Sanguine Paradise

Chapter 67: [Day 24] – “The Reavers”

Day 24

Sudden exclamations of surprise began sounded out from the various different motley groups of monsters as the slight rumble of a mechanism softly sook the earth beneath.

You could even see the sand grains that speckled the dry earth beneath our soles begin to vibrate and shift unceasingly. From within the hole occupying the fighting ground's center, the ominous sounds of wooden boards creaking and heavy metal chains being moved about bled out into everybody's ears and caused obvious apprehension on the faces of everybody.

But that wasn't half as ominous as the sounds that soon followed. Like a beast awakening, the shrill screech of something most definitely large and very much dangerous assaulted everybody's eardrums.

As if causing a chain reaction, similar screeches accompanied the first one only mere seconds after. This caused almost all the monsters gathered in the fighting grounds to take multiple steps back in instinctive fear at whatever monstrous creatures were making those predatory noises.

Looking around, I noticed that the faces of the orcs and monsters gathered were now completely void of their previously battle-hungry and courageous expressions. Deep within their eyes, I saw only the glimmer of despair and the distinct realization that their deaths were inexorable.

That look was only something I had seen reflected in the eyes of creatures whose lives I had taken only moments before delivering their deaths. But what the hell where these 'reavers' to be able to strike such fear and despair in even an orc's unshakeable determination and grit.

While I was apparently the only one not recognizing these creatures for what they were, literally every single other soul here that I could see had the same looks of having yourself sentenced to a premature and untimely death.

I have to wonder much about what they were though, as the quarry of my uncertainty and suspicions entered my sight. Raised upon a large and wooden platform that fit the hole's entire width and length, were the most predatory and savage-looking creatures that I had ever laid my eyes upon.

These beasts were like none I've ever known before. Their heads reminded me starkly of that of a pterodactyl triangular and vertically disk-shaped heads, simply much less elongated and more triangular in shape.

But there was one quality that their heads possessed, which were the flat and horizontal extremities protruding just behind their eyes on each side of their heads, uncannily just like hammerhead sharks.

While their eyes weren't placed directly on the extremities themselves like hammerhead sharks, they had instead short and thick jet-black horns on each of the two extremity's edges, making four horns in total.

Looking down the curving snout of the beasts, you eventually met the absolutely horrifying curved lines of ragged teeth riddling their mouths. They had not one, not two, but three rows of deadly sharp teeth lining both top and lower part of its mouth.

Unlike human teeth, these were made for only the shredding of flesh and muscle. Drawing my attention to their bodies, they were tinted in a deep and dark-green coloration that seemed perfectly suited for blending in with the vegetation of lush forests and jungles.

Their bodies could simply be described like that of a raptor's bipedal form, with hulking thigh muscles that stretched down to springy legs and long taloned claws. It was clear they were made for rip and tear.

Everything from their heads down could be considered a raptor, except for one thing, the tail. Instead of simply having a thick chunk of muscle and tissue stretching out into a thin point behind them, like any normal raptor, these beasts had tails that turned into flat and serrated blades.

When taking stock of these absolutely prime predators, I could easily see that their entire bodies were the perfect weapons for killing, hunting, stalking, and utterly savaging their prey.

Their deadly looks only became even more horrifying as you took their sizes into consideration. Occupying more than the mass of at least ten fully grown orcs and reaching the height of three to four meters when standing up on their hind legs. They simply were massive monsters of unquestionable brutality.

Though, one odd thing that I had noticed about these dinosaur-like apex predators, where that their eyesockets had seemingly been carved out and replaced with the tell-tale metal clumps of greenskin make.

They were blind?

Having to do a mental effort just to shake myself from the stupor that had taken over my mind upon seeing what these sick-minded greenskins wanted me to fight, I finally managed to get shit together and pull up their statuses.

-Appraisal!-

[Appraisal: Reaver]

Name: "???"

Race: Reaver

Sex: Female

Rank: D-

Level: 22/50

Health: 1228/1228

Stamina: 816/820

Mana: 0/0

[Attributes]

STR - 73

VIT - ???

AGI - ???

DEX - ???

INT - ???

CHR - ???

WILL - ???

MAG - ???

[Trait, Titles, and Skills].

Skills - ???

Traits - ???

Titles - ???

[Resistances]

Phy. Resistance - ???

Mag. Resistance - ???

Men. Resistance - ???

Swallowing the large lump that had formed in my throat, I stiffly dismiss the window. Okay... -calm down now...

...

I'm so screwed, aren't I...

