I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 439: Magical Beasts, Potion Recipes, and Knights

The Volcano Forest

One year earlier, in a swamp along the eastern reaches of the Volcano Forest, Anu, as chief, was leading the Lizard People in the hunt for mutant beasts, slaying them as offerings for the Feathered Serpent God.

On this day he had just brought down a mutant scaly beast when a sound reached him from the distant sky. Something was letting out a long, piercing shriek, so sharp it seemed to tear the very air apart.

Screech~

Every Lizard Person turned toward the source of the sound.

It was a mutant beast unlike any other, and the commotion it stirred surpassed that of every mutant beast the Lizard People had ever seen. It soared through the sky on vast, outstretched wings, and a single cry from it sent the beasts of swamp and jungle fleeing in panicked droves. The Lizard People had chased its silhouette all this way, watching it circle overhead on those strange, madly beating wings of flesh.

Anu lifted his head to the sky, and alarm rose in his eyes as he watched it soar.

A monster wheeling in the sky like this had, in a single instant, called back a nightmare carved deep into the memory of every Snake Person.

The Wing Demons.

At the dawn of the era, those creatures had been the natural predators of the Snake People. Because of them, the Snake People had once not dared to leave the City of Life and the Mountain of Lifeʼs Origin, had not dared to build villages or cities beyond their shelter.
”Whatʼs that thing? Some kind of mutant beast?” They had seen mutant beasts before, but this was the first time any of them had seen one that could fly.

”Wait, is that a lizard?” one of them ventured, picking the creatureʼs original shape out of the few features they could still make out.

”Since when can a lizard fly?” The so-called flying lizards the Lizard People knew could do no more than glide between the branches and leaves of the jungle. One that truly rose into the sky and the sea of clouds was a thing they had never even heard of.

Then the mutant beast loosed that strange sound again from on high, and this time they witnessed for themselves how terrible, how singular, this ”lizard” truly was. It plunged from above, and with one gaping breath sucked away every trace of air around it. Every animal within that region suffocated on the spot. Then it climbed skyward and spat the air back out, slamming it into the ground like an air cannon, with a sound like an explosion.

Great trees snapped layer upon layer, branches and leaves went tumbling, and the shockwave swept across the land. This time there was no mere alarm on Anuʼs face. He stood dumbstruck, and the words escaped him. ”That thing is no lizard. Not any longer.”

”That is a dragon.” Few beings ever earned the name of dragon on the tongues of the Snake People. Most beasts they spoke of ended simply in beast or lizard.

The most emblematic of those that did was the Land Dragon. Legend held that when the Life Sovereign came down into the mortal world, the ancestors of that dragon had the honor of serving, briefly, as the Divine Beingʼs mount. And so other creatures, even those that resembled the Land Dragon, even those of formidable fighting strength, were rarely granted the name of dragon.

A pity, then, that this flying mutant beast was so plainly mad. It killed in a frenzy and crashed about in every direction, not to feed, but only to vent the raging turmoil in its heart.

The Lizard People hunted its trail far and wide. They even found its old lair, found the leftover roots of the Potion Plant it had devoured, and laid their traps. But the beast no longer remembered where its own nest was. It was nothing now but a creature gone mad, and so the traps of the Lizard People came to nothing at all.

A long time passed, and still the Lizard People could not bring down this mutant beast careening through the skies. It was not that they could not defeat it. The trouble was that it could fly, and fly remarkably fast at that.

In the end, the Lizard People could only drive and lure it toward the Lava Mountain, and watch as that dreadful black smoke swallowed it whole. Yet at the final moment, watching the flying beast plunge into the black clouds and vanish for good, Anu still felt a sharp pang of regret.

”A waste. After all it took to grow a pair of wings that could truly fly, and now, just like that, they are gone.”

In his bed, the Lizard Person Anu opened his eyes. He rubbed his head, rose, and sat at the edge of the bed, turning those old scenes over in his mind. ”A mutant beast that could fly!” Even now, he could not put that flying mutant beast out of his thoughts.

