seeing the base like this made all that information feel useless.
"We have to check for survivors. Maybe someone hid in the cellar. Or the back tunnels."
They spent an hour scavenging through the ruins. They called out names into the dark, quiet corners of the rooms. They lifted heavy beams and pushed aside debris, but every face they uncovered was cold.
"Nothing," Ve said, sitting down on a charred bench near the entrance.
He put his head in his hands.
"Everyone is gone. Even the Old Man. Did you see him up there? He looked so tired."
"I saw him," Pippin replied. He sat on the ground, staring at his own hands.
"I don't know what the plan is anymore. Without Crysorgo, we're just a bunch of kids lost in the mountain."
Ve shifted closer and tried to put a hand on Pippin's shoulder.
"Hey, look. We'll figure it out. We still have each other, right? We can head toward the lower peaks and—"
"Don't. Your comforting is annoying. It doesn't fix anything."
Ve looked hurt, but he didn't argue. He stood up to pace around the entrance, his eyes scanning the perimeter one more time.
Suddenly, he stopped.
"Wait. Pippin, get over here. Look at the snow bank by the side gate."
Pippin groaned but stood up. He walked over and saw two bodies half-buried in the white drifts. One was Old Horg. The traitor's face was almost unrecognizable.
"What happened to him? He looks like he was hit by a falling mountain."
"Worse," Pippin said, leaning down to inspect the wounds.
"He was hit by something over and over. Someone really hated him."
"By who? The wolves?"
Pippin pointed to the body laying just a few feet away. It was Koro. His grey fur was matted with blood, and his fingers were still locked in a tight grip around a sharp, jagged piece of rock. The rock was stained dark red.
"Him. Koro did it."
Ve dropped to his knees, his face pale.
"Is he... is he dead too? If Koro is gone, then we really have no hope."
Pippin moved quickly, pressing his palm against Koro's thick neck. He closed his eyes, waiting. After a long moment, he felt a faint, rhythmic twitch.
"He's alive," Pippin breathed.
"He's unconscious because of the blood loss, but he's still here. Look at the stabs. They missed the heart. They missed the major organs. The wolves were sloppy because they thought the cold would finish him off."
Ve looked like he was about to cry from relief.
"Can we even save him? We don't have any real medicine left."
Pippin looked at the massive warrior and then back at the burning ruins of their home. He reached into his small pouch and pulled out the last of his supplies.
"I'll save him," Pippin said.
"I'm not letting another one die today. Help me move him into the shade before his body shock gets worse."
----------------------------------------------------------
Lemony stumbled through the white blur of the mountain peak.
The wind was a solid wall of ice that kept pushing him back, forcing him to fight for every single inch. He fell once, his knees hitting the frozen ground with a sharp crack, but he forced himself up.
He had to keep moving.
He did not really know where he was going. He just had this vague idea that if he walked long enough, he would find an answer.
Maybe there was someone powerful out there. Someone who could actually stand against a god like Malphas.
Maybe the Great Beastiary will finally save me, he thought. It gave me such a miserable life from the start. Maybe today is the day it decides to balance the scales.
The thought was almost enough to make him laugh, but he didn't have the breath for it.
He fell again, and this time he just stayed there for a moment, smiling into the snow. It was a tired, hopeless sort of smile. He felt like he had reached the end of his rope.
But then, he saw a flicker of movement near the massive rib pillar to his left. Something had stirred in the shadows of the bone.
He forced his body to move, crawling and then walking slowly toward the pillar. As he got closer, he saw a slim, pale hand resting against the side of the white bone. His heart skipped a beat.
Someone was alive.
Did it actually hear me? Is there someone there?
He reached out, his own mangled hand trembling as he moved to grab the fingers resting on the pillar. He wanted to see who was behind the stone. He needed to know if his prayers had been answered.
He stepped around the edge of the bone and looked at the being hiding there.
It was a Moth-Soul. She looked completely different than the last time he had seen her. Her clothes were torn, and her eyes were red and swollen as if she had been crying for hours. She looked just as hopeless as he felt.
But despite the change and the grime, he recognized her immediately.
"Sissy."
Sissy Suzlal looked up at him, her eyes wide with a mix of shock and something that looked like salvation.
She's alive. I was looking for a god or a hero, but she was the answer I needed all along.