Emperor of Soul Beasts Chapter 1: Hook

This is chapter 1 of the most likely story to follow Shadow of the Soul King once that story finishes. Please enjoy and give comments!

The party was boring until the host got squashed into paste.

As the youngest member of the Securis branch of the Arma Empire’s royal family and the controller of the southwest’s thunderfire disaster, I’d been sent as a representative to the inauguration of the new governor of the Empire’s south-westernmost province. And, after the lengthy ceremony and overly ostentations banquet, I’d been politely reminded by the butler my grandmother had sent with me that I had to also attend the after-meal ball the governor was throwing in the large ballroom on the third floor of his new mansion. And there, for about an hour, I’d had to pretend to give a damn about the new trade relations the governor was setting up with the three center provinces, endure the either too amorous or too detached flirting of the sons of the local noble houses, and generally act like I wouldn’t prefer for half the people in the room to be dead.

But then everything changed.

An arrow made of wind mana appeared out of a spatial portal and hit the governor in the chest, magically releasing a large amount of kinetic energy as it hit to slam the asshole into one of the ballroom’s inner walls with enough force to break all the bones in his body. Then, as the arrow dissipated into ambient mana, another small spatial portal opened up in front of the corpse and a hand covered in black smoke reached out and touched the governor’s body for half a second before retreating back.

Chaos descended. The three beasts previously housed within the governor’s soul appeared in the ballroom, two of which were at least as large as a horse. The nobility and many of the servants in the room started to panic as the governor’s body rapidly decayed after having its essence and energy stolen, revealing carefully inscribed text all over its arms, chest, and face describing a long list of crimes. And one of the ballroom’s windows broke as I, the only one present with a high enough affinity with spatial magic to have noticed the original portal, jumped out to chase after the assassin.

Enchanting, with long legs, an ample bosom, and the type of face usually only found in men’s dreams, my then twenty-seven-year-old self was taller than average, with hawk-like metallic green eyes, beautiful white flower-shaped tattoos on the backs of my hands, and long wavy black, purple, and red hair down to my lower back.

I was wearing an ankle-length green backless gown, the skirt of which I’d already torn for ease of movement and the matching shoes I’d already discarded in the ballroom, my face showing an expression not of rage or fear, but of excitement. And, as I launched myself toward the nearby two story pavilion at the edge of the mansion’s compound where I’d sensed the origin of the portals, metallic-looking green hawk-like wings grew out of my back as I flew at a speed no one else in my tier could match.

An arrow flew at me as I charged, again made of wind mana and shot from the light green bow in the hands of the shadowy smoke covered figure floating backwards down and away from the tower, but I easily dodged it, moving up and to the right. Then I tried to charge directly toward the shadow man again, but I redirected my flight down and to the left as I sensed danger, a slice in space appearing where I would have charged through before floating back toward the mansion.

The spatial slice was powerful, and incredibly sharp, easily capable of cutting me in half had I charged through it, and it then did cut through the left leg and left arm of one of the bodyguards who’d jumped out of the window after me, disabling the man and slowing down four other guards who were about to jump out after him.

At the same time, the arrow I had dodged hit a bell in the mansion’s front yard and started it ringing out continuously, the noise calling all the guards throughout the city toward the governor’s mansion, responding to the predetermined signal the murderer was making use of.

I, however, didn’t notice how the shadow man was predicting my actions and just continued to chase him.

But the nature of Lacus City, the seat of power for the province, made catching up to him difficult.

The city was located along a river and bordered by a large lake, built up originally as a trading town and only later growing into one of the Empire’s richest metropolises, so it was not a planned city. There were many buildings of different heights tightly packed together, and, as a result, it was difficult to find a straight line path through them, even from the air.

Inevitably a stone or wooden building would get in the way.

And this was especially the case in the direction the shadow man chose to flee, downhill toward the lake.

Unlike me, he was capable of creating quick temporary spatial portals from one location to another, so, while I had to move around buildings, he could bypass them, not having to slow down at all.

Still, there was a reason the epithet most associated with me, even at that time, was Windwalker.

I was faster, flying through the power of wings and aided by speed enhancements that eliminated wind resistance, bent space in my favor, and accelerated my body’s relative time. The black smoke covered man, on the other hand, just had the use of his portals and an aura that eliminated wind resistance.

Throughout our winding chase, I slowly gained on him, and his lead especially decreased as we approached the docks of the city, where the heights of the buildings were more uniform.

Just as I was about to catch up to him, however, he released one of his three soul beasts from his soul, a humanoid semi-transparent blurry figure made of pure wind mana, and the beast created a wall of air right in front of me, forcing me to fly around it.

Then the beast, some kind of wind spirit, flew off in a different direction from the shadowy man, heading toward the lake while the shadow man moved to the right along the shore.

