Alex watched as the bartender got the food ready, the sweet smell slowly trailed out of the kitchen when the candles on the table flickered, a cold breeze flowing through the windows.
"Hm…" He blinked, looking forward with a stern face.
CRACK! A table flipped at the end of the tavern, and a buff man stood with a longsword in hand, "Die!" He swung forward, aiming toward the window.
"GYAAAAAAAAA!" A bald wolf lunged through the window, hitting the blade and getting cut in half with a splash of blood.
"Monster!" The buff man screamed his lungs out and the wall shattered, tens of deformed animals rushing out with a vile stench of rot and blood, killing and eating anyone in their way.
CLAP! CLACK! Alex jumped in place, snatched a plate, and threw it at one of the monsters, blinding it as he lunged behind the counter, taking one of the bartender's long knives. "I'll borrow this," Alex said, reaching toward one of the kettles that were kept beneath the counter and taking a lid as a shield.
"Where did the monsters come from? I thought they only existed in the lower world!" The bartender hid beside Alex and cried.
"It must be a tamer, two stars at least." Alex flipped one of the wine bottles kept behind the counter to use it as a mirror, staring at the guards of the merchants fighting the monsters in a bloody, losing battle.
"Two stars? Why would such a person be here,"
"The hell I know," Alex took a stance, getting ready to lunge into the battle.
"Kid! Don't you…" The bartender was about to stop Alex but was stopped, noticing a purple star on Alex's neck. "You're one star?!"
"It's not much, but honest…" Alex jumped over the counter, stepping over a massive bald wolf, and swung the knife at a weird six-legged goat with bloodied wool and four horns on, being the size of a small calve. As the monster growled from getting stabbed in the neck, Alex jumped over it and swung by the chandelier, falling in the middle of the monster and pushing one away with his lid shield.
The merchants' guards gasped, seeing a kid slicing the monsters apart with a kitchen knife, dodging the bear claws as if it was nothing and cutting him between the legs, ripping the apes' heads with his bare hands like a wild beast. Those moves looked inhuman at least, monstrous even, "Is that a starred kid?" One of the guards gasped, quickly noticing the purple star on Alex's neck. "HE IS!"
"AHHHHHHHH!" Alex paused, hearing his sister's screams in the room. "They got to her?!" He gasped, jumping out of the window in the blink of an eye.
****
A few minutes ago:
Upstairs, Emil sat on her bed, about to start reading her book when the glass of her window shattered, sending fragments all across the room. She gasped, rolling out of the bed, and looked back, seeing a massive brown monster that looked like a wart-infested mass of flesh filled with crying human faces. Above the monster's head stood a slender man with long black hair and fair skin, staring at her as the moon flashed bright behind him.
"Finally found you, our little battery." He smiled, "Your brother is busy with my pets, he won't be here to save you,"
Several bladed tentacles rushed into the room, ravaging and dicing it apart, and only left Emil in the middle, "Running won't save you. So stay silent and obedient and I won't hurt you,"
Emil was about to scream but the tentacles tied her, closing her mouth, "I said stay silent, I can't have you calling your brother, he's busy." The man smiled. ^I know he's only one star, but with his record, I don't want to face that feral animal.^
The monster pulled Emil out and climbed the building to the roof. The man looked at the sky, lifting his hand and showing two stars on the back of his palm. "Come to me! Falcon!" He called and a massive falcon appeared out of the forest, its wings spanning four meters wide.
Emil's body flashed blue, and the man gasped, "This brat!" He cried and a powerful wave of magic rushed out of her, shocking his monster to the bones.
"AHHHHHHHH!" She screamed, passing out after exerting her body over its limit to access the abundance of mana she had.
The man growled, swinging his arm to the left and sending a wave of magic toward the monster, [Tamer Skill: Heal Monster]
The monster's wounds quickly healed, "Now I bet he's coming, I'll make sure you cry all the way to the base," He turned and glared toward the door to the roof's stairs. If Alex were to come to the roof, he would have to climb the stairs, there is no other.
A moment of silence fell as the man glared forward, sweating as he slowly lifted his hand, the monster covered Emil with his tentacles and extended two toward the stairs' door, ready to catch Alex the moment he appeared.
CLAP! Alex's hand caught the roof's edge and he jumped up behind the tamer.
"Fucker!" The tamer growled, turning around as fast as he could, and threw three small balls of magic. "Kill him!"
The balls flashed midair, turning into monsters. A massive black spider the size of a horse, a giant snake several meters in length, and a deformed abomination that looks like a mix between a featherless chicken, a mole rat, and a toe.
