#monster slayers

Flint grimaced behind his newspaper, this would never have happened in his younger years. He used to inspire awe.

He glanced up from his newspaper. Two kids were standing at the bar. Teenagers, standing out like sore thumbs in their street fashion.

"Who's asking?" he demanded.

The nearest of the two - a boy whose appearance and demeanor eclipsed the girl he was with so completely that it had to be on purpose - treated him to a cocky grin. "They say you're the one to talk to about basilisk parts."

Flint shook his head minutely. "I don't sell to children."

That clearly offended the girl, who was standing a little behind the boy, but the latter gave him an insolent smile. "We're not buying," he said. "Were selling."

Flint couldn't stop his eyebrows from raising. "And how did you come by basilisk parts?"

"Killing a basilisk," the previously silent girl replied flatly.

Flint sucked on his teeth, wondering. There was no way in hell. But he knew their type. Slick and street smart. They had no reason to lie about what they wanted from him. So they probably stole some stuff and needed to get rid of it fast.

"We can keep looking if you're not interested," the boy resumed.

Flint lowered his newspaper. "I'll humour you. What do you need sold?"

"A whole basilisk's worth," the boy said, still smiling.

He snorted. "You couldn't even lift one."

"It-" the boy began, but his companion made an annoyed sound at the back of her throat and stepped forward.

"One basilisk's worth in parts," she said impatiently. "Skin, treated. Fangs, extracted, intact. Tongue, dried. Eyes, preserved. Blood, bottled. Claws, severed at the joint. Feathers, plucked. Heart, preserved. Liver, dried. Musk glands, liquefied." She drew a breath. "We burned the flesh and buried the bones."

Flint stared at her. There were slayers who could also butcher, of course. But most of them nowadays barely knew which parts of a beast were most valuable, let alone in what form they were most sought after. He looked into her young, almost expressionless face. "Not many people around that know how to treat snakeskin and how to conserve organs."

"Well, she did the skin and I did the organs," the boy said brightly. There was a mean sort of amusement in his eyes now, as well as a deep glow of pride. The girl's expression remained neutral to mildly annoyed, except when her gaze crossed that of her companion.

So they were a package deal then, Flint mused. Not professionals - they couldn't be, far too young - but professionally trained nevertheless. What were the odds?

In a planet similar to ours, yet diverging severely on the accelerated evolution of its sentient beings a question prevails. Built on fertile soil and the ruins of an ancient civilization is the grand Empire of Dorok, in its totalitarian governance that mitigates the ever increasing population by throwing ordinary, innocent citizens into theatric trials and sentencing them to Exile, so they fill the ranks of Demon Slayers in the Dorokian penal colony of DISMALIA. One way or another, they are savage killers. Aptly so, for they stand against the scores of Demons materializing not from the dark underbellies of Gehenna, Hades or some Chthonic Hell, but from the soul storms of the Nightmare Above, coagulating in the cosmos in swollen gas giants and rapacious, nefarious nebulae. Demonic bodily fluids can be extracted and processed into magical Elixirs that grant immense power at the cost of developing dependency, which, if not satiated, results in mortal withdrawal. The Slayers and the Demons move against each other through deadly mutual dependency, endlessly vigilant of this frontier that exists in the fringes of a metaphysical metamorphosis. This is the Eternal Hunt. A novelistic anthology inspired heavily by sword & sorcery, pulp weird fiction and monster hunting. Five Stories. Five Demons to hunt. Five tales of terror and wonder. The baneful eye of nightmare stared back at him, slicing his body with a fear from above. It offered no answer, leaving only the mournful cries of demons and struggling hunters. The unrelenting doubt remains... Why do we hunt Demons? . . . Now available both Digitally and Physically! To obtain a copy, you can contact me directly through messages or request other socials. Main DISMALIA Webpage Hub still on the making. You can learn more from these links. https://linktr.ee/dismaliazone

Cover Art by Eliz_Bee. https://bsky.app/profile/elizbee.bsky.social Back Cover Art by @cubicskull BoxHead. https://bsky.app/profile/cubicskull.bsky.social https://x.com/cubic_skull

This scene from Castlevania season two: episode eight: End Times between #TrevorBelmont and Sypha Belnades is so incredibly beautiful that it made me cry.

The hunt for the scourging serpent was arduously appalling but spectacular nonetheless. The hired muscle of the Indomitable Goblin Mutant carved and mauled through the scales of the ornate ophidian, its head severed, perfect for the triumphant posing. Immortalized & framed, now he only needed to hang it on his manor, once one of the Hunters in the group painted it from memory. The inscription on the frame reciting the words that echoed in the dunes by twilight in the Dismal Lands.

"Lick your blades, brothers. Turn your faces towards the skies! Take the blood, pick the bones, clip the claws and the horns! You'll live to prowl Phobos another day, dear wretches! Let's haul this gracious fiend and lay it on the Butcher's table! He'll make a fortune out of it!"

Shouted the Sanguine Belial, gazing at the coming dawn, right on queue for their retreat to the citadel. Flag dyed in his blood for the wardens of the walls to recognize them as the caravan of the Butcher's Company, returning from work.

You may ask "who is he posing for?". The answer is a dozen exhausted Hunters that did most of the killing. Not for nothing, his weapons are pristine and not stained.

The ferocious berserker and pankrationist has inverted the hunt into staging a gladiatorial duel with the Demonic Bovine Behemoth, by baiting it to dwell deeper through wrecking charging into the labyrinthine halls of ancient ruins which were the perfect arena for the glorious huntress to claim its horned head as a precious bounty.

Head hunting has always been the pinnacle of prodigious and prestigious performance when exaltedly entranced in the heat of the wild hunt for Demons. The Glorious Glory Seeker takes grisly trophies beyond the riches of the harvested body to increase her authority among the Exiles of Phobos.

Blinded briefly by its own crackling plasma clasped in its clutches, the Hellish Knight had its broken horn stabbed above the knee as the huntress grappled its remaining horn in a twisting lock, forcing it to kneel and present its neck for beheading while lifting the hefty head hunting axe, tearing its muscles and exposing its spine with sheer brute strength to facilitate the final chop.

Art by @nathanandersonart! The Taurine Bovine Behemoth Hell Knight inspired and based directly in his redesign of DOOM's Hell Knight.

Tormentor of Tartarus, Howler of Hades and Scourge of Sheol: Demon Prince Raum.

In the crumblings pillars of the Underworld. That's how you know the Dismal Lands are doomed and blighted. The Prince has been faulting on its duties to watch over the ancient Berelithian architecture, and on its feral state, shambles across the ancient pillars, breaking and knocking them in a blind rage.

Demon Prince Raum of the Six Eyed Royalty, defending its territory; the Ardant Temple of the Cryptic Column. Cleaving through the paralyzing fear invoked by the ethereal gaze of Six Eyes; severing the crushing burden of horror from his mind, the epidermal embracer repels the eldritch radiations projected from those hexagonal pupils. Leaping bravely over the earth shattering tail thrust. Aiming for the neck. A rumbling roar of raging rancor ravages the rows of columns that make the temple, cracking the once immaculate carving with sonic screeching that would peel skin and break bones of an unarmored Slayer; but this Butcher was embraced by the skin of Demons, enduring the hellish howl... Cutting through.