Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

First Volume - Northern Tribes

The wind blew through the crowns of trees blanketed in the heavy snow, while all sorts of birds started to sing as the sun was rising from the horizon. Wild animals were living their life as they frolicked in the forest covered in snow and frost or were either hibernating or looking for food which was sparse in those icy lands.

Time passed, the sun rose and animals hiding and sleeping during the night finally chose to go out to get food.

Inside a forest, there was one big lake surrounded by small grassy land where many animals of different races come across each other as they come here for the water to drink.

The same routine was chosen by a pack of the deers and does that came to the lake to drink the water too. As the lake was frozen every morning they stomped on the ice with their hooves to crack it. Then they finally could drink the fresh and cold water.

Many smaller rodents and birds exploited this as they came later to drink after the deer left. But this time, unfortunately, they will never have the chance to.

*CRACK*

The noise of the fallen trees beyond the lake plane was loud and scared most of the animals. The noise was quickly closing in on the place of the lake as weird howling sounded out. The herd of deer started to run too but it was too late as the uprooted tree was hurled at them. The tree crashed into them and most of them got crushed. Finally, the shadows hidden behind the trees came out.

They were kind of wolves with bony protrusions on their body and distinct humanoid-like bodies. When they saw those dead animals they smiled creepily and went to them and started to feast on them. Some of them choose to go to the lake to drink. For that, they swung their claws and big holes opened up in the ice as the water splashed everywhere. Then they plunged their head into those holes to drink in big gulps.

That was especially true for one of the biggest ones in the group. He drank so much that the water in the lake visibly decreased. He looked majestic albeit in a sinister way. Unfortunately, lately, it was feeling the deep feeling of weakness from the inside of it. Its whimpers have been heard many times during the latest years.

It seemed that it ate something bad that it couldn't digest and now it was inside of its body. In the beginning, it didn't notice it but as more and more time passed it started to feel something was amiss. It felt irritated and weak after all that time of suffering. When its discomfort reached its peak it tried to puke it out to get rid of it.

Unfortunately, it got stuck. It seemed that it was bigger than the gullet of the being. But then how did it swallow it?

As time passed it felt more and more weak and had to eat more food that it seemed to lack despite eating the same amount. It tried to eat all kinds of wild herbs with all kinds of uses to ease pain but it only treated the symptoms and not the root cause. It started to eat dirt and rocks since it instinctively felt that eating it could help it to solve its digestive problem but unfortunately unsuccessfully.

In the end, the monster couldn't do anything to solve it so it could only live with it. Initially one of the strongest in the group its power started to decline and its position in the pack was endangered but despite all this, it was still doing well. Because of its gigantic height and weight and those majestic deer-like antlers on its head, it could defend itself despite its weakness.

But lately, the pain intensified as if something sharp was piercing it from the inside and it was harder to keep up with its pack. Even now it is extremely tiring as the pain is irregular and could happen anytime draining it mentally.

After a long time, the monster finally satisfied its thirst and went to the empty place where the grass grew and lay down. It tried to find the most comfortable position and then finally closed its eyes to rest before the pack set off again...

Several hours later.

*Swoosh*

Piercing noises of air being cut sounded out in the forest which was directed at the sleeping beast. Then its ears moved little and its crimson eyes opened instantly. Unfortunately, it was too late and the sources of sound already got too close and hit it right after.

*Hoowl*

Beast was enraged. In its fur-covered skin were embedded tens of the crude arrows made of the wood or bones.

One of them hits its eye immediately loses its luster and starts to fill with blood. When it looked around itself it saw that on the plane around the lake and the trees were those small and bald creatures wearing furs of different species holding things in their hands. The creature's face immediately got twisted. It was a group of approximately four dozen humans, beings that the creature loathed and feared the most. Unfortunately, it was outmatched as its kins were gone. It looked like it slept while all of them already left. It was probably because of its weakness making its sleep deeper than usual.

The creature squinted its one eye at those humans and scrutinized them with wariness. After a while, it relaxed as the creepy smile it had when it hunted prey showed up. Those humans, albeit better than the weakest of them that it ate, are not as intimidating as the ones in the South. They were so thin that even their bones were visible. The things in their hands didn't have the luster as the ones in the south had. The aura they emitted was inferior too. They looked like lesser beings compared to them.

Albeit that was the case the creature was still wary as it felt distinct danger. Humans on the other hand watched it too with rapt attention and mad passion. Then the one with the cleanest fur and bird feather crown on his head yelled at his comrades.

"The devil has come to our lands! We need to eradicate it before it infests the soil of our ancestors! Those evil creatures that don't believe in our savior and don't deserve his mercy, let them be our new sacrifice to get the goodwill of our lord!"

"Yeaaah let's kill it!"

"Let's sacrifice it, chief!"

"Hahahahah"

All of those humans started to yell and shout their war cries as they looked at the beast. They lifted their weapons which were mainly made from wood, stones, or bones, and started to run toward it.

The chief who ended his speech took out his two weapons respectively the bone spear from the unknown creature and the jagged knife that was one of the few iron weapons in their entire clan. He shouted out his war cry too as he went towards the being.

There were no tactics in their attack, only violence. Those who attacked with long-range attacks attacked first and then close combatants swarmed the beast. They attacked like mad dogs and didn't care about the safety of their comrades or even themselves.

