Higher Plain Ch 39: Slaughter! For Onces Own People

The creature rose with the tide of its own fury, flying upward until it hovered just before Faylina's chest. The sheer nearness of it sent a tremor through her, not because of its size—it was no larger than her fist—but because of the energy rolling off its body. That terrible purple glow throbbed in rhythm with something unnatural, something wrong.

Faylina's breath caught in her throat. Her body, towering and strong as a mountain, betrayed her with sweat gathering at her brow, sliding down her temple. Her heart hammered too fast, her chest rising and falling in a way she couldn't control. She froze, keeping still, keeping her hands at her sides.

Because when she looked closely—really looked—she saw something more than the rage. For the briefest heartbeat, behind those burning cracks in his charred skin, behind the pulsing purple veins, she swore she glimpsed something familiar. A flicker of humanity. A shadow of what he once was.

Her lips parted slightly, her voice low, uncertain.

"...You—"

But she never finished.

Kaelira didn't hesitate. She couldn't.

Her massive form surged forward, steel-wrapped feet sending sprays of seawater exploding outward with every step. She thrust her hands outward, fingers spread wide, and then brought them together with devastating force. The sound of it was deafening—a thunderclap that rolled across the ocean like the sky itself had torn open. To Faylina, it was a shockwave, a wall of air that blasted her hair back and whipped the sea into sudden froth.

Between Kaelira's colossal palms, the creature writhed. Its claws scraped, glowing cracks along its arms flaring brighter as it strained against her grip. Faylina's heart squeezed as she watched, torn between fear and the faint ache of pity.

Kaelira snarled, her teeth clenched. "Enough."

She wrenched her arms back, dragging the creature out into the open between her palms, and then—without hesitation—she flung it skyward.

The world seemed to slow for Faylina. She followed the dark speck as it shot up, streaking like a purple comet. It pierced the veil of clouds, vanishing beyond sight, leaving behind only a thin scar of light that lingered in the heavens.

Her face went pale.

Her lips trembled before her voice found its way out, sharp and desperate:

"Kaelira! The city!"

Kaelira's jaw set, her single good eye narrowing, but Faylina was already moving.

The ocean foamed violently at her ankles as she stepped forward, each motion a quake rolling through the world below.

She didn't look back. Couldn't. The thought of where that thing was falling—to whom it might be descending—was enough to twist her stomach into knots.

Faylina's long stride carried her toward the horizon, her breath quick, her heart full of dread.

Every motion of her colossal form sent tremors racing across the ocean surface, waves shattering against her calves as if trying to hold her back.

Behind her, Kaelira kept pace easily, her one good eye sharp, her voice calm in a way that almost chilled Faylina.

"In order to kill that creature," Kaelira said, tone edged with steel, "a few casualties are necessary."

Faylina's head snapped toward her, disbelief in her eyes. "Casualties—Kaelira, no. People's lives—"

"—are not more important than our home." Kaelira cut her off, her tone final, ringing with the authority of someone who had lived too long with war. "This planet itself buckles under our weight. Look around you. We destroy just by existing." Her fingers clenched into fists. "A little more won't change what's already broken."

Faylina bit her lip, her jaw trembling, but she said nothing more. The words sank into her chest like stones, heavy, unbearable.

Neither titaness noticed the dark speck streaking down from the sky, plunging toward the unsuspecting city of Rynemoor.

⸻

The impact was merciless.

The creature slammed into the portside square, tearing through brick and stone as if the ground were paper. The crater it carved swallowed entire streets in a blink, smoke and dust billowing up in choking clouds. Fishermen, dockhands, mothers, and children were hurled off their feet, their screams smothered beneath the thunder of collapsing homes.

And then it rose.

It climbed from its pit without so much as a bruise, claws glinting with that sickly violet light, its charred form seething with heat. Its roar cracked windows and rattled bones, echoing across the harbor until even the gulls scattered in terror.

People ran.

They sprinted through the narrow streets, shoving past each other, carts overturned, horses screamed as reins snapped. The creature moved among them like a shadow of death. Claws ripped through flesh—effortless swipes that split bodies open. Its teeth sank into necks, blood spraying across cobblestones. Worse still, its energy coursed into those it touched, hollowing them from the inside until their bodies crumbled into ash that scattered in the wind.

Everywhere it stepped, the city dissolved into horror.

⸻

And then the ground began to shake.

At first, people thought it was their fear—their knees giving out beneath them. But then doors rattled in their frames, roof tiles slid loose, and barrels rolled down sloped streets. The rumbling grew heavier, deeper, until whole walls cracked and buckled.

A man in a torn fisher's coat staggered into the open square, his hands clutching a bleeding arm. He looked south. His voice was barely more than a whisper:

"Oh my god..."

Others turned to follow his trembling finger.

At first, they thought it was the horizon swelling. Then they saw her.

A titaness.

Her body towered above the skyline, so vast that for a moment their minds refused to accept her shape. With every step she took, miles collapsed beneath her stride. Entire forests flattened in the distance, rivers churned into froth. In the span of heartbeats, she was no longer a far-off figure. She was there. Looming over the city.

The sky itself darkened.

Pillars of flesh, wrapped in glinting bands of silver steel, framed their world as her legs rose above them like cliffs that scraped the heavens. Streets drowned in her shadow.

The beast that had been slaughtering them paused. It threw back its head and screamed, a roar so loud people clutched their ears and fell to the ground. But even that monstrous sound was swallowed by the vast silence of awe and terror as the titaness moved.

She raised her foot.

The motion alone tore the world apart. Massive boulders shook loose from the cliffs surrounding the port, tumbling into the sea. The air warped, dust and sea spray bursting upward in choking clouds. Water drained back from the shoreline as the tide recoiled from the descending weight, leaving ships stranded against the mud for a heartbeat before waves returned in chaos.

And then the foot fell.

It was like the sky had collapsed.

The sole, broader than the entire harbor, came crashing down with such force that the city splintered instantly. Buildings exploded into rubble beneath her tread, timbers and stone bursting outward like kindling struck by a hammer. People screamed only for their voices to vanish as they were consumed, buried beneath flesh and steel. The beast itself was swallowed whole in the impact, its defiant roar crushed mid-note.

The earth could not bear it.

Streets split open, fissures racing outward in jagged lines as the ground itself gave way. Horses, wagons, and men were flung skyward, hurled dozens of feet before crashing back down broken. Some were thrown so high they vanished into the rising dust, only to fall lifeless moments later.

The sea surged inland, a wall of water roaring into the shattered port as though the ocean itself had been kicked into the city. Ships capsized, their masts snapping like twigs before being swallowed by the foam.

And all the while, the ground shook, and shook, and shook—never-ending, as if the planet itself was shuddering in pain beneath the titaness's step.

Where Rynemoor had once stood, there was nothing but ruin beneath her colossal foot.