Chapter 154: This Thing Is Human!?
A brief silence.
Then —
"Hahahahahaha!"
Urgov laughed harder than before.
He bent at the waist, one hand braced on his knee, the other pointing directly at Sebas. His mouth had split nearly to his ears. His round bear belly shook violently, the flesh on his face trembling with it.
"Did you all hear that?" Urgov turned toward his bear-beastman warriors, not sparing Sebas a moment of genuine regard. "This old human just told me to surrender!"
Another wave of laughter burst through the column.
Several bear-beastman warriors laughed so hard they couldn't keep their iron axes steady, and had to prop themselves up on the axe handles just to stay on their feet.
Grik the hyena-beastman quietly stepped back a few paces and let several of the bear-beastman warriors move in front of him.
He arranged his lean hyena face into a smile that matched everyone else's — but those yellow-green slit pupils were locked on the old man, slightly narrowed.
Something felt wrong. He couldn't pinpoint it.
A human old man. Alone. Standing in the interior of the beastman nation, facing several thousand bear-beastman warriors. Utterly unruffled. Telling them to surrender.
Either he was insane.
Or —
Grik's slit pupils contracted again. A memory surfaced: the Dragon Kingdom's founding legend.
This thing... could it be a dragon disguised as a human?
The thought was alarming enough that even Grik found himself laughing at it. If the dragon that founded the Dragon Kingdom actually cared whether the Dragon Kingdom lived or died, it would have shown up long before now. It certainly wouldn't have left humans to be pushed around by beastmen all this time.
Grik used that logic to argue himself down from the thought he'd just had — but his body was more honest than his reasoning, and he quietly stepped back two more paces anyway.
Dragons were deeply embedded in the bones of every native of this world as something to be feared. Even if the odds were vanishingly small, Grik had no interest in gambling on them.
Sebas looked at the crowd of beastmen convulsing with laughter.
He didn't grow angry. He didn't show irritation. If anything, a faint expression of quiet regret had settled over his face.
The laughter gradually wound down.
Urgov straightened up and wiped the corner of one eye — he'd actually laughed tears out — then cracked his knuckles in his bear paw, each joint popping with a sharp crack.
"Old man." His voice still carried the residue of laughter, but his eyes had turned dangerous. "I thought you were interesting for a moment there. Figured I'd have a little fun with you."
He stepped forward. That enormous foot came down on the mud and left a deep print.
"But your mouth is too big. Big enough that I'm not enjoying it anymore."
He raised his right arm. That fist — larger than a human head — put a shadow on the ground below it.
"Let me teach you the proper way a human speaks to a beastman."
Sebas looked at the fist rising slowly toward him.
"What a shame." He let out a quiet sigh.
"You could have seen humans and beastmen living in peace."
Urgov blinked — and then his expression settled into a cruel smile.
"Peace? Save that dream for your next life!"
The massive bear-paw fist came down.
It tore through the air with a shriek and drove straight at Sebas.
The cruel smile was still on Urgov's face.
He could already see how this ended — that frail old man's head splitting open like a melon, blood and matter spraying out, the body crumpling to the ground.
Perfect.
Sebas swung his fist as well.
Against Urgov's, it was almost comically small.
The two fists met in the air.
A dull, heavy impact rang out between the hills — like a roll of thunder passing low across the sky.
Urgov's smile froze on his face.
A force unlike anything he had ever encountered transmitted through the point of contact. Starting from his fist, the bones in his right arm cracked in rapid succession up the length of it.
Beneath the dark brown fur, flesh and tissue were crushed as though a vast invisible hand had closed around them — the damage traveling from his arm to his shoulder, then spreading through the right side of his chest.
Urgov didn't even have time to register the pain.
His round bear eyes were wide open, pupils reflecting the image of the human old man standing exactly where he had been, not one step moved.
The enormous body hit the ground with a crash and sent a cloud of dust rolling outward.
The entire right side of his body had collapsed inward. Blood poured from the ruined flesh and spread across the dirt road in a widening pool beneath him.
Urgov's life faded in the space of a few breaths.
Grik the hyena-beastman watched it happen. His legs went soft. He nearly folded to the ground.
The smile he had arranged on his lean hyena face to blend in with the others was gone without a trace. What replaced it was fear with nothing behind it — no mask, no pretense.
This thing... is absolutely a dragon...
But why had the legendary dragon chosen to appear now? Was it because the beastman king had decided to finish the Dragon Kingdom off completely this year, and the dragon had finally decided to show itself?
In his mind, Grik wished every conceivable ill upon the beastman king's ancestors.
That old fool. Absolutely had to launch the full offensive this year. And now look — he's gone and drawn the dragon out.
Grik raised his head. His yellow-green slit pupils looked toward the old man.
Sebas was walking forward.
His steps were unhurried and composed. From the bearing alone, it was as though several thousand bear-beastman warriors had already been surrounded by him alone.
A stream of thoughts flashed through Grik's mind.
Run? Not possible. A dragon's speed would leave him long behind.
Resist? Even less possible. Urgov hadn't lasted one punch. Going up there himself would accomplish nothing.
Grik forced himself to be still.
He went back over every word this old man had said since he appeared.
There was still a chance.
Grik dropped to his knees. They hit the mud hard and kicked up a small spray of dust.
"We surrender!"
He used every bit of force he had. His voice rang across the open hillside and came back to him as an echo.
Sebas stopped walking.
The sweat had soaked all the way through Grik's back. His short hyena fur was plastered flat against his skin, damp and cold.
But he didn't dare move.
He watched the dragon that apparently enjoyed dressing as a human and eating black bears come to a halt.
He was going to live. The relief flooding through him was overwhelming — he was going to make it out of this.
He drew a deep breath and turned toward the bear-beastman warriors still frozen in place behind him.
"On my order — lower your wea—"
He didn't finish.
An iron axe blade came from behind and caught him cleanly across the neck.
The edge cut through skin and flesh and severed bone as smoothly as a knife through butter.
Grik's head left his shoulders and tumbled twice through the air.
His eyes were still open. Even as he died, he never worked out why he — the number two — had ended up being killed by one of his own.
The relief of survival had not yet had time to reach his face before it was fixed there forever.
The headless body collapsed into the mud, twitched twice, and went still.
A powerfully built bear-beastman warrior stood holding a blood-wet iron axe in his right hand, his dark brown bear eyes burning red with unconcealed hatred.
He spat on Grik's body, then raised his voice.
"Brothers — avenge the chief!"
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