All he could do was embed the spear deeper while moving it around whenever he could. Deepening the wound in the back of the beast’s throat, drilling ever closer to its brain in the process and causing unimaginable pain to the monster, would be his one chance at vanquishing this foe.
He could not allow himself to lose. Not when he had finally become a general.
The Fearless thrashed around him. In the darkness, the stench of his brothers making Braen want to vomit, he could feel the ground shake under the massive footsteps of the enemy as it stumbled around.
At last, the Fearless seemed to understand Braen's plan, right around when the general used a calmer moment to brace himself against one of its fangs and push the spear deeper. Blood rushed out of the wound, pooling up around his feet.
The moment was without compare. Nothing in the known galaxy compared to the Fearless. The only way for him to win was to endure and strike at the only soft spot the creature had.
The problem was, with every new Fearless, that weakness had to be rediscovered. No Fearless was like the last, presenting a wholly unique challenge. Seventeen Fearless had produced seventeen unique enemies, each tougher than the previous one.
That was something General Valden had failed to understand. Methods that had worked before would not work again.
Braen had immediately seen there was no use in blunting his spear against the Fearless' scales. So many of the fallen had been crushed by its tail or bitten in half or torn to pieces. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, in the safest place imaginable – within the enemy itself.
But not for long.
"Smart," the Fearless snarled to him, "but you have no way out!"
There was nowhere for Braen to hide, nor could he afford to pull his spear free. He needed both hands and every ounce of strength in his powerful body to stay in place.
The Fearless knew it too, even though it sensed the danger it was in. When the beast opened its mouth wide, pooling blood nearly up to Braen’s knees, he bitterly regretted taunting the enemy. He had promised to make it choke on its own blood and the Fearless had understood it wasn't impossible after all.
Unable to spit him out or chew him to powder, the Fearless resorted to clawing him out. To a Fearless, the only important thing was its own life. Damage could be healed.
Now, they were both fighting for their lives.
If I had any good sense, I would have avoided it coming to this, Braen thought with morbid glee when the Fearless resolved to hurting itself to get him out.
The beast's claws were massive, bigger even than its wide mouth. They were not the tools for the delicate work of extracting Braen, but they were sharp. Brion armor was sturdy and strong, but the Fearless' claws cut through it like it was nothing but cloth.
Braen let out an anguished scream as one of the claws gnashed into his side, but his grip on the spear never wavered. He put his entire weight behind it instead, shoving the spear upwards, trying to reach the brain.
The Fearless was no longer saying anything. It held perfectly still, the only movement being the frantic clawing of its hands. Braen was covered with gore from head to toe, tasting the blood of his enemy as well as his brothers as the Fearless tore out pieces of its own jaws to get to him.
Knowing it meant death was but seconds away, Braen retreated as far as he could in the mouth cavity, bracing himself against one of the fangs. The gashes in his armor were so great now that the blood and foam were welling in his boots. The spear was slippery with the Fearless' saliva and Braen's hands were shaking as he braced, his feet desperately looking for grip on the beast’s tongue.
His body was trained for exertion since he'd been a child, but his opponent's strength was clearly greater than his own. Something that Braen would be reluctant to admit. The longer this went on, the more difficult it would be for Braen.
You will not win today, Fearless, he thought, gritting his teeth.
The Fearless lost control when Braen managed to take a step forward. The claws reached him and for a moment, Braen felt the cold hand of death closing around him. He was in the monster's palm.
With a thunderous battle cry, Braen cut. His muscles bulged under the pressure, pushing the spear one last time. It was so deeply buried in the enemy's flesh that it was hard to maintain a grip, but the amount of blood raining down on him from above told Braen the end was close.
The Fearless choked, trying to spit out some of its blood, but there was so much of it. Braen's grip slipped and the enemy's hold around him tightened, trying to pull him out like a rotting tooth. Gritting his teeth, the general held on. Braen felt his ribs cracking with a bone-shattering force, knowing he was inches from his own armor killing him, the sharp edges embedding into his flesh.#p#分页标题#e#
The world was red around Braen. The blood, the raging crimson flashing of his valor squares, the bursting veins in his eyes. The threshold of pain tolerance came and went and his hands were still holding onto the shaft of his spear, resisting being pulled out of the mouth, even when he wasn’t sure whether his consciousness was still with him.
