Walking with Fire (V)

Living a long time was not necessarily all good, but it was not necessarily all bad either. At the very least, Constantin Valdor could now pluck certain details from his long life that might prove useful in the battle at hand.

Interestingly, they were merely old folk tales.

He had read them in books back when Terra was still simply Terra, before it had been given the prefix "Broken."

These stories often concerned monsters: ones that ate people's fingers, stole infants in the night, caused pregnant women to miscarry, and turned husbands from decent, grounded men into drunken wrecks and gambling madmen—things like that. At first glance, they were nothing more than cautionary tales containing a kind of folk wisdom.

Honestly, he had not been interested in these strange or horrifying stories at all back then—when one lived in an age where witchcraft ran rampant, and technology far more evil than witchcraft obscured the skies, stories were merely stories.

Stories could not bite or eat people. The monsters in them could, but unfortunately, they could not leap out of the pages.

But what if they did? What if they were real?

More than one person had considered that question. Some who made their living playing with words had even delightedly attempted to expand the idea into a new story.

Whether they had completed it or abandoned it in anguish was beside the point. Sometimes, things in books really could bite.

Valdor calmly turned and thrust.

The radiance upon the Apollonian Spear had remained bright since the battle began, but now it flared like an explosion. It performed its duty as a weapon, viciously and mercilessly piercing a mass of flesh before twisting, biting, and cutting.

Blood sprayed. The wounded thing roared as if in pain, but to the commander of