As Aeon was dragged deeper into the forest and as the cool breeze swept across his face, he marveled at the beauty of the surroundings.
The place looked as if it were the perfect paradise, and not for the likes of him. Compared to the forest outskirts, everything that Aeon laid his eyes on was gigantic, lush, and colorful, symbolizing its virginity from human hands. Aeon inwardly thanked the beasts for taking care of such a wonderful place.
….
Long ago, when humans barely had the grasp to control magic, when books that taught the art of magic were still scant and few, magical beasts devastated dozens of cities and towns on a yearly basis. They were the top of the food chain. The humans could only curse the Gods about creating such creatures.
As time went by, however, things changed.
When each major city in the continent finally had its own expert mage, the rapid improvement in the military became apparent. The attacks from the magical beasts dealt less and less damage over time, giving room for the people to do their research on the said creatures. Thus, the Magic Association on each major city, now known as the Academy, was formed.
Geniuses from the academies were paid specifically to study the beasts and were tasked to formulate a way of eradicating such creatures. To drive them into extinction. When the results of the research came out, everyone was disappointed. Because it was not possible to do so.
It turns out, magical beasts were not specifically a family of creatures. They are not like birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. No. Instead, they are simply evolved animals. However, the cause of their evolution is still unknown.
The researchers could also not explain why animals kept in captivity do not evolve. They even tried simulating a harsh environment for the animals, hoping they would make a breakthrough and become magical beasts. Through this, they would be able to create a magical beast army of their own. Of course, in the end, it failed.
At one point, one researcher made his own theory. What if such animals were able to consume something, making them evolve?
For the longest time, until now, this was believed to be true. That could be the only explanation why only specific places outside human territories had magical beasts. There were also several attempts to find out what they ate in order to evolve, but everything ended in failure. When humans tried to invade the home of the beasts, it always ended in slaughter since magical beasts were always higher in number.
In response, humans cleared several areas around the cities and towns that could potentially house magical beasts. Being close to human civilization, it was always easy to provide back up and nothing got extremely out of hand. With this, the threat of the magical beasts was slowly quelled.
Moreover, thankfully, the said creatures also had their own food chain. If there were no internal competition of food between the creatures, they would have been able to increase their numbers to the point where they could just create a stampede and stomp over all of the humans in the continent.
The issue regarding magical beasts was only revived a hundred years later when another form of the creature was found. The incident became the most unfathomable, and most mind-boggling one in the history of magic, to date.
The Faully Town Incident.
It turns out, the beasts' gigantic form was not the limits of their evolution, yet.
In Faully, a remote town west of the Shilla Empire, the northernmost empire in the continent, several cases of missing people were brought up, and eventually, the news reached the Emperor's ears. Having been on the edge of the continent, the Emperor of that time, Emperor Kavan Shilla the first, worried that the town had fallen prey to pirates. The emperor's consultants thought that it was not probable because piracy was not a desirable profession. There were always dangers concerning gigantic magical beasts that attack ships. They firmly disagreed with the Emperor's theory.
Because of this, Emperor Kavan, who was quite young and rash at that time, was angered. Instead of sending a small investigation team, he sent a large army consisting of several mages. A huge uproar amongst the kings erupted, but none were able to stop the decision.
Three days after the arrival of the army in the remote town, a messenger bird arrived.
Due to the speed of the results, the emperor thought that him sending an army immediately solved the problem. He ordered the letter to be directly brought up to him and to gather all his consultants. His intentions were to flaunt his quick wit and correct decision, even though he had not known the contents of the letter yet.
The consultants gathered around the long table with the emperor smiling merrily at the tip. The person who received the letter arrived and gave it to the emperor promptly.
Without any further delay, the emperor read the contents out loud, a wide smile plastered on his face.
Unbeknownst to him, the people who were listening did not have the same merry expression.
It was only after he finished reading did he realize that the contents of the letter were grim. He looked at the consultants who had pale faces and ghastly expressions.
The letter only had three sentences written on it.
The townspeople were no more. As the letter was being written, half of the army was already annihilated. The culprit: a humanoid magical beast.
The horror sank in and Emperor Kavan dropped the letter as his hands shook. Although the town was remote, it had a population of 18,000. Having been emptied by a single magical beast in a few days…it was impossible! But there was no reason for the writer to lie to the emperor. The most disturbing part was that the suspected creature had a humanoid figure!
Against an unknown enemy, the emperor ordered all the top mages to be gathered. They would storm Faully and bring down the humanoid magical beast! According to the emperor, in order to boost morale, he would be joining the attack, but it was clear in the emperor's eyes that he merely wanted to see the creature for himself.
In a month, the army of five hundred C-ranked mages and up was mobilized.
The emperor gritted his teeth in his carriage, anxious about whether or not the beast was still in the town. He had long since given up about the survival of the first army he sent.
