Just my fucking luck
Needless to say, Eiran was fuming.
He'd gotten too excited, he thought he was nearing the finish line. The worst part is that he was right, except a desert storm stood in the way of said finish line.
It took Eiran every bit of constraint and self-preservation in his body to not curse out Caldran, the God of Storms, lest he be punished further.
Still, what's with that luck?
Not wanting to fall into a cycle of self-pity, Eiran once again checked the positions of his pursuers.
Shit
One of them was right on his trail.
…
In the depths of a cavernous labyrinth, three creatures of gigantic size carefully, yet quickly traverse the tunnels.
They were tracking a scent — and one of them was close.
Sensing how close its target was, the hunter began scurrying at breakneck speed. A monstrous being, over 2 meters tall, an amalgamation of muscles the colour of raw flesh, adorned with chitin plates around the skull, as well as the striking bronze armour that was quickly becoming a staple of children's, and even some adult's nightmares.
Yet, this hulking monster, moving at breakneck speed, pushing off rocks, clay, and gravel, was making minimal sound. This was an apex predator. Wherever you went, it would track you down, and when it went in for the kill, you wouldn't realise you'd been hunted until it was too late.
Even if you did realise, what could you possibly do? You are merely prey.
This was the situation that Eiran was currently in, he was helpless prey, sandwiched between the dangers of an approaching predator, as well as nature.
The hunter suddenly came to a stop. He observed the exit to the tunnel, which lead to a wide plain where there was currently a desert storm, and the scent of the prey was within that storm.
It couldn't have gotten far
Even with the scent slightly obscured by the torrential winds, it was confident that it could track down the prey, especially with some sandprints from when the prey had exited the cave still visible.
The creature studied the prints, imagining how pathetic its prey must have looked, limping while fighting off the cruel storm. Apart from some debris hitting the gaps in the chitin plates on his head, the creature did not have much reason to fear the storm as long as it avoided the strongest areas. Its mass was too great to get carried away, and most debris wouldn't be harmful to him.
With a sneer, it once again continued the hunt.
As the creature looked at the sandprints, it noted something that it found quite humorous.
Not far from the exit of the cave — the sandprints had actually stopped. Not only that, but there was actually a tiny mound there, and the scent trail ended at the exact location of the mound.
Halfway between a snicker and a snarl, a mocking and viscerally unpleasant sound came out its mouth.
It knew that these lifeforms were weak, but it had not imagined that they would be done in by a mere storm so quickly. It seems like its initial disdain for these humans was actually an overestimation, they weren't even worthy of its disdain.
Even if the human was tired from days of running without food or water, such an embarrassing death was truly too much.
The creature leaned over, preparing to unearth the humiliated corpse of its pray, truly it had been a waste of time hunting this creature, only for the hunt to have such an anti-climactic ending.
With a thunderous fist striking at the ground, the mound of sand exploded, revealing…
Clothes?
Clang
Suddenly the sound of a knife hitting Chitin could be heard.
After its initial surprise, the hunter was once again left disappointed, surely these prey weren't both weak and stupid? Of course its chitin plates could never be penetrated by mere steel.
Of course, this wasn't Erain's goal.
Still atop the back of the creature, which was busy gloating over the stupidity of its prey, Eiran's right hand was holding a blade that was firmly pressed on the neck plate of the hunter, his left hand was holding onto the relic. He chanted at an almost incomprehensible speed:
"O God of War, thou who wieldest flame and steel, enkindle now mine armament with fire, that it may mirror the fervent blaze that burneth deep within my soul."
The steel that was placed on the chitin plate began heating up, until a tiny hole began to form on the plate.
With the plate being an exoskeleton that lacked any nerve endings, the hunter was oblivious to the fact that a flaw had been created in the impenetrable body it was so proud of.
By the time the hunter had felt like it had basked in the idiocy of its prey for long enough, its cackling finally coming to a stop... it was too late.
BANG
Within that tiny hole that was created, exposing that pasty pink flesh, Eiran quickly drew his gun, which he had loaded beforehand, and fired a blue bullet.
The twisted smile on the creature's face froze. Not only did the initial impact of the bullet cleanly entering its body leave it shell shocked, there was a much more dangerous after effect.
The bullet Eiran used was special.
After a fair few battles against the Viritirii, the upper command of the army had noticed a peculiar detail. The effectiveness of the flame-booned armaments and bullets that their army boasted was far less effective than it should have been.
There were a number of theories that could have explained this phenomena, the most popular, and also the most terrifying one was to do with their god Mordreon. Just like The Flame Father, their god was real too and provided them boons. Not only that, the two god seemed to work in similar, if not the exact same domains.
The worst observation though, was the fact that their attunement to the their deity was at a much higher level than our attunement with the Flame Father.
It was mostly theory, and Eiran hoped that it wasn't true, but his interactions with Mordreon's relic over the past few days had shown him the grim reality.
Regardless, seeing this fact, an issue had been commanded, within the army's reserves, there was a stache of imported weapons, limited as they were. Amongst these, were armaments and munitions imported from Neptune, blessed by Selantha the Mirror Queen, Goddess of Peace, Love, Tranquility, Beauty, and Water, amongst some other things.
"She" was a natural enemy to the domains of War and Flame.
A soldier of Eiran's rank was only granted a single bullet, the blue bullet that he fired through the neck of his hunter.
Of course, the initial impact sent the creature reeling, but did not immediately kill it. It was only when the effects of the boon came in, did the creature suddenly feel its body turn cold, and then — it could feel no longer.
It died, just like that.
"Holy shit, it's actually dead."
Eiran had just killed a creature of the centurion rank.
He still remembered that glorious image of Estra piercing the heart of a centurion, an unprecedented event.
Granted, he did not beat this centurion in direct combat, but with tricks. Besides, unlike the one she had beaten, a hulking behemoth that existed for war, this centurion scout was more specialized in tracking and hunting.
But the biggest factor to his success — was luck.
He was lucky that everything had gone according to plan, he was lucky that the hunter had looked down on him so much, he was lucky that his understanding of an exoskeleton applied to this alien species, he was lucky that The Flame Father's magic worked on the relic.
He wouldn't make a habit of fighting these creatures, since very rarely does a plan go through without a hitch like it did here.
That being said, it's not like Eiran wasn't still extremely proud of his accomplishments.
Careful not to make the same mistake his victim had made, Eiran stopped his gloating and began moving.
There was no way he could go back to the tunnel, and the raging storm was currently too dangerous for him to traverse.
He tried dragging the carcass of the centurion but it ended up being too heavy.
So he strained his body and with great effort dragged it out of its armor. Then, he slowly placed the armor at an angle where it was leaning on his back, almost being crushed by its weight, he slowly dragged it up an incline while it protected him from debris.
After the slight incline, there was a hill, a ginormous slope that goes down further than the eye could see. And at the bottom was his goal. Argyre Basin, Aethra's Reach.
He put the giant armour down at the top of the hill, entered it —
And he rolled down…