Chapter 22: Chapter 022

After a long walk of who knew how many hours, Henry finally arrived before an entrance of a tunnel at the foot of a large hill. This place was without a doubt where the voice in his head was coming from. Along the way here, he had met a lot of resistance but all fell to his fire as he just burned all those that got in his path. Previously, he had been afraid of starting a forest fire but somewhere along the way, he had lost all of his patience. At present, his backdrop was a huge blaze of the biggest pyre anyone would ever witness in their lives, most probably. He understood there would be severe repercussions for this but it was either his sanity and a girl’s life or the forest. It wasn’t even a choice, to begin with.

Henry did not meet the two colossal monsters the elderly man had told him about, though he did hear some loud roars in the distance. Those roars were so loud that he felt the earth shaking from where he was. But regardless, he had arrived at his destination, he hopefully assumed. He did stop and think of what he should do if this was all just an elaborate trap. He couldn’t come up with a solid plan as he didn’t know what else the haggard man was capable of. He figured he could just make it up as he went along. He couldn’t delay a second longer, not with a life possibly being at stake.

Just shortly after Henry entered the tunnel, he was greeted by the sight of ominous-looking totems being strewn along both sides of the path. The path was wide and the ceiling was high and it was only getting vaster as he trod deeper into the cavern, so Henry didn’t have any problems with his body being too large. He expected to encounter some resistance along the way but there were no guards nor any sorts of traps. Everything was peaceful and quiet. The girl’s voice had ceased some time ago before he arrived at the tunnel, but that did not put him at ease. He was too late, the inner voice kept telling him so but he fought hard to ignore that baleful statement.

After strolling through the tunnel for about a few minutes, he arrived before a pile of rocks that were in his way, essentially plugging the tunnel. The rocks were covered in sinister-looking runes. Henry sniffed the rocks closely when he caught a faint whiff of a familiar scent. The familiar scent belonged to the accursed haggard man that had been plaguing Henry’s mind and giving him sleepless nights. Relief washed over Henry as he knew that even if this was a trap and the girl wasn’t here at all, he would at least have a lead on the haggard man or better, he would stumble upon the haggard man. With all those totems of death and now this off-handed rockpile of a door, Henry couldn’t help but be convinced this was the haggard man’s lair.

Taking in a deep breath, which he held for a few seconds, Henry then unleashed a large firebolt at the rock pile. Contrary to his expectations, the large rock pile was easily destroyed in the explosion caused by the firebolt. And the way was cleared just like that. Henry could see magic evaporating off of the rocks, or at least he assumed the colourful steam emerging from the rocks was magic.

The growls of beasts could immediately be heard shortly after a while the impasse was obliterated. The guards were finally making their appearances. Henry thought it to be stupid to only have guards on the inside, instead of also placing some on the outside. Nevertheless, he made quick work of the beasts that appeared from the deeper parts of the tunnel. The beasts were all of the canine breeds but Henry couldn’t tell if they were dogs, wolves, hyenas, coyotes, or jackals, not that it mattered. They were all charred into cinders as they all ran straight into the flames. But the real challenge came only after these foolish suicidal beasts. A werewolf emerged from the furthest back of the line. It sprinted around the flames and lunged at Henry. He steered the flames towards the werewolf but it flipped in midair and rolled over the stream of fire. Using the air as a foothold again, it kicked off and shot itself towards Henry.

It can stand on air? What the fuck is this bullshit?!

Henry didn’t have time to wallow in the physics-defying skill the werewolf had and dove out of the way before it could slam into him. He didn’t think the werewolf’s claws or fangs could pierce through his hide but getting slammed by its weight and mass would surely hurt just as much. With the werewolf recovering from plunging itself directly into the solid ground, Henry unleashed his Fire Breath at the dazed werewolf. As if the danger immediately pulled the werewolf out of its daze, it turned to the fire and unleashed a strong gust of wind that was pushing the flames back.

You have gotta be joking! What are you? Red riding wolf?

Eventually, Henry ran out of breath but the werewolf’s wind breath was still going strong and he had to roll out of the way to avoid being cut by the wind jet stream. Henry quickly regathered his breath but the werewolf was already upon him. He forewent his breath and took on the werewolf with his claws. The werewolf dodged two of his swipes and caught his third. The werewolf then lurched forward, sinking its fangs onto his shoulder but the result was the same as always. Henry pried the werewolf off of him and thrust his claws into its chest. The werewolf howled and shrieked in agony but Henry just thrust his claws deeper until he felt something prickly and rock-solid. It was the crystal clump that was found in all magic creature’s bodies. The Murux heart, as Henry dubbed it as such. He gripped the werewolf’s Murux heart tight and wrenched it out of the werewolf’s body. He tossed the limply hanging carcass of the werewolf aside and popped the crystal clump into his mouth. It turned into liquid smoke in his mouth instantly and he swallowed it. Instantly, Henry could already feel half the effects. He felt invigorated and it would be a few minutes or hours before the werewolf’s power would also be assimilated.