When the beast saw those insignificant beings attack it instead of cowering it grew furious. But then it smirked as does always and waited as they got closer. It bent its hind legs a little and tensed its muscles while watching them. It got hit several times by arrows, javelins, and rocks but it withstood it and patiently waited. Then...

*Swish*
It pounced at them and swung its front paws diagonally into a bloody cross before it. The result was the mangled flesh of a minimum dozen of the aborigines of this forest. Some were split in half while others were in several pieces. Very few who got hit by the creature survived.

The one aborigine whose intestines hung down its stomach lay on the snowy land as the creature's gaze landed on it. It then crouched, opened its maw, and swallowed the man whole. Then it took the mangled flesh of the other aborigines in its hand and started chewing at it while creepily smirking at the remaining ones.

Fortunately or unfortunately those aborigines were not intimidated as they attacked again. This time the chief took the creature head-on as others started to circumvent it to attack from the sides and behind. On the other hand, archers could start to attack again as there were gaps between the aborigines after many deaths.

They were furious that the beast actually dared to swallow and taint several of them despite that their bodies should without exception belong to their lord the saviour!

"You will pay, beast." the chief growled as the beast pounced at him and swung one of its arms. Chief was quick in response as he hurled his spear and leaped towards the side.

Despite the aborigines' seemingly sickly bodies, their strength was abnormal. The creature ran right into the spear that embedded itself deeply in its stomach. It whimpered but before it could recover something flashed from its side and it felt extreme pain from its right arm.

*Splash*

When it turned around it saw that some of its fingers were gone while the wound extended towards its entire forearm. The culprit behind it was obviously the chief of the group with his jagged dagger. Unfortunately for the creature, it couldn't have its revenge as attacks from others began to take a toll on its body. If it was in its peak state it wouldn't be any problem. But now when it was at its lowest its reflexes and strength were weak and it was helpless.

The monster took the shaft of the spear and took it out of its stomach as it hurled it somewhere to the lake turned around and ran towards the densest place of aborigines. Before most of them could react it attacked them again and managed to swallow several of them before it ran away.

"NO! We can't let it run away! This abominable monster took what property of our lord! We must retrieve their bodies and let them sacrifice!" When the chief yelled only a few went after it. More than two dozen of them were dead while some of them missed their limbs or had most of their bones broken.

When it really seemed that the monster would run away the aborigines heard the loud whimper of the beast as it lost balance and fell to the ground its inertia making its fall drastic as it crashed into the trees in front of it completely demolishing them. A few of the branches and big splinters penetrated its fur little and it got wounded even more albeit superficially.

The monster once again felt the prickling pain in its stomach and at this time it seemed fatal. Before the monster could properly stand up the aborigines saw the opportunity and didn't miss it. They lunged at it and started to hurl one attack after another on the deplorable beast that couldn't muster any strength to defend itself. Each attack dug deep into the beast's flesh covering its body with horrible wounds. The monster roared in pain but could not do anything as the aborigines attacked with ferocity.

When it finally lay down helplessly on the ground only weakly breathing the chief slowly came to its head and profoundly looked into its eye with mad passion declaring:

"Let your body be enough to satisfy our lord and get his forgiveness as that is the only thing you are worthy of." Then he stabbed towards the unwilling eye bringing the dagger as deep as it could into its skull. When the hilt hit the fur he stopped and slowly took the dagger out.

The beast was dead.

Aborigines started to cheer as they lifted their weapons above their head and started to yell and praise their lord.

"My lord brought us the victory."

"With this sacrifice, our newborn children will be healthy minimally for three winters ha ha ha."

"Our lord is so generous.."

As they celebrated their chief coughed and started to tell in a loud voice.

"Before we take this beast to our village we must free our brothers from this devil's mouth lest they get tainted too much! We cannot let that allow us as we must present them to our lord! The same is true for our dead comrades that lie on the ground! Go retrieve as many of them as you can! The more our lord gets the more happy he will be and the more we will be happy!"

"Yeaah" others cheered as they started to work. Some went to take baskets and started to take the mangled flesh of their comrades from the ground while others started to flip the creature on its back to reveal its belly. The creatures weighed many tons but those seemingly underfed aborigines managed to move it after a while. They were much stronger than they looked.

Chief watched them until they completely flipped it. After they were done he came closer to it and patted its belly. Then he violently stabbed his jagged dagger into its innards. He put pressure on it so it was deep enough and started to cut horizontally to make the hole bigger. As the knife was jagged the flesh was sawed easily and in no time the monster's innards were seen. Other aborigines opened up the bloody wound and the chief took from one of them a wooden spear which he then stabbed into the stomach of the beast. After that, he immediately retreated.

It was as if dam broked. The spear was immediately corroded under the gastric juice that flowed and the small hole in the stomach started to flush out more and more gastric juice. It started to corrode the other innards of the monster yet the aborigines were impassive.

When the flow finally stopped their chief took his dagger again and this time he made a much bigger hole. This time he didn't manage to get out safely and got burned a little on his feet and arms but he withstood it with grimace and stepped aside.

Aborigines watched with expressions that told they were not doing this for the first time and watched the contents of the monster's stomach. From the stomach started to flow all kinds of bones and corpses which didn't melt yet including their comrades. But what did they not expect was...

That one of the 'corpses' was still moving.