Zarynth 1: An Extra Bloodline

At the high walls, dust clung to the thick, hot air as though a giant, ancient blanket had been shaken loose. The low grass stretched across the vast expanse, bending as if fleeing from something far worse than fire.

But the air wasn't hot.

It was heavy.

Oppressive.

Like gravity had tripled under the weight of one man's black aura.

Elara stumbled from the dark mist portal, gasping as her lungs seized from the toxicity in the atmosphere—it reeked of confiscated chlorine. Her knees buckled under the unseen pressure as her eyes locked onto the blurred horizon, where footsteps trembled the earth, though the swirling dust allowed only the vague silhouette of the approaching figure to be seen.

Lilitu emerged behind her, halting with a silent warning written in her eyes, feeling the familiarity of the invisible but pressing weight. Her fingers curled into fists as memories stabbed into her mind—the screams of her mother in the dungeon, the woman who once stood as her hero, now reduced to a legendary meal for her own child.

Her teeth clenched. Her limbs trembled under death's invisible weight. Sweat trickled down her cheeks as she muttered, "It's him..." Her voice cracked with disbelief and recognition. "The monster... my so-called brother."

Elara tried to speak, but fear gripped her throat, and only squeaks escaped—like the dying cry of a rat.

'This can't be the end', she tried to console herself, but her heart knew better.

'It was the beginning of the end'.

With everything she had, she forced her voice out, a thick vein bulging at her temple.

"Stop right there!" she shouted, the words slicing the air like glass.

But immediately, her hands flew to her mouth—as if she'd just screamed at the gods themselves. She stumbled backward as the figure finally pierced through the veil of dust.

It was male.

Not anything they had seen before.

He was regal, unthinkable, terrifying.

Night-black hair flowed past his knees. Two jagged brown horns rose from the top of his head. His build was that of a young man in his prime—lean but chiseled, standing around 5'9. But that body… it was a condensed vessel of endless consumption, forged from comprising flesh he devoured while unborn and awakened. His flesh radiated an unnatural density, undeniably harder than diamond.

His skin glowed bright green—goblin-like in hue—but his face bore the twisted sharpness of a vampire and the feral snarl of a werewolf. From his lower back, a long tail coiled behind him, snaking over the grass. It was scaled like a dragon's, ending in a blade-tipped arrowhead that shimmered with silent menace.

"You look different," Zarynth said with a calm, almost conscious tone. His words weren't haunting—but everything about him was. His presence exhaled death.

"What kind of meat are you?" he mused, claws flexing with hunger.

"I hope you taste good."

Five long, wicked claws twitched at the ends of his fingers like hungry knives.

Thalvron stepped from the portal next. His eyes widened, but he didn't hesitate—choosing to stand between Lilitu and the beast, even if it meant death.

'If we don't get backup soon', he thought grimly, 'my story's going to read: 'Guardian died and his master died next.'

Still, he took each step with resolve, though his feet barely rose above the trembling grass and fear twisted his gut.

Elara froze. Sweat drenched her face, and with every inch Zarynth advanced, the weight of his presence pressed harder. Her legs gave out again, driving her to her knees. Her mind spun with memories—her childhood, her princess days, and the fun she had bossing around the clan with her princess title all on this same soil.

"No... it can't end here," she whispered. It wasn't her life she feared for, but the kingdom she loved.

"I won't let it fall."

Forcing herself up—defying nature, defying the pressure—Elara rose in trembling defiance.

"Move no further," she commanded, manipulating the earth beneath Zarynth's feet into a sinkhole with a sweep of her hand and a will forged in desperation.

But what she saw next shattered even hope.

Zarynth didn't flinch.

Still smiling, he stood mid-air, floating just above the collapsing earth like a phantom.

"I don't walk on the same ground as you," he said coldly.

"I am above all—just as predators are above prey."

"I command you to leave… now!" Lilitu cried, her voice trembling with a gamble.

"As what?" Zarynth mocked. "My creator?"

"No... as your elder sister," Lilitu snapped, forcing authority into her voice like a whip.

Zarynth chuckled—slowly at first, then covering his mouth as the laugh deepened, turning twisted.

"Ohhh… no wonder you look so familiar. You're the weakling from the dungeon the other day."

His chuckle darkened further. "I haven't lived long, but I've learned one thing—life isn't fair. Age doesn't command respect. Influence does."

Thalvron stood still, calculating.

'I was right all along', he thought, studying Zarynth's form. 'His bloodlust correlates directly with his hunger. A prolonged fight will result to death. For all of us.'

"Wait," Lilitu blurted, trying to buy time. "Don't you want to know your name?"

"I have a name… maybe," Zarynth said with a toothy grin. "Tell me. Or better yet—scream it while I tear you apart."

"No. I was ordered to tell you... with not a single scar on my body," she lied.

"Boring," he said with a shrug. "But fine. I don't mind. Tell me."

---

Lilitu remembered the scorching day in the dungeon.

Thalvron had entered her quarters, sliding the door aside and kneeling.

"My lady, the Queen seeks your immediate presence."

"I'll be there," Lilitu had replied from her usual corner, where thoughts often drowned her.

Later, she stood before a doorless, towering building with only a single window. She opened it herself—her heart thick with tension.

Her mother's face appeared instantly at the window, waiting. Desperate. Pale.

"You're here," she said weakly.

Lilitu said nothing. The pain in her mother's voice mirrored her own.

"Things are falling apart not the way we planned, Lilitu. I might not live to see my son."

Her voice cracked. "Promise me you'll tell him his name."

A tear escaped down Lilitu's cheek. "I will, Mother. If that's the last thing I do for you."

"Tell my king... his name is—"

---

"Your name is Zarynth," Lilitu declared now, loud and clear.

