The Dawn of the New World

Even after seeing his friend getting attacked by some strange ability, there was no hesitation in his form whatsoever. The great hammer came down with such brute physical force that it sounded like a firework ready to go off but before right before it could, the back of her head parted and a demented face showed itself from within the beating flesh.

A pair of black eyes with two rows of hooked teeth stared him right in the face.

Her arms jerked, twisted and then rotated 180 degrees to catch the hammer just before it could come into contact with its body. It was stopped dead in its tracks.

The guard tried his best to overpower her but no matter how much strength he put behind the hammer there was no way it was moving even a centimeter forward.

And just like that, while still holding the great hammer in place and the guard along with it, she got up on her feet.

"Its" actual form finally came into full view of everyone, including the elders and Princess Helena who were all watching from the side.

It was more than twice as tall as the guard at approximately 4.3 meters in height, towering over him. Its figure was extremely thin, emaciated to such a degree that it "looked" like skin and bones but each of its limbs were horrendously misconfigured as if someone had tried to make a human-shaped creature just from hearing stories about them.

There was a large pulsating bulbous growth where its abdomen should have been. Numerous thick veins connected it to the rest of its body, drawing nutrients towards its center.

That was the thing the first guard had seen right before both his eyes exploded in his sockets. It still had relatively humanoid legs even if they were two-thirds the size of the rest of its body but they were facing the other way, the backside where the second guard was.

Its long hair moved without any wind, joining together like lines of clay to make thicker ropes lined with twisted hooks throughout its length.

It stared at the second guard for a moment, both its black eyes spinning left and right trying to focus on him. The guard finally panicked and when he tried to let go of the hammer he realized that small strands of hair had wriggled over from the creature.

Each solitary strand of hair had the same hooks as the larger ones. They had already dug into his flesh basically fusing him with the hammer.

He looked up at the creature's disfigured face, staring at those vertical rows of teeth that could tear out a chunk of flesh as if it was nothing and knew that if he got caught up in that it would be his end. There was only one thing to do.

"AAAHHH!"

He screamed through the pain while ripping open the palms of his hand. All the skin and most of the flesh was left hanging on the hilt as he pulled away, putting some distance between the creature and itself.

"H-HELP!"

Hearing his scream the first guard who was thoroughly blinded also shouted for help, bringing the spectators back to reality.

Elder Achak shouted at the frozen guards, "GO! ARE YOU WAITING FOR AN INVITE?!"

The biggest one of them who was a little over 3 meters in height was the first one to step forward. He pulled out a serrated saw from his back that was half his length and charged towards the creature like a maddened bull.

The creature's hair shot out like bullets and impacted with the saw, pushing the guard back half a meter with pure strength.

It was enough of a distraction for the creature to focus on him, giving the others an opportunity to rescue the blinded guard and bring him to safety.

The creature also finally noticed that its prey had been taken away and reacted violently. Its raving maw opened and closed repeatedly with such a distinct noise that it could be felt in the listener's bones.

The eerie clopping noise created invisible shockwaves that immobilized several of the weaker guards while the others were shaken to their very cores. It took every iota of willpower they could muster to keep themselves from falling over.

Princess Helena raised her hands in prayer while muttering something under her breath. An orb of blue light materialized in front of her and its light significantly lowered the effects of the noise attack, allowing them to regain full control of their bodies.

"That's a demon, be extra careful of its strange abilities. Do not look at the thing on its back, that's not something just anyone can handle," she warned the guards before looking towards the elders.

"Will you keep waiting for it to kill your men or join hands and destroy it?"