PreCursive

  The sight was so startling that all I could do was stare out at the person.

  Well, I assumed it erson. It was hard to see the figure through the fading light and the dark of the storm. But whoever they were, it didn’t look like they were flying with wings as I was.

  Instead, I thought it was…

  Well, I think they were standing on a sword?

  A giant o that. It was difficult to even call the thing a sword. It was more like a massive sb of iron in the vague shape of ohan a real bde. The ridiculous thing was se that it was almost akin to the oar of a ship, and not a small ship at that. I had no doubt the beast of a bde could act as a rept oar in a pinch from how ridiculously wide it was.

  It hung motionlessly in midair, a short humanoid form standing on top of it with its arms crossed. It was hard to make out exact features in the darkness, but I thought I could see a long coat fpping in the wind, hanging from thin shoulders. Ingruously, I think I could see a…hat, pnted firmly on the person's head, unbothered by the wind and the rain.

  A…cowboy hat.

  My lips parted in disbelief because I had only seen one person on this p wearing a hat like that.

  And they were looking right at me. The figure had noticed me long before I had seen them and had been watg me the whole time. Across their distance, I thought I might be able to see wild amusement in their eyes. Even though I was transformed into my current monstrous shape, I khe owner could reize me for who I was. Somehow, someway, even without the telltale tingle of Observe, this person knew me for who I was.

  But the eyes themselves weren’t what I was expeg. I khis person to have small, bck, evil little eyes that saw the world as nothing more tha dressing for their eai. That still existed, of course.

  I didn’t expect the bllow that now suffused them. They pulsed brightly through the darkness, illuminating a wrinkled old faough that I saw thin lips…

  Curve into a mog smile.

  Before the owner fell out of sight.

  Startled, I watched as Grand Marshall Shacklock of the Order of Solstice’s Fme stopped h to fall toward the battlefield before. As he did, he reached to his side and caught the enormous greatsword falling with him by the handle effortlessly. At the tact, the entire bde of the sword began to glow a strange, sickly e in color, roiling up and down the length of it.

  With what happened , I was extremely gd that my friends and panions were still skirting the outside of the battlefield. Because when Shacklock touched down, bde first, in the ter of the mountain-top, a straatic field of power exploded from the point of impact, rapidly expanding to wash over every single Oni still standing. From the twiggiest adolest to the elders with the gra horns on that field…

  They all went mad.

  Feral.

  Ih rage.

  All Oni on that field immediately abandoned anything they were doing. They ceased fighting with themselves and they ceased fighting with my panions. Nothing else mattered to them from that point on but the man who had seemingly cast a spell over them.

  Shacklock.

  They swarmed in his dire, frothing at the mouth with rage-blind eyes ao him in droves. I nearly wasn’t able to see the old monster, even from my high vantage point, with how surrounded he was by beast and Miasma both. The only thing I was initially able to see was Oni falling to pieces by the dozen, all around a tral point. That massive bde sliced out, again and again, sying Oni so quickly that it made my previous efforts with my sword-staff seem sluggish in parison.

  In only moments, the man who was supposedly nearly on the level with Grey had cut down nearly every single Oni that had been on the field. Where before had been well over a hundred Oni, even after all the killing that had occurred before Shacklock’s arrival…

  Now there was only one, driven to its knees, with a single hand grasping it by the horns and holding it in pce as it thrashed about uselessly.

  Except that hand was different. It was far, far rger, and far, far more muscled than the palm that had beloo a fragile, stooped old man only moments ago. Oni were massive in parison to most people, but whoever this was nearly matched the monsters in sheer size.

  As the Miasma cleared from around the owner, I was able to see why. I…suppose Shacklock had a transformation Skill of his own.

  Because he was a ged man.

  The Grand Marshall of the Solstice’s Fme had gai least te i in the moments since I’d st seen him. pounded on that, his stick-thin frame had filled out as well. It was monstrously muscled, noearing as if the physique of a lifetime body-builder, stretched taut for petition. Muscles were packed upon muscles in an almost grotesque exaggeration of the human form, flexing minutely in the rain that fell ceaselessly. Shacklock’s previously baggy clothes were now stretched to the brim trying to tain his herculean form, and where before I’d thought them ical, now I wasn’t ughing.

  It didn’t matter how garish they were.

  This was aence I knew could pop my head like a grape with only two fingers. The sword that I’d thought insanely oversized no longer appeared so in this giant of a man’s grip. Instead, it was nearly normal size, held casually in one hand as the other idly held back a yellow Oni elder.

  Beh a much more pronounced brow, the beady bck, glowing red eyes of the Grand Marshall examihe monster dispassionately for a moment before he suddenly spoke. “A bit of a disappointin’ show, ya beastie,” He said idly, in a voice that suddenly echoed in a terrifyingly familiar way. “I was tin’ on you and yours to give this old man one more eain’ sughter afore the end. Couldna manage even that, though, eh? Bah. Begoh ya.”

  Effortlessly, Shacklock shifted his grip until one massive paw y to cover the Oni’s face. I wi the crag sounds that echoed across the mountaintop as he curled his fingers inwards, crushing and crumpling its face as if it were naught but a sheet of paper. In moments, the st remaining Oni had perished, dissipating out into Miasma to join the rest still lurking on the mountaintop. In its wake was left only the Miasma that covered the battlefield, pierced only by the glimmering forms of hundreds of Cores.

