The tropical sun sat suspended in the sky like a molten coin of gold as Lifeless and Jarvis stood on the wide porch of their hand carved manor. The house was a fortress of ironwood and stone, a testament to their labor and a sanctuary against the divine shadows that haunted the island. They checked their equipment with the silent focus of professional killers.
Lifeless adjusted the heavy leather strap of his sword, his two hands steady and strong. Jarvis sharpened the obsidian tip of his ironwood spear, the dark glass catching the light with a lethal shimmer. They were no longer the desperate survivors who had washed up on these shores. They were the masters of the wild.
They headed first toward the interior of the island where the forest was a tangled web of ancient vines and towering hardwoods.
The heat was a physical weight, but the ashwagandha Jarvis had planted provided a calm focus to their minds. They were searching for the primary stock of their larder. A herd of normal deer moved through the tall grass of a hidden valley, their movements skittish and light. Lifeless signaled for Jarvis to circle around the eastern ridge. He moved with a predatory silence, his sixty four kilograms of hyper dense muscle allowing him to glide over the dry leaves without a single crunch.
He closed the distance in a blur of motion. As the deer sensed the shift in the air and prepared to bolt, Lifeless launched. His sword flashed once, twice, and three times in the dappled sunlight. Three deer fell instantly, their ends quick and merciful. He did not celebrate. He merely hauled the carcasses back to the center of the valley where Jarvis was waiting with a grin.
"A good start, but our bodies need more than common meat," Jarvis said.
He pointed toward the higher elevations of the island where the peaks were shrouded in a perpetual, shimmering haze.
"The advanced furged sun bears are active on the slopes. Their fat is rich in current energy and their hides will make for better armor than any silk," Jarvis explained.
They began the grueling climb up the rocky spine of the island. The air grew thinner and the temperature began to rise, not from the sun, but from the thermal radiation of the creatures that lived above. They reached a plateau of scorched earth and shattered boulders. Suddenly, a roar that sounded like the earth itself cracking open echoed through the canyons. An advanced furged sun bear emerged from a cave of obsidian. It stood over twelve feet tall, its fur a radiant, woven copper that pulsed with a rhythmic internal heat. Its claws were long and curved like scimitars, glowing with the intensity of a forge.
The bear launched itself at Lifeless with a terrifying roar. Lifeless raised his sword and braced himself. The impact was like a landslide meeting a wall of iron. The claws of the bear struck the steel of the blade, producing a shower of white sparks that scorched the grass. The force of the strike drove Lifeless back, his boots carving deep furrows in the volcanic soil. He snarled, his own red current beginning to swarm around his arms. He pushed back against the beast, his feet anchoring him into the bedrock of the mountain.
Jarvis moved like a phantom of the surf. He sprinted up the side of a boulder and launched himself onto the broad back of the bear. He drove his obsidian spear into the thick, heat shielded muscle of the neck. The bear let out a scream of agony and began to spin in a frantic, destructive circle. It smashed into a rock wall, trying to crush the hunter beneath its weight. Jarvis leaped away at the last second, rolling across the gravel and coming up with his spear ready.
Lifeless saw his opening. He did not just strike, he poured the entirety of his grief and his training into a single downward swing. The sword, bathed in a flickering red current, sliced through the shimmering fur and the dense bone of the shoulder. The bear collapsed with a heavy thud, its golden eyes fading as the heat in its body began to cool.
"We will be strong for months on this," Jarvis said as he began the arduous task of
butchering the massive creature.
They spent hours hauling the meat and the copper hides back to the manor, but the hunger of Lifeless was not yet satisfied. He looked toward the crashing waves of the ocean, the blue water hiding terrors that he had once feared. He wanted to conquer the sea as they had conquered the mountain.
They took their reinforced raft and paddled out past the jagged teeth of the reef. The water here was a deep, bottomless indigo. This was the territory of the advanced fulminated sharks. These creatures were not the simple predators of the open ocean. They were biological weapons, their bodies covered in jagged plates of bone and their senses tuned to the electrical frequency of the current.
Jarvis stood at the prow of the raft, his eyes narrowed against the salt spray. A massive dorsal fin, black and serrated like a saw blade, cut through the surface of the water. It was followed by four more. The sharks were circling, their presence causing the water to hum with a low, bone deep vibration.
One of the sharks breached the surface in a spectacular explosion of foam. It was thirty feet of armored muscle and rows of glowing, serrated teeth. Lifeless did not wait for it to land. He leaped from the raft, his body a missile of dense meat and bone. He collided with the shark in mid air, his hands gripping the gills of the beast. They splashed into the water together, sinking into the dark.
Under the surface, the battle was a chaotic symphony of bubbles and blood. The pressure of the deep tried to slow the movements of Lifeless, but his density allowed him to fight with a power that the ocean could not dampen. Two more sharks closed in from the shadows, their jaws snapping shut with the force of hydraulic presses. Lifeless swung his sword in a wide, underwater arc. The blade carved through the water, the white current leaving a trail of light in the dark. He severed the snout of one shark and gutted another, the red cloud of their blood obscuring his vision.
Jarvis dived in to assist, his spear moving with the precision of a surgeon. He used the momentum of the water to drive the obsidian point into the sensitive eyes of the remaining predators. They fought for an hour in the crushing depths until the last of the fulminated sharks lay still. They hauled the massive carcasses back to the beach, their bodies heavy and their lungs burning with the effort.
The two friends stood on the white sand as the sun began its final descent. They were covered in seawater, dirt, and the blood of three different worlds. They had hunted the valley, the mountain, and the abyss. They walked back to their manor, the heavy haul of meat trailing behind them. They spent the evening by the stone hearth, the smell of roasting bear and shark filling the central hall. They ate like kings, their bodies absorbing the energy of the divine slaves they had slain. They talked of the future and the strength they were building, the bond between the king of the deep and the master of the tides growing stronger with every bite. The island was no longer a prison, it was a throne.
***