My senses, trained by past experiences, picked up a spatial mark on the wind spirit, likely a spatial anchor of some kind, and I knew I couldn’t let the beast get away or the shadow man would have the ability to open a portal toward the beast’s location. So, I released one of my own soul beasts, the only one I trusted to fight within a city environment that could also move with any degree of speed, my Steel Speed Hawk Queen appearing above my head.

Roughly twice the size of a normal hawk, with metallic green eyes a shade darker than its metallic green feathers, she flew toward the wind spirit. But, before she could reach the beast, another of the shadow man’s soul beasts appeared, and my hawk had to dodge at the last second to keep her left wing from being sliced off by a another spatial slice.

This new beast, quite a bit smaller than even a normal hawk, was under the same type of obfuscating dark smoke as its master, its only visible distinguishing feature the tips of its bat-like wings sticking out from the cloud, and it had seemingly predicted the way my hawk would dodge.

Black lightning shot out from the small cloud of smoke and hit my soul beast, paralyzing her for a second. Then the small beast teleported onto the hawk’s back, bringing the black smoke cloud with it, and the next thing I knew I could feel my hawk’s energy actively being drained, my soul beast unable to move as it crashed into the roof of a building.

Unable to help her myself, as I’d just about caught up to the shadow man, I summoned out another beast on the roof where the two soul beasts were fighting, the thorny vines of my original soul beast growing out from the roof to try and entangle the small smoke wrapped monster and protect its sister as illusionary attacks launched from all sides, but the smoke wrapped monster just vanished, teleporting away, and neither my senses, nor the senses of my soul beasts, could track it.

At the same time, a purple, black, and red chitinous spear appeared in my hands as my dress transformed, green vines with yellow flowers wrapping up my body and transforming my gown into a true battledress created from soul power, and I attacked.

Lightning and fire wrapped my spear as I launched a quick stab, still moving at my maximum speed, and the shadow man was not quick enough to dodge.

He’d seemingly predicted my attack, however, and a spatial portal appeared in front of me while its exit appeared to my side.

Had I not immediately retracted my strike, I would have stabbed through the portal and into my own body.

Then, before I could truly adjust myself, a trap the shadow man had prepared over half an hour before triggered, compressed jets of water capable of cutting through stone appearing from the street below me, and I had to immediately retreat or risk having my feet and legs stabbed through.

The bow in the shadow man’s hands then transformed into a watery blue longsword, and, when I attacked again, he managed to relatively easily deflect my strike.

Yes, I was faster than him, but his reflexes seemed a match for my own, and he was physically stronger.

We then engaged several times over the next few dozen seconds.

Sometimes he deflected my attacks with his sword. Five times, I had to retreat from traps, wind blades or watery spears launched from below after being released from temporally and spatially sealed nodes of power he’d left earlier in the night. And, sometimes, he used his spatial portals to almost make me attack myself.

It was invigorating.

Soon, however, my senses picked up several dozen guards catching up to us from where I’d chased from, the butler my grandmother had sent with me included, and I knew I couldn’t continue the fun.

So, I activated one of the powers granted to me by my third soul beast and fire and lightning flowed through my entire body, a purple and red glow escaping from my eyes as runic patterns of the same colors covered my skin.

Then I created illusions, duplicates of myself to attack the shadow man from several directions, while moving to make sure the shadow man couldn’t tell what was real, and attacked with a speed even faster than before.

The shadow man, however, was also hiding several of his abilities, and my illusions especially did more harm to me than him.

He moved forward as if to block an attack from one of my illusory clones with his sword, but, when I moved my own spear to attack him, he then moved forward through the illusion to dodge before disappearing in a teleport, appearing right in front of me, his right hand, the one not holding his sword, wrapped in black lightning and moving directly toward my neck.

My spear was out of position due to my attack. My mana was being used on my illusions, the empowerment of myself, and the empowerment of my spear, leaving me unable to bring up an active defense in time. And the aim of his hand was toward the upper part of my neck, just out of range of the automatic protection provided by my dress.

His hand then grabbed me, not even bothering to add pressure to choke me, and black lightning entered into my body, devouring my energy and leaving me temporarily helpless.

Worst of all, however, he then seemed to completely ignore me, the black smoke covering his body fading ever so slightly, causing his eyes to appear, pure black orbs without any white at all before his left began to glow silver and his right golden as they focused on the guards behind me.

“Tell those who’ve undeservedly enjoyed the protection of the Arma Royal Family to beware.” His voice boomed out, unnaturally deep, somehow altered. “Their crimes have been noted. And I will be coming for them.

“Be they establishing their foundations, walking the path of Laws, or even immortals, their punishments have come due, and I will enjoy the process of feasting upon their souls.”

Then, for the second time, my future husband stabbed me through the gut.