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[Author's Note: I am deeply sorry for missing the six chapters over the weekend. Personal functions at home kept me from my desk, and I was unable to find the quiet needed to do justice to Dreleon's journey. I hope for your forgiveness. As compensation, I will be releasing two chapters daily starting from February 17th. Thank you for staying with me.]
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The ancient jungle had fallen into an impending doom-like silence, the natural darkness of the canopy swallowed by the sickly, divine green coloured radiance blindly coming from the Sky Snare Crane.
The light wasn't warm; it was cold and acidic, illuminating the mossy titan-trees in shades of toxic emerald.
One heartbeat, the celestial bird was a distant specter, its silhouette framed by a halo of white green light.
In the next, the laws of distance and the space itself shattered.
There was no sound of wings beating, only the sharp crack of space being folded and discarded, and then the Crane appeared inches from Dreleon, its golden-green beak lunging forward with the mechanical cruelty of a guillotine.
It was the scythe of a grim reaper, moving at a speed that bypassed the nervous system of the human body giving time only enough to see the attack coming, or more precisely giving an illusion of seeing the attack.
The target wasn't Dreleon's throat, but the pulsing life-form hidden beneath his reinforced armor—the "delicacy" it craved above all else.
Dreleon's heart vibrated against his ribs like a trapped bird, his spacial perception had failed to track the Crane, but his primal instincts—sharpened by the Ant Genes—took over.
In a move of sheer desperation, he violently shifted his center of gravity, throwing his weight into the damp earth.
Then collapsed on the ground, his shoulder hitting the dirt with a bone-jarring thud.
The beak whistled through the air where his chest had been a millisecond before.
It tore through his outer plate, the metal shrieking as it was peeled away like parchment, but the small snake pulsing against his skin remained untouched.
Dreleon lay in the dirt, blood beginning to flow from his shredded shoulder like a broken dam, his vision swimming with adrenaline.
"Hoh?" The Crane landed with a grace that showed no regard to the gravity of the planet.
It looked down at the fallen human, its eyes swirling with a predatory curiosity. "A lucky fall. It seems fate wants me to work for my meal. Let us see if you can repeat the miracle."
This time, the "playfulness" vanished.
The Crane's wings expanded, emitting a thick, green mist that began to hiss as it touched the vegetation.
It was no longer just hunting or playing; now it was determined to execute.
But as the Crane lunged for the killing blow, the ground detonated with a shocking sound and dust.
A massive, fur-clad claw, wreathed in golden-red energy, slammed into the earth.
The impact sent a shockwave through the jungle, clearing the toxic mist and forcing the Crane to bank sharply into the air.
"ROAR!"
It was the Lion Commander and the King's chosen escort for the Princess, who stood over Dreleon like a living fortress.
His heavy armor, etched with the sigils of the Jungle Lion tribe, glowed with a vibrant, solar heat.
"Sky Snare Crane!" Its voice was a tectonic rumble that shook the very marrow of Dreleon's bones.
"Have you finally gone mad? To attack the royal escort of the Jungle Lion Kingdom... Do you have a death wish, or has your hunger finally rotted your common sense?"
The Crane hovered, its wings creating miniature cyclones. "Hah... so it is you, Aslan. The foolish lion who spent a season destroying my nests in the northern crags.
Do not speak to me of death. I seek no war with your pride.
(Lion tribes are also called lion pride)
I only want the 'little insect' this child is carrying. It is a waste of a delicacy on a human whelp.
Tell him to surrender it, and I will leave your Princess to her petty travels."
"Impossible!"
Dreleon rasped, his voice cracking with pain as he forced himself to his feet. He clutched his side, feeling the small snake shivering against his skin.
"I will not surrender a gift from my teacher to a crooked, carrion-eating scavenger like you."
Dreleon thought to say it was a gift instead of obtaining it on his own efforts to save the small snake, and as far as he can think his big snake teacher was more powerful than this crane.
"Teacher?"
The Crane let out a high-pitched, mocking cackle that sounded like glass shattering.
"What master would waste their time on a servant like you? Aslan, if you want me to keep this 'delicacy' a secret from the other predators in the woods, tell the boy to hand it over. I will spare you the effort of a battle you cannot win."
Aslan's grip on his weapon tightened, his mane flickering with blood-fire, but before the Commander could answer, Dreleon reached into the ancient, ancient style fold of his robe.
His fingers brushed against a cold, heavy object—a token he had been given with the books of inheritance, it was capable of spatial dimension keeping many things inside.
He pulled it out.
The token was a red and silver coloured, obsidian-like shape, yet it didn't reflect the Crane's divine light.
Instead, it seemed to suck the green radiance into a black hole.
Dreleon held it high, his raspy voice turning heavy with the weight of an ancient power.
"Here," Dreleon spoke, the words echoing with an unnatural resonance. "My teacher gave me this. She told me that whoever dared to offend me... was offending her. Do you wish to test her words?"
The Crane's mocking cackle died in its throat.
Its wings faltered, and it dropped several feet in altitude.
As a Celestial Predator, the Crane possessed a genetic memory that stretched back to the beginning of the Great Evolution.
It sensed the Intent hidden within that token.
It wasn't just a physical object; it was a vessel for a soul that had once turned the sky black with its scales.
In ancient times and now they hunted all snakes and ruled them by force, eating rare snakes as delicacies.
But right now the Crane felt a sense of dread that it had never known in its own lifetime; its predecessors had told stories of the Great Snakes—five entities that had hunted the hunters, nearly wiping the Sky Snare race from the face of the earth.
One of those legends was the Sky-Scraping Snake—the Pillar that stood between the heavens and the earth, a creature that viewed divine cranes as mere worms.
The intent radiating from the token was unmistakable.
It was the cold, suffocating presence of that particular snake.
The "delicacy" in Dreleon's pocket wasn't a snack; it was also a remnant of a lineage that could erase the Crane's entire mountain range with a single flick of its tail.
The Crane's golden-green beak trembled, the divine halo around its head flickering like a dying candle.
It looked at Dreleon, then at the token, and finally at the small, pulsing shape under the armor.
"You..." the Crane hissed, its voice now thin and brittle. "You are a disciple of the Pillar? Why... why would such a being leave its kin in the hands of a human?"
Dreleon didn't answer. He simply stood his ground, the dark intent of the token beginning to frost the grass around his feet. For the first time, the hunter realized it had walked into a trap far larger than any jungle.
Feeling as even the sky can't hide him in it's embrace.
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