Commissioned by  RegisaurAlpha. ^w^ Enjoy!

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The rain had not stopped in days.

Thick curtains of water veiled the towering boughs of the Scarlet Forest, turning the crimson foliage into a deeper, brooding hue. Roots twisted and slithered beneath newly formed rivulets, the once-passable animal paths now flooded with brown water. Doran stood on the edge of one such riverbank, half-shrouded in mist, his long, serpentine form poised like a waiting question. The fog clung to his slick body, the scales along his back glimmering faintly beneath the damp, rose-colored light of dawn.

He was not alone here. Somewhere upriver, the great fish-beast known to villagers as Uth Duna stirred.

It was no ordinary Leviathan. Uth Duna, like some deep-jungle river fish from ancient records, had adapted to the abnormal floods with unsettling speed. With the Scarlet Forest soaked and swollen from weeks of rain, Uth Duna had expanded its range far beyond its original lakebed home, slinking through submerged roots and dragging its massive body between flooded groves, leaving behind crushed trees and half-devoured forest fauna.

Doran’s orders had been clear, though diplomatic as always.

“Defend Kunafa Village first. Endemic life records can wait. Apex intrusions cannot.”

The people of Kunafa, nestled against the forest’s border, had watched with anxious eyes as their weather turned volatile. Crops failed under flood and drought alike. Lightning storms had danced for days over the Windward Plains, crackling across sand that moved like tidewater, where another threat had awakened: Rey Dau, the Thunder Scourge.

But Doran was here now. Not a slayer. Not a hero. A Seikret. A devourer of Apex. A creature crafted not by evolution, but by careful hand—one meant to correct imbalance when nature twisted too far.

He slid into the river like a ghost, barely disturbing the water. The current ran fast around him, but he cut through it with ease. The scent was there—musk, wet moss. He followed it. A groaning bellow rose ahead. Branches snapped. Water surged.

And then, Uth Duna erupted into view—a glistening titan of fin and fang, its body like a coiled eel and crocodile spliced into one. Gills flared in the damp air, and bioluminescent eyes locked onto the smaller form of Doran without surprise.

Doran opened his mouth, not in warning—but in greeting. A slow inhale. The pressure shifted. His body expanded, muscles stretching, his jaw distending further than most beings could fathom. With practiced grace, he surged forward. Not to attack. To engulf.

And Uth Duna did not resist.

The forest fell into hush as the great fish disappeared past Doran’s jaws, devoured whole, inch by inch, until the river ran silent save for the steady patter of rain and the rise and fall of the Seikret’s sides. He settled under a tree that bent low over the water, eyes half-lidded as the rain continued its mournful hymn.

Far away, lightning forked across the sky above the Windward Plains.

‘One down’, Doran thought, eyes drifting to the horizon. ‘One to go.’

In his belly, Uth Duna stirred only slightly. Apex monsters often didn’t resist once caught in Doran’s strange, warm grasp. Maybe they understood something deeper than fear—maybe they sensed what he was; not a threat.

He raised his head to the storm-choked sky, blinking through the rising mist. Somewhere out there, the true cause of the weather’s madness waited. But first, Rey Dau would have to be… pacified.

-

The storm in the Windward Plains didn’t roll in—it lurked.

Jagged bolts split the horizon like cracks in reality itself, their thunderheads dragging across the sand-churned fields with unnatural force. The Sand-Tide, a rare seasonal phenomenon where subterranean winds turned desert dunes into flowing, sea-like waves, had become prolonged—amplified by the same strange climate shifts plaguing the Forbidden Lands. The storm should have passed days ago. Instead, it brewed with fresh fury, fed by the elemental creature reveling within it.

Rey Dau.

Lightning-born and sand-fed, Rey Dau was no mindless Apex. Like Uth Duna, it had adapted beyond its original design. Every crackle of static in the air was its laughter. Every dune collapse, its stomping feet. The beast danced through the chaos it called home, and it had begun to stray too close to settlements clinging to the desert’s edge.

But Doran didn’t arrive in panic. He came… swaying with such a big gut. And in one clean, sinuous movement, Doran opened his jaws.

Wind roared. Rey Dau’s body lit up in a brief, indignant blaze of thunder—but even it, like its riverine counterpart, hesitated for only a moment before it leapt forward, almost willingly, into the Seikret’s awaiting mouth.

The storm flickered.

And was gone.

Now, with both Uth Duna and Rey Dau gently pressed against each other inside his rounded gut, Doran trudged up the side of a sandstone bluff. The rain had eased slightly here, replaced by mist and the echo of distant thunder. His stomach shifted—two great beings adjusting with minimal fuss. No kicking. No roaring.

Just…comfortable. He rubbed his side gently. There were vague smiles from within—smiles of contentment on their faces that confused him. Still, it was better than having a pair of moody elemental monsters wriggling around and throwing off his balance.

He exhaled slowly, looking out over the lands below before making his way back to the Scarlet Forest.

Something—something deeper—was causing these aberrations. And now that the two biggest disturbances were tucked away safely, he could finally investigate the core of the problem.

“Alright,” he muttered, claws dragging over the wet stone. “Let’s find out who’s really behind all this.”

The apexes inside gave a lazy shift and something akin to a hum of agreement.