Ingrid spun around, but her heavy, uncoordinated body couldn’t react in time. His sharp talon kicked hard against her chest, the force throwing her heavy frame backward like a catapult. She flew backward through the air, her eyes widening in utter panic as she looked over her shoulder.
Directly behind her stood a massive, dead oak tree. Extending right out of its trunk at shoulder height was a thick, razor-sharp jagged wooden branch, pointed straight at her spine like a spear.
’Shit! I’m going to get impaled! I survived a core explosion just to get skewered on a stick?!’
She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the agonizing impact of wood tearing through her lungs. Instead of the sharp pain from a stake going through her heart, a sudden, powerful arm wrapped tightly around her waist, yanking her heavy body sideways in mid-air. The sharp wooden branch grazed her cheek, missing her throat by mere inches as the momentum sent them both crashing hard onto the dirt floor.
Ingrid groaned loudly as the impact rattled her brain. Pain flared through her back and shoulders, but surprisingly, the fall wasn’t nearly as painful as it should have been. She realized a second later that the person who had pulled her away had twisted their body in mid-air, positioning themselves beneath her to cushion her three-hundred-pound fall.
She was lying flat on top of someone’s chest.
Dizzy, with stars dancing in her vision, she rasped out a faint groan.
"Are you... alright?" a deep, raspy voice echoed from directly under her. The sound was low, like grinding metal and dark velvet, rumbling right against her ribcage.
She blinked away the dust, pushing herself up slightly with her forearms to look at her savior, and froze, letting out a sharp gasp. The man lying beneath her was undeniably handsome, but his face was also a terrifying masterpiece of deformity.
The left side of his face was gorgeous, sharp jawline, smooth skin, and a piercing, brilliant purple slitted eye that looked like she could get lost in them. But the right side... the right side was a nightmare.
Dark, sickly black veins ran like cracked poison down the entire right half of his face and neck, emitting a faint, stomach-churning stench of rot. His right eye was permanently sealed shut beneath scarred, black flesh, and protruding violently from the right side of his forehead was a single, twisted, grotesque silver horn covered in black corrosion.
He was deformed. Horribly, painfully mutated.
Yet, his one good purple eye stared up at her with absolute calmness, entirely unbothered by her massive weight crushing his chest.
Before she could even process his appearance or thank him, a loud, alarm-blaring chime exploded inside her brain, forcing a bright glowing golden panel to burst directly between their faces.
{ ALERT! CRITICAL DESTINY EVENT TRIGGERED! }
{ Second Main Mission Arrived: }
{ Target Identified: The Fallen Prince, Silver-Horned Snake Beastman (Name: Lysander). }
{ Mission Objective: Nurse your first Mate back to health and purge the dark corrosion from his Beast Core! }
{ Failure Penalty: Immediate System Termination. Success Reward: 10,000 Revenge Points + Weight Loss Pill! }
Ingrid blinked, looking from the glowing golden panel down to the deformed, one-eyed snake man beneath her, her jaw practically hitting the dirt.
’First... FIRST MATE?!’ she screamed in her head. ’Lorna123, ARE YOU CRAZY?! HE’S HALF-ROTTED AND I JUST MET HIM!’
{Like you’re not on the same level as him. Have you even looked at yourself?} the System snickered in her mind, its voice dripping with metallic disdain. {Host, you currently weigh three hundred pounds, possess the posture of a startled hippopotamus, and smell like sweat and wet dirt. Meanwhile, he just took the brunt of a three-hundred-pound impact without breaking a single rib. If anyone is getting the short end of the stick here, it is definitely the silver horned snake.}
A violent blush flared across Ingrid’s cheeks, burning hot beneath the mud and dried blood caked on her face. Ouch.
She opened her mouth to shoot back a fierce rebuttal, but the words withered in her throat. She looked down at Lysander, at the cracked black veins creeping up his neck, the twisted horn, and the dark rot threatening to consume him. Yet, despite his hideous mutations, those silver eyes hadn’t flickered with disgust when she flattened him into the dirt. In fact, if he hadn’t hurled his own body between her and that wooden stake, she would currently be human shish kebab.
A heavy pang of shame hit her gut. She had just judged the guy who literally sacrificed his spine for her. ’Shit. I really am an ungrateful idiot.’
"Ah... sorry about that," Ingrid mumbled, her voice cracking slightly as embarrassment warred with genuine gratitude. Determined to make up for her shallow knee-jerk reaction, she extended a thick, dirty hand toward him, offering a warm smile. "Here, let me help you up..."
Lysander didn’t even look at her hand.
With smooth, fluid motion that defied the laws of physics, and the fact that three hundred pounds had just crashed on top of him, the snake beastman coiled his lower body and slid effortlessly to his feet. He moved like smoke, stepping back three full paces the exact second he was upright.
He didn’t just decline her help; he actively dodged her touch like she was carrying an airborne plague. His single silver eye remained cool and unbothered, but his subtle posture made it clear: Keep your distance from me.
Ingrid’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air. Her warm smile froze into a twitching grimace. ’Okay, cool. Message received. No touching the majestic half-rotted snake god.’
Before she could process the rejection, the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps broke through the stunned silence of the clearing. Ingrid’s head snapped toward the path, instantly remembering the lunatic who had just tried to impale her. Falcon was panting nearby, clutching his dislocated wing, his face twisted in a mixture of humiliation, shock, and lingering murderous rage.
The embarrassment vanished, replaced by anger. "Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" Ingrid roared, turning her heavy frame toward Falcon with enough force to make the ground tremble. Her voice boomed through the clearing like a thunderstorm. "You tried to kill me, you cowardly feathered beast?"