The residence of the Lord of the Volcano and captain of the Palace Guard was busy that morning. People came and went, yet every Lizard Person hurried in the same direction.

Today Anu had not gone to drill the Palace Guard Corps, nor to accompany His Majesty the King on his rounds of inspection, nor to stand watch in the royal palace. He was at home, gathered with a crowd of Lizard People around a great ceramic vat, watching the plant inside it with anxious care.

A ritual array was traced across the surface of the vat. The patterns on its walls were gold, the soil within was red, and the plant itself was brown. It was a Potion Plant cultivated from a fruit of the Brown Ball Vine, and the silver fruit it had already borne shed an extraordinary spiritual light.

Upon that fruit, one could faintly make out the pale pattern of animal scales, as though the traits of plant and beast alike had found their expression there. It was a wondrous thing.

”This one really is different,” one Lizard Person said, leaning in for a sniff.

”Smells purer, somehow,” another said, copying him, though in truth no nose could pick up any such thing. It was pure feeling.

”Grown from his own divine blood, then taken by his own hand. No way it backlashes on him.” The other Lizard People knew Anuʼs thinking well. This experiment was not his alone. Everyone present had a part in it.

”I wouldnʼt count on it being that simple. Get a use or two out of it and weʼre already lucky. Lean on it too often and somethingʼs bound to go wrong,” said one Lizard Person who hung back from the rest, arms folded across his chest, watching it all without a flicker of worry.

”Thatʼs why the Chief means to try it on a beast first. If something goes wrong, itʼs the beast that pays for it, not his own body,” someone said, giving voice to Anuʼs next step.

”The Chief says the mutated beast becomes his way to advance, the same as the Book of the Witch Spirit and the Lamp of Covenant. But if it fails, that much divine blood is just thrown away for nothing.”

In truth, it would not be wasted entirely. At the very least, it would yield one mutant beast under their control. But if the two could not complement and combine with each other in the end, could not become a whole new and fully fledged extraordinary profession, the price would far outweigh the gain.

To cultivate this singular potion, Anu had paid no small cost. To some degree, he had wagered his own future upon it. In the beginning he had forced its ripening with other materials, and only when he judged the technique mature had he begun to use his own divine blood.

His own strength had weakened considerably for it. More dreadful still, it had eaten into his potential.

”Itʼs ready.” ”Itʼs ripe.” Anu had been watching intently all the while, down to the last moment, when the ripe fruit would come free of its stem.

He stretched out a hand beneath the fruit, expectation surging in his eyes. In that moment the silver fruit burst into brilliant radiance, releasing an enticing fragrance as it dropped into Anuʼs waiting palm. At once the others pressed in around him. Even the calmest Lizard Person among them let his folded arms fall loose without realizing it.

This was a seed forged from Kurmisʼs power, his spirituality, and his Seal Imprints, a fruit watered drop by drop with Anuʼs own divine blood. It was pure, exceedingly pure. Though of course, that purity held true for Anu alone.

Only in the hands of the Lizard Person Anu would this potion carry none of the usual side effects and backlash. To anyone else, it was no better than poison.

Cradling the fruit, Anu turned and made for another room, the whole crowd trailing after him in a grand procession. He urged them on. ”Bring it in here.”

Two Snake People slaves carried an iron cage out from a corner. Inside, a strange animal was tethered, beating against the bars again and again and letting out shrill cries.

The slaves set the cage down in the center of the room, then quickly withdrew.

It was a Swamp Flying Lizard, a little over half a meter long, with four slender legs and a broad membrane of flesh growing from its ribs that let it glide briefly through the jungle. Anu meant to feed the potion he had cultivated to this lizard, prepared long in advance for exactly this. Different potions and different beasts, joined together, would naturally cultivate different mutant beasts in the end.

In the past, Anu had led hunt after hunt against beasts driven mad by devouring potions. Each time, he had recorded the breed of the beast, the kind of potion it had eaten, and the form and abilities it had taken on after its mutation.