  I took a deep breath, as the Grand Marshall slung his enormous greatsword over an equally massive shoulder.

  So.

  That was why Shacklock was so feared a well-regarded. Effortless, brutal, crushing might. He’d scythed through more terrifyingly powerful monsters in moments than I think I’d ever seen anyone do.

  I felt my skin crawl as his disquieting eyes trailed up to me for a moment before I was visibly dismissed. Instead, he focused his attention on my rades standing across from him otlefield. All of them stood stock-still under his pierg gaze, well aware that this man could end us as easily as he breathed.

  Thankfully, we had something he wanted.

  “Is that you, Kazuma my boy?!” Shackloed across the battlefield, a wide smile on his enrged features. “I thought ya’d carked it out in the jungles! C’mere, you.” He paused for a moment, before tinuing almost grudgingly. “I suppose the rest of ya e too. Including you, ya great big flyin’ rat.”

  I…think he was talking to me, there.

  Warily, I ceased my fpping to hover back down to the mountaintop, releasing my grip on Vis Maledicta Exactoris as I did touched down. However, I didn’t get the ce to stand alone long before my panions came running up to me. Judging by looks on their faces, I don’t think they had noticed me s back up over the edge to hover over the battlefield.

  I don’t bme them.

  They’d been a bit preoccupied.

  In moments, my face was buried in rain-slicked raven-bck hair as the owner ed me in a relieved hug. “Thank fuck,” Bel breathed into my chest, before looking up. Her relief was evident in her eyes. “I thought ye were gone fer a moment.”

  A smile crossed my lips and I tried to my own arms around her, only for Bel to pull back with a suddenly furious look on her sharp features. Before I could react, the pirate Captain had reared one fist bad driven it into my stomach as hard as she seemingly could. I hurked and hunched over it as I heard Shacklock cackle in the background.

  “Say somethiime, ye dumb bastard!” I heard my lover roar above me. “Don’t just let me think ye were dashed on the rocks!”

  Ah…I…guess I should have dohat?

  “Sorry,” I wheezed out, as I felt two pairs of hands grab my shoulders to steady me. I accepted their help and found Azarus and Renauld to be the owners, both of them with relief and amusement, visible on their faces. Liora and Venix were standing off to the side, watg the small drama with either patience or indiffereill, I received nods of aowledgment from my more stoic party members.

  However, I didn’t see Kazuma anywhere. It was only when I turned around to face the dire I knew Shacklock to be in that I found the Kawamaran samurai. He had bee-liraight for the disgraced Herztalian hero and appeared to be speaking rapidly to the older man. As I watched them, the madman’s gargantuan form began to…steam, for some reason, and shrink where he stood.

  Over Azarus’s head, I frowned pensively as I watched Shacklock’s beady little eyes gleam, log onto the still-ed sword on Kazuma’s back.

  Even if the bde which had been the apparent erstone of his pn had been recovered, it still couldn’t be used. Shurenga had deliberately crafted the new boween sword and owner so that it ime to settle into Kazuma’s soul. If the samurai tried to absorb the force of Shacklock’s Core Colpse, the bde would shatter and disperse, wasting his sacrifid the artifact at the same time. Kazuma khis. We had firmed it with him. And judging by the te to his shoulders, he was veying that fact to the Grand Marshall.

  So why didn’t Shacklock look upset by that? Instead, he looked up briefly and caught my eye.

  Disturbingly, he wi me.

  A chill shot down my spine.

  I took a deep breath, and together with my panions, roached the samurai and the madman. I couldn't help but notice there was a teo the set of my friend's shoulders, even if they tried to hide it. All of us were aware that we stood no ce again Shacklock if this went south.

  I was a bit surprised at what actually happened.

  A wide smile with only a touch of insanity found within it, crossed the lips of the Grand Marshal of the Order of Solstice's Fme. "Thanks fer findin' this one!" He growled, spping one hand hard on the back of Kazuma. The Kawamaran man staggered so hard that he nearly ran right into me, and I had to steady him with my gloved hand. Shacklock pretended like he took no notice. "I heard from the men that ol' Kazuma here got et by an Oni out in the Jungles. Oh me oh my, am I sure relieved to see him not bein' a festerin' pile of Oni shit!"

  All of us were dead silent as the old monster cackled out into the rain, seemingly deeply amused by his own 'joke'.

  He...kept ughing for an almost unfortable length of time. I cleared my throat in an attempt to be polite. When that didn't work, I just spoke up. "Ah, it's no iss-"

  Shacklock abruptly stopped ughing and snapped his head down to fix his mad gaze on me. I froze at the iy I saw in that gaze. "So, as thanks, I'm thinkin' you boys and girls should follow me back to our camp, out here in this godsforsaken pit. Now that you've proved yer worth by reag the tral range, I got somethin' to talk to ya's about."

  He leaned forward, and I noticed I wasn't the only oo lean back almost involuntarily, at the bllow that had returo his small, soulless bck eyes.

  "I insist."