Steel flashed, a monetary burning orange blip as it caught the dying light. A demented gurgle-then-screech was cut short as the blade crossed through a hulking black figure. A large red pincher that was coming down was blown away in several different pieces as it crossed the blade’s exit trajectory. Black blood shimmered through the air before it stained the shore. Left was a large, tall knight in red ornate armor.

Two semi-transparent dove wings of red shimmered behind him as he twisted one-eighty degrees. Flames erupted from his left freehand and the flames morphed into a whip that extended into the air, then came down on a larger red and black beast that resembled a shrimp - tens in size larger than its normal counterparts - before it slashed straight through as it emerged from the stormy surf. Water sizzled and steamed, sending a foul putrid smell into the already horrid-smelling air.

The knight took that moment, seeing as no monster was pushing his small sector of the shore they’d designated as their own. More of the monsters were emerging off different parts of the small eastern shoreline of the Sun Kingdom. A first in known history for sure, but that was not the worrying part. It was that monsters were coming from the sea.

Monsters were born of miasma or natural-born creatures who’ve been corrupted by a sudden influx of miasma. And for unknown reasons, miasma never existed beneath the water, fresh or salted. Not that it could not survive, as many tests by scholars and priests had shown, but that it just did not spawn beneath it. It could travel across it, but not underneath it.

That was, until now.

So, to the Kingdom’s shock and horror, the staple creatures of this region, fire shrimp; emerged from the sea and began to attack the villages across the eastern shore. It was only due to the Kingdom having a strategic naval base here that they were able to react so quickly.

Another shrimp burst forth from the sea, and this time, it was the largest of them all. It was easily the size of a small mansion. Its body was completely black with black inky gobs oozing out the seams in its chitin. Now, the sea began to turn completely black where it once reflected the dying sun at his back. It was as if the sea had turned into a portal to the void. Calls from the other knights along the shore, who were armored much less ornately, called to each other as it emerged.

“Lord Helios!” Someone from behind him called. “The Inquisitor believes that is the source!”

The knight, Helios, shot a glance over his shoulder at an elderly priest holding a transceiver orb trying to reach him. Helios looked away and glanced to the sky where several humanoid figures hovered at a safe distance overhead. One of them had wings like Helios and sailed across the sky. They cut a large figure eight in the sky as they directed the floaters where to direct their magical attacks. None of them assisted him, as he single-handedly massacred several of the beasts.

But with this massive monster’s appearance, the figure broke away and swooped down to land several meters behind Helios.

Dressed in a large duster hooded duster, silver snarling-wolf mask, and a silvery ornate breastplate and leather pants and boots; the figure seemed unimposing. Until a silver compound bow - similar to that of the elves - manifested in their hand and they began to unleash arrow after arrow within seconds on the monster.

Helios jumped into action the moment the first arrow made contact and exploded. Its chitin was harder than the mana had been adjusted to, which then meant that instead of piecing and dissolving back into the air, the mana exploded violently. It did less damage but managed to rock the monster as it didn’t seem to expect that. With its head forced violently to the side, he blinked forward, disappearing instantly from where he stood and appeared thirty feet off to the left gliding on his wings.

The monster let out a roar that shook more black globs into the water. More monsters appeared from the surf afterward. Each of them was larger than all the previous ones, but much smaller than the ‘brood mother’, as had Helio termed it in his head.

As he circled around, he could see massive tumor-like bumps on its back. Hundreds of them. Honed on one particular bump center of its back, and sped towards it with a flap of his wings. The water sloshed below up, splashing black inky water over his armor. Within four seconds, he was on his target as several more explosions rocked the monster. He swung his sword, struck and clean slice in the bump, then flew away.

The monster seemed not to have noticed the attack as inky water flooded out. Along with it, a lifeless shrimp in two pieces with a rope-like organ trailing behind it as it slid off the brood mother.

They were sacks of monsters! Helios thought to himself as he sheathed his sword without cleaning first.

He flew upwards before he positioned himself next to the floating mages the other figure had been directing.

“Your Holy Immenince!” All of them cried.

“Aim for the bumps on the back!” Helios barked the order. “The monsters spawn from them! I need more breathing!”

The mages balked at him, almost as if to say ‘Why don’t you just kill it, aren’t you a god?’ - No, Helios was not a god. He was a demi-god, a confession he never said in public, or to anyone not within his more trusted circle. Given the geography of the Sun Kindom, and its relative position to the Demon Lands, and the large swath of open land that connected the two, the mantle of ‘God’ was a misunderstanding of ascendancy Helios never corrected out of necessity to keep the kingdom together. So, most people were under the assumption that Helios taking the field meant it was a sure win.

No, it just meant that Helios could keep fighting till the end of time. He was a one-man company, not an army. He could fight, die, and come back to life indefinitely, but not destroy every enemy with a single blow. This information often broke the veil that was their ‘King-God’, thus he fought with his own personally picked battalion of knights. The mages would be dealt with after, depending on their reaction to this information.

