Fallen Giant

Ibaeran could only darkness ahead but then gaze could a glimpse of a small speck of light in the distant. Then before her eyes, the speck began to grow and grow until in erupted in a massive explosion of light.

Slowly Ibaeran opened up her eyes, her view a bit blurry and obscured by the intensity of the light reaching her eyes. Slowly her vision returned to her as her eyes adjusted to the light. Looking around her and seeing the familiar green of the forest of Kiri Dumo, Ibaeran let out a deep sigh before getting up. Once standing on her two feet, she shifted her gaze up to the sky above her head, a sky covered by the massive pillar timbers and leafy green that were the trees that seemed to stretch endlessly to the very edge of the sky. Ibaeran then let out another sigh as she recalled plummeting down from heights so great it felt as though she fell from the very top of heaven itself and plummeted down straight to cold hard earth underneath her feet. Ibaeran couldn't to survive falling from such a height, expecting that her body would have be reduce to mush and scattered all over the forest floor but there she was alive and well without a single scratch on her dark brown skin. It must have been the power of Su Baera that was the only conceivable way Ibaeran could think of on how she could survive such a great fall.

Ibaeran then recalled the massive three eyes colossus that was the Great Tree Giant, she spotted that towered over entirety of the forest including the massive trees that seemed to reach the very edge of the sky itself. Ibaeran then felt a sense fear and dread flow through her entire body as she recalled how it felt staring in to those three massive eyes, the overwhelming feeling of insignificance while staring directly as something more than you could ever be, and how it made her feel like she was nothing less than fly. Ibaeran upon recalling how seeing the Green Tree Giant made her, couldn't stop her felt from launching a fist straight to the grass covered ground out of frustration. Pathetic, worthless, useless, worm, insect, these were the words that echoed through her head as struck the ground repeatedly over and over and over again in a seemly pointless battle between and the earth underneath her.

As she continuously struck the earth over and over and over again, a single question popped up in to her head, "Why?" Why, despite after everything she had been through, all her battle, all her strives, all her accomplishments, the power she now possessed, why was she still pathetic, worthless, useless, a worm, and an insect.

Why, why, why, why!!!!!!!!

Ibaeran asked herself over and over again as she continued to pummeling the ground with tears slowly beginning to stream down her face. She struck and struck, over and over again, for what felt like hundreds of times but no matter how had struck the earth, her aching and pained heart found no peace and was still tormented by the shame, fear, and doubting eating her up.

Ibaeran immensely tired with both her fists red with soars, raised one of them a final time to strike the earth once more as she did so this time, she a voice whisper in her head, a familiar voice that wasn't her own, asking her painful question she could not bring herself to answer, "Why didn't you save us?"

Ibaeran, with an image of the hellish nightmare she just awakened from along with the image of Preyina slowly fading away to dust and ash, struck the earth a final time before breaking down in tears, wondering what she was meant to do to free herself for the aching tormentful pain eating away on her heart and weighing her down in to a dark pit of despair. Ibaeran wasn't sure what to do anymore, looking at her soar fist with teary eyes as she thought about what she was doing there at that moment, standing on the soil of a foreign world under the command a tyrannical dictator, in search of something he desired, all for what, out of a sense of obligation, responsibility, duty to save her people or was it all out fear.

Ibaeran, crumbling down with tear overflowing from her eyes, thought to herself, why did being there, doing the biding of that monster of a king, feel so wrong when she was doing it all to protect her people, she was fulfilling her duty as the Su Baera to protect her people her but then why did it feel like she put her people along with her own world in greater peril by obeying the king's commanders. But wasn't like she had much of a choice in the matter, the king's was great and greater than any kind of power she had ever seen before, recalling how it felt when the king struck her with his overwhelming power, recalling in vivid detail the immense pain that flowed though her body that made her fill as though every single fiber of being was slowly being ripped to shreds, it was an unbearable pain that served as a reminder of who she was before the king and that was a tiny insect that could be crushed underneath his feet at any moment. To king she was nothing more than a tool, an object and means of which he needed to achieve his goal, nothing more, nothing less, that was something Ibaeran knew quit well as it was the very same was all Uha Tamunarans saw her people, as objects and tools which they could used as they wished. And although this was something she had come to accept a long time ago, at the current moment a small part of her which she was trying to ignore knew that it wasn't right but at the very same time another part of her, the part that she listened to out of fear kept telling her that even if it wasn't right, she couldn't really do anything about it. Ibaeran found herself in the middle of a conflict within herself between a part of her that believed that path of subordination and subservience in the face of a monster who couldn't care any less of her and her people was wrong and the other part of her that, despite accept it wasn't the right path to walk on didn't believe there was any other path she could choose.

