Voyage With The Pirate King

Every heart is a lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast - Ambrose Bierce.

When the beast reveals itself to the outside world it does it through behaviour, surroundings and emotions. As for the Aoyin creature, it wasn\'t born this vicious. All it wanted was what rightfully belonged to it.

Like its ancestors, it expected human fear and sacrifices a few times a year which wasn\'t much to ask. It wasn\'t too demanding requesting for the simplest of things to spare millions. Eating five people a year to keep the rest of the population safe was a reasonable bargain in its eyes.

But apparently, some humans were reluctant hence they were forced by others who saw things the way the Aoyin creature did. This exchange was maintained for generations that is until the Nocru barged in from who knows where and took over.

A war broke out and the longer the conflict the less attention the Aoyin creature got. One by one its herd dropped like flies especially after facing off with the Nocru.

The beast within the lair of its heart sprouted and the once intellectual creature was now living in a place the same person wouldn\'t dare tread. From the outside of the forest, it looked like a beautiful place with plenty of fresh air and the perfect hunting ground but a few steps in and one would be retching unable to flee from this place of death.

At the centre of the forest on slightly higher ground was the Aoyin creature that had closed its eyes for a long while. At its feet were mutated creatures or to be exact abominations of nature fighting over the leftover flesh at the foot of the small hill.

The trees surrounding the circle had extensively grown their branches which entwined with each other to form a curtain made of twigs and leaves. Hanging on the trees were bits of brown rotting flesh wound together to form a web-like net draping down.

From afar it almost looked artistic but once one got closer they would throw up their entire dinner. A small critter that had been foraging the leftover meal was attacked by another and because it was weak it was thrown off.

Because it was still hungry it sniffed around with its beady eyes and once it caught a whiff of food and walked over. But soon its steps paused when it saw that the piece of juicy flesh was stuck on the Aoyin creature\'s hay-like fur.

In hesitant steps, it slowly crawled over making sure to check if the big boss was awake with each pause. But the more it walked the more confident it got. The big boss had been asleep for days so what were the chances he would wake up now.

Filled with greedy thoughts it reached out and tugged at the piece of flesh with its claws. Tug, tug... tug... tug, tug, tug it pulled but the sticky piece of flesh was right in there like sticky gum in hair.

Frustrated the critter tug one more time its eyes glowing a blood red. Giving it\'s all it tugged but because of the amount of strength it put in, it fell to the ground with a loud thud as the piece finally dislodged.

It turns out the piece of meat had partially dried around the fur of the beast making it difficult to remove. This meant when it tugged it also tugged the big boss\'s fur like wax. Lucky enough the unexpected wax session didn\'t wake up the creature.

Thinking it had escaped unscathed and also got dinner it rushed to grab the piece and run. It was best it ran before the other creatures saw that it had scored a jackpot. But before it even went far a loud bellow was heard as a reddish-purple beam swept the entire circle. The beam seemed harmless but the moment it got into contact with anything organic or otherwise, the thing would be disintegrated on the spot till there was nothing left.

The little critter that was pulling the piece of meat with great difficulty tried to move faster but with that beam spreading like a wildfire it gave up on fleeing with the meat and high tailed into the bushes to get beyond the radius of attack.

Unfortunately, before it reached the boundary where the Aoyin creature\'s attack wouldn\'t reach it was caught in the beam disintegrating as it leapt in the air to jump to safety.

The beam of light vanished soon after but the angry roars behind continued. Steam was coming out of its nose like an angry bull seeing red. A bright light shone through its body and that light could only be the keystone that fused with its flesh. Huffing and puffing it stared into the distance as though watching someone. Using its creations\' eyes to see what was happening it could keep track of the enemy.

The someone it was watching was hours away from its lair. He was standing tall at the edge of the cliff looking in the direction of its den. It was almost as though he was looking at it straight in the eye.

The amount of hostility stemming from this person was enough to enrage this beast. It couldn\'t wait to devour his flesh and feed the keystone his aether. Its relationship with the keystone was almost symbiotic and reliant on each other.

The greater the power of the aether consumed by the keystone the stronger the beast becomes and ever since Ji Yao\'s intrusion it felt like the keystone had an inexplicable hunger.

It was hungry for Ji Yao\'s aether and wouldn\'t stop nagging the creature. It was because of this it had expanded its search for this person but who would have thought the idiot would walk into its territory by himself.

Since it was like this it decided to watch from afar and patiently wait for him to enter its lair by himself. After consuming such a high-grade aether it was almost certain it was going to gain so much power and expand its territory. This thought mellowed its terrible mood from earlier and the bright light from within dimmed a little.

While the creature was drooling over him, Ji Yao was standing atop a cliff scanning the area with a stern expression. He felt something watching him but whenever he looked in that direction the intense gaze would vanish like it was all in his head.

Clenching his teeth with a tightened jaw he turned around when he felt a familiar presence. This ugly expression wasn\'t meant for Rui Fei in the first place but he just happened to walk over at the wrong time. Rui Fei\'s blood ran cold as he stood there with a helpless expression.

It would be a lie if he said he wasn\'t terrified of Ji Yao when he was like that.. What scared him was Ji Yao making a rash decision and saying something like let\'s break up.