War Beast

Book Two: Chapter 7

Jenny slowly opened her eyes while mechanic sounds echoed around her. She tried to rise, but she couldn't move her body. Metal braces clenched on her upper arms and lower legs.

"Hello?" She shouted at the darkness. "Where am I?"

"Good...... You are awake now." A voice crackled with clicking sounds.

Jenny shook her body again. "Who's there?"

A bright flashed above her, nearly blinding her. Jenny blinked her eyes until her vision recovered.

She found herself inside some kind of metal room with one open doorway. Pipes and wires stretched all over the place, releasing streams from tiny views. It smelled like a sewage drain with seawater, and the condition was a little cold.

She laid on a round flat metal table beneath a large headlight on the ceiling. Whatever she was at, the place doesn't appear a primitive Beastman tribe would build it. It looked too industrial with electronic noises and sizzling pipes. So who built it?

Something clicked while crawling toward her. The creature appeared small, with a crab-like head equipped with four long legs and two short arms with pincers attached. It has no body, or at least its ugly pink crab head was its body. Three jaws and two white eyes beneath its thick red-spotted skull.

Jenny wanted to scream the thing off her, but her fast breathing made her lose for voice. It looked creepy and disgusting, and too damn close to her face.

"Amazing," the crab creature said. "I thought your kind are extinct. You will make an excellent specimen here. Hehehehe."

"What are you?" Jenny managed to ask.

The crab backed up on her stomach and held up his pincers. "Call me Cluster. General Cluster. I am a Krawl from the Planet Dargis in the Broion System."

"You're an alien?"

Cluster laughed. "You can say that."

"But how are you speaking my language?"

"I am telepathic. What you are hearing is my translation from my original language. If I wasn't using my power, you will only hear clicking sounds from my mouth. Click! Click! Click! We Krawls can communicate to any sentient race we encounter. We are not so inferior as we appear to be."

Jenny could see that. Never in her life, she believed in aliens. But living in a future full of Beastmen and magic, anything can be possible. "What do you want from me?"

Cluster chuckled with his clicking noises. "What I want is your planet. We Krawls travel across the universe, seeking worlds to harvest their resources. But the most precious resource we seek is Starium. The most powerful celestial energy source, crystalized from the furthest reaches of the universe. Nobody knows where it originated from, or perhaps it came from a different dimension. But who cares! It's so powerful, it can turn beings into gods and reshape environments! Your world is full of Starium. Continents and continents of it!" He held out his arms, pointing his pincers at the walls. "After I landed, I built this base to set up the gateway to my homeworld. I need a full armada to harvest this planet completely without delays. And I hate waiting forever!"

He crawled toward her face and pointed his pincer at her chest. "As for you, I planned to dissect you to see what kind of interesting organs you have inside your beautiful body. Heeheehee! But my computers indicated you have a nest of Starium energy inside your body. You are basically a living battery of Starium. HAHAHAHAHA!"

Jenny's eyes widened. How?

She never touched anything that looked radioactive....... Or.....

Did Cluster mean the Stat Crystal?

That could only be the explanation. She remembered touching the crystal on Horde's weapon to push it off. While touching it, she felt a warmness flow into her from the crystal. It must have given her power when she pushed it. If not the crystal, what else?

"You mean the Star Crystal?" Jenny asked.

Cluster clicked his mouth. "Is that what you call it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't feel lucky just yet. I will keep you here until my gateway is complete. Then your world will become a giant ball of dirt."

Jenny gritted. "I doubt that. My friends will find me and turn you into crab stew."

Cluster laughed. "Your primitive friends will never find you here. If they do, my probes will turn them into meat stew. That actually sounds delicious!"

While laughing again, Cluster jumped off Jenny and crawled away. "Enjoy your stay, human! Be happy your death will go quicker than the primitives on this planet. HAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

Jenny shook her arms and legs harder. She has to get to her friends before that alien destroys the Earth!