24 Night Terror
As the grotesque horror charged, Northern nimbly sidestepped the attack, hissing through gritted teeth as searing pain lanced across his nerves - the monster's razored talons had grazed his skin.
He possessed no formal martial arts training whatsoever.
Though he had insisted, his father steadfastly refused to teach the family's battle style, for reasons he never divulged.
"Son, one day you will enter a rift and discover an even better martial art that will become your own heirloom. Teaching you mine would be a great disservice," his father had said, his words heavy, expression stern whenever the matter arose.
So Northern abandoned the idea.
Like spell arts, martial arts were not easily mastered.
Most extraordinary fighting disciplines originated as 'ways' - intrinsic cultural practices known to the natives of other dimensions.
Much remained shrouded in mystery, but clearly, some fallen civilizations had succumbed to the ravenous rifts and their monstrous denizens, their realms contorted into new horrific domains.
The prevailing theory suggested that should Tra-el ever be conquered, it too could be ripped asunder into dimensional space, unleashing a fresh rift incursion upon the next world.
Though unverified, it offered a plausible explanation.
Notably, those peoples consumed by the rifts lacked the metaphysical concept of Ul embraced by Tra-elians.
However, the quintessence of their martial arts, spell arts, and 'ways' remained extraordinarily potent, elevating a drifter's strength exponentially.
Prestigious nobles and royal families closely guarded their unique battle disciplines, their mastery serving as some badge of pride and status.
Nearly every household, regardless of rank, boasted some form of inherited art - inferior or advanced.
Even a lowly baron took pride in his humble techniques, heirlooms of ancestors who had drifted through realms and returned with hard-won trophies.
Yet certain formidable clans stood apart, their extraordinary prowess bordering on the mythic.
The Kageyama, with their signature raven emblems and blood-red eyes, were universally dreaded masters of death.
Their vast power cowed even monarchs, as this vengeful spirit-clan drifted between lands, their authority rivaling nations.
Wherever the raven banner flew, dread and reverence filled hearts, for none could defy them without courting oblivion.
The clan's Patriarch sat among humanity's elite - a Grandmaster, of which precious few existed across all realms.
Attaining the Evanescent soul-rank granted the honorific reserved for the pinnacle of human potential.
Rumor persisted of a mythical soul who had purportedly ascended even beyond Evanescent to the fabled Radiant rank, as foretold by Ul herself, but this remained unsubstantiated legend over the millennia.
For all intents and purposes, the Evanescent Grandmasters reigned supreme as mortal conquerors of the greatest attainable heights - a lofty caste which included the redoubtable Rughsbourgh himself.
Northern backpedaled, his heart thundering as he gaped at the eldritch abomination looming over him with primal malevolence.
Four hollow crimson eyes locked onto him with predatory focus, gleaming with sadistic intent.
He had never witnessed, nor even conceived, of such a nightmarish terror in his darkest dreams.
If the calamity beast he'd faced alongside his father could be called presentable, this thing was a twisted mockery of nature itself.
The malicious aura suffusing the cavern chilled Northern to his marrow, the icy tendrils of dread far more paralyzing than when he'd confronted the calamity beast.
Back then, at least, he hadn't quaked with bone-deep terror.
Every leaden muscle fiber told him this monster eclipsed that prior threat exponentially.
'I'm never going to survive this...'
He assessed the situation with brutal honesty.
Having witnessed the harrowing difficulty of three of his father battling - and only narrowly defeating - a calamity beast through sheer luck, how could a barely-awakened drifter lacking both martial skill and a soul core possibly prevail against something so exponentially more daunting?
Death loomed, inescapable, its shadow already encroaching.
Northern's clammy fingers tightened around the paltry skinning knife, his mind whirling with panic and desperation.
Outmatched, his meager blade may as well have been a toothpick against this colossal abomination.
But he couldn't resign himself, couldn't surrender without a fight, couldn't relinquish his stubborn grasp on this existence.
Reason warred with a primal, blazing spark of defiance searing his soul.
The reality of his hopeless situation raged against that irrational, inextinguishable will to fight, to struggle desperately until his dying breath - regardless of the odds.
Though this wretched path had led him through his own darkest valley battling cancer, an ordeal that had bitterly taught him the folly of hope, he now found himself clinging white-knuckled to that most reviled of human fallacies.
It manifested as the skinning knife gripped tightly in his hands, as the stubborn gleam burning defiantly in his pale blue eyes.
Registering that look, the beast's grotesque visage contorted into a frown before it lunged with staggering swiftness.
Instinct propelled Northern into frantic motion, ducking and weaving on clumsy but desperate reflex as his father's combat lessons echoed faintly through muscle memory.
The monster's thick tail whipped through the air like a scything blade, the wind of its passing caressing Northern's cheek with lethal intimacy.
Yet the relentless fiend flowed with unnatural, fluid grace, a guttural growl preceding its next blurred advance as drool-slick fangs snapped shut inches from Northern's face.
His heart kick-drummed against his ribs as he swung the knife in a wild, desperate arc, praying for a miraculous strike.
But the beast contemptuously batted the pitiful assault aside, serrated claws raking across Northern's side in a blaze of searing agony.
He reeled backward, gasping for breath, his vision wavering in and out of shadow.
The creature inexorably advanced, four baleful eyes narrowing in predatory satisfaction.
Pouring his waning strength into one final, foolhardy lunge, Northern thrust the skinning knife towards the beast's armored throat with both hands - only for the fiend to disdainfully deflect the blow with a lazy swipe.
Its free set of raking talons closed around Northern's windpipe like a vised garrote, hauling him off his feet with horrific ease.
Mr. Fluffy shot forward with a panicked squeak upon seeing Northern captured in the monster's crushing grip - but a contemptuous flick of its powerful tail swatted the couic tumbling away.
Darkness encroached on Northern's fading vision as he glimpsed the Night terror's cruel, victorious leer, the last sight etching itself into his faltering consciousness before oblivion claimed him.
