THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 339: NO MERCY

Then came another roar. It exploded across the city without warning, a sound so vast and unnatural that it seemed to tear through the air itself.

It did not sound like the roar of a beast. It was a wail. Ancient, furious, and agonized. Every person in the square froze as the sound washed over them. Some dropped to their knees. Others covered their ears.

The tremors intensified.

The Chief’s Fortress, a little distance away from the square, seemed to shift. For a terrifying moment, it looked as though the enormous structure was rising higher, growing taller against the darkening sky. Shadows crawled across its walls.

Then two colossal red eyes opened above it. The eyes hung over the fortress like twin burning moons, their crimson glow spilling across the city below.

Silence lasted only a heartbeat before another roar followed. Louder and Closer this time. The sound slammed into the square with enough force to make the platform shudder beneath the prisoners. The Warriors stumbled, and horses reared. Even the General’s cloak snapped violently in the shockwave. A chill spread through the crowd as thousands of people found themselves staring at those impossible red eyes.

And for the first time that day, the cries for execution vanished completely.

The red eyes of the beast moved again, taking in the whole crowd before they landed on the square below. At first, nobody understood what they were seeing. The eyes seemed too large, too distant, too impossible to belong to a living creature. Then the darkness surrounding the Chief’s Fortress shifted. The stone cracked loudly, and entire sections of the fortress disappeared behind a massive shape unfolding itself from the rooftops. Gasps spread through the city.

The creature rose higher and higher until its full size became apparent. It dwarfed buildings. Dwarfed towers. The serpent-like body coiled across rooftops and walls, black scales glistening beneath torchlight like polished obsidian.

Then it moved.

Not with the sluggishness expected of something so enormous, but with terrifying speed. The creature launched itself from the fortress roof. The air exploded beneath its weight. Buildings shook as its colossal form swept through the city. People scattered in panic. Some were knocked from their feet by the force of its passage alone. It flowed through the streets like a living river of darkness, weaving between buildings with impossible grace despite its monstrous size.

Rooftops shattered beneath the sweep of its tail. Walls cracked as its body brushed past them. Yet it never struck a person directly. Somehow, impossibly, it threaded its way through the chaos with precise, controlled violence, like a black blur.

A nightmare moving through the city.

Then it reached the square. The crowd broke apart as the beast surged into the open space. Its enormous body coiled around the execution grounds in a single fluid motion, scattering warriors and sending barricades flying. Dust erupted into the air. Torches toppled. The execution platform trembled.

Then the creature rose. Higher. Higher. Its head climbed above the square until it towered over everyone present. The red eyes burned like twin suns as they looked down upon the crowd. Steam escaped between rows of fangs larger than swords. Every scale seemed forged from darkness itself. The city that had been demanding blood moments before now stood frozen beneath the gaze of something ancient and terrible. And above the execution platform, the beast lowered its head and stared directly at the executioners.

The beast opened its jaws and roared. The sound detonated across the square like a physical force. A violent shockwave erupted outward, sweeping through the execution grounds. Executioners were thrown from their feet. Soldiers crashed into one another. The platform groaned and cracked beneath the pressure. Even Banga, Kaka, Kiuga, and the rest of the squad were hurled across the wood as the blast tore through the square.

Thousands of people stumbled or fell outright. Torches were extinguished. Banners snapped free from their poles. The roar rolled through the city and echoed from the canyon walls long after the beast had fallen silent, accompanied by people’s screams of fear.

Then, through the chaos, a single voice spoke. It was calm, unhurried, and annoyingly ordinary compared to everything that had just happened.

"Zaira, calm down." The words carried effortlessly across the square. The colossal serpent froze and relaxed a bit, but its hostility did not dwindle in the slightest.

"Show some respect." A figure stepped forward from atop the beast’s head, black cloak stirring in the wind. "I am already late for my execution."

For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then thousands of eyes widened in disbelief as they finally recognized the man standing upon the creature’s head.

Sagiri.

As the dust slowly settled, the city finally got a clear look at the figure standing atop the beast’s head.

Sagiri had changed.

The difference was impossible to miss. His cloak was still there, but it hung differently now, snapping behind him in the wind like a banner. The markings that had once appeared only in moments of battle now covered much of the visible skin around his neck and hands, flowing beneath his clothes like living black veins.

The most unsettling of all were his eyes. Both were crimson. Not merely red, but a deep luminous scarlet that seemed to glow against the gathering darkness. Perhaps they had missed him all along because he was still dwarfed in size to the beast he stood upon.

There was no trace of the old mismatch from before. No hint of the eye everyone remembered. Only those twin crimson eyes are calmly surveying the square below. His face had become sharper somehow, carrying a stillness that felt older than before. The exhaustion and uncertainty that had often lingered around him were gone.

In their place stood something colder. Even the way he held himself had changed. Sagiri stood upon the beast’s head without effort, balanced as though the colossal serpent beneath him were solid ground. The wind tugged at his cloak while Zaira’s enormous body shifted beneath him, yet he never moved an inch. From the platform below to the rooftops surrounding the square, people found themselves staring.

For a moment, the entire square remained frozen.

Then Azir’s eyes widened.

"BIG BROTHER!" he screamed.

The cry echoed across the square as he broke free from the soldiers and ran forward, openly crying and laughing at the same time.

"Big Brother! Big Brother!" Sagiri looked down from Zaira’s head, one crimson eye twitching slightly.

"Azir." His voice carried effortlessly across the square. "What did I tell you about acting without dignity?" Azir immediately lowered his head.

"I am just happy... Sorry..." Behind him, Kiuga finally let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He pushed himself to his feet, brushed dust from his clothes, and looked up at Sagiri.

"Your entries become more dramatic every time." His voice was dry. "One day you’re going to arrive riding the moon." A few nervous laughs escaped from Banga and the rest of the squad, especially Ulekai the fearful. Kaka just looked irritated but relieved.

"You were planning to die so easily and taint my name. I could not let that happen now, could I?" Sagiri said with a warm voice before it turned to ice on the last part.

The General said nothing at first. He simply stared at the man standing atop the giant serpent for a long moment. Then, for the first time that day, the tension left his shoulders. It was subtle, but it was visible in how his right eye twitched.

"What took you so long, Chief of N’folu?" Zifara asked, looking like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder.

"Well, General, it is never too late to die," Sagiri said. He already understood what was happening.

The faint warmth that had appeared on Sagiri’s face vanished. Slowly, his head turned toward the high platform where the council sat overlooking the square. The moment his gaze settled upon them, the atmosphere changed.

A crushing killing intent erupted from him without warning, spilling across the city like an invisible tide. Warriors stiffened. Horses panicked. Several members of the crowd dropped to their knees as an instinctive terror seized them. Even Zaira lowered its massive head, crimson eyes fixed upon the platform. The air itself seemed heavier and colder as Sagiri’s scarlet eyes never left the council.

"I come back to the south after sixteen years no one welcomes me. I stay in the desert eating crabs. I came south to pay my last rites to my clan, and you dare challenge me. While I’m gone, you prepare an execution platform for my companions. You even chant for me to go north, where I came from. The same northern tribes that wiped out my clan. It seems you have no limit to how far you are willing to go." His gaze swept across the assembled chiefs and elders.

"Very well." The markings along his skin stirred. "Since the South has chosen war with me..." The ground beneath Zaira cracked. "...then I will show no mercy." The last words echoed across the square, and for the first time that day, fear truly appeared on the faces of the council.