As they reached the devastated town at noon, everyone became anxious as well.
There was blood, but no corpses could be seen.
Even their most powerful mage, the Academy principal of Shilla's capital city, a peak A-ranked mage, was tense. The moment they stepped into the town, he felt danger.
When they reached the heart of the town, everyone thought that the beast had already left. They slowly set up camp and the Emperor stayed in the largest tent at the center. Several scouts were sent throughout the town, but they brought no substantial reports.
When night came, they realized that the breeze was unusually cold. They could clearly hear the raging waves, too, which was, according to the people who had been there in the past, very unusual.
Then…
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A loud, piercing scream reverberated through the air, waking up those who were already asleep. Judging from the sound, it came from the west side of the town, near the coast. Immediately, everyone rushed to the site, including the Emperor.
When they got there, a female child was standing near the waters, startling all the people. Subconsciously, they thought that it was a survivor from the town. However, as they looked up, they saw three people suspended in the air, hanging on ice spikes which were barely visible in the dark of the night.
The child turned around and faced the people. It looked exactly like how a human would. There were no features that described it as a beast, but their instincts were all screaming danger.
Then, out of the blue, they heard disgusting, wriggling sounds coming from the child.
After that, they witnessed the most bizarre thing any of them had ever seen. Slowly, the child's legs became tentacles, and six more sprouted out from its lower back. The people in the front subconsciously took a step back from the horror.
Fortunately, the Academy principal kept his rationality and ordered for everyone to attack. Having been separated by about two hundred meters, all of the Remorans standing on elevated ground were able to bombard the octopus-looking child with A-ranked spells freely.
BOOM!
An explosion that made their ears ring erupted from where the child stood. Sand was blasted into the air.
Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. They thanked the heavens that the creature only had the mind of a beast. Surely, a huge concentrated attack from about two hundred remorans was capable of obliterating one magical beast, humanoid or not.
Unfortunately, it did not end there and then. After the sand settled, they saw another mind-blowing scene.
Where the child previously stood, a castle of ice was now erected.
And that wasn't all.
Thousands of ice spikes that moved freely like real tentacles emerged from the castle of ice and shot towards the army. In order to reduce cast time, the creature must have used the ice that was already manifested.
Those who had been celebrating in the front, and were not able to defend on time, were pierced by three or four tentacles. Then, their bodies were torn open, spraying blood on their comrades. Pieces of flesh rained down on the mages.
The beast could use magic! More importantly, it was not your average spell. The small parts that remained unscathed from their attacks were particularly smooth. In order to achieve such features on an ice spell, one had to have extreme levels of control.
Any water mage there that saw this felt goosebumps all over their body. It was they who understood the most how scary this spell was on top of being able to defend against 200 A-rank spells.
The Remorans took some time to cast their spells, and the monster might have pre-emptively started casting as well. But to build a barrier that excellent within that period of time... it was crazy!
But none of the mages there had the time to appreciate such wonderful magic. It was casted by an opponent, after all!
Immediately, everyone retaliated as they defended from the attacks from the ice tentacles. They moved backward slowly as they realized that the beast had the power above an A-ranked Water Remoran. And, for sure, fighting near a large body of water was not favorable to them. Having water ready to be used by a water mage instead of having to condense the vapor in the air meant less casting time.
As they expected, the octopus child used the waters to create a massive wave from the ocean. However, having been prepared, the Fire Remorans were able to counter-attack, evaporating the huge wave into gas.
The power of the top five hundred mages in the empire was truly nothing to be scoffed at. Despite this, however, the octopus child was able to stand her ground. Crystals of ice floated around her body that acted as a shield as she sent attack after attack.
The battle lasted until dawn and, ultimately, the humans prevailed. But they paid a huge price. More than a third of the army died.
Before the creature fell, the octopus child tried to retreat back to the waters having realized that she was not capable of wiping the army out, but the Academy principal was able to stop her in time.
The highlight of the battle was the fact that, when they were quite far away from the beach already, the creature did not pursue. Instead, it showed them that it was about to retreat. With the fear of it getting stronger if it escaped, they could only advance recklessly in order to keep the creature to stay.
Because of that move, the number of casualties shot up.
It was unfortunate, but it was a price they had to pay to win against an enemy they had never fought before.
….
As his father told that story to him, Aeon felt a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes he would laugh, sometimes he would cry, and sometimes he would cheer.
But as he grew up, he could not help questioning the truth about the matter. At one point, he searched through several books, looking for the one that told the tragic story of Faully Town, and he did find one. The story was just as his father said. It might have even been a bit crueler.
A magical beast with a certain level of human intelligence. A monster capable of using magic and assuming human form. It was such a dangerous creature.
They were called Greater Demonic Beasts.
….