Henry did not let his guard down just yet. His instincts were telling him that danger was still lurking about. It didn’t take long for the danger to appear before Henry. It came from the ground, bursting through the hard rock and soil as it climbed out from underground. It was without a doubt a canine beast but it was so thin that it looked like it had not eaten for weeks. Its limbs were longer than its own body. Most glaring of all, runes were etched all over its body. The beast opened its mouth to roar, presumably, but only a crooked noise came out of its throat. 

What the hell are you?

As if to answer his question, spikes shot out from the ground underneath him. Since his hide was strong, he was pushed upwards instead of being impaled but that did not make the earth spikes any less annoying. As the thin beast crooked again, more spikes shot out from not just the ground but also the walls and ceilings. All the spikes broke against Henry’s hide and he was being shoved around like a pinball in a pinball machine.

Fucking tosser!

Henry dug his claws deep into the ground and prevented himself from being pushed around by the jutting spikes. He then drew in a deep breath and charred the thin beast into cinders before it could croak again. Henry imagined how farcical it would have seemed from the sidelines but if his hide was any less tough, he would have been skewered repeatedly.

Before Henry could be at ease for a brief moment to catch his breath, the ominous totems began glowing and the tunnel started trembling. Cracks were forming across the ground, spreading quickly to the walls and ceiling. The tunnel was collapsing. Henry guessed that the death of all the guards was the trigger. He gathered as much breath as he could and took off into a full sprint. He didn’t look back but the trembling sound of the collapse was very expressive of the situation behind him. There was no need to look back to know that if he didn’t run faster, he would be buried under piles of rocks. Henry cursed gratingly in his heart as another rockpile of an impasse awaited him in front. It was hard enough to collect his breath when he was moving. It was even harder if he was running at full speed but he couldn’t stop. And he didn’t. He ran straight into the rockpile and rammed right through it. Though he succeeded in doing so, a numbing pain surged through his body from the forefront of his head. He fought the pain down and kept his legs moving at their full speed.

Relief waved at him from afar as he saw the end of the tunnel ahead of him, which was a hole that led him out of the tunnel. He mustered all the strength he had in his limbs and made an extreme dash that lasted only a few seconds but enough for him to escape the tunnel before it collapsed entirely.

As Henry walked through the newly made hole he created, the sight before him made him realise this was not just a mere tunnel. This place was a cavern, a very large one at that, and the tunnel was only the beginning. However, as large as the cavern might be, it was hollow. Aside from the strange runes and markings and the ominous totems, there were only rocks as far as Henry could see. There was nothing remarkable to be sighted no matter where he looked but that was until he arrived at the centre of the cavern. There was a girl chained to a rock pillar beside her. Beneath the girl was a series of inscriptions carved to the ground, forming a magic circle like the ones he had seen countless times in fiction.

The girl had long pink hair that reached her waist. Her pink fluffy tail and ears were indicative of her identity. She was the Kivu Princess the Augru tribe had pleaded with Henry to save. He also had no doubt she was the one who was calling for help. Currently, she was asleep. She was largely unharmed aside from the small scratches and faint bruises around her legs.

In front of the Kivu Princess was none other than the haggard man, who also happened to be the kidnapper. If Henry’s vague past memories were any of reference, this was surely a ritual and the princess was the sacrifice or something close to that. The haggard man was looking more haggard than before. He looked like he had aged a few years since the last time Henry had seen him. His right arm was still… not there. His clothes were the same ragged robes as before. The haggard man was muttering some gibberish that Henry could only interpret as an incantation for the ritual. Henry didn’t know how long the haggard man had been chanting but he had no intention of letting the incantation go on. So, he roared.

The haggard man jumped, stopped his incantation, and spun his head towards Henry. The haggard man stared with his eyes widened and his mouth agape. “Fffuck!” the man cursed. “Useless dogs… and what the fuck is this… How is it even so much bigger than before when it had only been a few days? Fucking absurd!”

Henry pointed at the haggard man and then he drew his thumb across his neck.

The haggard man recoiled with a frown. “Such a humanly gesture… an intelligent beast?” The haggard man scoffed at himself. “Why does it matter? The lord’s revival takes precedence. I can’t stop here. I must continue.”

Henry was mildly grateful over the haggard man’s habit of verbal monologuing as it provided him with some much-needed information. He guessed the man must have been extremely starved of companionship to the point that he would talk to himself. 