Even then, Anu had paid close attention to these mutant beasts. He had simply never imagined that one day he would truly put that knowledge to use. He took out his notebook, the very one in which he had recorded the mutant beasts, its pages now dense with newly added notes. At their head stood a single line, ”Pair the fruit of the Magic Ball Vine with a Swamp Flying Lizard, and one can create a mutant beast capable of flight.”

That was it exactly. That was the original form of the flying mutant beast Anu had seen back then. An adult Swamp Flying Lizard had eaten the fruit of the Magic Ball Vine, a Potion Plant, and had been transformed into that terrible shape.

And now, Anu meant to bring that flying, extraordinary creature back into the world. Not only for his attempt at a new extraordinary profession, and not only to fulfill a dream of his own, but to prepare for the retraining of the Palace Guard Corps that lay ahead.

If Anu succeeded, then this method, creating a particular mutant beast through a recipe and then bringing it under control, could become a legacy, one that could be repeated, and one fit to stand as the core of their strength.

In any age, the power of flight was a mighty thing, and troops who could take to the skies were often a force that could turn the tide of battle.

And so the Lizard People hauled the Swamp Flying Lizard out and fastened it upon a ritual array, then raised a barrier to imprison it.

Faced with this crowd of burly Lizard People, the Swamp Flying Lizard cried out in terror again and again, powerless to resist. The brawny Lizard People gathered around the pitiful creature, rubbing their hands in anticipation.

”Itʼs starting,” one of them murmured.

”Itʼs starting.”

”Itʼs starting!”

”Chief Anu, come on, do it already!”

”Is it really going to fly? Just like the one we saw?” The Lizard People could hardly wait. The memory of that singular mutant beast was still fresh in their minds.

Anu stepped forward and knelt upon the ground. Only after offering a prayer to the Feathered Serpent Kurmis did he feed the fruit of the Magic Ball Vine to the Swamp Flying Lizard.

At first the Swamp Flying Lizard refused to eat. But once the fruitʼs fragrance reached it, it could hold back no longer and swallowed the fruit in a single gulp. At once, it began to writhe and roll within the ritual barrier.

Its body swelled without pause, from half a meter to one meter, then to three, and still it kept growing. Its head slowly began to glow, a crystal gradually taking form within its skull.

And amid all this growth and mutation, the Swamp Flying Lizardʼs very shape was changing.

Its forelegs began to fuse into the membrane of flesh, then slowly withered away until only a single claw remained upon the membrane. Its hind legs shortened as well, taking on, little by little, a form made for flight.

The membrane itself grew and grew, until at last it became a pair of enormous wings. Its snout stretched long, and its interlocking teeth turned as keen as blades.

Bit by bit, it was becoming the very shape Anu and the other Lizard People had once seen with their own eyes. But by now the mutated Swamp Flying Lizard was slipping into madness, straining to attack the Lizard People around it.

Its eyes began to redden as a chaotic consciousness took shape within its mind. The reason was plain. The potion had been cultivated from Anuʼs blood, not from the lizardʼs own.

Even though the power granted through the Feathered Serpentʼs Authority of Spirituality and the workings of the Seal Imprints had given it the Power of Ability, it was still an ordinary beast. It could not withstand the backlash of the divine blood, still less the will of Anu lingering within that blood.

At last Anu stepped forward, entered the barrier, and pressed the creature down. He extended his spirit and his will into the mutated Swamp Flying Lizardʼs body. Through the Power of Rituals, the fluctuations of their mental power resonated with one another until the two settled into a single frequency, as though they were one whole. The divine blood of Wisdom fused into the mutated lizardʼs body grew calm, little by little, as if it had flowed back into Anuʼs own veins.

Quiet returned by degrees to the mutated Swamp Flying Lizardʼs eyes, and the crystal in its mind was stamped with Anuʼs mental imprint. Upon Anuʼs body, in turn, there appeared a mark like a totem, as though the Swamp Flying Lizardʼs power now coursed through him as well. Anu opened his eyes and looked at the mutated Swamp Flying Lizard.

