On the planet of Scribeterra, three things were true. Written words held power, the beasts of the land knew them well and those that didn't either adapted or died. Gruesomely.

Beasts that were able to adapt were quickly given a name— or greater classification by the magical scholars of the Written-Arcane.

They were called Nullifier-Beasts. Ultra rare monstrosities specifically evolved to tank the crushing magical weight of written magic in the wild.

Better yet— or worse, Untamned Written-Magics were exponentially stronger than those tamed by Mages— also known as Authors and Readers.

So naturally, Nullifier Ranked Beasts were both heavily sought after by Tamers and regarded as city-wide threats by just about everyone else.

It made the sight of the medium sized striped egg in the middle of the jungle greenery that much more breathtaking to behold.

It sat on a stone.

Right on top of a stone marked by a Wild-Rune. The strongest of written magics. Rare. Just as rare as the egg nullifying it's magic as it exploded from the rocks surface with wild warbling blasts of blue-green and yellow energies.

The egg had been there for an unknown amount of time. Long enough to be seated alone as a crater formed around the destructive runes Magic expulsion.

Atomized bones of dead beasts and bugs littered the sanded earth.

New rivers formed.

Gems unearthed by the blast glimmered under the sunlight- split by the jungle canopy, and charged under the runes magic aura, turning the crater into a sort of naturally occurring mine field.

For all intents and purposes, the egg was unapproachable.

Even if it was to the superstitious tribes of the jungles, they wouldn't dare.

But others would.

Others were the daring sort. And the plotting sort. Thirsting for the egg resting atop chaos incarnate

They'd been watching the egg from the trees for many solars and Lu are.

They were large. Only slightly shorter than man but visibly more heavy-set. Even through their thick silky and spotted fur, rippling muscle and rope-like veins were visible. They wore bone masks dotted with gems and painted with berries. They weilded spears and stone swords.

Shimmer-apes.

False Nullifier-Class Beasts— shown by the iridescent shimmer of their leopard-like coats. They'd learned to mix scribed berry juices and insect enzymes— tempering their skin and fur to become immune to the deadly magics of the wild. Like a shield of sorts.

They wanted to temper their fur with the embryonic juices of the egg flowing within, knowing it was magically charged by the super-powered rune it had been growing on. Their eyes glimmered with greed behind their bone masks.

Then the egg wobbled and cracked.

"OUH! OUH!" The alpha ape shouted and pointed with a thick black-nailed finger as they all looked down at the egg.

The rune beneath the egg spit another shockwave of magic. The crack in the egg steamed and glowed as the magic was absorbed within.

The apes could wait no longer.

The alpha grabbed one of his betas beside him and threw them from the trees.

The alpha watched intently as the ape screamed, falling into the crater a few dozen feet below.

The beta ape hit the ground with a yelp and thud, knocking up a small dust cloud before recovering warily.

Another pulse wave of magic hit.

The ape brought up its hands defensively, sliding across the bare ground as the magic rippled by.

The iridescent shimmer of its magic berry mixed slime-coating cracked.

But it remained.

"OUH! Ouhehehehe…." The ape grinned behind its bone mask and ran for the egg.

The apes above lunged.

The alpha slapped and screamed at them, huffing quietly as it pointed to the glowing gems in the ground.

They watched.

The running beta flipped and lunged around the naturally occurring dips and grooves in the ground. It's three fingered feet picked up speed until it hit a green glass-like stone hidden beneath a layer of dust.

The stone screamed with magical recoil. The ape was immediately reduced to ash in a blinding flash of light.

The apes still in the trees hooted and hollered in terror.

The egg cracked again.

It became a race against time.

The alpha had seen enough.

The apes descended. They hit the ground in unison, knocking away the dust and beginning their sprint. The bigger apes ran on all fours like furbound juggernauts. The smaller and more lean of them ran on two legs. The dumb ones didn't run. They landed on the gems and ended up like the last.

The egg continued to wobble and crack, revealing the rare glow inside as the creature within awakened.

The alpha ape's greed reached its apex as it flipped past the last glow-stone and landed right beside the egg.

The ape raised its stone sword, furry chest heaving as it took heavy breaths.

"ARRRRRNG!" The alpha swung its stone sword in a high speed blur.

The speed and strength behind the swing was so powerful it sheered the egg clean in two.

The alpha couldn't wait to bathe in the fluids and lifeblood.

Only to find there was none.

The alpha leaned over the egg.

Another magic wave hit from the rune beneath the egg. With the alpha so close, it split its mask in two, revealing the wide eyed ape as it looked into the egg.

"O—"

Before it could say anything, a dark shape pounced from the bottom of the egg and burrowed into the eye of the alpha.

"AHHHHHHH!!!" The alpha screamed and clawed at its face.

The other apes went wild, running past the frantic alpha to smash the egg in search of their unknown enemy. A few were knocked straight into the clear sky due to their defensive slime coating being too weak for the powerful written magic. The others continued their blind assault.

It didn't take long for them to realize the enemy was still with the screaming alpha.

By that time the large ape was already falling flat on his face.

Dead.

The closest ape took note of a slender shape slithering through the dust toward it.

The shape hit a glow-stone, catapulting off the magical blast to rise up and tear into the apes eye, repeating the process from before. Seemingly calculated in its vicious slaughter even at birth.

The apes were none the wiser as they fell, one by one.

In little time, all twelve apes were dead. Missing their eyes. Heads split open. Nostrils blown open.

They were brutalized.

The final ape's head fell to the side as it died. From its eye, a small green serpent with tiger stripes slithered out onto the cratered grounds.

The serpent-like creature yawned, revealing a bloodied budding row of teeth. Some were oddly humanoid in length.

The small jaws snapped shut and the creature blinked its eyes open for the first time.

Reptillian green orbs viewed the world. The brightness of the solar's rays. The shimmer of the dead apes coats. The ebb and flow of the magic flowing from the wild rune.

It was….. indescribable to the young creature.

But it had urges. Hunger.

It slithered towards the magically charged stones. With a throat and intestinal track slicked by Shimmer-ape fur, it was protected on the inside.

It opened its jaws wide and ate one of the smaller gems.

The item glowed as it was swallowed.

Magic pulsed through the serpent creature, rippling underneath its scales and sending shockwaves spinning through the cracks.

The creature sat, feeling for the beat of its newfound explosive-gem aura. Then, it moved, twisting and curling with every pulse.

It left the rare Wild-Rune marked stone in its wake, venturing out into the wild alone….. no more than a few instances of time old.

To many it would be unheard of.

But to the figure watching from the trees the apes once sat in, it was only natural.

It eyed the rune.

Eyes shifting and going black like the endless universe beyond as it interpreted the arcane markings meaning.

"Rune of Instincts... how….. fitting for a final survivor in the wild. Let's see how you grow little one."

The rune fizzled and faded like writings made of sand after it was correctly interpreted.

The figure in the trees followed the newborn terror with great interest.