Lord Of Beasts

Kaela had seen it, but not with her eyes.

In that split second where instinct blurred into something more, where her mind pushed just beyond its limits, she glimpsed it.

Her death.

The A Rank Odonata Beast surged forward, its body crackling with violent blue electricity that condensed into something far more dangerous than anything it had shown before. The air itself screamed as energy gathered, the creature moving with such speed that it seemed to fold space rather than cross it.

And Kaela knew.

If she met that head-on, she would die.

There was no regenerating or second chance after taking on such an attack.

For the first time in this entire battle, she abandoned her initial plan.

Her right fist, already drawn back for a direct clash, trembled for a fraction of a moment before she forced herself to change course.

’That’s not happening.’

Instead of meeting the attack head-on, she shifted her body at the last possible moment.

It wasn’t clean and definitely wasn’t painless.

The attack slammed past her.

Blue lightning tore through her right arm and side, ripping through flesh, searing muscle, cracking bone. The force alone was enough to send her spinning through the air, her body twisting violently as pain exploded through her entire being.

But she did not stop.

She could not.

Because in that same instant, she did something reckless, desperate, and that something that only someone like her would even attempt.

A warrior who always gave it their all.

She redirected everything: all the energy, momentum, and force she had originally intended to clash with from her right to her left. Her muscles tore, and her body contorted as she did, but she clenched her teeth and endured.

Drawing her left arm back, even when her entire body screamed in protest, she swung the blitzing blue beast with everything she had.

BOOOOOM!

The impact was not just a collision.

It was an eruption, one so great it felt as though the entire gate had exploded.

A shockwave tore outward in all directions, obliterating everything that remained of the surrounding islands. Massive chunks of stone were reduced to dust, while larger fragments were hurled into the endless void below, spinning and tumbling as if gravity itself had lost control.

The sky cracked with energy, and everyone in the gate felt the sheer force of that clash. But not everyone had the luxury of reacting, because they were fighting their own battles.

And for Kaela, everything went quiet.

The dragonfly fell.

Its body, once a blur of lethal precision and crackling power, dropped from the sky, its wings twitching weakly as the electricity around it flickered and died.

She had won.

The Riot Valkyrie was victorious as always.

But...

”Fuck,” she rasped.

She was falling, and there were no more floating islands to land on. The entire battlefield had been destroyed, reduced to nothing but scattered debris drifting in a dark, endless void.

Kaela’s body spun as she dropped, her limbs heavy and unresponsive, her vision blurring at the edges.

”I guess... I’m falling to my death,” she muttered weakly.

Around her, fragments of shattered islands drifted aimlessly.

She bounced off one, then another, each impact sending fresh waves of pain through her already ruined body. The corpses of the two B Rank beasts from earlier fell alongside her, their lifeless forms tumbling into the abyss.

And something about that caught her attention.

’How does that even work?’

The strange suspension that had kept islands afloat before was gone. Now, everything was falling into the endless void below in slow motion, the weaker gravity only delaying the inevitable.

”Physics can go fuck itself.”

Nothing in this place followed logic, but then again, when did it ever with Titles and Gates.

Kaela had quickly come to terms with this being her death, and she knew that nobody was coming to save her.

’I would have preferred to die drunk when I’m an old hag with saggy tits, but dying after winning a battle like this will have to do.’

She didn’t bother getting overly emotional over something she couldn’t change.

’Death is the only thing we are all guaranteed.’

But that’s when something changed.

An island suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

It hadn’t drifted over or been formed out of the falling debris, but had simply spawned beneath her.

Kaela’s eyes widened slightly, sensing something was off.

”No way...”

She hit it hard.

The impact sent a dull shock through her body, but compared to everything else she had endured, it barely registered.

Moments later, the dragonfly crashed down beside her.

The A Rank Odonata Beast lay there, its body twitching faintly, weak arcs of electricity crackling across its shattered form.

Kaela did not move for a second.

Then....

”Fuuuucccckkkk!”

The word dragged out of her, raw and unfiltered.

Now that she wasn’t going to die, at least not immediately, she had to deal with the agonising pain.

The kind that even she struggled to ignore.

Her right arm was gone in all but name, scorched and mangled beyond recognition. The entire right side of her body was in a similar state, flesh burned to the point where even her insane regeneration struggled to keep up.

Bones were broken, organs were likely damaged, and the electrical burns were the worst part.

’You’d think the electricity would kill my nerves so I wouldn’t have to feel this shit,’ she thought bitterly.

But no.

She felt all of it, every second of it, in every inch of her body.

Still, she moved slowly and painfully.

Kaela dragged herself across the ground, her fingers digging into the stone as she forced her broken body forward.

Toward the beast.

’No resting,’ she told herself. ’Not until it’s dead.’

That was how she fought and lived.

Because a fight was not over until it was over, and a warrior didn’t stop until it was.

She reached it, albeit barely.

It had taken everything she had to do so, and her body gave out just as she got close, collapsing forward onto the massive dragonfly’s form.