Dragon's Legacy

Chapter 4: Nightmare

The titanic being of flesh and hate rippled and swayed as the Empire ship threw devastating spell after devastating spell into the mass. Spells that would have torn the sloop to shreds dug into flesh and carved great wounds into the monster...at first. But every wound sealed faster than the last, every spell did less damage than the last.

'Better to let the two distract one another as we run away.'

Yannis ignored the Empire ship and had its countless eyes swiveling in different directions. Every time it pulsated, it grew a bit larger, spread a bit farther. And near the top, a series of yellowish nodes grew. With each pulse, they grew and shifted like a diseased heart. Until for one pulse, they stopped growing, and they multitudes of eyes stopped moving. Dread built up in Rael as they swiveled about looking for Azmond. They found him holding onto the mast in a white knuckled grip as he stared in abject horror at the mountain of hatred made manifest.

"Az!" Rael rushed towards him.

And that's when everything went wrong. The nodes at the top of the flesh-tree erupted, sending balls of meat flying in massive arcs. Trailing red smoke behind them, the hail of fleshy meteorites flew in every which direction, most landing in the ocean. Most.

The angry meat bounced off a few of the makeshift blimps, but six landed on deck. The Empire ship was bombarded with more than a few, and panic quickly took hold on both ships as the balls of flesh spasmed and contorted. A few brave sailors went with axes to try and hack at the meat and throw it overboard, but the hating flesh was full of surprises. Two exploded on deck, sending bone shrapnel into an unlucky few as the sinew spread like a web and contorted, pulling apart the deck and whatever else it could grab. Rael watched in horror as Koil narrowly avoided being speared by bone, only to be pulled into the mass, screaming before it suffocated him and burst his body like a bubble. The other meat balls mutated and split apart into awful parodies of life: a mangy wolf with too many legs, joints, and teeth. A snake with a segmented thorny carapace, cutting itself as it moved about on deck. A goat with claws instead of hooves, which had its head split open in an all-too-human scream to reveal a bloody, skinless lion's head. And a spindly naked man with mouths all over its body, all save its head, which was blank and featureless.

Everyone acted quickly. The monsters charged the crew, most of whom were distracted keeping the ship flying, tending to the wounded, or cutting away at the sticky sinew. But some people were ready. Ty threw lightning at the wolf monster, blasting it backwards in a smoking tangle of limbs. It shook its head and got up. A former slave managed to tackle the goat-beast to the ground after it had disemboweled a crewmate, allowing a companion to spear it in the neck. It struggled still. The snake had constricted itself around a man, slicing his skin to ribbons as he held his composure and slammed its head to the ground. It tried to bite him, but its fangs couldn't penetrate deep enough as the sailor slammed its head some more. Both were still moving. Rael witnessed all of this as they ran across the deck towards Azmond. And the pale man-thing that reached towards him, mouths on its open hand salivating. Azmond was paralyzed in fear, sobbing and shrieking. The man-thing's mouths unsheathed needle-thin teeth. The child fell down and tried to scurry backwards, but there was a corpse blocking him. He began hyperventilating, tears running down his face as the hands came closer. Rael jumped.

The creature hissed as Rael's drop-kick sent it stumbling away.

"Rael!" Azmond blubbered. He got up to rush to Rael's side, but they held up a hand.

"It's dangerous Az. Stay behind me."

The young boy nodded and edged behind Rael. His protector stood up straight and summoned their dagger. There was no pain this time. The creature chittered, dozens of mouths gnashing teeth together in an opera of spiteful clicking. Its head split open vertically into another massive mouth, all of its mouths opening in tandem. And it howled. In many different pitches and screeches, the mouths screamed in guttural tandem, a massive tongue adorned with teeth of their own burst from the mouth where its head used to be. Rael readied their dagger, running through what their best options were.