The haggard man resumed the incantation but not before he whistled and summoned a pair of hounds to his side from out of nowhere.

This man really loves dogs, huh?

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The hounds were as large as the average man. They looked just as haggard as the haggard man but they were the opposite of haggard. The two hounds blurred from Henry’s sight. He couldn’t see them but he could smell them. The hounds smelled rancid. It was unpleasant but distinctive, allowing Henry to easily keep track of the hounds. Henry spun around and ducked, dodging a bite from one of the hounds. The other lunged at Henry only after he dodge low but he was more than prepared to retaliate at this point. He slashed his claws but the hounds swiftly dodged his attack. They lunged again immediately after Henry’s attack but their paws did nothing to him. The two hounds looked perplexed at the ineffectiveness of their attacks. Nevertheless, they lunged again and so did Henry. He couldn’t touch them but they could, though they couldn’t inflict any damage. If he didn’t have his tough hide, he imagined he would have already been torn to shreds at this point. 

After some time of playing whack-a-mole with the hounds, Henry shot out a point-blank firebolt at the ground. The small explosion raised a veil of smoke and temporarily stunned the two hounds. Henry lunged at one of the hounds. He took a huge swipe and tore the hound’s lower jaw off its mouth. The other hound looked at its dead kin with gaping eyes as the smoke cleared quickly. Henry was surprised that the seemingly undead hound was even capable of feeling surprised but there was no sympathy nor empathy in his heart. The hound regained its senses and pounced on Henry with anger in its eyes. He let the hound bite him and as expected, the hound’s teeth were no match for his tough hide. Henry grabbed the hound by its neck and tossed it at the haggard man with all of his strength.

At that moment, the magic circle was glowing and the haggard man had brandished a rusty knife coated in some sort of dark energy. He had approached the Princess with such a knife in his raised hand when his pet hound was thrown at him. The haggard man shouted but only for a brief moment as the weight of the hound knocked all the air out of his lungs. There was a loud sound of something hard cracking and also the sound of something fleshy being split open. Regardless the hound and the haggard man went tumbling together away from the Princess.

Henry quickly ran to the Princess. He threw her onto his back gently, so as to not impale her on the spikes on his back. He then trotted briskly but steadily out of the circle just as the glow faded. Henry intended to just carry the Princess all the way out of the cavern but something wrapped around his hind limb and tugged at him. He looked at his limb and found some sort of black tentacle had wrapped itself around his leg. He quickly tenderly shook the Princess off of him before struggling with the thing that was pulling him. He flipped around and cut the tentacle off with the claws of his forelimb. 

“Look at what you have done!” shouted the haggard man, who had been stabbed with the rusty knife. He wasn’t just haggard now but also crooked due to the hound that was thrown at him. Tentacles and long sharp appendages were sprouting from his back as if something big was climbing out of him. “Damn you, lizard…! You made me into the lord’s vessel…! You— aaaaaaahhhh!!” the man screamed as more and more tentacles and appendages squirmed out from his back.

Oh… My… What in god’s name is that?

Out of everything he had seen, in terms of horrifying and bizarreness, the thing before him topped everything else. It was an undulating mass of black tendrils that appeared to be taking a frail form of some kind of quadruped. 

“D-Demon…!” gasped a voice.

Henry glanced behind him and saw that the Kivu Princess was now awake. He was momentarily entranced by the pair of amethysts that were her eyes but he shook himself out of that trance in the next second.

The Princess’s gaze shifted to Henry. “A Drake…?”

Henry rolled his eyes and shook his head. 

“You’re not a Drake? …Wait. You understand me?” 

Henry nodded.

“Are you here to save me?”

Henry nodded again.

“You heard my call…”

Henry nodded again.

“T-thank you, Mister Salamander.”

Henry scoffed in disbelief but before he could correct her, the screech of the Demon reeled his attention. It had completely climbed out of the haggard man’s body. It shook its body as a dog would before fixing its gaze on Henry. It had eyes that were a pair of red glowing hollow sockets. It also had a mouth but it opened up in a vertical fashion. The cavity of its mouth was also glowing red.

So this is a Demon… Okay… this is fucking unnerving.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light behind him and then there was a rouge pink flare streaking past him and it flew into the Demon. The flare bolt pierced through the Demon. It flinched with a painful screech but the hole on its body immediately closed up after a few seconds.

 “I can’t even slow it down…” The one who shot that attack spell was none other than the Princess. “Mister Salamander, we can’t fight the Demon. We have to run.”

“I’m a Dragon, damn it, not a salamander,” Henry said with his Murux Voice.

“A Dragon…?” she muttered in disbelief. “T-truly?”

Henry didn’t have time to retort any further as the Demon was already on the move.

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