...

While we heavily outnumbered these apex predators, as we were 300 in number and they were only a measly 4 in total, I heavily doubted our odds of surviving, let alone killing even one.

Now looking at the shoddy-state of the weapons grasped tightly within the hands of everybody, I could only stare at them in grim humor as now the idea of "being gracious enough to not let us go in empty-handed" seemed like nothing more than a sick joke.

***

Although what seemed to be a very long time period of thought processing and thinking, there had actually only passed a few moments since I first laid eyes on the reavers.

This was due to my mental processes and thinking has become much faster and smoother as the large increases of mental stats like 'will' and 'intellect' did wonders to improve my mental capabilities.

By now, the four reavers had already risen to their full heights but were still staying put on the wooden platform that had hoisted them up. They were constantly twitching and turning their heads in all directions as if searching for prey.

But seeing as they currently were utterly blind, coupled with the fact that their hearing was also being blasted by roars of the endless sea of greenskins spectators, no wonder their senses seemed to be overwhelmed.

With the sight-impaired and hearing useless, that left only one sense they could use to locate prey.

The sense of smell...

With the sudden emergence of a wicked idea in my head, I decided to take the initiative seeing as all the other groups were still too petrified to even dare make any sounds or movements. Even though the crowds seemed to have incapacitated the beasts hearing, they simply were too afraid to either notice or even try.

Only a moment later, the whistling sound of something buzzing through the air cut through all noise and invaded the ears of everyone.

Derma

Why...

Why did it have to end like this?

After all, I've gone through, the killing, the enslavement, the beatings, the.... other things.... am I really going to die just like this?

Setting out on the journey of adventure with my big brother and his friends had started all this...

"Beastkin are only as strong as their pack", that's what our father always told us. But we thought that the motley crew of us twelve adventure-hungry youngsters were more than powerful enough, so we simply turned a deaf ear to the warnings and pleading of our fellow kinsmen, and left the pack anyways...

Oh- how so wrong we were...

We had only traveled a few weeks into the wastelands before our group began falling like flies First, Minas, due to him foolishly thinking a hob was dead after we exterminated its party.

But before he had even realized that it was playing dead, he had found himself with a dagger in his back, tearing directly into his heart. That was when the others began steadily dropping after that.

Wounds, diseases, ambushes, one by one they all died until it was only four of us left. Me, my brother, his mate, and Fela, one of my last friends alive. We were the only remaining beastkin of our party.

By then, we had already turned back and attempted to leave the wastelands. But as wounds and fatigue accumulated, we realized that we were stranded in these blasted lands.

As we thought things couldn't get worse, they arrived.

We were once again attacked, but this time it was by a large warband of orcs. In our wounded and fatigued states, we didn't stand a chance. I believed that my life was going to end right then and there... I was wrong.

With the sick imaginations and wicked nature of orcs, they restrained my brother to watch while each orc of the 25-man strong warband took me, his sister, Fela my friend, and lastly, his mate.

One by one.

When they were finished with us and after brutally torturing my brother until he eventually succumbed to death, they took the three of us with them. Endless nights of beatings and **** followed suit until they sold us off as slaves to a merchant gremlin.

Which simply repeated the same cycle a few times more, but I didn't break, even when the others were split from me as we were sold to other buyers. Through all, I persevered, only one thought helping me through this eternal nightmare of suffering - I was not going to die a slave!

-Or that was what I had thought until this very moment...

To think my latest buyer simply bought me to immediately throw me to my death as fodder for some sick entertainment of more of these blasted greenskins. They had actually put me inside a pit to fight against fucking reavers!? Or suppose not to fight actually, seeing as you could only die against such incarnations of death...

Seeing the beasts of carnage and doom themselves in front of me, I could only stare in petrified horror as my body wouldn't listen to my brain. I only regained the ability to think clearly and move my body once again when the swooshing sound of something tearing through the air accompanied by the sudden loud thump and slush of flesh being torn apart entered my ears directly behind me.

At that moment, the world turned white and black, with time crawling almost to a halt. Every single of the four reavers had suddenly snapped and turned their heads directly towards the direction of the sound, which inadvertently was our group.

Looking towards what had sentenced us all to slaughter, I see an orc gurgling on blood as a broken halberd had seemingly blown open his chest...

With the deep and dark premonition that crept down my spine, I saw the nostrils of the reavers begin to rapidly contract and expand. Mere seconds later, their powerful hind-muscles flexed as they exploded into a blindingly fast charge.

It's was over...