The Dawn of the New World

It looked...happy? It was taking pleasure not from devouring Tasgall but from the reaction Hao Xuan had from watching it all unfold right in front of his eyes. It wanted to see his face as it devoured his friend.

"Haha...hahahahaha! So that's how it is!" a burst of roaring laughter echoed throughout the entire hall.

It was so loud that the other barbarians that were still a hundred or so meters away could hear it as clear as day. Even the Nightmare Hounds distanced themselves from him due to the sudden change in his behavior.

"I get it, I get it now. I was too boring to watch, so you needed some new entertainment, didn't you?" he shouted looking at the avian beast.

"It was a trap all along wasn't it? You motherFUCKERS, all of you, you knew about us from the beginning. You were just watching to see what would happen, weren't you? From the start, it was all doomed to fail...doomed to fail...huh"

He looked to the far right, towards the humanoid ether beast that was still sitting in its corner. From afar it looked like a tree because of its crusty skin and obvious wooden textures all along its body.

It was awake and looking in Hao Xuan's direction as well. And it was...smiling!

Hao Xuan considered them nothing more than dumb animals that were incapable of having complex thoughts but how would they reach such a level if they couldn't even think for themselves?

"You...understand, me?" Hao Xuan mouthed the words in a daze.

The humanoid beast did not answer. Its blackened pupils only stared back at him with a discernable light of understanding that only an intelligent creature could have.

"So....I was right.." he mumbled to himself.

Hao Xuan craned his neck to look in the various directions for the silhouettes of the other Ether beasts that were fighting amongst themselves moments ago. All of them were now standing still, relaxed as they could be, watching Hao Xuan.

*Flop*

Something hit Hao Xuan in the back. He turned around and saw the bloody chewed-up remains of Tasgall. It was a little more than a rolled ball of flesh with bones coming out of it, but half of his face was still intact.

His eyes were open, colored in with an expression of disbelief.

Hao Xuan slowly raised his head to look towards the avian creature. Its beak hung open, arching to the sides to create perhaps the most horrific smile anyone could ever witness.

It gestured towards the ball of flesh at Hao Xuan's feet as if to say, "Here, you can have it back."

So much was going through Hao Xuan's mind that he zoned out for a moment. All the noise died down, replaced by his own quickening heartbeat.

Hao Xuan felt the ground shake beneath his feet. He turned towards the source of the commotion and saw the humanoid ether beast standing up.

It raised its right arm towards the front. It looked like it was covered in a thorny bark-like skin. When it saw Hao Xuan peering towards him it gestured towards the directions it was pointing.

Hao Xuan looked and saw the rest of the barbarians slowly creep out from behind the rows of combating beasts.

Burak saw Hao Xuan standing out in the open and waved at him, signaling for him to wait there.

"No don't come he-"

Before Hao Xuan could even finish the sentence, the very ground they were running on broke apart as dozens of large razor-sharp wooden spikes shot up into the air, impaling the whole lot where they stood.

Other than Burak and Jarek there was nobody left alive.

Jarek survived because in the end, it was a parasitic creature that was inhabiting his body and it could not be killed by normal means.

And Burak survived because of his extremely durable body but at the end that was all he could manage, to barely hang on. Just like the others his entire lower body looked like a pin doll due to the numerous spikes going through them.

He was hanging in the air, being held by the spikes as they still continued their attempts to drill through his body.

"Huh...what is..." Burak tried to speak but only managed to utter a couple of words before a curved talon shot down from the air and picked him up.

The avian creature had made its move one more time. Just like before it looked towards Hao Xuan before throwing the still struggling barbarian into its toothy maw.

Hao Xuan heard his heart-wrenching screams for a few seconds before it all went silent again.. He had never even heard a single whimper from Burak's mouth during the ten or so months they spent together, so listening to the screams and cries for help as he was slowly grinded down to pieces, Hao Xuan could only imagine the kind of pain he would have gone through in his last moments.