Nothing followed but silence. One of shock and utter disbelief.
No one moved. No one even dared breathe.
Had they really just seen Songred die? He was a promising talent, one who survived the hellscape of Sector Fifteen; and he had just been dissected gruesomely before their very eyes.
His Lotus Direwolf, dismayed and terrified, began to wail, limping around the two halves of Songred's body on the ground. It nudged one half with its muzzle, then the other, whimpering piteously. The rest of the squad were yet to do anything but watch.
Because even amidst the horror of Songred's death, they could still feel it.
There was a presence. Beyond the darkness that Songred had been running into, something waited. And it was not a mere Darcbeast.
The escort, still impaled on the Howler's tusk and skewered like a meat upon a stake, twitched once — then stiffened. The blood from his lips dripped down in thick streams, and even as pain twisted his face, it was not agony that formed in his gaze.
It was fear.
In all his years of working for Beastcorp, he had never experienced such bone-chilling fear. But he'd heard of it. From Divers and high ranking Riftwalkers who'd gone into the deepest zones of Darcworld.
This was that fear— the kind that froze your marrow and stole your breath.
Staring into that darkness, a bead of sweat rolled down his temple, slow as molasses. It fell— drip —and hit the earth like a whisper.
Jethro's eyes were bulging out of their sockets. His heart beat like it wanted out of his chest— and apart from his own, he could also feel his Lizard's heart pounding in his pocket, and hear Padva's beside him, thumping in her chest.
Moffrey, Anson, Pott and Mory were in the same petrified state; eyes wide, faces drained of blood, gazing into the abyss with a dreadful, silent expectancy.
"Coward."
A voice spread through the desecrated cathedral. Low. Cold and terribly unattached.
Just the sound of it caused shudders through Jethro's skin, raising the hair on his arms and neck in fearful attention.
The atmosphere twisted instantly.
Air turned into iron— so strong that they could all feel it pressing into their lungs, making it feel like every breath was earned through suffering.
A fog of shadows coiled beneath their feet and at the edges of their vision. The entire cathedral thrilled, its shattered stones vibrating with a dreadful anticipation, as if awakening to greet the god of this forsaken domain.
From the corner of his eyes, Jethro saw the impossible: For some reason, the Darcbeasts were retreating. Not only did they withdraw into the shadows in reverence; they bowed their heads!
One by one.
The Graven Vulturefiend, the Blisk-Tusk Howler, the Terravore Slugbeast, the Spireback Serpent, the Demonflame Hyena, and the Horned Widow. They lowered their grotesque heads first, as though in reverence, before slithering away into the darkness.
The escort collapsed, finally, and lifelessly on the floor.
All Jethro could think at the moment was what could be so powerful that these high ranking Darcbeasts would run away in fear?
He didn't have to wait long for the answer.
The dark fog ahead stirred, and they all heard a sound like whispering thunder and at the same time, felt its rumbling effect on the scorched earth beneath their feet.
Jethro's eyes lowered to his boot for only a second. But when he looked back at the darkness, something was coming out of it.
Three necks, enormous and serpentine, thicker than an ancient oak and scaled like obsidian plates emerged out of the fog like three different beasts.
But when the massive feet entered through the darkness, slamming down on the shattered cathedral floor, Jethro realized the horrific truth.
This was a single beast. All of it.
A true monster.
Each of the heads were distinct and terrible. The center head had slit eyes glowing red while fire dripped down its maw, leaking from its jaws to the ground. The head to its right snarled with ice and frost glistening from its open jaws. The left head had a long, sloped snout and teeth that appeared made out of rocks and death.
Jethro had been wrong. This was no beast. This was an entity of nightmares, desolation and destruction.
Its necks twisted slowly, surveying them like rats in a pen. The central head lowered, sharpening its glare at the Direwolf who was still mourning its dead tamer.
With viper-strike speed, the head lunged and snapped its massive shut around the wounded Direwolf. The mechbeast's agonized yelp was cut brutally short.
The fire-head lifted it effortlessly into the air. Then, with a sickening, coordinated motion, the ice-head and the stone-head clamped their jaws on to separate parts of the beast.
The terrible, wrenching sounds of crunching and tearing echoed through the cathedral as the three heads pulled in unison.
Sparks, blood, and synthetic flesh erupted in a shower of gore.
The Direwolf was ripped apart like tissue paper, and shared amongst the heads who swallowed it after— down their distinct necks.
The survivors watched, utterly paralyzed as their mechbeast hid behind them. Whatever hope they had, it was all gone after that overwhelming display of brutality.
The central head lowered, sharpening its gaze at the group.
But they weren't looking at it anymore.
They were looking on top of it.
Right there, just behind the root of the central neck, forged into the peak of the beast's back, there was a throne.
It was obsidian, decorated with terrifying runes and built with bones.
Calling it a mere throne would be ignorant. It was a symbol that this monster had been claimed, broken and rebuilt by something worse than itself.
But no one sat on it.
Rather, he stood.
Atop the throne's edge was the most terrifying man Jethro had ever seen. He had one foot upon the dragon's spine, the other planted firmly on the edge.
Long strands of his ink-black hair drifted behind him like shadow. The armor that covered his stalwart body of pure muscle was made of twitching, semi-sentient plates. It was like the armor itself was alive, hissing like serpents in pain.
On his head was a fused helm with two large, sharp edged horns, and beneath its ridge were his eyes of burning cerulean.
Jethro had never seen blue look so cursed and deathly.
One gauntleted fist clenched the shaft of a terrible weapon; a double-edged blade longer than the average man, glinting with the same blue fire he had in his eyes.
The same eyes that stared down at them.
Moffrey stepped backwards, but unlike himself, he couldn't even manage to speak.
Padva whispered, "No." Her softer eyes were now widened with terror. Her mechbeast, like others, had its ears pulled backwards, petrified.
The escort tried to rise with blood on his lips. "It… it can't be."
Jethro's eyes were yet to leave the dreadful man. And how could it? What was the point? Every single bone in his body told him that this was not someone he could run from.
This was not just a man.
This was the end of their world.
With a whisper of chilling wind, the figure finally spoke.
"Don't worry. It was not merely cowardice that killed him."
He raised his colossal blade, pointing one of its sharp edges at them.
"You will all meet the same fate in this place."
And the three-headed dragon beneath his feet roared.