By now the creatureʼs frame had far outgrown any Lizard Person. Even Anu, tall as he was, had to lift his head to look up at it. Yet the mutated Swamp Flying Lizard had grown gentler than before. It showed not the slightest wish to resist him. It only watched him, quietly. The other Lizard People closed in around them, watching Anu stroke the beastʼs wing of flesh.

”It really is a mutant beast we can control now!” one of them marveled.

”Chief, what does it feel like?”

”It hasnʼt gone mad. Looks like it actually worked!”

Joy showed on every face. They had successfully created the mutated Swamp Flying Lizard, and proven that the method could be repeated. But Anu went on stroking the creature, and told the others in an easy voice. ”It is no mutant beast. It is a magical beast. The magical beast, Wind Lizard Dragon.”

The Lizard People glanced at one another and repeated the words. ”A magical beast?” ”The magical beast, Wind Lizard Dragon?” They had always called such creatures mutant beasts. In their eyes, these things had never been more than failed products, existences fit only to serve as sacrifices.

But now Anu had given it a wholly new name, and with that name it stepped, once and for all, onto the stage of history.

The fruit of the Magic Ball Vine plus a Swamp Flying Lizard equals a Wind Lizard Dragon. Crude though it was, this was perhaps the earliest secret recipe for the cultivation of magical beasts. The other Lizard People still had questions to ask, but Anu had already swung himself onto the Wind Lizard Dragonʼs back.

The magical beast responded at once. The scaled armor of its hide began to grow, spreading up and over Anu until the two of them were joined completely. In that moment, Anu might as well have been grown into the Wind Lizard Dragonʼs back.

Anu could feel his bloodline joined with the Wind Lizard Dragonʼs. The scale armor sheathing his body like a suit of plate had none of the chafing discomfort of true heavy armor. It felt utterly natural, as though it had always been meant to grow upon him.

A thought stirred in Anuʼs mind, and without a single word spoken, the Wind Lizard Dragon beneath him moved. Its enormous wings spread open, little by little, driving the surrounding Lizard People back in rings.

Whoosh!

Then the Wind Lizard Dragon beat its wings wide and shot from the residence of the Lord of the Volcano like a fleeting shadow.

It flew for the sky, charging toward the sea of clouds. Every Lizard Person chased after it, watching from the earth below as that vast silhouette soared through the heavens, each face wearing a different expression.

”The Wind Lizard Dragon.”

”A magical beast. The Chief even had a name waiting for it.”

”This new profession the Chief keeps talking about, can it really be done?”

Above the city, Anu swept past at speed, drawing the gaze of crowds in the streets below.

”Look, up there! Somethingʼs flying!”

”A Wing Demon?”

Wind tore down the streets, snatching the hats from more than a few heads. Anu pulled up sharply, and the Wind Lizard Dragon surged toward the sea of clouds, rolling its body as it drilled into the white depths.

”I am flying. Flying, up through the open sky!” Riding the Wind Lizard Dragon into the heavens, the Lizard Person Anu could scarcely hold back the emotion surging through him.

All the while, he was trying to feel out and wield the magical beastʼs power. He had formed no contract with it. He did not need one at all, because he and his mount were of one blood, the two of them like a single being.

The magical beast was, in truth, another hand extended from Anuʼs own body. A whole new organ.

Their strength could even join together in perfect union, to cast a single Divine Technique as one, or to lay the same Divine Technique upon rider and mount alike.

The armor now sheathing Anuʼs body, for one, counted as a First-Rank Divine Technique. Anu closed his hand into a fist, and suddenly felt his stamina and strength swell far beyond their usual measure.

”Defense, stamina, strength, every last one of them heightened.” In such a state, his recovery must be heightened as well, far beyond that of any ordinary person.

With a weapon in hand, Anu felt he would dare, in this very moment, to grapple with a Wing Demon head-on. Then he remembered the power of that Wind Lizard Dragon of long ago, and at once he closed his eyes. He pictured himself and his Wind Lizard Dragon merging into one, and poured his mental power fully into the crystal within the beastʼs skull.

All at once, the Wind Lizard Dragon let out a sound that tore the air apart.

Screech~

The cry was shrill and hoarse, and with it, the air all around was sucked empty.

