Ruler Of Iron And Flesh

It only took a few days for Inian to reach the monster lands. Glancing down, he could see a massive bog beneath him.

Inian flew down until his feet touched the ground and retracted the wings back into his body. The land was soft beneath his feet, and water pooled up wherever he stepped.

He sniffed the air and gagged. There was something awful smelling nearby, like a rotting corpse.

Inian practiced using his senses from the heart of the king, and he could sense a monster corpse that was nearby. He sprinted towards it, running faster than he ever has before. Soon, the monster came into his view.

The monster was utterly ripped apart. It had a long neck and an extremely fat body. Two horns protruded from its head which was lying on the ground.

Inian whistled, 'this thing is massive!' He thought to himself as the monster would stand 20 times taller than Inian when it was on its legs.

Inian could hear a roar nearby, so he ducked under some brush that happened to be nearby. He tried sensing the monster, but he couldn't sense it at all.

He remembered the words that Kraque spoke to him, about how he could sense monsters, but only the ones that were at least on his level or below and they had to be loyal to the king. Which means that this monster is either loyal to the dragon, or is a higher tier monster.

Inian could hear its footsteps coming closer, and could soon see the monster through the brush.

It stood four times taller than Inian and looked incredibly vicious. It had two snarling heads with long thin spikes above each head. A whipping tail with a spike at the end oozed some kind of yellow substance. Inian guessed that it was poison.

Blood dripped from the monster's mouths as it sniffed the air. It crawled on all four limbs towards the corpse of the beast and began to devour it. The monster could've been the one to bring down the colossal monster, or it could also be a scavenger coming in for the remains.

Inian couldn't tell how strong this monster was, and tried to crawl backward quietly. His foot snapped a twig as he was moving back and he cringed. The monster's heads shot up and began scanning the area. One head looked around while the other sniffed the air. Simultaneously their heads shot in the direction of Inian's position.

"dang it," Inian muttered and stood up to fight. The monster roared and came charging at him.

Inian dashed forward, sliding in between the monster's legs. But the monster was prepared and stabbed its tail downward at him.

Inian barely rolled to dodge it, and he grabbed one of the monster's legs, flipping it over.

The monster yelped at this small creature's display of strength and stood back up, positioning itself so that it faced Inian.

It stabbed at Inian with the spikes on its back, trying to aim for his head or heart. Inian deflected the spikes with his arms but got numerous cuts in the process.

He was sweating profusely. The monster was stabbing him and trying to bite him with its heads, so he had attacks coming at him from four different angles.

Suddenly, an idea sparked in his head. It was a bit risky, but he had to try it.

After deflecting one of the spikes, Inian let the monster bite onto his arm instead of trying to deflect it. He grunted with the pain, but this was exactly what he wanted.

He focused for a second, and his nails grew into long knives that glistened with poison, and he stabbed his hand deep into the monster's neck.

The monster yelped and let go of Inian's arm. It repositioned itself, so it was in front of Inian once again.

Inian and the monster slowly circled one another until the monster began limping. After a moment, it fell to the ground, not breathing at all.

Inian was breathing heavily. The wound on his arm was closing quickly due to his ability to recover quickly. "Success!" He yelled aloud. Luckily his plan worked! Which was to use the poison of the monster against it.

'Must have been a mid-tier monster that served the dragon,' thought Inian. He could only use the powers of mid-tier monsters or lower currently, but he was still happy with the results.

He smiled gleefully; he could now use poison! That will come in handy in any future fights.

He sprouted wings and flew back into the air, looking for other monsters whos abilities he could use.

...........................................

"Welcome home, soldiers!" The people cried as Marc walked off the ship. They were back at the Aysel Palace deep within the Kotus Empire's territory. Marc walked in a procession with the rest of the ship's forces towards the center of the city, and people lined the streets.

They were cheering, holding up signs, and tossing flowers in their direction. The women cried, and the children called out to their returning fathers or mothers

Marc scoffed at the celebration, 'don't they understand that the Empire just wiped out an entire city like this? They were you people, innocent and free...yet they were slaughtered.'

Marc couldn't understand how the people were okay with this, or whether or not the people even knew what had happened. 'They'll see soon enough what their Emporer is like,' Marc thought as he got closer and closer to Emporer.