"It means: Breathing Planet."

'Yes', Thalvron thought. 'The Queen gave him that name herself… knowing one day, he would either devour this world or the world would devour him.'

"At last," Zarynth smirked, satisfied. "Someone who acknowledges my grace. Had you said it earlier, maybe I'd have saved her for dessert."

Lilitu's eyes flared with fury—but she was powerless before his overwhelming presence.

Zarynth stepped forward again, a dark smile stretching across his face. His tail swayed behind him like a serpent in celebration.

"I can send you to her, if you want."

"Not another step!" Elara roared, slamming a foot forward, her eyes locked with steel on his.

"I already told you," Zarynth growled. "We're not in the same page… not even the same book. In this world's food chain, I am the apex. Nature put me here. So mind your tone."

But he didn't stop walking.

And each step dropped like a mountain, pressing harder against them until their knees kissed the ground once more.

'No… not another step into my kingdom', Elara screamed in her thoughts. Her teeth clenched. Sweat ran like rivers. Rage and desperation ignited her soul.

"No—!" she cried, charging at him.

Not with speed. With force.

She pushed her body forward against the crushing wind of his aura, like walking through a hurricane while the heavens collapsed around her.

"Elara—NO!" Lilitu screamed, reaching out, but the pressure pushed her back like a wall of thunder.

'Damn this Princess... now I see why Allen walks the same path she does', she thought.

'So selfless. So desperate. Even without regeneration… still, she charges. Damn it. But I won't let her outdo me.'

"Weakling" Zarynth growled striking straight ahead with his claws at blinding speed.

SQUELCH

Flesh tore under the claw of Zarynth's hand.

Not Elara's.

Lilitu's.

Her head tilted back with a simple smile tugging her lips.

"Sorry... but I can't be outdone by you," she whispered to Elara, blood dripping from her mouth.

Elara stood frozen in dread and confusion.

'Why did she—?' she thought, then muttered with trembling eyes, "What are you talking about?"

"Two bodies... and two souls in you...!" Zarynth smirked with a grin, raising her high above the ground with his hand buried deep in her tummy.

"You're pregnant with something big...! How about I take it from you?"

"My Princess...!" Thalvron roared, charging in with everything he had and a flaming fist—terror not quenching, but fueling his rage. 'She's pregnant?...that defines why she has been emotional and rude lately.'

But Zarynth sent him flying with a single flick of his tail. The impact sliced through his body in perfect symmetry, blasting him crippled to the ground.

At a distance, Kealion and the other four Elders approached. They saw all that had happened—Lilitu's sacrifice, and the undeniable dark pressure that hovered across the arena.

'So Allen wasn't lying about the child... but who would've thought a child could be such a threat? That Allen boy sure has guts,' Kealion thought.

With a stamp of his foot, Kealion manipulated just the earth beneath Elara, withdrawing her—and the rock she stood on—back toward him. Then he commanded the Elders behind him:

"The devil is the target. But if the vampires get in your way—kill them."

"Yes, sir," Thayvall howled, vanishing into a black-blue blur of flash and surrounding Zarynth from all corners.

Zarynth scanned around him, but his attention was still locked on Lilitu—her legs wiggling midair, body raised high by one hand.

"Where did you find this gene?" he whispered to her. But her only reply was the groan of her agony.

"No reply, hmm...? I'll just take it from you."

The long claws of his second hand shot into her pussy.

"Aaargh..." she cried in pain, eyes opening wider than normal fixed to the sky with red vains running through here eyeballs. Her thighs clenched tightly in pain, but his strength pried them open with ease.

His fingers worked inside—not romantically, but with brutal force, tearing her insides.

Then he found it—the embryo, attached to the uterus, (her womb).

He pulled it out with desperate fury.

Held in his hand was a ball-like tissue. But it wasn't just tissue—it pulsed with genetic material, a soul, the fruit of the seed of Allen. In other words, he held the pure gene of a human in his grip.

"I'll take this... as a gift from my elder sister," he whispered, then thrashed Lilitu to the ground like a worthless rag her body coiling up in pain and cries and tears escaped from her.

With demonic hunger, he shoved it into his mouth without hesitation, swallowing it deep into his stomach—a stomach synonymous with a whole planet.

His aura surged violently.

His senses sharpened. A new wave of power flooded his veins. Where his body once held four hearts and brains—one pair of a heart and a brain in his head, two in each of his elbows, and another above his long, knee-length co*k—now a fifth pair, smaller but potent, of a heart and a brain, formed within his chest.

The five Elders surrounded him like predators—yet the question lingered within there heated breaths: who was truly the prey?

Shaking, yet firm, they stood with authority.

Kealion, Luminary of Earth Wisdom, stood at his front.

Amaterasu, Luminary of Flame Wisdom, took a spaced position to his side, embers already dancing around her and her blade held strongly in her grip.

To Zarynth's right-rear stood Caelen, Luminary of Wind Wisdom. His usual cocky grin and boasts in battles were absent—replaced by utter silence and stillness.

To his left-rear stood Garric, Luminary of Unique Wisdom—blessed with the ability to master unnatural gifts. His calculating eyes were fierce. His Byakugan-like vision allowed him to see internal systems and weaknesses. Yet here—for the first time—he saw none. Just a terrifying being with ten hearts and ten brains.

Lastly, to Zarynth's front-left stood Maxen, Luminary of Water Wisdom. His gaze was calm as the sea—but even calm seas hide storms beneath their breath.

Zarynth's black tongue flicked out of his mouth, savoring each inch of his lips. His smile grew wider.

"I have an idea..." he smirked without worry.

"How about—rather than just using you all as food—I use you all as entertainment for starters?"