Boom!

Anu guided the Wind Lizard Dragon as it released the pent-up air, an air cannon that blasted a vast hollow through the sea of clouds.

”That alone was a Second-Rank innate Divine Technique. In this knightly union, the Wind Lizard Dragon and I can fuse our strength as one, and drive our Divine Techniques to greater power still.”

”In time, we may even advance together, the two of us, and cultivate one and the same Seal Imprint.”

To Anuʼs mind, this was already a wholly new extraordinary profession, the very one he had been envisioning all along, a power belonging to the Lizard People and to those beneath the Feathered Serpent Kurmis. And now Anu followed the hollow his air cannon had blasted open, and rose up out of the cloud layer.

He came out above the sea of clouds. Light poured down upon Anu and the Wind Lizard Dragon from ten thousand miles of shining cloud, dazzling him until his head swam. But with the endless clouds spread beneath him and the whole world laid bare before his eyes, a boundless pride swelled in Anuʼs chest. At last a confident smile broke across his face, and he burst into hearty laughter. ”I am Anu, the Magical Beast Knight! Anu, the Beast Knight!”

”The first Beast Knight this world has ever seen. The first being ever to command a magical beast!”

He had always felt himself unworthy to be chief of the Lizard People, unworthy of the trust Kurmis placed in him. The chiefʼs seat and Kurmisʼs hopes had pressed down upon him like a great weight.

But here and now, he suddenly felt that he might be capable of things beyond the reach of ordinary men. That he could allow himself to believe he would become someone extraordinary. Someone of use.

Then Anu turned the Wind Lizard Dragon down out of the sky and flew back to the City of Fire Protection. By now the city was in no small uproar, and many eyes had found him and the Wind Lizard Dragon. He made straight for the training grounds of the Palace Guard Corps, where every soldier of the corps stared in shock at Anu and the beast beneath him.

In an instant, the whole training ground erupted.

”Itʼs a flying monster!”

”What is that thing?”

”Itʼs the Captain! He rode it right down out of the sky!”

But Anu offered no explanation, because the Kingʼs command soon reached the training grounds. ”Anu, Lord of the Volcano, captain of the Palace Guard Corps. The King commands that you bring your mount and come before him.”

Anu brought the Wind Lizard Dragon to the royal palace, and came before King Morabi.

Anu made no attempt to conceal anything. He still hoped to borrow the strength of Suinhor, the strength of King Morabi, to create more Beast Knights for the Lizard People.

To forge the Palace Guard Corps into a corps of Beast Knights, a force such as the world had never seen.

And that was only the beginning. Beyond it, he hoped to lean on the Kingʼs strength to help him explore the complete system of the Beast Knight, to create more kinds of magical beasts, and to shape the Divine Techniques that would belong to the Beast Knights alone.

The strength and resources all this would devour were beyond imagining, far more than one small village of Lizard People could ever supply. At this moment, he and King Morabi truly needed each other.

The magical beast Wind Lizard Dragon crouched low before the palace as the Lizard Person Anu came before King Morabi and bowed to him. ”My King.”

King Morabiʼs gaze lingered on the Wind Lizard Dragonʼs massive frame. ”This is your mount?”

Anu told him, ”It is called the Wind Lizard Dragon. A magical beast I made by borrowing the power of Lord Kurmis.”

Only then did Morabi draw his eyes back from the creature, murmuring in spite of himself, ”It holds extraordinary power?”

Anu nodded. ”It can wield the power of Divine Techniques. And it is steadier than any contracted monster, and far more willing to obey.”

”With it I mean to remake the Palace Guard Corps, to forge a corps of Beast Knights that will hold the skies. A force to protect you, and to protect this nation.”

King Morabi was utterly stunned. ”You are saying that you can make more of these...” He paused, reaching back for the word Anu had used. ”...more of these magical beasts?”

A single beast holding extraordinary power was one thing. A corps of Beast Knights that could be produced again and again, a wholly new extraordinary profession, was another thing entirely. Between the two lay the difference of heaven and earth.

Anu answered him in earnest, ”Of course, King Morabi.”