The general and the Fearless both howled in pain, their bodies breaking. As the monster finally slumped to its knees, Braen felt his consciousness slipping away along with it.
One of the Fearless' claws ripped right through his armor, piercing Braen's stomach at that very moment.
Feeling his body shutting down, the coldness of death creeping closer, Braen twisted the spear. The Fearless' dying scream felt like someone was banging his head against a wall, but after what seemed like hours, the vice-like grip around him eased up.
Not today, the thought rushed through his head as Braen’s eyes fluttered open and his lungs filled with air.
With the last reserves of his strength, he pushed the cage of teeth open. It was hard going. The Fearless was still trying to stop him from living through the battle by keeping him until his body gave up.
Using his own body as a lever, Braen pushed through the broken fangs and gasped for the first breath of fresh air like a man dying of thirst getting his first sip of cool, clear water.
He crawled out of the monster's mouth on his hands and knees, clutching the terrible wound in his stomach. With his whole body shaking, he took a moment to gather himself, feeling his wounds breathe right along with him.
Victory.
His vision was foggy and the world swam around him as he knelt there, in a pool of blood, some of his own dribbling off his broken armor. Looking at the massive body beside him, twitching as its nerve endings were shutting down, Braen had expected the victory to taste sweeter than anything else.
Not only had he become a general of the Brion armies, but he had defeated the seventeenth Fearless ever known. His name would go down in the history books.
Yet, the taste in his mouth was nothing but bitter copper, a sense of foreboding echoing over him.
He signaled the gigantic warship Benevolent to come and pick him up, watching the Fearless succumb to its wounds.
The general could have sworn that the enemy whispered something to him with its last breath.
It sounded like "This is not the end".
His injuries were so great that Braen arrived on Briolina with half of his ribs replaced by a mechanical contraption that was meant to stop his chest from collapsing, not to mention the rest of his wounds.
Yet he had killed a Fearless and nothing in the world could have taken that from him. Braen truly was a Brion general now. Always challenged, always doubted, always victorious. No matter what the galaxy threw at him. Just like he’d always known he would be.
"This is going to hurt," General Faren told him instead of congratulations.
The coldest, most terrifying general of them all looked at Braen with icy eyes, daring him to say anything. Faren's own valor squares reached his temples, rumored to have damaged his emotional core so he no longer felt anything. Braen knew it wasn't true, but it sometimes helped to have the union believe things like that. Reputation always preceded a man, after all.
As it should, Braen thought to himself at Faren’s comment.
Though nothing could really hurt as much as being nearly crushed between the jaws of a Fearless.
He didn't reply. In response, he thought he saw a flash of approval in Faren's stormy eyes as the general personally gifted him with the valor squares honoring Braen for the Fearless kill.
There were many and they did hurt, but it wasn't important. Braen never moved a muscle.
Considering all that, it was a huge disappointment to hear years later that the Fearless he had so painstakingly murdered wasn't as dead as he had presumed after all.
1
Naima
The dark ocean looked like black ink, even in daylight.
Naima was sitting on the edge of the lower side of the research yacht Nautica, her toes in the warm water. Her feet didn't reach deep under the ocean surface, but the mineralogist couldn't make out anything, not even the color of her own skin. It was like dipping her legs into black ink.
She was so focused on the endless field of water before her that she didn't hear Janey approach. The junior researcher was already wearing the dark blue diving suit just as Naima was, not even bothering to hide the look of disdain on her face.#p#分页标题#e#
"You look like you're having a staring competition with this ocean," Janey said. "Does it help?"
"A little," Naima admitted, grinning.
Janey popped down to sit by her side, careful to hold on to the railing. She didn't put her feet anywhere near the water.