Chapter 169: Beast Lord

In front of Luke, two massive yellow eyes stared him down. Slitted pupils like blades. The scent of the city mixed with something heavier, something rotten. The stench of the serpent. It was the reek of old blood, wet moss, and damp earth.

[Frankzaroth, the Great Serpent (Beast Lord) – Lvl 83]

Its body was as thick as a freight train, scales black and uneven like scorched iron plates fused together. It didn’t move. It only watched. Judging. Calculating. Tasting.

Luke barely breathed.

Then came a crack.

It moved.

Luke threw himself to the ground, instinct taking over. Even then, those eyes were still there. Cold. Alive. Following his every inch. The mouth opened. Two long fangs, maybe even bigger than him. Drool spilled from between its teeth, and the roar that followed was like an avalanche detonating in a tunnel. A blast of wind came with the saliva, the force throwing Luke backward.

It came for him. Fast. Too fast. Its massive body whipped across the ground like a giant cable, crushing everything in its path. Luke activated his Dash, leaping skyward. He landed on a rooftop and immediately sprinted forward. He had to get deeper into the capital. Away from open ground. Out of the serpent’s range. He didn’t stop. Dash after dash, his body blurred with speed, leaping from one building to the next.

Of course this would happen. Just my luck!

Behind him, the serpent roared again, demolishing everything in its pursuit. Buildings crumbled under the weight of its body as it slid violently down the street. Smaller beasts were scattering in every direction. Luke didn’t care about them, and apparently, neither did they. They were running on pure instinct.

He hurled himself through the window of a massive, half-ruined structure. The place had once been some kind of tower, an old office building maybe, and now echoed with every quake of the serpent closing in behind him.

“WE’RE GONNA DIE! WE’RE GONNA DIE!” Artemis screamed in panic.

“SHUT UP!” Luke shouted, vaulting through another shattered window and sprinting across the next rooftop.

By now, Charlie had returned to his soul. She was too slow to keep up. He crashed through the remains of an upper floor, an old office covered in cobwebs, dusty furniture, broken cabinets. His heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the serpent moving outside, slamming into the streets below, shattering stone as it hunted.

He passed by a row of tall windows, and there it was. The serpent. It had found him. It stared into the building, massive eyes locked onto him like a predator eyeing a wounded animal. Webs snagged his arms as he ran. He slashed them away with a kukri, only to hear a high-pitched screech. A spider launched at him from the ceiling, fangs bared.

“Shit!” Luke twisted mid-run, flinging a kukri into one of its legs.

Then the impact came. The entire floor collapsed as the serpent’s head slammed into it. Its jaws burst through the wall with terrifying force, devouring steel, wood, and concrete in a single bite. Right where he was headed. The thing had calculated that. It was thinking. Hunting. Planning.

He saw it chewing through rubble like it was biting into brittle crackers, never looking away. Eyes still locked on him. No hesitation. Luke bolted in the opposite direction, sprinting across what remained of the ruined floor.

A Lord. A damn Lord. What are the odds I’d run face-first into one just hours after stepping foot in this place?!

The entire building began to shake. Outside, the serpent’s roar echoed through the ruins, warping the air itself. Luke sprinted down the hallway toward the far side of the floor, but when he reached the window, his heart sank. No way out. A massive coil of the serpent’s body blocked the opening like a living wall. Then the sound changed. A deep, guttural crack, as if the world itself was about to snap in two.

“Oh no… don’t tell me it’s doing what I think it’s doing,” Luke muttered, scanning the room. The ceiling creaked. The walls shuddered. The sound intensified with every second.

The serpent had coiled itself around the entire building. And now, it was squeezing.

The walls began to groan. The ceiling above collapsed in chunks. Debris rained down from every angle. Luke bolted into another room, but every window he found was blocked. Segments of the beast’s body wrapped tightly around the structure, suffocating it from all sides.

“Shit! I’m gonna get crushed in here!”

The building swayed again. The floor shook beneath his boots. One of the serpent’s coils smashed through a wall, forcing its mass inward, warping the support beams. Luke spotted an opening in the ceiling, an upper floor, partially caved in. He leapt, grabbed onto the broken edge, and scrambled upward. His breath came fast. Behind him, the building cracked louder. On the next floor, a window. Unblocked.

No hesitation. He sprinted toward it and dove straight through, shattering the glass with his full weight. He landed hard on a slanted rooftop, rolled, slid, and barely caught himself before toppling off the edge. Rising to his feet, he looked back and saw it.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The serpent’s full body had wrapped around the building, tightening like it was strangling prey. The structure groaned, bent, and finally gave way. It collapsed in on itself with a roar of stone, steel, and dust. The creature let out a triumphant bellow.