”I can make it again. I can raise more Beast Knights to ride such magical beasts, and turn this corps into a force that upholds you, and upholds all that you design. But none of this can be done without your help, King Morabi.”

Morabi stepped forward, drawing near the Wind Lizard Dragon.

The guards at his side moved at once to stop him, but King Morabi pressed on and laid his hand upon the fearsome, savage-looking magical beast. It seemed to be his way of showing his trust in Anu. Though in truth, even straining with all its might, this Second-Rank Wind Lizard Dragon could not have torn through the incantations woven into King Morabiʼs robes with a single strike.

King Morabi studied the Wind Lizard Dragonʼs ferocious features closely. It was not hard to imagine what terrible power the creature could unleash. ”And what manner of extraordinary power does it hold? These Beast Knights you speak of, what manner of beings are they?”

Anu kept the heart of the secret to himself, but whatever already lay in plain sight for any eye to see, he made no attempt to hide. King Morabi nodded again and again as he listened. ”Very good. Truly, very good.”

Magical beasts that could fly and wield extraordinary power. If a corps held even a dozen or more of them, that alone would be a formidable force. And if it truly proved to be as Anu said, this new extraordinary profession and its power might, in some measure, reshape the entire continent.

King Morabi looked at Anu and broke into great laughter. ”You have surpassed my every expectation, Anu, my Lord of the Volcano, my captain of the Guard.”

”You are no ordinary man. You are destined to become a name that men will remember.”

But when the words were finished, King Morabi fixed Anu with an unmoving stare. ”One thing only, then. Why have you and your Lord Kurmis chosen to stand behind me?”

This time Anu met King Morabiʼs gaze, and spoke with utter sincerity. ”Because you are doing what no one before you has done. You turn no one away, not the Witch Spirits, not the Contract Lawyers, not the Tower Keepers. You are willing to meet the future with open eyes and a far-reaching gaze.”

”If you can take them in, why not us?”

”If, under your hand, this nation can hold room for all things, then I will give all that I have to stand behind you.”

King Morabi said nothing. He only smiled.

Something in Anuʼs words seemed to have settled in King Morabi. Step by step, he crossed the threshold of the great doors and walked into the palace hall. The hall was empty. He walked quietly up to the throne, and there he did not sit, but turned his head and looked back down at the hall below. Anu had followed him inside, and stood within the hall.

After a long moment, at last, the King spoke. ”Anu! It is not my vision that reaches far. It is King Osis whose vision reaches far. It was the Divine Being who saw the future that destiny had already decreed.”

”Were I not the one to do it, another would. And even if no one did at all, this world would still march on toward the future it is fated for.”

”Just as the Divine Blessed Kings came to their end, just as the Age of Gods dawned, just as the Black Storm scattered and blew away.”

At the last, he looked at Anu. ”And just as you, and the birth of your Beast Knights.”

”Many things are fated to arise in this world. Many changes are fated to come. And no one can stand in their way.”

”King Osis knows this as well. He knows that nothing can halt it, and everything he has done, he has done in the hope that the future might come more gently, that all he wishes to preserve might be kept safe. He and I both act only to discharge our duty, to pour every last measure of our strength into the work each of us must see finished. We are none of us more than roles within history, each shouldering a different duty, a different calling.”

This exchange with Anu seemed at last to have given him the confidence to press on, however great the resistance he might yet face. And as Anu looked at the man before him, he could not say why, but behind the King he glimpsed the shadow of another figure. King Osis. Anuʼs mind wavered for an instant, and the shadow was gone.

Yet Anu did not believe he had glimpsed a mere illusion. He had seen something that belonged to another plane. ”Can a personʼs will and ideals truly be handed down, the way a bloodline is?”

The thought surfaced suddenly in Anuʼs heart, and in the very instant it rose, he seemed to feel another shadow standing behind him as well. It was the figure of the Feathered Serpent Kurmis.

He himself was no different, after all, carrying on the will and the vision of the Feathered Serpent Kurmis. That was the very reason he had come to the City of Fire Protection, the reason he stood here now.