NOVEL WEB Chapter 8: Leviathan
The Suspension Diah's team made with the vines broke and leviathan lying half way hit the ocean floor hard and woke up angry, the beast was furious it roared loudly and swam to the surface to vent its anger. Waves rushed to the surface of the water in rapid motion and every sea creature fled the scene. The soldiers saw what was happening and cleared the area, the special set of soldiers trained in taming the beast came to the shore and started the ritual ceremony.
Leviathan swam in full speed to shore, its horns could be seen at first then gradually the whole head. The taming ritual was a combo of songs, chants, spells and prayers, this ritual was passed down knowledge by the preceding knights who studied the monster and tamed it first and has worked all the time in the past. The process begun and when the beast's head was out of the water, it was already halfway, the ritual seems to work and as the spell hit the beast, he succumbed gradually and shortly, the waves stopped, the beast's head went back into the water and everything went calm.
The special set of soldiers packed their charms and mounted their wagon and started returning back to the academy. After what lasted for like thirty minutes, the beast came out of the water in full rage that the force it came out with pushed everything within feets of the shore away in full force. The soldiers in their wagon were affected, badly injuring them. The beast spat fire that burnt up everything it touched instantly. All the soldiers in the academy marched to the shore battle ready, if the beast cannot be tamed it'll be killed or they'll die trying.
The battle went on for hours with more soldiers being wounded and more replacing the wounded ones. The monks had to consult the gods in divination and prayers. Everyone who could help put the beast under control assisted but every effort proved futile, Leviathan crushed their battle implements and spat fire at anyone who tried to approach it.
Meanwhile, Sharna prepared to go to the battle front to help, as she prepared, Onyx tried to discourage her.
"You'll die out there don't go" he said.
"I have to try even if it kills me" Sharna insisted.
"What? You're not even a soldier yet, you don't have the requirements"
"I am not going to fight it, i am going to tame it"
"Tame it? Have you tamed anything before? And you want to start with the 'almighty' Leviathan! "
"At least i'm willing to try, what are you willing to do?"
"Whoa!"
She buckled the last buckle on her armour and picked her helmet to leave.
"Well, too bad i can't say anything to stop you. But i can do this" he clasped his hand and the doors shut from without him physically touching it.
Sharna stopped on her track, then angrily turned to face him. "Really?"
"Sorry, but i love you too much to watch you walk to your death. We stay here till the beast's tamed, so grab a book and be comfortable and take off those too cause it gets really hot in there" he referred to the armour she was wearing.
She sighed hard. Then walked to the window and looked at the battle front from it though miles away, her blood boiled furiously she bit her lips hard until they bled. "So what now?"
Onyx exhaled deep "we do nothing, we just sit back and let the experts do their job. Nobody's death will be on anyone"
"Yeah" she agreed. "Hey, have you seen Kibi?"
"Uh nope"
"Can you help me find him"
He chuckled "i see what you're trying to do. Nah, it is not going to work"
"What, what am i trying to do"
"You want me to go find kibi so you can scurry off to the battle front. Not working"
"Why do i bother?"she made a sharpwhistle note and kibi came flying towards the window. She mumbled some spells then removed her necklace and wore it on her wrist. "The thing with telepaths is that you always think you can control everything simply because you are given a little privilege to control little, but we animal linguas always have our way" she flicked at kibi and he dropped fast to the ground (where they were was very high from the ground) she jumped out and fell freely.
Onyx didn't see this coming, he ran to the window and looked down, he saw kibi transformed to a really huge flying he'e with wings as big as a lioManu. "SHARNA!"
She chuckled as she heard him call her name. She flew to the battle front.
Onyx ran to look for Ross, Snow, Diah and Briggard. He ran very fast hitting people and things on the way, he got to where they were and breathlessly he narrated everything almost fainting, the group ran to the battle front as fast as they could.
The area was filled with smoke and burnt debris, Sharna squinted her eyes to get a better view, she flew closer and closer till she was few feets to the beast. As she got pretty close, it darted spikes at her from its scale, she swerved fast and almost lost balance on Kibi, from afar Ross and Diah yelled at her to retreat but she didn't hear them, as she advanced again the beast spat fire at her, she flew upwards to dodge the fire and lost her grip on Kibi, she fell into the water and her necklace loosened from her wrist making the spell she casted on kibi fade and it shrunk back to its normal size and flew away, she swam to the shore and was lucky cause kibi distracted leviathan. Immediately she got to the shore, she started humming a spell she learnt in beast taming class, Leviathan turned towards her direction and advanced towards her in full speed, at first it didn't seem to have effect but as she continued and proceeded to chanting, the beast stopped and stayed still for a while, she continued with her eyes closed. The beast formed a huge fire ball and spat it in her direction. Unsuspecting Sharna didn't see it coming, few feets from her someone pushed her out of the way. She opened her eyes and saw Ross and became unconscious, the beast made another attempt to blast them but turned to another direction, Diah, Snow and Briggard shot darts at it and it went after them, it poured out fire on them but they dodged, when they noticed Ross had safely carried Sharna away, they retreated. Snow made a whirlwind of dust and covered the beast's view with it. While they ran away from there, Snow tripped and hurt her ankle, Briggard went back to help her.
"Go on without me" she protested.
"Never!" Briggard flung her hand over her shoulder and supported her.
They weren't fast enough and by this time, the dust was clearing from the beast's view. Diah joined and helped Snow, before they went far, the beast could see clearer and in rage it formed a really huge fireball to spit at them, all Diah could think of was to run towards it in order to distract it, she picked up a spear and threw at it, the spear hit the beast, it turned to see where it came from and upon seeing Diah who was yelling really loud to get its attention, the beast swallowed the fire ball it had formed in it's upper stomach and stooped low to face Diah, in shock she threw the darts in her hand away and awaited the worse, Leviathan sniffed her for few seconds and purred, Diah whose eyes were shut in anticipation of a painful death opened it and shrieked in fright to see a mountain sized beast staring at her with eighteen eyes, the beast purred aloud and batted its eyes, Diah using up all the courage in her, stretched her hand to touch a part of its huge nose, she took calming breaths and finally placed a finger on it. The moment she did, she saw flashes of what happened when the suspension broke, it landed on its back, and got pierced by a really sharp rock in one of the sensitive part of its back and got stuck there.
"Oh! You're hurt" she said in a soft whisper upon realisation.
The beast growled softly.
Diah yelled to the rest of the people nearby that the beast was hurt and needed help.
After hesitating, desert soldiers helped it by harnessing the rock out of its back in a really careful and less painful way. Relieved, the beast growled loudly, it turned to Diah who stood by humming a tune she learnt from Hsu from one of his tales to it while they pulled out the rock from its back, and breathed upon her. It looked round and saw the damage it caused and those wounded, it blew a chill almost visible blue colored wind from its nostrils that went through out the academy, restoring everything and everyone back to a perfect state.
"Thank you" Diah whispered tearfully to it.
It purred and roared loudly and made a deep dive back into the sea, for good this time.