Ibaeran at that moment, felt weak, tired, and pathetic, unsure of what to do or even where to go as the path she was currently walking on didn't feel right to her but at the very same time she could see any other laid out before her. She felt as though she was lost while walking on a path that led to ruin and she couldn't bring herself to turn back.

Ibaeran then sighed softly as she thought about how she was truly pathetic as both a warrior and the Su Baera, how both the strength and power but could do nothing with them, and it seemed as though the only role she seemed to be able to play perfectly is the role of slave and tool, obey each and every command by her master.

Ibaeran was brought out of her dark and painful thoughts upon hearing the sound of loud roar that seemed to have come from the very top of the forest, echoing through the forest and was louder than thousand storms and could be heard by every single creature in the forest. The massive roar then soon came to ended, its echoes that spread through the forest and could be heard by all its inhabitance, slowly faded away and for a few brief moments, there was complete and utter silence all throughout the forest, almost as though every single creature in the forest had vanish, even wind itself stood still.

Ibaeran upon hearing the massive roar the evolved the entire forest, stood perfectly, frozen in fear and dared not to disturb the uneasy silence that evolved the entire forest, not wanting to draw the attention of whatever manner of beast that made the roar that force the entire forest grow silent and come her way. Ibaeran stood perfectly still, not even making any attempts to draw a single breath, for what felt like an eternity before she felt the ground underneath her began to quake so intensely that it felt as though earth itself was being torn apart and crumbling down. The quaking soon stopped and Ibaeran was thankful that she was still alive.

Managing to get back on her two feet which continued to tremble and shake long after the quaking had stopped due to the immense fear she felt flow through her entire body, she managed to eventually find her balance to be able to stand back up on her own feet. Then, with her fear subsiding enough for her to question what might have caused the ground underneath her feet quake intensely, Ibaeran looked around to see if she might be able to spot what kind of creature might have the earth to quake.

Ibaeran, after taking a moment to search the surroundings forest, found nothing. She then foregone her better judgment, out of a tiny sliver of curiosity that seemed to be enough for ignore her fears, ventured out deeper in to the forest to search of the creature that was great enough to make the filled the entire forest with the echoes of its roar and making the ground quake with such intensity. As she journeyed deeper in to the forest, it didn't take her long to discover the source of roar and quaking earth, and what she witnessed shocked her beyond belief.

There, lying motionless on the forest floor, was the massive Green Tree Giant, its body stretching out and over covering thousands of miles, and underneath it were hundred of trees crushed by its overwhelming weight. The giant's body was cover hundreds if not thousands of holes with its green blood oozing out of each and every one of them. Ibaeran upon seeing the sight of the fallen giant's looked at it with a mix of disgusted and intrigue as the dead lifeless body of the towering green giant with hundreds of holed scattered all over it body was truly a gruesome sight to behold but it also made Ibaeran's mind begin to ponder and fill up with thoughts as to what might have been great enough to leave the massive green tree giant in such. Then, as soon as the thought of there being something lurking with the shadows of the forest that surrounded her that was great enough to bring down the might tree giant that once tall above the entirety of the forest, a wave fear washed over her, causing her heart to begin to pound immensely underneath her chest, wondering what kind of a monster would be great enough to the leave the giant in such a state.

Then, no sooner as thought crossed her mind, her question was answered once she spotted something moving from underneath the giant's great skin. They looked like balls, thousands of them, as big as her entire body, moving about from within the body of the giant. Ibaeran was entirely sure what to make of them, having never seen anything like them before and simply watched as they moved about from with the corpse of the giant with baffled and confused look on his face. Then suddenly and expectedly, much to Ibaeran's shock and horror, one by one, the balls burst out of the giants in an grotesque explosion of green blood, flesh and guts, and what stepped of the carnage of green blood and flesh being scattered about were abominable and monstrous creatures.