Alex's eyes glared straight at the tentacle monster in the back, noticing that it was wrapping its tentacles around something to hide it, which could only be his sister. "Give her back!" He growled, landing on his feet and charging between the monsters.
The spider stood on its hind legs, pointing its spinneret at Alex and shooting a net-like white web.
Alex jumped to the side by kicking the ground, dodging the spider's web but going straight toward the snake's swinging tail. He jumped while extending his hand, grabbing the snake's tail and leaping over it with grace, swinging the kitchen knife toward the abomination's ugly head.
The abomination monster dodged Alex's swing and tried to peck him, but the attack got blocked with a lid, and Alex beheaded it like a turkey.
The tentacle monster in the back clenched its tentacles. CRACK! Alex could hear his sister's bones cracking under the pressure, "You bastard!" He screamed, and at that moment the snake caught him, contorting around him like a cobra.
"You're a real pain," The tamer walked forward with a smile, "Do you think I'll harm the battery?" He pointed at the tentacle monster, "We need her alive, a healer could always get her back into shape,"
Alex glared at him, eyes red with blood as he tried to free himself.
"Don't even try it. No matter how absurd your strength and speed are, you'll never escape its grip." The snake started using more force, cracking Alex's ribs. "We don't need you, so it's here that you die. Blame your luck for not being the one blessed with near-infinite mana,"
At that moment, when Alex heard luck, he could see the charm dangling from his neck. Under the moonlight, it had a faint purple shimmer to it. It smelled sweet, like a ripe and plump grape.
Only based on instincts, he bites the charm, swallowing the scale inside. Even if it's fake, he'll try anyway. No matter the odds, even if it's as small as nothing, it was all he had at the time.
Alex's eyes flashed with a purple glow for a brief moment, and his arms extended to the sides, ripping the snake apart like it was nothing.
"What!" The tamer gasped, seeing Alex fall standing on his legs.
"Where am I?" A strange voice came from Alex's throat, his eyes turning purple as the muscles on his body expanded a tiny bit, with veins bulging all over. He stood, taking a deep breath, "HOOOOO!" With a wide smile on his face, turned toward the roof's edges and looked at the horizon. "How beautiful! Humans are living everywhere, I would've never expected it to look like this! The limitless blue paradise!" He laughed.
"Who are you?!" The tamer screamed, the spider standing between him and Alex.
Alex turned around, "Hum?" Staring at the tamer with a puzzled face.
"Matters not! Kill him!" The tamer shouted, sending the spider rushing toward Alex. She jumped up, pointing her spinneret toward Alex and shooting another net while getting her poison fangs ready.
Alex lifted his foot and kicked the ground, shattering it and sending one of the bricks flying up toward his hand, where he punched it toward the spider, piercing it along its net in one hit.
The tamer gasped, "You feral monster!" He put his hands together, "Drop the girl and kill him!"
The tentacle monster dropped Emil, swinging its tentacles toward Alex.
In the blink of an eye, Alex blitzed forward, ripping the tentacle monster apart with one swing of his arm and catching Emil before she hit the ground. "A little girl? I see, a contract,"
"It can't be!" The tamer cried, trying to pull a ball but his vision turned black, seeing Alex's glowing purple eyes glaring at him.
Alex put Emil on the ground, staring at her with a confused face. "What's going on?" He then felt a sharp headache, a surging pain across his head and back that made his knees shiver. "AH! I see, this boy is contracted as well,"
Thud! At that moment, a tall woman landed on the roof, staring at Alex with a sharp glare. "The gravity dragon?" She growled.
Alex stared at her with a grin, "Now that's a fine woman, I can feel magic oozing from your body,"
"Leave the boy's body at one! You shall never come back, and peace will persist." She pointed a finger at him, her eyes turning into stars as five stars appeared on her forehead.
"The boy is decent," Alex smiled, "He's already resisting me, commendable. Humans are growing stronger," The purple glow faded from Alex's eyes, and he fell face first, gasping for air and crawling toward Emil, "Emil…wake up,"
The woman rushed toward them, "Don't move, I'll get you into the city at once. I knew something was up when the guards said bandits attacked a random house at the forest's edge,"
"Who are you? And who was that…" Alex growled, sitting between her and his sister, still on guard.
"I'm the headmaster of the kingdom's magic department. And that thing that took over your body was the gravity dragon, Arad Orion. The monster who lifted the islands we live in," She growled.
"Legends say that he'll drop them back to the monster-infested ground when revived. The cult chasing you and your sister wants to revive and control him, and they need your sister's mana as a power source. I want to completely erase him so he'll never come back." She briefly explained with a stern face. "We have to work together,"
CRACK! Alex fell face first, unconscious.