But for now, his knights were beginning to sustain more casualties than was acceptable. Politically and personally. They were not immortal and would need some respite from the unending hoard that was now known to spawn from the monolithic monster. But enough of that.

A momentary glare from the man sent the mages into overdrive. They pulled mana stones from their pouches and recharged their magical artifacts, large medallions tied to their belts; then moved forward in a staggered U formation before they began to launch different spells. The first was an explosive barrage that did little damage. A quick survey of their first attack, and they switched to more pin-point long-range sniper spells that pieced the lumps with ease.

The large monster felt the pressure as it turned to face the mages.

Half-submerged, in the sea, the beast attempted to reach the mages in vain. After several tries, it gave up and slowly began to retreat into the sea as its inky black liquid gushed out like water rather than the previous sludge. With the onslaught of attacks from the mages, no more brood had spawned, and the number of monsters on the beach decreased faster and faster with each passing minute.

All while this happened, Helios had moved further out to sea. He hovered around two hundred feet in the air so that his next attack would only affect the black seawater rather than spill over onto land.

He closed his eyes, shut off his senses until he was down to his sixth sense - the one that manipulated mana. He stretched out his psyche and began to swallow the surrounding ambient mana, stuffing it into a large sphere before him. In the physical world, this sphere manifested as a silvery ball that distorted the air around him. He walked a tightrope.

He needed enough mana to create a destructive spell that would befit his status of a ‘God’, but not strong enough to tear the fabric of reality. One, because mana pollution was a real concern when using high-tier spells. Second, because Helios did not have the mental capacity to manipulate the fabric to repair it, much less bandage it. The fabric acted similar to a veil to separate reality from the backroom systems, but it also acted as a barrier to repeal Aystral Anomalies.

Things that would be a much bigger pain to deal with than this oversized brood mother.

An image of a spiraling beam, accompanied by two contrails of dissipating mana to ensure mana could continue a forward trajectory that allowed mana to escape without turning it into an explosion spell. This was necessary on high-tier spells as mana needed somewhere to go in the end, and the concussive force of all that mana would be directed everywhere unless it was properly directed ahead of time.

Once the image had been formed, the spell was ready. The brood-mother was mostly submerged but was slower now. Its massive body had did not have the proper anatomy to allow it to seamlessly flow through the water. Thus, the water drag on it was immense.

A silvery light flashed as the spiraling beam pierced through the air and speared the shrimp’s head. Two lines of silver danced around the beam as particles danced off it before a second later, the air distorted around the target. More silvery particles exploded outwards left and right, following the contrails with much less grace. However, even with all this setup, mana still erupted in every direction, with much less force. More like a strong wind rather than an explosive concussive wave that could tear down buildings.

The water around the monolithic monster evaporated from the heat as Helios’ innate element was fire. It reflexed in his spell as a wall of steam flew outward before it thinned enough to momentarily see the water rushing back to fill the empty space left around the now-mutilated monster. Its lifeless body folded in on itself from the immense water pressure that slammed into it.

Within minutes, the only sign that there had been a monster there was the black blood that tainted the seawater as if it were liquid tar.

Helios stared at the turbulent sea for a few moments before the mages and the inquisitor appeared beside him.

“Your Holy Immenince!” The mages greeted him with more fervor than before. Their heads were bowed, but their eyes had a gleam in them like children standing before their hero.

“Helios,” The inquisitor greeted Helios. It was a woman’s voice and full of affection.

This was noted by the mages who gawked at her, but Helios only smiled at the Inquisitor before he turned to the mages. “Assist the priest in purifying the sea. Also, send word back to the Capital to send as many competent mages as they can spare. We will need to remove as many of the corpses before miasma corrupts the area.”

They all acknowledged this, but only one mage was sent away with a quick discussion. Helios’ mouth twitched slightly. He wanted them all to leave so he could be alone with the Inquisitor.

“Leave them, Helios,” The inquisitor chuckled. “Unless you have another job for them that doesn’t require half more than nine mages, there’s nothing they can do for now.”

“I see…” Helios nodded. “Then, go rest,” The mages were hesitant for a moment before they complied and left. Helios only let out a sigh

“Relax a little,” The inquisitor said with barely contained laughter as she pulled the mask off. Beneath it was a fair woman in her late twenties. She was not a national beauty or a national disgrace. She was above average with two scars creating a mishappened X above her collar bone.

“Can we trust them?” Helios asked.

“Now that just hurts my feelings,” The inquisitor gave him a fake pout that showed she was clearly joking. “Did you think I would not have brought people I didn’t trust?”

“No, no,” Helios moved closer and hugged her. “I misspoke.”

“Of course you did,” She laughed and her expression softened. “They’re the mages I was speaking about last week. It was luck that we had just finished the final trials before I’d gotten the message. Things got worse much too quickly. Do you think Hades is behind this?”

“He may,” Helios said as he released her. “But enough of this, I’d missed you, Elin...”

“Don’t go flaunting work just because I came--” She was silenced with a kiss and a tight embrace.