"There used to be dozens of fantastical creatures in this space alone," Protector Aarush said to the two young boys who stood to either side of him, both no older than a decade. "But those days are long behind us."
With a swish of his caramel-coloured robe, Aarush gestured towards the bottom of the hill they stood on. The trio looked down at the decomposing mythical corpse sprawled across the charred grass. Aarush closed his eyes, wincing in pain at the tragedy. He conjured a ball of fire in the palm of his left hand to commemorate the creature.
The smaller, more energetic of the boys, Maximilian, stared at the dragon corpse with wonder and awe. His eyes glossed over its dark yet glassy charcoal scales. The taller, more composed of the two boys, Dillon, had a different reaction. One of outrage and disgust.
Maximilian looked into the creature's cold, dead eyes, the excitement seeping from his body.
"Why?" he muttered, pain in his cracking voice as he solemnly admired the dragon's scales. "Why would The Vyre do this?"
"Anything that possesses powers close to that of The True One's has to be eradicated as far as they're concerned," Aarush answered. He closed his fist, extinguishing the fire. He took a deep breath, staring at the valley stretched out in front of them.
"Just like us Novatus, right?" Dillon said with an air of uncertainty.
Aarush confirmed with a nod. "Just like us Novatus."
The two boys looked up to him, a melancholy on his face.
"Follow me, boys," Aarush added. "I have something else to show you. Something even sadder."
Aarush walked down the hill, gesturing at the two to follow him. The boys did so warily.
***
Moments later, the trio were in the back of a horse-drawn carriage. They wore their caramel robes with the hoods up, concealing their identities as the driver rode his horse through a poor, dishevelled small town. Maximilian stared out of the window, excited for the sights the town had to offer.
As they passed by a tavern, he saw a bloodied woman being dragged out of the bar by three men. The woman screamed in agony, forming gusts of wind around her body to aid her escape. To prevent this, the men beat her into submission. She cried no more.
"What the hell?" Maximilian whispered.
As they passed through the town centre, Max saw a man in a metal cage. The man stood at seven feet tall, yet was weak, malnourished, and dirty. Townspeople standing outside the cage used spears to poke holes through the man's skin. The man yelped in pain as small flames flickered off his skin.
They passed by an alleyway in which a group of criminals resided. Four thugs crouched over the dead body of a man with no eyeballs. In place of his eyes, leaves and vines grew. The criminals' clawing hands butchered the man's body in an attempt to harvest his organs, pulling flora from bloody crevices.
Maximilian covered his mouth, his body trembling. Aarush looked down at him, saddened by the fact that the boy had to witness these sights.
Yet he made no attempts to shield his eyes.
***
The carriage took them to the middle of a dreary and heavily vegetated forest. The three stepped off the carriage. Outside the forest, a large group of people could be seen. Hundreds of men and women congregated. The three Novatus stood at the bottom of a monumentally sized rock and grass hill that led to a slimmer, more daunting cliff edge. The carriage rode away.
"What are we doing here?!" Maximilian asked, regaining his excitement and curiosity.
"You must be quieter, child," Aarush said. "It cannot be known that we are here."
Aarush directed the boys to the end of the forest. They stopped by a set of large hanging tree leaves. From this position, they could see the people on the cliff clearer. They saw how they were split into three groups of differing appearances.
The group's majority consisted of fifty upper-class citizens who stood a distance from the cliff's edge. In front of them and closer to the cliff's edge stood thirty black-cloaked guards, wielding longswords by their hips and stern looks on their faces. The last group featured twenty people by the cliff's edge. All had their hands tied with rope and their eyes blindfolded by cloth. They were beaten, bruised, and defeated, with weak elemental auras surrounding them.
Dillon's eyes widened with realisation. "I know what's happening!" he whispered, tapping Maximilian on the shoulder. "That's The Vyre. They're doing another Novatus execution."
Maximilian's eyes widened also. The boys sought Aarush's confirmation. He nodded.
"Oh no," Maximilian whispered, directing his attention back to the cliff.
The legion of black-cloaked guards parted for the leader to walk through. A shiver danced down Aarush's spine when he saw this head of The Vyre. Nathanael Reyan. A pale man whose mild-mannered appearance and slim stature did nothing to mitigate the air of dominance he carried.
Reyan walked with poise and dignity as he approached the bound and blindfolded Novatus by the cliff's edge. He checked that the rope binding each of the Novatus was tied sufficiently. Once sure that they were secure, he turned to address the crowd of Vyre guards as well as the group of high-class nobles.
"Every man must come closer to God," Reyan said. The crowd of people hung onto every word that came from his gravelly, stoic voice. "Though not too close."
Reyan drew his longsword, granting him a booming cheer from the nobles who came to watch. He turned one of the male Novatus captives around. He faced the man as he plunged the sword. The man let out a gasp of deep, quiet pain, blood leaking from his stomach wound and welling in his mouth.
"And whilst it's not your fault you were born this way, it's not my place to deny God's will," Reyan added. He gently pushed the man off the cliff's edge. The Novatus fell to his death.
Reyan repeated this process for each and every Novatus he came across. The gathered nobles chanted and jeered with such excitement and glee that one would think they were at a music festival rather than a mass execution.
Maximilian struggled to stifle his tears as he watched dozens of his people being thrown to their deaths. Dillon, on the other hand, trembled with rage. He leapt from his hiding place, urgently reaching underneath his robes. He retrieved a bow and a small quiver he had hidden, taking out an arrow and placing it against the string. Before he could think to shoot, he was stopped. Aarush placed hands on his shoulders. He shook his head in disapproval.
"Shouldn't we help them?" Dillon protested.
"No," Aarush answered. "You will soon see why."
Dillon resigned himself to his hiding place, looking back toward the events on the cliff. Reyan continued the execution, the nobles continuing their chants of glory. After a gentle push of an elderly man off the cliff, there were only five Novatus left.
One of the remaining Novatus shook her head in outrage. Though she could not see past her blindfold, her forehead beaded with sweat, the sounds of her fallen comrades taking a toll on her.
"I will not lay claim to your false god!" she screamed with defiance.
The woman scrunched her face to the point of almost bursting a blood vessel. Using all the power she could muster, she managed to light a small fire with her fingertips. She burned the rope that tied her, freeing hands she used to tear the blindfold off her face. Everyone who bore witness to this was surprised, to say the least, and outraged, to say the most. Everyone but Reyan.
The woman wasted no time running away from the cliff edge, desperate to make her escape. Reyan allowed her to leave, adding to the onlookers' shock.
The woman ran past the group of nobles. They clawed at her in outrage, equally as desperate to see her executed. With a calm raising of his hand, Reyan ordered the nobles to stop.
The crowd simmered down. They allowed the woman to run, watching her fumble her way up the hill. The nobles looked to Reyan in confusion. He gestured, ordering them to quieten and wait.
The young woman raced up the hill aimlessly, panting as she sprinted. When she reached the top, she was faced with an astonishing sight. One that struck fear through the very core of her body.
A creature approached her from the other side of a hill. A being growing from a mere few inches to fifty feet tall in mere seconds.
This godly creature possessed the muscular proportions of an otherworldly humanoid beast, the facial features of both a canine and a feline, and the heaven-piercing horns of a mutated elk. Both the nobles and The Vyre knelt in its presence.
"Is that who I think it is?" Dillon asked, his throat constricting.
"It is," Aarush answered.
Dillon and Maximilian hid themselves deeper within the leaves, frightened to no end.
"Welcome back, True One," Reyan greeted, bowing his head lower.